Evening Star Newspaper, March 29, 1931, Page 79

BY WILLIAM A. MILLEN. EAR the City Hall in Belfast, Ireland, stands an impressive monumen / commemorating the liner Titanic, built in that North Country capital, and Washington will soon have as its latest memorial a monument that will con- jure up tragedy and peril and heroism on the the high seas, the crunching of ice on steel, and disaster nearly a score of years ago. The Titanic Memorial is located at the foot of New Hampshire avenue on the banks of the Potomac River and has been in place for some months. It will be unveiled in May as a lasting reminder of that great maritime disaster. The Belfast Memorial is hard by the River Lagan and the famous cluster of shipyards, known as *“The Island,” from whose ways have slid down wessels to the four corners of the earth, among them the Titanic. Original plans for the unveiling in Washing- ton directed that it take place on the anniver- sary of the sinking of that ill-fated vessel, majestic queen of the seas that went down in 8 collision with one of the Ice King's minions straying southward from the polar North. In view of the unusual weather conditions that have prevailed for the past several months, the sponsors of the unveiling have now decided that the ceremony should be deferred until May, when the weather is likely to be more settled. IGH hopes and despair; skill of craftsman- ship and maritime inefficiency; the latest of man’s leviathans meeting disaster at the hands of one of the world’s oldest forces and radio, playing a master part in the grim tragedy that evoked primitive instincts of the fight for life, are strangely mingled in this story that will be perpetuated along the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway for the future generations of Washingtonians. There were sturdy men from the Counties Antrim and Down, in Northern Ireland, in that great giant of a ship, the Titanic, for had not Belfast watched it grow with pride Irom just a bit of a rib of steel to a magnificent hulk? Belfast, more than any other city on the face of the earth, stood aghast at the tragedy of her sinking and felt more keenly her loss. Belfast had fachioned this miracle of machinery, had given of her best in her building, and then had sent her own as deckhand and fireman over her gangplank, to sail away out of Belfast Lough to Southampton on this Titanic, named for the elder brother of Saturn, who made war against him and was ultimately vanquished by Jupiter. The Titanic of the twentieth century met her Jupiter as she was bound for New York some- where southeastward of Cape Race, Newfound- land, and some 1,600 miles from New York City, in a colossal iceberg beneath the North Atlantic stars. A compilation of figures made soon after the tragedy says that the percentage of women saved was T4, of children, 52, and of men, 20. There were 817 passengers lost out of 1,316, and 696 members of the crew went down to a watery grave out of the total roster of 908. Washington’s monument will do honor to these brave men who stepped aside that women and children might be saved. Built at the famous shipyards of Harland & Wolff for the White Star Line, the Titanic steamed out of Belfast April 2 on her maiden voyage. By April 10 she was out of South- ampton, England, and had made a call for THFE SUNDAY - STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 29, Titanic Memorial to Be Unveiled in May; 1931. Appropriate Ceremonties to Honor the Heroes of 1ll-Fated Ocean Liner—Statue at New Hampshire Avenue and Potomac River. One of the few pictures of the liner Titanic. continental passengers at Cherbourg, on the western coast of France, before heading toward the setting sun. Queenstown, now known as Cobh, in the south of Ireland, was her last port of call, and she sailed blithely out into the Atlantic breakers and on to disaster and the fame that goes with great tragedy. Capt. Smith, her skipper, was an officer of some 40 years’ experience. On 'that happy day in 1912, with the Fastnet and the hills of Kerry drooping into the distance astern, as lord of the Titanic he had achieved the zenith of maritime ambition, for was not his craft the mistress of the seas and Britain's proudest leviathan? Capt. Smith is said to have had but one disaster in his long career on the waves before the Titanic crashed. SAILING sipremely westward to the New World, with glistening wood and steel, the Titanic was a thing of beauty upon the sea. Her passengers cavorted in the swimming tanks, promenaded the decks, read in the spacious lounges or listened to the latest music. Many influential and powerful women and men in the world of business, art, military and naval circles and other lines of endeavor were aboard. Out of the unseen came the first hint of grim disaster, but little heed was paid. On the after- noon of April 14, 1912, the Titanic learned from S. 8. America that that vessel had passed two huge icebergs in latitude 41:27 north and longitude 50:3 west. Similar warnings came from the S. S. Baltic, on which Capt. Smith had once served, and from the S. 8. Californian, but they were passed by. That same evening the Titanic was steaming westward at some 21 knots, with the weather clear and bright starlight, when the lookout shouted down to the bridge that there was ice ahead. Contrary to popular belief, there was no sudden lurch of the vessel as ice and steel met in deadly collision, for authentic accounts of the time say that many of the passengers and crew did not know of the fatal impact. As soon as the ice bank loomed up ahead in the starlight night the engines were ordered stopped and were then reversed, in an effort to pull away from the wall of ice, and the helmsman put her hard to starboard. Bulkhead doors were closed from the bridge, according to account, but all to no purpose, as the hidden ice ledge had sheared eut part of the vessel's starboard side. The collision occurred about 11:40 pm. April 14 around latitude 41:46 north and longitude 50:14 west, just a com- paratively short distance from where icebergs had been reported to her in the afternoon. Boats were manned and lowered and cleared from the vessel, but they were pitifully lacking in equipment, and if the stories of the day reflect the truth, there was an utter absence of 3] @ orderly safety measures, no general alarm and insufficient lifeboats to care for all hands. The vessel sank about 2:20 a.m. Monday, April 15, 1912, and in that great tragedy the history books have it that 1,517 lives were lost. The horror of this major disaster of modern times swept the world, but the black cloud of despair had its silver lining of stirring heroism. The Cunarder Carpathia, summoned by radio by the disabled Titanic, added luster to the name of Capt. Rostron, whose methodical com- mands for assisting in relief work are the marvel of those that love efficiency in times of peril. “We are coming to your relief,” was the com= forting message that went out from the Car- pathia’s wireless shack into the night and above the blue waves that carried the white monsters of the deep—but it is doubtful if it reached the wide audience it was intended for. There were more than 2,000 persons aboard the Titanic on the maiden voyage, and of that number 1,517 perished. The tragedy would have been even greater had it not been for the efficacy of radio, which was to prove its mettle for the first time in a major maritime disaster. The Carpathia arrived about 8 am. and began rescuing the occupants of the lifeboats. UT of that maelstrom of human misery have come thrilling tales of heroism—Phillips and Bride, the radio operators who refused to leave their posts in the wireless “shack” of the Titanic until almost the last minute, because their skipper had not given the word to go, even though the frigid waters were rising momentarily. Phillips had time to give a cup of water to a fainting woman in the hustle and bustle of death. The musicians, too, played their instruments and endeavored to instill hope and courage into the hearts of the women and children. Over the seas of memory comes the recollection of that hymn that was wafted over the waters above the confusion and tumult, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as the Titanic was in her last throes. Such as these will Washington’s monument commemorate, though they sleep beneath the waters of the North Atlantic. They will live in the National Capital in a monument beside a beautiful parkway on the banks of the Potomac. The magnitude of this tragedy at the front door of the North American Continent had its reverberations in the halls of Congress, which inquired into the affair. S®nator William Alden Smith of Michigan made a speech on May 28, 1912, and informed his colleagues of the results of the investigation—a recounting of inefficiency and culpability—of a lookout that said he was without proper binoculars for his work; of one of the icebergs, nearly 200 feet above the level of the sea, with sevene eighths of its bulk hidden beneath the waves; of the sudden drop in temperature before the Titanic struck; of the general air of indifference on the part of the authorities aboard the doomed craft, and of the lack of adequate equipment to cope with such an emergency. Maritime officials, after an examination of the plans of the vessel, said that the double bottom did not extend up the sides of the vessel in order to assist in keeping her afloat after her outer skin had been punctured and that her Continned on Thirteenth Page