April 30, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, William Hazelgrove tells the story of one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century-the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to hear and search for the Our American Stories podcast,
go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
A little known fact about the Titanic is that it
was actually owned.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
By an American.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
JP Morgan up next to story about this infamous ship
through the eyes of two men who often don't come
up in discussions about the ship, the ship's wireless operators,
William Hazelgrove, will tell the story. But to start us off,
here's a reading from Titanic survivor Jack Thayer's autobiography. Let's
(00:54):
get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Those were ordinary days, and into them had crept only gradually.
The telephone, the talking machine, the automobile, the airplane due
to have soon such a stimulating yet devastating effect upon civilization.
The morning paper had headlines no larger than half an
inch in height. These days were peaceful. It seems to
(01:19):
me that the disaster about to occur was the event
which not only made the world rub its eyes and awake,
but woke it with a start, keeping it moving at
a rapidly accelerating pace ever since, with less peace, satisfaction,
and happiness in my mind. The world of today awoke
April fifteenth, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And the night Carpathia came into New York, it's thundering,
its lightning rains coming down the dock in New York.
Herbert is just mob or people, thousands of people who
don't know if their husband, wives, daughters have made it
or not. And they see this ship emerging out of
the darkness, brilliantly lit up, and it's met in the
(02:08):
harbor by all these reporters on boats. These reporters literally
start throwing guybulets of money onto the deck of Carpathia.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
How light in the past year.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Jump off, We'll pick you out of the water, and
we'll pay you whatever you want for your story, anything
you want for your story. And when the harbor pilot
comes on, they all try and jump on board too,
and they literally get punched and thrown off because this
is the scoop of the century. And Carpasia pulls up,
and of course Google and Marconi is at the head
of the crowd to get on Carpathia when she pulls in,
(02:40):
which has his wireless operator Harold Bride on board. Everybody
wanted to talk to him because he's the surviving wireless operator.
Marconi was a fascinating guy. Googlie McConney was from Italy
(03:00):
and he had this lit of quasi interest in science,
but he really.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Had more of an entrepreneur's bent.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
He actually started some experiments in his attic of his parents' home.
He had a cathode ray and in the cathode ray
were iron filings. So when he sat on an electric signal,
the iron filings jumped into the middle of a sort
of glass bar in the middle of the cathode ray.
So this meant that action had occurred from this electrical signal.
(03:27):
So the question was, well, how far could this go?
So he had a friend take a gun and go
off a long distance and he shot off a signal,
and when his friend received the signal.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
He shot off his gun.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
So he developed this technology that the others had been developing,
but he sort of takes it one step further and
he gives a science experiment. And basically they have a
transmitter and a receiver, and the receiver is in a
box that things, and so they're in this theater, all
these people are there, and so basically Marconi would walk around.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The theater with this box.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
You know, somebody's manning the transmitter, and so they'd send
off the wireless telegraphy signal. It would hit the box
and it would date, and everybody kept looking for wires,
you know, where the wires connecting this box to this transmitter.
And Marconi just kept walking around with it, sort of
like a most awaiter, presenting this new technology wireless. So
(04:35):
then he started to think, you know, I wonder if
this would work on water.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
That's really what you need. You need these ships to be.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
In contact, because up to then ships would just disappear.
Nobody knew what happened to him. So everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no,
it won't work because the Earth is curved, the radio.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Waves would just bounce off in the space. There's no
way it to work.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So he went through these all these experiments on the
English Channel and basically, you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Know, he erected towers or blown down.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
He ended up using a kite to sort of get
up an antenna aloft, but he was able to transmit
a signal across the English Channel. So they thought, well
why not the ocean, and again everybody's like, there's no
way this is gonna work.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And they didn't understand the time.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Wireless can only go about five hundred miles during the
daylight hours, but at night, on a cold, clear night
like April fourteenth, nineteen twelve, where it was just brilliantly clear,
these singles could.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Bounce on and on up to two thousand miles.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So when Marconi proved this, this was amazing to people.
This was just groundbreaking because now a ship in the
Middle Atlantic Ocean could tell the world what was going on.
And by the way, that's what makes Titanic so unique.
One of the things is that it's the first real
time disaster. So Marconi's waiting at the dock and a
(06:00):
board Carpathia. Harold Cotton, who was the wireless man on Carpathia,
literally keels over from exhaustion. So they say to Harrold Bride,
who who survives under a lifeboat feeder partly frostbitten. They say, look, well,
you know you've been through helen back, but can you
take over the wireless You only one that knows Morse code,
So he does. The first telegram he does is from
(06:23):
Google and Marconi. He says to him, don't say a word.
Don't say a word anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I've arranged for you to tell your story to the
New York Times for a thousand dollars, which is like
twenty thousand today. And he doesn't.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
And Carpathia pulls up and he's literally one of the
first people to get on. He's a rock star by
today's standards. Everybody knows who this guy is. So the
c's part four when he walks on board and he
goes right to the wireless room where Harold Bride is
still working still send me messages, and he says to him,
your work is done. He has him taken off the
(06:56):
ship and taken to a waiting car. Then he's taken
to the strand tell where these reporters are there. And
then he sits down and tells them what happened on
Titanic and gives them the story basically of the century.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
I was standing by Phillips telling him to go to
bed when the captain put his head in the cabinet,
he struck an iceberg.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the story of
the first real time disaster in the world when we
come back more of this remarkable story here on our
American Story. Folks, if you love the stories we tell
about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
(07:42):
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place
where students study all the things that are beautiful in
life and all the things that are good in life.
And if you can't cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come
to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go
to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we returned
(08:10):
to our American Stories and our story on the sinking
of the RMS Titanic with the eyes of her wireless
operators Harrol Bride and Jack Phillips. When we last left off,
William Hazelgrove was telling us about the night the Titanic's
rescue ship, the Carpathia, sailed into New York Harbor, and
a little bit about the man who invented the technology
(08:32):
that helped save some of the Titanic's passengers, Uglio Marcone.
You'll be hearing excerpts of Harold Bride's interview with The
New York Times throughout this piece. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Begin at the beginning. I was born at Nunhead, England,
twenty two years ago and joined the Marconi Forces last July.
I first worked on the Hoverford and then Tana. I
joined the Titanic at Belfast with Jack Phillips.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Jack Phillips and Harrold Bride were two working class news
from England and they both worked on different ships and
ended up on Titanic. Actually, for Jack Phillips it was
really a sort of promotion. He was really leading the
team there, if you will.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
I didn't have much to do on that Titanic except
relieve Phillips from midnight until some time in the morning
when he woke up on the night of the accident.
I was not sending, but was asleep. I was due
to be up to relieve Phillips earlier than usual.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
These guys are sort of like the computer nerds of today.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It is a young man's game. At this point.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Nobody understands MOR's code except these operators.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It sounds like static.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And it's amazing they can decipher this, but they do,
and they're able to travel. It's exciting for them to
be on this big ship and they really are on
the cutting edge of technology of their time. This ability
to send a wireless message through the atmosphere, it's just
(10:05):
amazing and it's going to change everything. And what's interesting
is this, they are pretty much isolated from the ship.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
The wireless operators slept in their room. They ate there.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
They had no contact with the crew and by the
red of the room was called the silent room because
had to be insulated against several things. One was noise
coming in, but two they were using direct current. We
use alternating current, so we didn't electrocute ourselves. Direct current
you step it way up, especially if you've got a
broadcast out shoot out these signals across the Atlantic. The
(10:43):
key would literally crack very loudly, so they had to
also muffle that.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
And that reminds me that hadn't been for a lucky thing,
we would have never been able to send any call
for help.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So before it takes to hits the Iceberg, believe it
or not, their wireless set was broken.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You know the day of April fourteen, we.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Know something was wrong. On Sunday and Phillips and I
worked for seven hours to find it. We found a
burned out secretary at last and repaired it just a
few hours before the iceberg was struck, and they.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Had all these messages piled up. Wireless was really for passengers.
Harold Bride, Jack Phillips did not work for White Star.
They worked for Marconi. And that's really how Marconi made
his money, because you could go send a telegram now
from Titanic, and Titanic had the most powerful wireless set
(11:36):
you could put on a ship, so you could send
a telegram back to New York saying, Hey, Jim, I'm
in the middle of the Atlantic on Titanic. I'm in
a great time, meet you for lunch. Also, what they
could do is they could take information from a shore
station where the information would be beamed out or shot
out to Titanic. And then they had big printing presses,
and Titanic had its own newspaper, so then Titanic would
(11:57):
create a newspaper so they're rich could sit and have
their coffee and croissants and read about say the Chicago
Cubs or whatever. This was amazing to people, and it
was a pretty sophisticated system. I mean, they had pneumatic tubes.
Stewards would take the messages to the room. They've come
out with a message, but it was laborious to send them,
(12:18):
and so they would just pile up. You know, there's
a lot of passengers, so these guys are going hard
at it when a ship named the Californian is approaching
pretty close.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
They're maybe ten to twelve miles.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Away, and they've got some messages for Titan, and so
what happens is while Jack Phillips is the head operator,
is trying to get through these messages, this operator breaks
in and it's sort of like getting your car with
the radio turned up. If these boats are on top
of each other, then you know, it's very loud to
the operator, and so he breaks in and blows Jack
(12:53):
Phillips's ears off with this message saying, hey, I've got
some messages for you, some ice warnings, and Phillips retorts.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
He felt shut up a working tape race.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And so this operator there's only one operator in California,
which again it's ten to twelve miles away, says, you know,
it's been a long day, and he turns his set off,
which is going to have implications down the line.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That are amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So now as Titanic steaming towards this iceberg, yes, ice
warnings have come in. Yes, they've been taken up to
the bridge. Had they been acted on, No, a couple
of them. We're stuck onto a bulletin board. So at
this moment, as they're plunging through the North Atlantic at
twenty four knots, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride are just
working it trying to get passinger messages out.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's bitterly cold, and lookout.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Fleet is up in the crow's nest looking for icebergs. Also,
it's incredibly calm. The North Atlantic is usually not this
calmp but it's a millpile. It's like glass. So the
stars are all reflecting off the water too, so you
have a million speckled stars against this cold night. It's
so cold that there's sort of these ice particles floating
(14:06):
around the deck lights, which is very much evidence that
you're entering into an ice field, because those icebergs turn
it sort of super cold. They just sort of bring
the temperature down around them. So they're up there, they're freezing.
They see the iceberg, they call down and they reverse
(14:26):
the engine. They crank it over the wheel over to
the left, and Titanic takes a very very long time
to turn it. When she finally does, they feel like
they missed her.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
But they stop the ship.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Captain Smith, who's in his stateroom, comes bursting out.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
What happened? The watertight doors are closed. Now.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
The watertight doors are the reason the Titanic is called unsinkable.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
What are they?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
They're these big steel doors that take every bulkhead and
seal it off. Now, in theory, if a bullheads stealed off,
the water could only come in so far with Titanic,
the bulkheads only go up to eedeck. That means that
this water coming in is going to fill up the
first compartment and then go up and over.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Into the second compartment.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It be like if you're sitting in your living room
and you left the windows open in the bedroom next
to your living room, and your bedroom fills up with
water and it comes over the top into your living
room where you're sitting. Or think of a weight thrown
into the front of a canoe just pulling it down. Well,
that's what the water does.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Even still, Titanic can float with four compartments flooded but
five compartments flooded. So now the weight of the water
thirty nine thousand tons rushing in is overcoming the ship's buoyancy.
And so at this point Titanic is doomed, though for
most people there's no evidence of it. This is a
(15:55):
monster ship. People are still serving drinks, foods still being served,
everything's going along like nothing's wrong. Also, there is no PA,
there is no public address system, and there's been no
lifeboat drills. So you have these lifeboats ninety feet up
and they've never worked together at the ever lower them
mostly though people don't know. So how do you find out? Well,
(16:19):
the first class, the steward comes up, so I say, sir,
but you might putting on your life jacket and coming
up top. But we're it's not a big thing, but
we might get in the boats.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So they do.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
How to the third class steerish famously in the bottom
of the ship find out maybe somebody yells down the hallway.
Most of them don't speak English anyway, and by the
way they're down in this labyrinth of a ship, I
have no idea how to get up there.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So it's all against them right away.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And famously, in the movie we all see the block
doorways passages and we think, oh, how evil. Actually that
wasn't evil. That's the way it was then. It was
expected a white star to separate the classes. So yes,
doors were block against the third class coming up and
bamming into the first class dressed and probably ten thousand
(17:05):
dollars dinner clothes going to dinner. And so you had
that kind of money with people who literally own just
the clothes on their back down in steerage, coming to
America for a better life.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the remarkable story
of the sinking of the Titanic through what we would
consider now to be tech geeks, the two wireless operators
who were working with the cutting edge technology of its time.
Technology they could have saved the Titanic and in the
end preserved the story of the Titanic and saved lives.
(17:44):
When we come back more of this storytelling again from
the wireless technicians point of view here on our American story,
(18:08):
and we returned to our American stories in our story
on the sinking of the RMS Titanic, who the eyes
of her wireless operators, Harold Bride and Jack Phillips. When
we last left off, the Titanic had struck an iceberg
and was slowly sinking into the Atlantic Ocean. The water
temperature at the time twenty seven degrees, and her Captain E. J. Smith,
(18:32):
was now forced to reckon with how exactly he was
going to save the twenty two hundred and forty people
on board. Here again is William Hazelgrove.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Let's talk about Captain Smith. Well, Captain Smith's like a
duckhead on the hat. He does look like the captain
in the movie you know, Big White Beer, Very August.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
But he's never had a tragedy like this. In fact,
he just gave an interview.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Before the cruise saying, you know what ship sinking sort
of thing in the past.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Technology is to advance for that.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
So he's done, and he goes down to the wireless room,
the silent room.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
And the captain put his head in the cabin and said,
we've struck an iceberg and I'm having an inspection made
to tell what it has done for us. You better
get ready to send out a call for assistance, but
don't send it until I tell you Tom. The captain
went away, and in ten minutes I should estimate he
came back. We could hear a terrible confusion outside. Then
they call for assistance, ordered the cabin, barely putting his
(19:28):
head on the door. We call shurressen. Philps asked the
regulation international call for help.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That's that.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Then the captain was gone. Philps began to send CQD.
He flashed away at it, and we joked while he
did so.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Now CQD means basically, listen up for what's coming next.
An easy translation is come quick distress. It's not literally
that's what it means, but basically that's what it says.
Now at that moment, you're sending out this message. All right,
So Titanic has four big antennas over the top of
a phone, so it only exists a one photo. And
(20:06):
they start beaming these things out, shooting them out over
the North Atlantic at night, which is the best time.
And what's it say. It says, have struck an Iceberg.
Need a media assistance longitude latitude, over and over and over.
This is what Jack Phillips is just sending. He's just
sending it one out on top of the other. Now,
this early technology has only so many frequencies, so when
(20:30):
somebody's sending something out, you can't hear what's coming back.
It's like early early fans when the early phones out
in rural circuits, people had to literally wait for the
farm down the road to get off so they could
get on, or they could listen in to their call.
And that's what this wireless technology is like. You're sending out,
but you can't hear coming back. So Jack Phillips has
(20:50):
to take them faith mostly that people are hearing him.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And he's just.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Repeatedly sending these signals out to any ship.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So what this mean? What are they helping for?
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Helping a ship will get this turn around and come
full speed toward them because they've only got two hours
and forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Or one hundred and sixty minutes to live.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You know, these two wireless operators who have mattered very
little up to this point, really now everyone's fate on
board the Titanic depends on them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Then the captain came back, what are you sending? Yes,
EQD bilts your plan. The humor of the situation appealed
to me, and I cut in with a little remark
that made us all laugh, including the captain. Then sos
I said it's the new call, and it maybe our
last chance to send it. Bilps with the laugh, changed
the signal to the SOS.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Now they're sending both.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And first it comes out, have struck an Iceberg need
immediate assistance. Well, then it changes to have struck an
Iceberg putting off women and children. He puts that in
there because that, in terms of the mariner code is
we're in trouble. We're going down fast, and that is
way beyond has struck an Iceberg need assistance.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Many ships begin to answer our signals, the Frankfurt, the Baltic.
Then the Carpathia answered our signal. We told her our
position and told her that we were sinking by the hood.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So Harold Cotton, who's aboard the Carpathia, who's the wireless operator,
he actually knows Jack Phillips, and they get the message.
Late almost twelve thirty.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
The operator on the Carpathia went to tell the captain
and in five minutes returned and told us that the
captain of the Carpathia was putting about and heading for us.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Captain Rostrum's the captain. He was known as the electric
spark among this men. He's incredibly energetic, and he's very
well liked by the crew, by the passengers. He's known
as a very fair captain. Now, when he gets the
message from Titanic saying come quick distressed, he too is
(23:00):
in the North Atlantic, and he too is at risk
of sinking if he hits an iceberg. And he makes
his decision very quickly that he's gonna put not only
his life, but it really everybody in his ship. He's
gonna put all their lives on the line to go
help these people on distrust because he feels that's his duty,
(23:20):
and he's gonna take his ship faster than it's ever
been designed to go. He gets up every stoker, the
guys who shovel coal, and gives them all a shot
of brandy and says, go to it. And he diverts
all the steam from the passengers. Okay, so these are
steam driven ships, so the big pistons, right, So the
more steam, the faster they go. Turns the carpasier around,
(23:44):
uncovers his lifeboat, sets up a hospital triized station, puts
out extra lookouts, says a prayer. He's a religious man,
and takes off full speed for Titanic, weaving his way
through icebergs, putting it.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
All on the line.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He's going so fast that the passengers, who are now
freezing because they don't have any heat anymore, are coming
out and saying, we think Carpathia is on fire, and
he's going towards the shore to run on the ground.
This is what ships would do if they caught fire.
They could make a bee line for the shore and
just try and run the ship aground. Because nobody's told
them what they're really doing, so Rostrum, who's just hell
(24:18):
bent on getting there, immediately becomes their best shot at
being rescued, even though he's fifty miles away.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
While we continue to send every few minutes, Philips will
send me to the captain of little messages. They were
merely telling how the Carpathia was coming her away and
gave her speed. I noticed as I came back from
one trip that they were putting women in children in lifeboats.
I noticed that the list board was increasing, and Phillips
told me that the wireless was growing weaker.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
So at two am, Captain Smith comes into the silent.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Room and he said, men, you have done your full duty.
You can do no more. Bend in your cabin. Now
it's every man for himself. You look out for yourselves.
I release you. That's the way of it at this
kind of time, every man for himself.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Titanics at about a forty five degree angle, water's coming
into the wireless room. The ship's going down. Well, Phillips
and Bride stay there. The dynamos are still going. There's
still some power, even though it's weak. It's sort of
like rural circuits getting fainter, you know, they've turned kind
of almost read the lights, but still enough to try
(25:34):
and get out these signals. So they stay there right
up until two twenty when she's going down.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Phillips clung on, sending, sending. He clung on for about
ten to fifteen minutes after the captain had released him.
The water was then coming into our cabin. How poor
Phillips worked through it, I don't know. He was a
brave man. I learned to love him that night, and
I suddenly felt for him a great reverence seems, standing
there thinking to his work while everybody else was raging about.
(26:04):
I will never live to forget the work of Phillips
for the last awful fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Another strange moment is a stoker comes in and these
are one of the guy's shovels. Colt and tries to
steal Jack phillips jacket from.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Him while he works. Something happened that I hate to
tell about. I was back in my room getting Phillips's
money for him, and as I looked at the door,
I saw a stoker or somebody from below decks leaning
over Phillips from behind. He was too busy to notice
what the man was doing. The man was slipping a
life belt off of Phillips's back. He was a big
man too, as you can see. I'm very small, and
I don't know what it was that I got ahold of.
(26:43):
I remember in a flash the way Phillips had clung on,
how I had to fix the life belt in place
because he was too busy to do it. I know
that man from belowdecks had his own life belt and
should have known where to get it. I suddenly felt
a passionate and not let that man die decent sailor's death.
I wish he might have stretched rope or walked a plank.
I did my duty. I hope I had finished him.
I don't know. We left him on the floor of
(27:04):
the wireless room, and he was not moving.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the story of
the sinking the RMS Titanic. When we come back the
end of this remarkable story, the sinking of the Titanic.
Here on our American story, and we returned to our
(27:38):
American stories in our final portion of our story on
the sinking of the Titanic. They're the eyes of her
wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride. When we last
left off, the situation on Titanic had become increasingly hopeless,
and despite being ordered to abandon their cabin, the wireless
operators continued to send desperate messages for help. Eventually, both
(28:02):
Harold Bride and Jack Phillips would leave the room in
search for some salvation. Here again is William hazel Grove.
Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
From Aft came the tunes of the band as a
ragtime tune. I don't know what Philips ran aft, and
that was the last time I ever saw him alive.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Basically, all order broke down in Titanic. They run out
of the wireless room and one remaining boat called an
ingo Heart, which is collapsible.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Some men were trying to get it off the roof.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I guess there wasn't a sailor in the crowd. They
couldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
And the way most people end up in the water,
and Titanic was a final wave came over this ship.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
A big wave carried the boat off. I had hold
of an oarlock and I went off with it.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Harold Bride ends up under a lifeboat overturned in the water, and.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
I remember realizing I was wet through and whatever happened,
I must not breathe, for I was underwater. I knew
I had to fight for it. How I got out
from under the boat, I do not know, but I
felt a breath of air at last. There were men
all around me, hundreds of them. The sea was dotted
with all depending on their life belt.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
When Titanic was sinking, it was strangely beautiful. You had
this huge ship inverting, all lit up against this cold sky,
with all these stars in this water that was just
like glass, and it was an incredible spectacle. And then
of course it broke apart.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
He was a beautiful sight. Then smoke and sparks were
rushing out of her funnel. There must have been an explosion,
but we had heard none. We only saw the big
stream of sparks. The ship was gradually turning her nose,
just like the duck does when it goes down for
a dive. The band was still playing. I guess all
the band went down.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
And the sound was like a thousand freight trains crashing,
because everything inside Titanic broke loose when it inverted and
went crashing down. All these big engines went crashing down
from one end of the ship to the other. And
then she went straight down. And then there was a
strange fog over the water that followed.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
When at last the waves washed over her rudder. There
wasn't the least bit of suction I could feel. She
must have kept going down slowly as she had been.
I felt, after a little while like sinking was very cold.
I saw a boat near me and put all my
strength into an effort to swim to it. It was
hard work. I was all done when a hand reached
out from the boat and pulled me aboard. It was
(30:37):
our same collapsible. The same crowd was on it.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
He climbs on top of it and lays there, his
feet severely frostbitten, and literally if anybody moves the wrong way,
they fall off, and they fall and die. It's an
incredible moment because on this lifeboat there's probably fifteen men,
all laying at different angles.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Literally laying on top of each other. Think of a boat.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
I just think out dinghy a rowboat turned over, and
you're laying on top of it, and you had ten, twelve,
fifteen other people laying on top of it, and you're
literally laying on top of each other because if you move,
you fall into the water.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Somebody sat on my legs there were wedged in between
slats and being wrenched. I didn't have the heart to
tell the man to move. It was a terrible sight
all around men swimming and sinking. I lay where I was,
letting the man wrench my feet out of shape. I
just came near, but nobody gave them a hand. The
bottom up boat already had more men than it could hold,
and it was sinking.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
And on this boat is really this. It's a sort
of microcosm of humanity.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
As we floated around on our capsized boat, and I
kept straining my eyes for a ship's lights, somebody said,
don't the rest of you think we ought to pray.
The man who made the suggestion asked what the religion
of the others was. Each man called out his religion.
One was Catholic and it was Methodist, one was Presbyterian.
Was decided that the most appropriate prayer for all it
(32:00):
was the Lord's Prayer. We spoke it over in chorus,
but the man who first suggested that we pray as
the leader.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
So these twenty boats are within calling distance of each other.
When Harold Bride says, I'm the wireless operator, and I
know Carpasia is coming to rescue us.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
This is really the.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Only flicker of hope they have, because once Titanic sunk,
it was just gone, and it wasn't like there was
a lot of evidence of its passing, and it was
just ungodly quiet, And of course Carpasia came an hour
and ten minutes later.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
I saw some lights off in the distance and knew
that a steamship was coming to our aid, but I
didn't care what happened. I just laid and gasped when
I could, and felt the pain in my feet.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
And these were some of the last people to get
a board car Pathio, and the water was starting to
kick up, and actually Carpathia could not maneuver correctly to
get them to the side where they were. They had
to hoist most people in because they were too cold
and too weak to climb up the rope ladder, and
took Carpathia's hold.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I tried the rope ladder. My feet pained badly, but
I reached the top and felt hands reaching out to me.
The next thing I knew, a woman was leaning over
me in a cabin and I felt her hand waving
back my hair and rubbing my face. I felt somebody
at my feet in the warmth of a jolt of liquor.
Somebody got me under their arms that I was hustled
down below to the hospital. That was early in the day,
(33:39):
I guess. Then I passed out.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
LaRence Beasley wrote when they were on Carpathia, and he
said it was strangely quiet.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Nobody said a word.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Why was this well, because all these women, who were
mostly the survivors, got on board realized then their husbands
were gone and they were widows. There was a girl
with a Browning camera and she took several photos, and
one of them is of a lifeboat that pulled up
to the side of Carpasian, and these people just look
(34:09):
so cold, but mostly how empty this lifeboat is.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, it was so underloaded. And then she took
another one.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
All these women just sitting on the deck, wrapped up
in blankets, all these women who lost their husbands. So
you know, they really I mean for these people who
were essentially shell shock. You know, they didn't have that
term yet, because that term came from World War One,
you know, five years later, when these big shelves would
hit troops and they didn't know what was wrong with them, but.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
They all had PTSD, no doubt.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Harold Bride, he literally collapsed once he got on board Carpasia.
They took him into this sort of makeshift hospital area
and then he woke up, and.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
It told me that the Carpathia's wireless man was getting queer.
And what I help after that? I never left the
wireless room, so I don't know what happened among the passengers.
I just worked w the splitter never died down.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I knew it.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Sue the hurt and felt like a tie to the
world of friends at home. How could I take news queries?
Sometimes I'd let a newspaper, ask a question and get
a long string of stuff, asking for full particulars about everything.
Whenever I started to take such a message, I thought
that the poor people waiting for their messages to go
hoping for answers to them. I shut off the inquiries
(35:24):
and sent my personal messages, and I feel I did
the right thing. I was still sending my messages when
mister Marconi and the Times reporter arrived asked that I
prepare the statement. There were maybe one hundred left. I
would like to send them all because I know I
could get rest easier if I knew those messages. I'd
gone to the friends waiting for them. But an ambulance
man was waiting with his streatsher, and I guess I've
got to go with him. I hope my legs get
(35:46):
better soon.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
And of course Harold Bride would go on to live
with his family after this and went back to the
service for a little while. But then he left, and
I think he went into business, had a family and
disappeared from history. Here's the Titanic really, Jack Phillips and
Harold Bride and Captain Rostrom. Captain Rostrom was given the
(36:13):
Congression Medal of honor medals from the British medals from groups.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Went on to an illustrious career.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
And these two pretty young guys put their own lives
on the line and stayed at their posts when they
could have left at two a m.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
When Captain Smith woul leave them.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
They stayed all the way to the end and just
kept trying to get somebody there to help them.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And it's only through their efforts.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, by staying at their posts,
they allowed those seven hundred people to survive. You know,
I mean, you look at Titanic, you say, oh, it's
a great catastrophe. Well, another way to look at this,
it was really sort of an amazing rescue that they
were able to pluck these people from the middle of
the North Atlantic at night and save them. And that
is only because of wireless technology. And you know, there
(37:01):
is a plan. When you think of heroics and you
really it comes down to this. There's a plan to get.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
The wireless room that's still on the floor of the
Atlantic because it's basically falling apart and they want to
get the setup and if there was something embedded in
those last coils, those last electro manitary coils. You know,
it would be that last message. And really, if you
take their messages, really what they're.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Saying is will you come help us? Will you come
help us?
Speaker 4 (37:30):
And this is something that even today is still the
same basic human plea. So really, I would say Captain Rostrom,
Jack Phillis, Harold Bride.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
They were the heroes of Titanic.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And the special thanks to William Hazelgrove. The book he
wrote about this is called one hundred and sixty Minutes
The Race to Save the RMS Titanic. Pick it up
at your local bookstore or on Amazon or the usual
online suspects. The story of the RMS Titanic as told
(38:03):
with the lives of Harold Bride and Jack Phillips. Here
on our American Story
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And to hear and search for the Our American Stories podcast,
go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
A little known fact about the Titanic is that it
was actually owned.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
By an American.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
JP Morgan up next to story about this infamous ship
through the eyes of two men who often don't come
up in discussions about the ship, the ship's wireless operators,
William Hazelgrove, will tell the story. But to start us off,
here's a reading from Titanic survivor Jack Thayer's autobiography. Let's
(00:54):
get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Those were ordinary days, and into them had crept only gradually.
The telephone, the talking machine, the automobile, the airplane due
to have soon such a stimulating yet devastating effect upon civilization.
The morning paper had headlines no larger than half an
inch in height. These days were peaceful. It seems to
(01:19):
me that the disaster about to occur was the event
which not only made the world rub its eyes and awake,
but woke it with a start, keeping it moving at
a rapidly accelerating pace ever since, with less peace, satisfaction,
and happiness in my mind. The world of today awoke
April fifteenth, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And the night Carpathia came into New York, it's thundering,
its lightning rains coming down the dock in New York.
Herbert is just mob or people, thousands of people who
don't know if their husband, wives, daughters have made it
or not. And they see this ship emerging out of
the darkness, brilliantly lit up, and it's met in the
(02:08):
harbor by all these reporters on boats. These reporters literally
start throwing guybulets of money onto the deck of Carpathia.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
How light in the past year.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Jump off, We'll pick you out of the water, and
we'll pay you whatever you want for your story, anything
you want for your story. And when the harbor pilot
comes on, they all try and jump on board too,
and they literally get punched and thrown off because this
is the scoop of the century. And Carpasia pulls up,
and of course Google and Marconi is at the head
of the crowd to get on Carpathia when she pulls in,
(02:40):
which has his wireless operator Harold Bride on board. Everybody
wanted to talk to him because he's the surviving wireless operator.
Marconi was a fascinating guy. Googlie McConney was from Italy
(03:00):
and he had this lit of quasi interest in science,
but he really.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Had more of an entrepreneur's bent.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
He actually started some experiments in his attic of his parents' home.
He had a cathode ray and in the cathode ray
were iron filings. So when he sat on an electric signal,
the iron filings jumped into the middle of a sort
of glass bar in the middle of the cathode ray.
So this meant that action had occurred from this electrical signal.
(03:27):
So the question was, well, how far could this go?
So he had a friend take a gun and go
off a long distance and he shot off a signal,
and when his friend received the signal.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
He shot off his gun.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
So he developed this technology that the others had been developing,
but he sort of takes it one step further and
he gives a science experiment. And basically they have a
transmitter and a receiver, and the receiver is in a
box that things, and so they're in this theater, all
these people are there, and so basically Marconi would walk around.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The theater with this box.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
You know, somebody's manning the transmitter, and so they'd send
off the wireless telegraphy signal. It would hit the box
and it would date, and everybody kept looking for wires,
you know, where the wires connecting this box to this transmitter.
And Marconi just kept walking around with it, sort of
like a most awaiter, presenting this new technology wireless. So
(04:35):
then he started to think, you know, I wonder if
this would work on water.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
That's really what you need. You need these ships to be.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
In contact, because up to then ships would just disappear.
Nobody knew what happened to him. So everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no,
it won't work because the Earth is curved, the radio.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Waves would just bounce off in the space. There's no
way it to work.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
So he went through these all these experiments on the
English Channel and basically, you.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Know, he erected towers or blown down.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
He ended up using a kite to sort of get
up an antenna aloft, but he was able to transmit
a signal across the English Channel. So they thought, well
why not the ocean, and again everybody's like, there's no
way this is gonna work.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And they didn't understand the time.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Wireless can only go about five hundred miles during the
daylight hours, but at night, on a cold, clear night
like April fourteenth, nineteen twelve, where it was just brilliantly clear,
these singles could.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Bounce on and on up to two thousand miles.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So when Marconi proved this, this was amazing to people.
This was just groundbreaking because now a ship in the
Middle Atlantic Ocean could tell the world what was going on.
And by the way, that's what makes Titanic so unique.
One of the things is that it's the first real
time disaster. So Marconi's waiting at the dock and a
(06:00):
board Carpathia. Harold Cotton, who was the wireless man on Carpathia,
literally keels over from exhaustion. So they say to Harrold Bride,
who who survives under a lifeboat feeder partly frostbitten. They say, look, well,
you know you've been through helen back, but can you
take over the wireless You only one that knows Morse code,
So he does. The first telegram he does is from
(06:23):
Google and Marconi. He says to him, don't say a word.
Don't say a word anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I've arranged for you to tell your story to the
New York Times for a thousand dollars, which is like
twenty thousand today. And he doesn't.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
And Carpathia pulls up and he's literally one of the
first people to get on. He's a rock star by
today's standards. Everybody knows who this guy is. So the
c's part four when he walks on board and he
goes right to the wireless room where Harold Bride is
still working still send me messages, and he says to him,
your work is done. He has him taken off the
(06:56):
ship and taken to a waiting car. Then he's taken
to the strand tell where these reporters are there. And
then he sits down and tells them what happened on
Titanic and gives them the story basically of the century.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
I was standing by Phillips telling him to go to
bed when the captain put his head in the cabinet,
he struck an iceberg.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the story of
the first real time disaster in the world when we
come back more of this remarkable story here on our
American Story. Folks, if you love the stories we tell
about this great country, and especially the stories of America's
rich past, know that all of our stories about American history,
from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to
(07:42):
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place
where students study all the things that are beautiful in
life and all the things that are good in life.
And if you can't cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come
to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go
to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. And we returned
(08:10):
to our American Stories and our story on the sinking
of the RMS Titanic with the eyes of her wireless
operators Harrol Bride and Jack Phillips. When we last left off,
William Hazelgrove was telling us about the night the Titanic's
rescue ship, the Carpathia, sailed into New York Harbor, and
a little bit about the man who invented the technology
(08:32):
that helped save some of the Titanic's passengers, Uglio Marcone.
You'll be hearing excerpts of Harold Bride's interview with The
New York Times throughout this piece. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Begin at the beginning. I was born at Nunhead, England,
twenty two years ago and joined the Marconi Forces last July.
I first worked on the Hoverford and then Tana. I
joined the Titanic at Belfast with Jack Phillips.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Jack Phillips and Harrold Bride were two working class news
from England and they both worked on different ships and
ended up on Titanic. Actually, for Jack Phillips it was
really a sort of promotion. He was really leading the
team there, if you will.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
I didn't have much to do on that Titanic except
relieve Phillips from midnight until some time in the morning
when he woke up on the night of the accident.
I was not sending, but was asleep. I was due
to be up to relieve Phillips earlier than usual.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
These guys are sort of like the computer nerds of today.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It is a young man's game. At this point.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Nobody understands MOR's code except these operators.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It sounds like static.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And it's amazing they can decipher this, but they do,
and they're able to travel. It's exciting for them to
be on this big ship and they really are on
the cutting edge of technology of their time. This ability
to send a wireless message through the atmosphere, it's just
(10:05):
amazing and it's going to change everything. And what's interesting
is this, they are pretty much isolated from the ship.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
The wireless operators slept in their room. They ate there.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
They had no contact with the crew and by the
red of the room was called the silent room because
had to be insulated against several things. One was noise
coming in, but two they were using direct current. We
use alternating current, so we didn't electrocute ourselves. Direct current
you step it way up, especially if you've got a
broadcast out shoot out these signals across the Atlantic. The
(10:43):
key would literally crack very loudly, so they had to
also muffle that.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
And that reminds me that hadn't been for a lucky thing,
we would have never been able to send any call
for help.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So before it takes to hits the Iceberg, believe it
or not, their wireless set was broken.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You know the day of April fourteen, we.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Know something was wrong. On Sunday and Phillips and I
worked for seven hours to find it. We found a
burned out secretary at last and repaired it just a
few hours before the iceberg was struck, and they.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Had all these messages piled up. Wireless was really for passengers.
Harold Bride, Jack Phillips did not work for White Star.
They worked for Marconi. And that's really how Marconi made
his money, because you could go send a telegram now
from Titanic, and Titanic had the most powerful wireless set
(11:36):
you could put on a ship, so you could send
a telegram back to New York saying, Hey, Jim, I'm
in the middle of the Atlantic on Titanic. I'm in
a great time, meet you for lunch. Also, what they
could do is they could take information from a shore
station where the information would be beamed out or shot
out to Titanic. And then they had big printing presses,
and Titanic had its own newspaper, so then Titanic would
(11:57):
create a newspaper so they're rich could sit and have
their coffee and croissants and read about say the Chicago
Cubs or whatever. This was amazing to people, and it
was a pretty sophisticated system. I mean, they had pneumatic tubes.
Stewards would take the messages to the room. They've come
out with a message, but it was laborious to send them,
(12:18):
and so they would just pile up. You know, there's
a lot of passengers, so these guys are going hard
at it when a ship named the Californian is approaching
pretty close.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
They're maybe ten to twelve miles.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Away, and they've got some messages for Titan, and so
what happens is while Jack Phillips is the head operator,
is trying to get through these messages, this operator breaks
in and it's sort of like getting your car with
the radio turned up. If these boats are on top
of each other, then you know, it's very loud to
the operator, and so he breaks in and blows Jack
(12:53):
Phillips's ears off with this message saying, hey, I've got
some messages for you, some ice warnings, and Phillips retorts.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
He felt shut up a working tape race.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
And so this operator there's only one operator in California,
which again it's ten to twelve miles away, says, you know,
it's been a long day, and he turns his set off,
which is going to have implications down the line.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That are amazing.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So now as Titanic steaming towards this iceberg, yes, ice
warnings have come in. Yes, they've been taken up to
the bridge. Had they been acted on, No, a couple
of them. We're stuck onto a bulletin board. So at
this moment, as they're plunging through the North Atlantic at
twenty four knots, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride are just
working it trying to get passinger messages out.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
It's bitterly cold, and lookout.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Fleet is up in the crow's nest looking for icebergs. Also,
it's incredibly calm. The North Atlantic is usually not this
calmp but it's a millpile. It's like glass. So the
stars are all reflecting off the water too, so you
have a million speckled stars against this cold night. It's
so cold that there's sort of these ice particles floating
(14:06):
around the deck lights, which is very much evidence that
you're entering into an ice field, because those icebergs turn
it sort of super cold. They just sort of bring
the temperature down around them. So they're up there, they're freezing.
They see the iceberg, they call down and they reverse
(14:26):
the engine. They crank it over the wheel over to
the left, and Titanic takes a very very long time
to turn it. When she finally does, they feel like
they missed her.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
But they stop the ship.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Captain Smith, who's in his stateroom, comes bursting out.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
What happened? The watertight doors are closed. Now.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
The watertight doors are the reason the Titanic is called unsinkable.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
What are they?
Speaker 4 (14:53):
They're these big steel doors that take every bulkhead and
seal it off. Now, in theory, if a bullheads stealed off,
the water could only come in so far with Titanic,
the bulkheads only go up to eedeck. That means that
this water coming in is going to fill up the
first compartment and then go up and over.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Into the second compartment.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It be like if you're sitting in your living room
and you left the windows open in the bedroom next
to your living room, and your bedroom fills up with
water and it comes over the top into your living
room where you're sitting. Or think of a weight thrown
into the front of a canoe just pulling it down. Well,
that's what the water does.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Even still, Titanic can float with four compartments flooded but
five compartments flooded. So now the weight of the water
thirty nine thousand tons rushing in is overcoming the ship's buoyancy.
And so at this point Titanic is doomed, though for
most people there's no evidence of it. This is a
(15:55):
monster ship. People are still serving drinks, foods still being served,
everything's going along like nothing's wrong. Also, there is no PA,
there is no public address system, and there's been no
lifeboat drills. So you have these lifeboats ninety feet up
and they've never worked together at the ever lower them
mostly though people don't know. So how do you find out? Well,
(16:19):
the first class, the steward comes up, so I say, sir,
but you might putting on your life jacket and coming
up top. But we're it's not a big thing, but
we might get in the boats.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
So they do.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
How to the third class steerish famously in the bottom
of the ship find out maybe somebody yells down the hallway.
Most of them don't speak English anyway, and by the
way they're down in this labyrinth of a ship, I
have no idea how to get up there.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So it's all against them right away.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
And famously, in the movie we all see the block
doorways passages and we think, oh, how evil. Actually that
wasn't evil. That's the way it was then. It was
expected a white star to separate the classes. So yes,
doors were block against the third class coming up and
bamming into the first class dressed and probably ten thousand
(17:05):
dollars dinner clothes going to dinner. And so you had
that kind of money with people who literally own just
the clothes on their back down in steerage, coming to
America for a better life.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the remarkable story
of the sinking of the Titanic through what we would
consider now to be tech geeks, the two wireless operators
who were working with the cutting edge technology of its time.
Technology they could have saved the Titanic and in the
end preserved the story of the Titanic and saved lives.
(17:44):
When we come back more of this storytelling again from
the wireless technicians point of view here on our American story,
(18:08):
and we returned to our American stories in our story
on the sinking of the RMS Titanic, who the eyes
of her wireless operators, Harold Bride and Jack Phillips. When
we last left off, the Titanic had struck an iceberg
and was slowly sinking into the Atlantic Ocean. The water
temperature at the time twenty seven degrees, and her Captain E. J. Smith,
(18:32):
was now forced to reckon with how exactly he was
going to save the twenty two hundred and forty people
on board. Here again is William Hazelgrove.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Let's talk about Captain Smith. Well, Captain Smith's like a
duckhead on the hat. He does look like the captain
in the movie you know, Big White Beer, Very August.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
But he's never had a tragedy like this. In fact,
he just gave an interview.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Before the cruise saying, you know what ship sinking sort
of thing in the past.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Technology is to advance for that.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
So he's done, and he goes down to the wireless room,
the silent room.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
And the captain put his head in the cabin and said,
we've struck an iceberg and I'm having an inspection made
to tell what it has done for us. You better
get ready to send out a call for assistance, but
don't send it until I tell you Tom. The captain
went away, and in ten minutes I should estimate he
came back. We could hear a terrible confusion outside. Then
they call for assistance, ordered the cabin, barely putting his
(19:28):
head on the door. We call shurressen. Philps asked the
regulation international call for help.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
That's that.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Then the captain was gone. Philps began to send CQD.
He flashed away at it, and we joked while he
did so.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Now CQD means basically, listen up for what's coming next.
An easy translation is come quick distress. It's not literally
that's what it means, but basically that's what it says.
Now at that moment, you're sending out this message. All right,
So Titanic has four big antennas over the top of
a phone, so it only exists a one photo. And
(20:06):
they start beaming these things out, shooting them out over
the North Atlantic at night, which is the best time.
And what's it say. It says, have struck an Iceberg.
Need a media assistance longitude latitude, over and over and over.
This is what Jack Phillips is just sending. He's just
sending it one out on top of the other. Now,
this early technology has only so many frequencies, so when
(20:30):
somebody's sending something out, you can't hear what's coming back.
It's like early early fans when the early phones out
in rural circuits, people had to literally wait for the
farm down the road to get off so they could
get on, or they could listen in to their call.
And that's what this wireless technology is like. You're sending out,
but you can't hear coming back. So Jack Phillips has
(20:50):
to take them faith mostly that people are hearing him.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And he's just.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Repeatedly sending these signals out to any ship.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So what this mean? What are they helping for?
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Helping a ship will get this turn around and come
full speed toward them because they've only got two hours
and forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Or one hundred and sixty minutes to live.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
You know, these two wireless operators who have mattered very
little up to this point, really now everyone's fate on
board the Titanic depends on them.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Then the captain came back, what are you sending? Yes,
EQD bilts your plan. The humor of the situation appealed
to me, and I cut in with a little remark
that made us all laugh, including the captain. Then sos
I said it's the new call, and it maybe our
last chance to send it. Bilps with the laugh, changed
the signal to the SOS.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Now they're sending both.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And first it comes out, have struck an Iceberg need
immediate assistance. Well, then it changes to have struck an
Iceberg putting off women and children. He puts that in
there because that, in terms of the mariner code is
we're in trouble. We're going down fast, and that is
way beyond has struck an Iceberg need assistance.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Many ships begin to answer our signals, the Frankfurt, the Baltic.
Then the Carpathia answered our signal. We told her our
position and told her that we were sinking by the hood.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
So Harold Cotton, who's aboard the Carpathia, who's the wireless operator,
he actually knows Jack Phillips, and they get the message.
Late almost twelve thirty.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
The operator on the Carpathia went to tell the captain
and in five minutes returned and told us that the
captain of the Carpathia was putting about and heading for us.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Captain Rostrum's the captain. He was known as the electric
spark among this men. He's incredibly energetic, and he's very
well liked by the crew, by the passengers. He's known
as a very fair captain. Now, when he gets the
message from Titanic saying come quick distressed, he too is
(23:00):
in the North Atlantic, and he too is at risk
of sinking if he hits an iceberg. And he makes
his decision very quickly that he's gonna put not only
his life, but it really everybody in his ship. He's
gonna put all their lives on the line to go
help these people on distrust because he feels that's his duty,
(23:20):
and he's gonna take his ship faster than it's ever
been designed to go. He gets up every stoker, the
guys who shovel coal, and gives them all a shot
of brandy and says, go to it. And he diverts
all the steam from the passengers. Okay, so these are
steam driven ships, so the big pistons, right, So the
more steam, the faster they go. Turns the carpasier around,
(23:44):
uncovers his lifeboat, sets up a hospital triized station, puts
out extra lookouts, says a prayer. He's a religious man,
and takes off full speed for Titanic, weaving his way
through icebergs, putting it.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
All on the line.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
He's going so fast that the passengers, who are now
freezing because they don't have any heat anymore, are coming
out and saying, we think Carpathia is on fire, and
he's going towards the shore to run on the ground.
This is what ships would do if they caught fire.
They could make a bee line for the shore and
just try and run the ship aground. Because nobody's told
them what they're really doing, so Rostrum, who's just hell
(24:18):
bent on getting there, immediately becomes their best shot at
being rescued, even though he's fifty miles away.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
While we continue to send every few minutes, Philips will
send me to the captain of little messages. They were
merely telling how the Carpathia was coming her away and
gave her speed. I noticed as I came back from
one trip that they were putting women in children in lifeboats.
I noticed that the list board was increasing, and Phillips
told me that the wireless was growing weaker.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
So at two am, Captain Smith comes into the silent.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Room and he said, men, you have done your full duty.
You can do no more. Bend in your cabin. Now
it's every man for himself. You look out for yourselves.
I release you. That's the way of it at this
kind of time, every man for himself.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Titanics at about a forty five degree angle, water's coming
into the wireless room. The ship's going down. Well, Phillips
and Bride stay there. The dynamos are still going. There's
still some power, even though it's weak. It's sort of
like rural circuits getting fainter, you know, they've turned kind
of almost read the lights, but still enough to try
(25:34):
and get out these signals. So they stay there right
up until two twenty when she's going down.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
Phillips clung on, sending, sending. He clung on for about
ten to fifteen minutes after the captain had released him.
The water was then coming into our cabin. How poor
Phillips worked through it, I don't know. He was a
brave man. I learned to love him that night, and
I suddenly felt for him a great reverence seems, standing
there thinking to his work while everybody else was raging about.
(26:04):
I will never live to forget the work of Phillips
for the last awful fifteen minutes.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Another strange moment is a stoker comes in and these
are one of the guy's shovels. Colt and tries to
steal Jack phillips jacket from.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
Him while he works. Something happened that I hate to
tell about. I was back in my room getting Phillips's
money for him, and as I looked at the door,
I saw a stoker or somebody from below decks leaning
over Phillips from behind. He was too busy to notice
what the man was doing. The man was slipping a
life belt off of Phillips's back. He was a big
man too, as you can see. I'm very small, and
I don't know what it was that I got ahold of.
(26:43):
I remember in a flash the way Phillips had clung on,
how I had to fix the life belt in place
because he was too busy to do it. I know
that man from belowdecks had his own life belt and
should have known where to get it. I suddenly felt
a passionate and not let that man die decent sailor's death.
I wish he might have stretched rope or walked a plank.
I did my duty. I hope I had finished him.
I don't know. We left him on the floor of
(27:04):
the wireless room, and he was not moving.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And you're listening to William Hazelgrove tell the story of
the sinking the RMS Titanic. When we come back the
end of this remarkable story, the sinking of the Titanic.
Here on our American story, and we returned to our
(27:38):
American stories in our final portion of our story on
the sinking of the Titanic. They're the eyes of her
wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride. When we last
left off, the situation on Titanic had become increasingly hopeless,
and despite being ordered to abandon their cabin, the wireless
operators continued to send desperate messages for help. Eventually, both
(28:02):
Harold Bride and Jack Phillips would leave the room in
search for some salvation. Here again is William hazel Grove.
Let's continue with the story.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
From Aft came the tunes of the band as a
ragtime tune. I don't know what Philips ran aft, and
that was the last time I ever saw him alive.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Basically, all order broke down in Titanic. They run out
of the wireless room and one remaining boat called an
ingo Heart, which is collapsible.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Some men were trying to get it off the roof.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I guess there wasn't a sailor in the crowd. They
couldn't do it.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
And the way most people end up in the water,
and Titanic was a final wave came over this ship.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
A big wave carried the boat off. I had hold
of an oarlock and I went off with it.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Harold Bride ends up under a lifeboat overturned in the water, and.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
I remember realizing I was wet through and whatever happened,
I must not breathe, for I was underwater. I knew
I had to fight for it. How I got out
from under the boat, I do not know, but I
felt a breath of air at last. There were men
all around me, hundreds of them. The sea was dotted
with all depending on their life belt.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
When Titanic was sinking, it was strangely beautiful. You had
this huge ship inverting, all lit up against this cold sky,
with all these stars in this water that was just
like glass, and it was an incredible spectacle. And then
of course it broke apart.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
He was a beautiful sight. Then smoke and sparks were
rushing out of her funnel. There must have been an explosion,
but we had heard none. We only saw the big
stream of sparks. The ship was gradually turning her nose,
just like the duck does when it goes down for
a dive. The band was still playing. I guess all
the band went down.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
And the sound was like a thousand freight trains crashing,
because everything inside Titanic broke loose when it inverted and
went crashing down. All these big engines went crashing down
from one end of the ship to the other. And
then she went straight down. And then there was a
strange fog over the water that followed.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
When at last the waves washed over her rudder. There
wasn't the least bit of suction I could feel. She
must have kept going down slowly as she had been.
I felt, after a little while like sinking was very cold.
I saw a boat near me and put all my
strength into an effort to swim to it. It was
hard work. I was all done when a hand reached
out from the boat and pulled me aboard. It was
(30:37):
our same collapsible. The same crowd was on it.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
He climbs on top of it and lays there, his
feet severely frostbitten, and literally if anybody moves the wrong way,
they fall off, and they fall and die. It's an
incredible moment because on this lifeboat there's probably fifteen men,
all laying at different angles.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Literally laying on top of each other. Think of a boat.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
I just think out dinghy a rowboat turned over, and
you're laying on top of it, and you had ten, twelve,
fifteen other people laying on top of it, and you're
literally laying on top of each other because if you move,
you fall into the water.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Somebody sat on my legs there were wedged in between
slats and being wrenched. I didn't have the heart to
tell the man to move. It was a terrible sight
all around men swimming and sinking. I lay where I was,
letting the man wrench my feet out of shape. I
just came near, but nobody gave them a hand. The
bottom up boat already had more men than it could hold,
and it was sinking.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
And on this boat is really this. It's a sort
of microcosm of humanity.
Speaker 5 (31:40):
As we floated around on our capsized boat, and I
kept straining my eyes for a ship's lights, somebody said,
don't the rest of you think we ought to pray.
The man who made the suggestion asked what the religion
of the others was. Each man called out his religion.
One was Catholic and it was Methodist, one was Presbyterian.
Was decided that the most appropriate prayer for all it
(32:00):
was the Lord's Prayer. We spoke it over in chorus,
but the man who first suggested that we pray as
the leader.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
So these twenty boats are within calling distance of each other.
When Harold Bride says, I'm the wireless operator, and I
know Carpasia is coming to rescue us.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
This is really the.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Only flicker of hope they have, because once Titanic sunk,
it was just gone, and it wasn't like there was
a lot of evidence of its passing, and it was
just ungodly quiet, And of course Carpasia came an hour
and ten minutes later.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
I saw some lights off in the distance and knew
that a steamship was coming to our aid, but I
didn't care what happened. I just laid and gasped when
I could, and felt the pain in my feet.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
And these were some of the last people to get
a board car Pathio, and the water was starting to
kick up, and actually Carpathia could not maneuver correctly to
get them to the side where they were. They had
to hoist most people in because they were too cold
and too weak to climb up the rope ladder, and
took Carpathia's hold.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I tried the rope ladder. My feet pained badly, but
I reached the top and felt hands reaching out to me.
The next thing I knew, a woman was leaning over
me in a cabin and I felt her hand waving
back my hair and rubbing my face. I felt somebody
at my feet in the warmth of a jolt of liquor.
Somebody got me under their arms that I was hustled
down below to the hospital. That was early in the day,
(33:39):
I guess. Then I passed out.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
LaRence Beasley wrote when they were on Carpathia, and he
said it was strangely quiet.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Nobody said a word.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Why was this well, because all these women, who were
mostly the survivors, got on board realized then their husbands
were gone and they were widows. There was a girl
with a Browning camera and she took several photos, and
one of them is of a lifeboat that pulled up
to the side of Carpasian, and these people just look
(34:09):
so cold, but mostly how empty this lifeboat is.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, it was so underloaded. And then she took
another one.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
All these women just sitting on the deck, wrapped up
in blankets, all these women who lost their husbands. So
you know, they really I mean for these people who
were essentially shell shock. You know, they didn't have that
term yet, because that term came from World War One,
you know, five years later, when these big shelves would
hit troops and they didn't know what was wrong with them, but.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
They all had PTSD, no doubt.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Harold Bride, he literally collapsed once he got on board Carpasia.
They took him into this sort of makeshift hospital area
and then he woke up, and.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
It told me that the Carpathia's wireless man was getting queer.
And what I help after that? I never left the
wireless room, so I don't know what happened among the passengers.
I just worked w the splitter never died down.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I knew it.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
Sue the hurt and felt like a tie to the
world of friends at home. How could I take news queries?
Sometimes I'd let a newspaper, ask a question and get
a long string of stuff, asking for full particulars about everything.
Whenever I started to take such a message, I thought
that the poor people waiting for their messages to go
hoping for answers to them. I shut off the inquiries
(35:24):
and sent my personal messages, and I feel I did
the right thing. I was still sending my messages when
mister Marconi and the Times reporter arrived asked that I
prepare the statement. There were maybe one hundred left. I
would like to send them all because I know I
could get rest easier if I knew those messages. I'd
gone to the friends waiting for them. But an ambulance
man was waiting with his streatsher, and I guess I've
got to go with him. I hope my legs get
(35:46):
better soon.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
And of course Harold Bride would go on to live
with his family after this and went back to the
service for a little while. But then he left, and
I think he went into business, had a family and
disappeared from history. Here's the Titanic really, Jack Phillips and
Harold Bride and Captain Rostrom. Captain Rostrom was given the
(36:13):
Congression Medal of honor medals from the British medals from groups.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Went on to an illustrious career.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
And these two pretty young guys put their own lives
on the line and stayed at their posts when they
could have left at two a m.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
When Captain Smith woul leave them.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
They stayed all the way to the end and just
kept trying to get somebody there to help them.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
And it's only through their efforts.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, by staying at their posts,
they allowed those seven hundred people to survive. You know,
I mean, you look at Titanic, you say, oh, it's
a great catastrophe. Well, another way to look at this,
it was really sort of an amazing rescue that they
were able to pluck these people from the middle of
the North Atlantic at night and save them. And that
is only because of wireless technology. And you know, there
(37:01):
is a plan. When you think of heroics and you
really it comes down to this. There's a plan to get.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
The wireless room that's still on the floor of the
Atlantic because it's basically falling apart and they want to
get the setup and if there was something embedded in
those last coils, those last electro manitary coils. You know,
it would be that last message. And really, if you
take their messages, really what they're.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Saying is will you come help us? Will you come
help us?
Speaker 4 (37:30):
And this is something that even today is still the
same basic human plea. So really, I would say Captain Rostrom,
Jack Phillis, Harold Bride.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
They were the heroes of Titanic.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And the special thanks to William Hazelgrove. The book he
wrote about this is called one hundred and sixty Minutes
The Race to Save the RMS Titanic. Pick it up
at your local bookstore or on Amazon or the usual
online suspects. The story of the RMS Titanic as told
(38:03):
with the lives of Harold Bride and Jack Phillips. Here
on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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