Thomas Whiteley's New York Tribune Account

Thomas Arthur Whiteley

Saloon Steward

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Thomas Whitely, an intelligent young fellow of twenty-one, with light hair and blue eyes, who was a waiter in the first saloon, taken to St. Vincent's Hospital with a fractured right leg and numerous bruises, told the following story of the disaster:

"I had turned in. My quarters were on the E deck, which is five decks down. I was awakened about 11:30 p. m. I did not feel any shock, but a shipmate of mine took me by the shoulder and said to get out. I said: 'Is it 5:30 o'clock already?' He said: 'No; we've hit a berg.'

"I looked out of the port, the sea was like glass and I did not believe him. I looked on deck and found it covered with ice. Stokehole No. 11 began to fill with water at once. All the watertight doors were closed. They had to be opened again to let me go down and draw the fires to prevent an explosion. One fellow, I don't know who it was, went down with about twenty others and drew all the fires.

"The order came: 'All hands above decks with lifebelts!' The deck was crowded. The second officer was getting boat No. 1 ready. He asked me to give him a hand. I helped fill the boats. They were crowded with women and children. There were two collapsible boats on each side in addition to the regular lifeboats. At the order of the second officer we got the collapsible boat on the port side ready and No. 1 on the starboard followed. The collapsible boat No. 2 on the starboard jammed. I got my leg caught in one of the ropes. The second officer was hacking at the rope with a knife. I was being dragged around the deck by that rope, when I looked up and saw the boat filled with people turning end up on the davits. The boat overturned like that." He waved his hand to show just how it happened.

"In some way I got overboard myself and found something to hold on to – an oak dresser about the size of this hospital bed. I wasn't more than sixty feet from the Titanic when she went down. I was aft and could see her big stern rise up in air as she went bow first. I saw all the machinery drop out of her.

"I was in the water about half an hour and could hear the cries of thousands of people, it seemed. Then I drifted near a boat wrong side up. About thirty men were clinging to it. They refused to let me get on. Some one tried to hit me with an oar, but I scrambled on to her. At 8:40 o'clock in the morning we were taken aboard the Carpathia.

"There was a bit of panic when it first happened. The officers had to use their revolvers. The chief officer shot one man – I didn't see this, but three others did – and then he shot himself. But everybody behaved splendidly, especially the firemen.

"It was a black berg we struck, and though the night was clear it was impossible to see one of that color. I saw another like it when drifting on the overturned lifeboat.

"The berg the Titanic hit was on the starboard bow, and they were doing twenty-five knots, trying to break the record to New York.

"Phillips, the first Marconi operator, struck to his post till the last. He was on the overturned lifeboat with me and was dead when they took him aboard the Carpathia. They trid to revive him with brandy and all that, but it was too late. There were four burials at sea on the Carpathia – one sailor, two firemen and Phillips."