Page 179 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 10 -13

Mr. Roche: I thought it was exactly the contrary - the pipe was fetched from the after-tunnel. The Solicitor-General: That is right. Mr. Roche: And the witness - I think his name was Scott - suggested that those were the doors that were opened to allow this piping to be carried. He could not carry the matter any further; he did not know where it went to forward, or what, if any, other doors were opened for the purpose of its being so carried. It is fairly obvious that if you got a heavy length of pipe in this way, if it can be avoided, it will not be carried up ladders and over a sort of series of high obstacles running up to E deck. The Commissioner: If they were opened they must have been opened by some operation on the bridge. Mr. Roche: That is what I wanted to get; the engineers of their own motion could not open these doors. My friend, Mr. Raeburn, refers me to page 131, Question 5600. The Solicitor-General: That is right. Mr. Roche: The witness was Scott, as I thought; he was in the turbine department, and he says this in answer to your Lordship. Your Lordship asks: “Then all the watertight doors aft of the main engine room were opened? (The Attorney-General.) Yes. (To the Witness.) And, as far as you know, as I understand it, they never were closed? - (A.) No. Why they opened them was they had to go down the last tunnel but one - ” The Commissioner: This is referring to watertight doors that are worked from the bridge. Mr. Roche: Yes, my Lord. They are all, without exception, worked from the bridge. The Witness: All tank top doors are worked from the bridge. 14545. That is to say, not the doors above E deck? - No. 14545a. But the doors which extend from the floor of the ship up to E deck? - Exactly. The Commissioner: That is to say those that are in the bulkheads. Mr. Roche: Yes, they are really bulkheads. The Witness: Yes, bulkhead doors. 14546. (The Commissioner.) They are all worked from the bridge? - Yes, my Lord. 14547. The others have to be worked by hand? - By hand on the deck they are on, or from the deck above. Mr. Roche: And this witness says at Q. 5584 that the engineer of the watch in the engine room gave them orders: “(Q.) 5585. What did he tell you to do? - (A.) He told us to heave all the watertight doors up. (Q.) Did you go right aft again to the aftermost tunnel? - (A.) Yes, we went right through. We opened one up in the afterside of the turbine room, and then went right through them till we got to the after one, which we had opened up about two feet.” Then he described that he got to the aftermost tunnel, and he described the reason at Question 5600: “So far as you know, as I understand it, they never were closed? - (A.) No. Why they opened them was they had to go down the last tunnel but one and get a big suction pipe out, which they used for drawing the water up out of the bilges. (Q.) That tunnel is the one before you get to the last watertight door, where they went to get a big suction pipe? - (A.) Yes, it takes four men to carry it. I think I saw four men coming through with it. They took it to the stokehold. What they did with it I do not know.” So he sees it as far forward as the stokehold. Perhaps he means No. 1 boiler room, and he did not see further. The Solicitor-General: Mr. Roche, one has to combine with that the evidence of Dillon, which is on page 99, who says he was instructed to go forward of the boiler room, and he opened four doors, and in answer to Question 3800, “What did you open them for?” he says, “To allow the engineers to get forward to their duties, the valves and the pumps.” The Commissioner: It looks like the same thing. The Solicitor-General: One is forward and the other is aft; one is to get the thing and the other is to carry it forward.