Page 51 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 32 - 36

percent of the crew. I think it was Mr. Sanderson who said that and gave the figure. With regard to the absence of the drill, of course, if there were this greater continuity that as well as other good results would follow. But so far as the actual doing of the work is concerned, no bad results ensued after this collision from any defect or any insufficiency in the amount of drill given. The lowering of the boats could not have been better done, and the fact that not more passengers were put in them was due, not to any fault, not to any want of drill on the part of the officers and crew; it was due to the reluctance of the passengers, particularly the women, first to come on deck, and secondly, to get into the boats. I think that the evidence justifies that observation, and I would ask your Lordship to look further on this point at what was said by Johnson at page 90, Question 3429: “Were there plenty of people on the boat deck? - (A.) Yes, plenty, but they would not go into our boat.” Then on the next page, Question 3458, “Was there any call for women and children at that boat? - (A.) All the women and children that were there could have got in. We could have put more in; in fact, we had not a full complement. (Q.) Can you tell us at all what classes were represented? - (A.) I could not. (Q.) When all the women that wanted to go in were in was the boat lowered? - (A.) No, it was put down perhaps 3 or 4 feet. They were told to go down to A deck to see if anybody else wanted to come in. There was nobody came down to A deck. It stopped opposite A deck.” Then Question 3470 on the same page, “Was she full, in your judgment? - (A.) She would not be full, but she would have been full in a heavy sea. She was not full according to how we were.” That is, in the state of the sea. “(Q.) Was anybody that wanted to get on that boat kept back? - (A.) Not at all, certainly not.” Then on page 95 the same witness, at Question 3583 is asked: “Just one question. Have you any notion as to which class the majority of passengers in your boat belonged? - (A.) I think they belonged mostly to the third or second. I could not recognise them when I saw them in the first class, and I should have known them if there were any prominent people. (Q.) Most of them were in the boat when you came along? - (A.) No. (Q.) You put them in? - (A.) No. Mr. Ismay tried to walk round and get a lot of women to come to our boat. He took them across to the starboard side then - our boat was standing - I stood by my boat a good ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. (Q.) At that time did the women display a disinclination to enter the boat? - (A.) Yes.” Then the same witness, at Question 3634, on page 96, is asked by Mr. Cotter: “Did any bugle go that night? - (A.) No. (Q.) If a bugle had gone, the men would have gone to their boat stations. I take it? - (A.) Some of them would have gone, and some would not, because they never thought about looking to their boat stations. (Q.) Not the stewards’ department? - (A.) Some of them did not. (Q.) I am asking for your opinion. Supposing they had done so, was not there time to turn the spare men out of the boat, and say, ‘Go down and show the women, second and third class, and also the first class, up here’? - (A.) If you had got them up - but you could not drive the women. (Q.) How do you know that? - (A.) Because I tried it. (Q.) Where did you try? - (A.) For our boat. (Q.) I mean down in the third class, in the rooms; that is what we want to get at - if the stewards had been told to go down and bring them up? - (A.) They were told, but they did not think she would go down, and they were laughing when the passengers were carrying their baggage about. (Q.) Your contention is that they were told, and that the women would not come up on deck? - (A.) I am certain of it. (Q.) How are you certain of it. It is a very serious answer you are giving now? - (A.) Well, I am certain by our boys” - that means the stewards, I think - “because some of our boys would have been saved if they had come to the boat stations. (Q.) You have had conversations since? - (A.) I have never spoken to the boys. (Q.) How do you know? - (A.) Because I know all the old ones were lost. (Q.) That is not the point. You make a statement that a man was there and that the women would not come up, and then you said, ‘some of our boys have been saved’? - (A.) I did not say they were saved; I said all the best of the boys went down. (Q.) How do you know the women and children would not