Philip 'Frank' Aks' Good Morning America Interview

Philip 'Frank' Aks

Third-class passenger

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According to all reports and my mother's conversation with me over the many years, mother was 18 years old with a 10-month baby on the Titanic. Originally, she was to come here on the Olympic. At the last moment, her parents decided that they would pay the difference for her to come over on the Titanic because it was non-sinkable.

That fateful night, mother felt the crash because she was coming up steerage to this country, and as she made her way up to the rail of the second class, and while there went rumors flying that the Titanic would sink, she tried to go back down because she had been asleep. It was 20 minutes to 12 o'clock, 11:40. She couldn't get back down – for people coming up from steerage would carry the bulk of the passenger list.

And this chap went berserk and he snatched me out of my mother's arms and proceeded to throw me over the side of the ship. Not knowing that I was alive, my mother was in a state of shock. I landed in the lap of a Mrs. Nye, who later became Mrs. Darby.

It was three days later aboard the Carpathia entering New York harbor that mother knew that I was alive because Mrs. Nye was walking around with me in her arms and I reached out for my mother. She had been nursing me.