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Show 934 BURIED BENEATH US! i Go Down With Steamship Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River. ' i Rimouski, Que., May 30. Nine hundred hun-dred and thirty-four persons lost their lives when the great Canadian Pacific Lwin screw liner Empress of Ireland was rammed amidships in a thick fog off Father Point In the St. Lawrence and sunk by the Norwegian collier Storstad. 'our hundred and three survivors were picked up from floating wreckage wreck-age and two lifeboats. And only 12 of the saved are women. wom-en. Gathered piecemeal from survivors the horror of this wreck grows with the telling. The doomed ones had little time rven to pray. They were engulfed by the onrushing waters that swallowed the big ship inside of 19 minutes from the time she was struck. The wireless operators on the Empress, Em-press, sticking to their posts to the last, had time only to send a few "S. O. S." calls for help when the rising waters silence their instruments. That silence told the rescuers miles away more potently than a bugle that doom had overtaken the ship. Only six hours before this fateful collision the passengers sang as a good-night hymn "God Be With You Till We Meet Again," played by the Salvation army band on board. The members of that band and most of the 1G5 Salvationists were among the lost. , Survivors Tell of Fog. It was foggy, according to survivors, when the Empress of Ireland, a steel-hulled, steel-hulled, steel-bulkheaded ship of more than 8,000 tons, left Montreal at 4:30 in the afternoon in command of H. G. Kendall of the Royal Naval reserve, one of the most skilled of transatlantic transatlan-tic navigators. Forest fires also obscured the atmosphere atmos-phere and the big ship in charge of a pilot, proceeded slowly on her way to sea. At midnight the pilot aid left near Father Point, shouting a merry "Bon Voyage" as his went down their ladder to his waiting boat. The darkness at this time was intense in-tense and the ship under the slowest speed possible with steerageway held her course. Her decks were deserted. The passengers had all sought their berths with no thought of impending death. Out of the darkness, on the port side, soon after 2:30 In the morning there loomed the little Norwegian collier, col-lier, not half the size of the Empress, but fated to be her destroyer. Not until the collier was almost abeam of the big liner was the danger known on either ship. The fog had blotted out the lights as well as the port and starboard lights of boti ships. Quick orders trumpeted on both vessels ves-sels were heard. But they came all too late. Strike Ship Amldshlp. The steel-pointed prow of the Stor-stad Stor-stad struck the liner amidships and then forged aft, ripping and tearing its way through the Empress of Ireland. Ire-land. i Clear to t"he stern of the Empress of Ireland was this great steel shaving cut from her side, from the top of the hull far below the water line. Into that rent the water poured with force of a Niagara. I The bow of the Storstad smashed It's way through berths on that side of the ship, killing passengers sleeping In their berths and grinding bodies to pieces. Reaching the stern of the big liner, the Storstad staggered off in the darkness, dark-ness, her bow crumpled by the impact. Her commander was ready a few minutes min-utes later, when he found his ship would float, to aid the crippled and sinking Empress, but he was too late to save the majority of those on board. Carried to Bottom. The Empress of Ireland recoiled almost al-most on her starboard beam endB from the blow of the collier and passengers were flung from their berths against the walls of their staterooms. Many were stunned and before they had time to recover were carried to the bottom with the ship. The vast torrents pouring into the great gash on the port side, aft, filled the corridors and flooded every stateroom state-room abaft the midship section inside of four minutes. There was never a chance for the helpless ones in the after cabins and stateroom of the liner. With her port side laid open' for half Its length from the midship section to the stern, a seive had more chance to float than the Empress ' of Ireland, and the trapped passengers in that after section sec-tion were doomed from the moment the Storstad struck. Reeling from the blow the ship be- gan to settle almost immediately as the water rushed into the big rent. From the forward cabin, however, men and women in night attire stumbled stum-bled along the corridors and up the companion way to the promenade deck the deck below, the one on which the boats rested. Swarm to Deck. Up they swarmed on deck in their night clothing to find the ship heeling away to port and the deck slanting at a degree that made it almost impossible impos-sible to stand even clinging to railings. rail-ings. Men and women, shrieking, praying, crying for aid that was fated to arrive too late, fell over one another in that last struggle for life on board the doomed Empress of Ireland. Frenzied mothers leaped overboard with their babies in their arms. Others Oth-ers knelt on deck and tried to pray in the few moments left to them. Some were flung overboard by the heeling of the sinking ship and some broke their legs or arms in trying to reach the lifeboats. Above the din of the struggle on the great promenade deck could be heard Captain Kendall "shouting commands for the launching of the lifeboats. Several Sev-eral were launched in tie 19 minutes that the ship floated. There was no time to observe the rule "Women first" in this disaster, for those nearest the boats scrambled to places in them. 1 But even as they were being launched, while the wireless still was calling "S. O. S." there came a terrific explosion that almost rent the ship in twain. Ship's Boilers Explode. It was the explosion of the boilers struck by the cold water. A geyser of water shot upward from the midship section, mingled with fragments of wreckage, that showered down upon the passengers still clinging to the rails forward and upon those struggling strug-gling in the water. The explosion destroyed the last hope of the ship's floating until succor could arrive, for the shock had smashed the forward steel bulkhead walls that had up to then shut out the torrents invading the after part. The water rushed forward and the Empress of Ireland went swiftly to her doom, carrying down with her hundreds hun-dreds of passengers who stood on her slanting deck, their arms stretched upward up-ward and their last cries choked in the engulfing waters. Intense darkness covered the waters when the Empress of Ireland made that final pkmge.but the fog lifted a few minutes later and then came the first faint streaks of dawn. It lighted waters strewed with wreckage and struggling passengers, who strove to keep afloat. The crippled Storstad, which had wrought this tragedy of the waters, had lifeboats out picking up as many survivors as possible. The gray dawn revealed the government govern-ment steamers Lady Evelyn and Eureka near the scene of the disaster and hastening to aid. Some of those in the water tride to swim to the Eureka as she neared the point where the Empress had gone down. One woman, wearing only an undervest, swam to the Lady Evelyn, and was helped on board, but died ol exhaustion soon afterwards. The Work of Rescue. The work of rescue still was going on when the sun arose in a cloudless sky. Men and women were clinging to spars and bits of broken planks. Many of the survivors were injured. Som6 had broken legs, others fractured arms, and still others had been injured internally in that last mad rush to get away from the sinking liner. Women clinging with one hand to little ones, while with the other they tried to keep clutch on pieces of wreckage, were picked up by the lifeboats life-boats and carried on board the rescuing res-cuing vessels. Captain Kendall, dazed and unable to give any coherent account of the loss of his ship, was found clinging to a broken spar. The Empress of Ireland was a twin screw steamer of 8,208 tons burden. She was 458 feet long and equipped with modern apparatus not only for wireless work but for submarine signalling. sig-nalling. The liner was built in 1906 and three years later set a record on a run from Quebec to Liverpool. The steamer was one of the most popular vessels in the service of the Canadian Pacific railway and always carried a large number of passengers. She has plied for several years between be-tween St. John and Quebec and Liver-pool. |