The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1912-04-18
FIRST BLOW OF
ICE MOUNTAIN
FILLED FROM THE BOTTOM
Bow Rose Clear of Water as Ship
Struck and Jagged Ice Tore
Through Bottom.

st. Johns, N. F., April 16.-From
the steamship Bruce, bound for Sidney,
comes the first detailed reports of the
sinking of the Titanic and the appall-
ing scenes attending her end. The
Bruce obtained her story of the disas-
ter from wireless messages picked up
from several of the ships which had
been in closest touch with the last
hours of the mammoth White Star
steamship and which were afVerward
in the zone of communication with
the Bruce's apparatus.
When the Titanic struck the noun
tain of ice that sent her to the bottom
within four hours after the impact she
was steaming at the rate of Is knots an
hour. The shock almost demolished
the proud vessel which her builders
and her captain had believed nothing
could master.
Hitting the impenetrable ice mass
fairly with her towering bows, the ship
was almost rent asunder at the first
blow. Her decks were ripped and torn,
her sides and bulkheads were split and
shattered as with the hammer of some
titan from the bow to point almost
amidships
Her upper works and some of her
boats were splintered, while shower
of debris from her spars fell upon the
decks like giant hail. Though the ship
had struck the monster obstruction
head on, as her bow rose clear of the
water, smashed to an unacceptable
mass of bent and shivered steel, the
vessel listed heavily to port and threat
ened to turn turtle before the recoil
slide of what was left of her proud
form back to an even keel. The Titan
ic had forced her giant bulk up on a
submerged sput of an iceberg.
Fill from Bottom.
A phenomenon which is not infre-
quent in the most disastrous collisions |
was the ghost-like sentinels of the
banks. In mounting up on the Jagged |
ice spur and sliding back from her pc.
sition the ship had torn out many of
her bottom plates from the midship
section forward to the bow. AS result
her compartments from midship for
ward were speedily flooded. She took
n water at rate that defied all the
efforts of the pump and soon began to
'ettle by the head, listing heavily to
port and rolling in the trough of the
eas as she became gradually disengag
ID from the ice, many tons of which
lad fallen upon her upper decks, con-
to the demolition and mex
ricable confusion.
The force of the blow had been so
that the vast ship was
tarted in her every joint, and every
hing movable throughout her lsuperb
quipments of luxurious cabins and
alons was tossed into heaps like dis
arded junk.
But British seamanship and disci-
line prevailed, and it did what little
light be done as we'll as dauntless
len could do it. Every officer and
ian leaped to his post, while Capt.
NTH, megaphone in hand, shouted :
rders over the rolling hulk that an
our before had been the proudest ship
/ Christendom. Sufficient order was
to launch safely most of
lie boats; the greater number remain
lseaworthy despite the ordeal through Z
hich they had passed. While this
ork was progressing in a way, the
omen and children were give the
reference in the ifeboats.
At first the evidences of panic were
ell suppressed, though there was
ANY a painful scene as wives and
sters, sweethearts and mothers, part
| from their dear ones, whom they Z
ere leaving to an unknown fate as
ley took their allotted places in the
pats.