Williams Who Will Play Siverd for Tennis Title Was on Titanic

Richard Norris Williams

First-class passenger

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Pittsburgh Champion to Defend Laurels Against Philadelphian Who Survived Steamship Disaster — Graphic Account of Disaster in Which His Father Perished

Richard Norris Williams, Jr., champion indoor tennis player of France, who plays Percy D. Siverd, of Pittsburgh, for the championship of Pennsylvania tomorrow, is a survivor of the Titanic.

With his father he was returning to America after a long visit in Europe. His fatehr was swept away from him in the maddened crowd that thronged the Titanic's decks after the great boat struck and he never saw him again. Williams leaped into the water and with a heavy fur coat and heavy shoes on swam 50 feet to a [life] raft. Here he found about 30 other men clinging to the raft, all of them half submerged. When the Carpathia's boats reached them in the morning there were but nine or 10 to be rescued. The rest were dead.

"I stood with my father on the deck of the boat," said Williams, "and watched the boats leaving. The great ship began to settle. There was a crash and the deck listed. It was then that my father disappeared from my side. When he was gone I had nothing more to wait for. I was in the boat deck only about 15 feet above the water. I leaped and made my way to the raft. I think that few drowned that night, but it was 34 degrees above zero and the victims of that terrible disaster froze to death, swimming about in the water or clinging to life rafts or boats."

Williams' exploits in France in the past year have gained him wide fame in the tennis world. He defeated many of Europe's crack players, among them, Laurentz, the famous French player.