Women Tried to Leap from Lifeboats To Return to Doomed Men in Titanic

Joseph Abraham Hyman

Third-class passenger

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One of the clearest stories is told by Abraham Hyman, a master mechanic of Manchester, England, who made his first trip to the United States. He said:

"It was exactly 11:45 when the Titanic struck. I had been in my berth perhaps half an hour, and was just getting to sleep, when I was roused by the jolt as the ship ran into the berg. I was not excited. There was not very much excitement on board. I was so indifferent about it that I remained in my berth for all of twenty minutes. I could hear the people talking and the commands of the officers. Dressing leisurely, I went on deck and found passengers gathered there with blankets, bags, wraps and other things, but nobody seemed very much alarmed. The band was playing to reassure [missing text] passengers, I suppose.

"Boats were being filled and lowered over the sides. Officers were inviting men as well as the women and children to get into the boats. I hesitated, for I did not believe the boat was in danger. I finally walked to the fourth boat and an officer pushed me into it. Even then I did not realize we were in peril. The instructions to the boats' crews were to row rapidly and get as far from the ship as possible. The crews rowed with all their strength.

"As we pulled away I could see the hole in the side of the Titanic and we could hear the water rushing in with a roaring noise. Then I realized what we had escaped. It was pathetic – heart-rending. Women were begging to have their husbands sent to them and begging to have the boat put back to take them off. Our boat could have held a dozen more persons, but the crew pulled away for life. I looked around on the ice field. It would have been a grand sight on another occasion, but even in the terrible gravity of the situation I had a fleeting impression that it was all beautiful. The stars were shining brightly when we put off.

"I should judge we were half a mile off," he continued, "when we saw the big ship sink by the bow until she was plunged up to about where her funnels were. Then she seemed to right. We heard a long continued shout from the passengers. Then came an explosion, quickly followed by two others, I think, and we saw the ship disappear. It was an awful sight. The scene in our boat was distressing. Women stood up and shrieked in agony as they saw their relatives had gone down with the ship. They tried to throw themselves into the water and fought with men who restrained them. It was fearful. The other boats were clustered near by and the same agonizing scenes were apparently being enacted in them all as in our boat. I pray I [missing text] through such another [missing text]

"It was exactly 2:20 [missing text] sank. We were [missing text] dawn, when the Carpathia [missing text] rescued us. We [missing text] have survived [missing text] hours for the [missing text] lashing the [missing text] was frigid [missing text] were in a [missing text] their [missing text] and [missing text].

Curator's note: The rest of the article is unreadable as the page in the scan used for this transcription is partially missing.