Heroism Below Decks

An admirable story, illustrating the wonderful discipline and heroism of the engineers, firemen, and stokers on the Titanic after she struck, to which Lord Charles Beresford has drawn attention, was that told me by Thomas Threfall, a leading stoker. It was a simple and brief narrative, but one of which every Englishman will be justly proud.

"I was off duty at the time of the collision, and in my bunk, when I got on deck about midnight. Second Engineer Escritt told me to get all the men I could and go below. I went below to my section, No. 4, and took on with the stoking. I had ten firemen and four trimmers under me, and we had to look after five double boilers with thirty fires, that is, fifteen fires in each stokehold. I don't mind telling you that it did not feel nice going down below, because we knew that a bad accident had happened, but every man jack of my gang went on with his work and never murmured. The engineers were running around a lot, and this made things look black, but my men just went on with the stoking until about 1:20 a.m. Then 'We can't do any more now, Tommy' – that's me. 'You and your mates had better get up.' We (that's me and my men) left off and started up on deck. When we left there wasn't a drop of water in our section, but I believe that some of the others were flooded.

"I don't know what became of the other engineers, firemen, and stokers, but I should say that, save those in my section, most of them went on working the engines and the fires until it was too late, and died at their posts. There was not an engineer to be seen when I got on deck; they were all below. I got away when I was told in boat No. 14, which was the last but one to leave the port side. The Titanic's head was then well under water, and it must have been after two o'clock a.m., for shortly afterwards she took a list to port and went down. It was an awful sight for us in the boat, for we knew that a good number of our comrades were on her."

We would like to thank Wolfric Rogers for contributing this article. If you would like to contribute a primary source to Titanic Archive, please contact us.