The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1912-04-25

the Frankfurt operator fool and told
him to keep out, but did not tell him
the Titanic was sinking. Bride and
Phillips both judged the Frankfurt
was the nearest ship because of the
strength Of its spark
Bride also admitted refusing to an.
swer a call from the Californian to the
Titanic in the afternoon before the
wreck, but said he later intercepted a
message from the Californian to the
Baltic, telling of three huge icebergs.
He said he handed this message to
Captain Smith. g.ss
William Marconi, inventor of the
wireless, told the committee 1t was
the duty of the wireless operator on
the Frankfurt to tell his captain of
the distress signal so that that ship
might have rushed to the rescue.
Whitley. who was whipped over
board by a rope while trying to lower
lifeboat, did not know either of the
lookout mems names, and believes
they returned to England with the ma
jority of the surviving members of the
crew.
Il heard one Of them say that at
Ills o'clock, Is minutes before the
Titanic struck, he had reported to
First Officer Murdoch that he fsncied
he saw an iceberg" said Whiteley.
Twice after the lookout said he
warned Mr.. Murdoch that berg was
ahead. cannot remember their eT-
act words. but they were indignant
that no attention was paid to their
warnings. One of them said: No won
der that Mr. Murdoch shot himself
Gets Dead Mans Place.
Whitleys own experience was a
Aard one.
Il foated on my life preserver for
several hours" he said. When the
sun came upI saw the collapsible raft
in the distance, just black with men.
They were all standing up. Mr.
Lightoller, the second officer, was one
of them.
Its 81 lives against yours he
said, you can't come aboard. There's
no room -, 81. 1,.....
Il pleaded with him in vain, and
then, confess, | prayed that some
body might die SO | could take his
place. | was only human. And then
some one did die and let me aboard
The senate investigators have gone
10 Washington where the inquiry will
! be continued. J. Bruce Ismay, p. A.
S. Franklin, the chief officials of the
White Star line and more than a score
of officers and crew Of the sunken
vessel will appear before the commit
tee in the capital.
Ships Coal Was Afire.
The story told by J. Dilley was as
follows:
The Titanic sailed from Southamp-
ton on Wednesday, April 10. at noon.
Il was assigned to the Titanic from
the Oceanic, where l had served as
fireman. From the day we sailed the
Titanic was on fire, and my sole duty,
together with eleven other men, had
been to fight that fire. We had made
no Roadway against it.. ,... - .-
"of course the passengers knew
nothing of the fire. Do you think, sir,
we'd let them know about 1t? No,
sir.
THE fire started in bunker No. g.
There were hundreds of tons of coal
stored there The coal on top OF the
bunker was wet, as all of the coal
should have been, but down at the bot
tom of the bunker the coal was dry
The coal at the bottom of the bunker
took fire, and smoldered for days. The
wet coal on top kept the flames from
coming through, but down in the bot
tom of the bunker the flames were
raging.
Suckers Fight the Flames.
1.-TWO men from each watch o.
stokers was tolled off to fight thai
fire. The stokers, you know, worl
four hours at a time, so IL of us was
fighting the flames from the day we
put out of Southampton till we hi
the iceberg
mo, sir, we didn't get that fire out
And among the stokers there was talh
that we would have to empty the Goa
bunkers after we had put our pas
sengers off in New York and then cal
the fireboats there to help us put Out
the fire.
but we didn't need such help. II
was right under bunker No. 6 that the
iceberg tore the biggest hole in the
Titanic, and the flood that come
through the Titanic put out the fire
that our tons and tons of water hadn't
been able to get rid of.
Told to Shut Mouths.
The stokers were beginning to gel
alarmed over it, but the officers told
us to keep our mouths shut. They
didn't want to alarm the passengers
Another fireman said that because
of the fire the ship sank more rapidly
than otherwise would have been the
case.
1T had been necessary to take the
coal out of sections two and three or
the starboard side forward" he said
/ land when the water came rushing in
after the collision the bulkheads
would not hold because they did moi
have the supporting weight Of the
! coal
Somebody reported to Chief En-
gineer Bell that the forward bulkhead