Page 41 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 27 - 31

that you began to take the passengers on board the “Carpathia” from the boats, was it daylight? - Daylight was breaking just as we were taking the passengers up from the first boat. By the time we got them on board there was sufficient daylight for us to see the boats in the immediate vicinity of the ship. 25491. I want to ask you some questions about that. You saw the other boats when you were taking the persons out of the first boat? - No, it must have been a quarter of an hour after I got them all on board that I saw the other boats. It was not sufficiently light to see the other boats. They were within a range of four or five miles. 25492. The passengers from the first boat you had got on board before you saw any more? - Yes, before we saw any more boats. 25493. In the meanwhile was it becoming lighter? - Yes, it was getting lighter all the time. 25494. Did you see them all very quickly one after the other? - Yes, daylight broke very quickly, and we picked them up here and there within a range of four or five miles, as I say. 25495. I want you to give the Court your impression with regard to these boats, as to whether or not they were full, or whether they could have accommodated more persons, so far as you could see? - Several of the boats could have accommodated a good many more people, and two or three boats were rather crowded, I thought. 25496. I need not pursue that in detail, because we have more exact evidence of it, but I thought it was right to ask you. That agrees, your Lordship sees, with evidence which we have got. (To the Witness.) Did you see any wreckage at all of the “Titanic”? - The only wreckage we saw there was very small stuff - a few deck chairs and pieces of cork from lifebelts, and a few lifebelts knocking about, and things of that description, all very small stuff indeed. There was very little indeed. 25497. Any bodies in the water? - We only saw one body. 25498. Would this be between four and six o’clock or something like that? - When we got up to the wreckage it would be about twenty minutes to eight, or a quarter to eight, or something like that. 25499. But you had been close to the spot for some time, had you not? - Yes, but we had not seen this wreckage. We had been dodging about picking up the other boats. I had not any idea where the wreckage was. As soon as we had finished taking the passengers from the boats I cleared off to another boat to pick them up, and was dodging about all over the place to pick them up. It was only when we got to the last boat that we got close up to the wreckage. It was close up to the wreckage. It would be about a quarter to eight when we got there. 25500. (The Commissioner.) I understand you to say those boats were spread over an area of five miles? - Four to five miles, yes. 25501. (The Attorney-General.) In the morning, when it was full daylight, did you see many icebergs? - Yes, I sent a junior officer to the top of the wheelhouse, and told him to count the icebergs 150 to 200 feet high; I sampled out one or two and told him to count the icebergs of about that size. He counted 25 large ones, 150 to 200 feet high, and stopped counting the smaller ones; there were dozens and dozens all over the place; and about two or three miles from the position of the “Titanic’s” wreckage we saw a huge ice-field extending as far as we could see, N.W. to S.E. 25502. About two to three miles from the “Titanic’s” wreckage? - Yes. 25503. Had you seen anything at all of that ice-field before it became daylight? - Oh, no, nothing; it was quite daylight before we saw the ice-field. 25504. You must have been close to it? - We were then about four or five miles from it when we first saw it. 25505. In the full daylight? - In full daylight, yes. We saw the bergs in the ice-field, but we did not see the field itself. There were numerous bergs among the ice-field.