Motion Picture Actress Tells of Titanic Wreck

Dorothy Winifred Gibson

First-class passenger

View Bio

Miss Dorothy Gibson, Leading Woman of Eclair American Company, and Her Mother, Are Among the Survivors – Graphic Narrative of Peril and Hardship

Among the survivors of the ill-fated Titanic who reached port on the rescue ship Carpathia were Miss Dorothy Gibson, leading woman of the American forces of the Eclair Motion Pictures Company, and her mother, Mrs. Pauline C. Gibson. Miss Gibson tells a stirring tale of her experiences on board the Titanic as well as in the open lifeboat in which the survivors drifted before being rescued by the Carpathia. This is Miss Gibson's narrative:

"On the night of the disaster there had been a great deal of merriment on board, the prospect of reaching the American shore having the effect of making everyone happy. After a stroll about the chip in company with my mother, I was invited by several friends to take part in a game of bridge, and I joined them after my mother had retired to her room on Deck E. The salon in which I joined my friends was on Deck A, and we played until 10 p.m. We remained in the salon. About a half an hour later we felt a slight jar. No one in the party thought anything of it and we continued to laugh and converse for fully fifteen minutes. Then it was that I noticed considerable nervousness on the part of the stewards and such of the officers as came within range of my vision, but nothing was said by them to give the passengers an inkling of what had happened.

Ship Was Listing

"Good nights having been said, I stepped out upon deck with the intention of taking a short stroll before retiring, when I noticed that the great ship was leaning heavily on one side. I am not enough of a sailor to know whether it was port or starboard, but the fact remains she was lopsided. On my way below to Deck E I encountered a steward and asked him if there was anything wrong. He tried to push me aside, but I stood resolutely and then he snapped out 'Nothing wrong!' and disappeared to the deck above.

"It was at this stage of the proceedings that I became somewhat uneasy and made haste to arouse my mother. There was a little or no excitement on board the ship, and in many of the salons that I passed I saw the passengers engaged in card playing and other forms of divertissement. The night was as clear as crystal. The moon was shining brilliantly and the stars twinkled without being obscured by a single cloud. Even at a glance I could see icebergs around us and the water seemed filled with the shattered remains of others.

"When my mother and myself started to go to the side of the ship that was highest out of the water, we were obliged to climb a veritable hill. By this time the officers had aroused the passengers and they were besieging the bulwarks and asking more questions than any one man could answer in a week. In the meantime the big steamship kept sagging down and when I asked one of the officers what significance the water on one of the stairways carried he replied with a smile that there was no cause for alarm. 'One of the compartments has been punctured,' he said with a faint smile, 'but the ship is sturdy enough to weather a little thing like that.'

Lifeboats are Lowered

A few minutes later the order came to lower the lifeboats and then for the first time I realized we were in great peril. I clung to my mother and pressed my way down toward the railing. We were badly jostled and pushed about, but that mattered not, so long as I found that I was being pushed nearer the lifeboats that were being lowered. My mother remained wonderfully calm throughout the ordeal and when the crew prepared to lower the first lifeboat we were among the first to enter. The designer of the steamship, who was aboard in company with Mr. Ismay of the White Star Line, ran to a fro with a face of greenish paleness and declined to answer any of the questions hurled at him from the panic-stricken passengers crowding the rail.

"When our boat pulled away there were 26 persons aboard and four of those were men. No sooner had we started for the open sea than we discovered to our dismay that the lifeboat was without a plug. This was remedied by volunteer contributions from the lingerie of the women and garments of the men. Then the third officer, who was in charge of the boat, announced that he was without lights or compass. He asked for matches, and happily I was able to supply him. During the bridge game I had picked up from the table a box of French matches which one of the gentlemen had been using, and after toying with it at intervals placed it in my belt intending to preserve it as a souvenir of the tip. To what use the third officer expected putting these matches I do not know, because the morning was clear and we were able to see many miles in all directions.

Cries of Anguish

"Suddenly there was a wild coming together of voices from the direction of the ship and we noticed an unusual commotion among the people huddled about the railing. Then the awful thing happened, the thing that will remain in my memory until the day I die.

"The Titanic seemed to lurch slightly more to the side and then the fore. A minute, or probably two minutes, later she sank her nose into the ocean, swayed for a few moments and disappeared, leaving nothing behind her on the face of the sea but a swirl of water, bobbing heads and lifeboats that were threatened by the suction of the waters. After the vessel had disappeared, the officer in command of our boat wanted to return, saying that there was room for several more passengers and pointing out the possibility of being able to rescue some of those who might be swimming. But immediately behind us was another lifeboat carrying forty people and as no one could be seen in the water some fo the passengers in the other boat were transferred to ours.

"It was a sense of desolation never to be forgotten. To make matters worse the weather became bitterly cold, and many of the women in the boat were clad in the lightest of evening gowns and some more scantily. The men behaved like heroes, except one chap, who calmly stretched himself in the forepart of the lifeboat and promptly fell asleep regardless of what might happen. There was a young Englishman who managed to wear his monocle throughout the excitement and proved himself a much better man than he looked. He divested himself of what clothing he could spare the shelter of the women and cheered us with his drawling dialect and his words of hope. 1

Carpathia is Sighted

"It was shortly after 5 o'clock when the frozen and benumbed sufferers in our boat were aroused into activity by the announcement that a string of black smoke on the horizon told the approach of a steamship. Up to this time we had been wondering whether the operator of the wireless on the Titanic had been able to send out his signal of distress. This thought bothers us greatly. To drift about aimlessly in the open sea with the assurance that the wireless had communicated with a vessel, no matter how far distant, would be a consolation, but to drift in the hope that we might encounter a vessel accidentally was different.

"Warming ourselves as best we could in the cramped quarters of a lifeboat, we watched that streak of black smoke grow larger and larger, and then we were able to discern the hull of a steamship heading in our direction. But, thank God, the volume of smoke grew and one of the men, who seemed to know the way of the sea, remarked that the vessel was crowding on all steam. This, of course, cheered us, because we knew that crowding on all steam meant haste.

"It seemed ages to me, but as a matter of fact it was shortly after 6 o'clock when we found ourselves alongside the Carpathia, with it rails swarming with kindly faces, and men and women crowding about in the anxiety to render help. Captain Rostron of the Carpathia had caused everything to be placed in readiness, and as the accommodations were limited the passengers, opened their staterooms and did everything in their power to allay our suffering. I was a guest in the room of Mr. and Mrs. James Russell Lowell, and my mother was looked after by kind people whose names I neglected to learn.

Lack of Discipline

"Once aboard the Carpathia it became evident to me that there had been a deplorable lack of discipline on board the Titanic. Comparison of the two crews brought this truth home to me. In the exciting moments before the sinking of the Titanic, there appeared no concerted action among the officers and crew. Everything was confusion, and it was the men among the passengers who enforced the orders of Captain Smith that the women and children be the first to enter the lifeboats. As a matter of fact, Captain Smith and Mr. Ismay dined from 6 o'clock until 10, and during that time we have learned that four steamships had warned the Titanic of the presence of icebergs and large masses of floating ice in our course.

"Many of the collapsible lifeboats collapsed in reality when the passengers attempted to enter them, and the manner in which the life buoys were distributed was slipshod in the extreme. I am thankful that my mother and myself as well as the others were rescued, and that we are back in New York, but it is my sincere wish that the officials of the White Star Line be made to answer for the negligence which caused this disaster and the pain and sorrow they have brought upon the survivors. The 'unsinkable' Titanic might still be the monarch of the sea had ordinary precaution been used in charting her course and providing a sufficient number of lifeboats."