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1912 - April 15 - Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic

At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the British ocean liner Titanic sinks into the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Canada. The massive ship, which carried 2,200 passengers and crew, had struck an iceberg two and half hours before.

The Titanic Sank With 1,350 Aboard
Most of the Carpathis's Rescued Passengers are Women and Children Who Went First.
OTHERS MUST BE DEAD
Col. John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, G.D. Widener, Isadore Straus, William F. Stead and Major Archibald Butts, Aide to President are Among the Famous Men Who are Reported Among the Missing. The Story of the Disaster.

The appalling magnitude of the wreck of the giant liner Titanic has been but little mitigated by the fragmentary information which has filtered in today. The rescuing steamer Carpathia has 868 survivors aboard, according to the latest news received at the offices of the White Star line. But except for this, favorable details are insignificant compared with the supreme fact that the Titanic is at the bottom of the Atlantic and that the shattered wreck took with her about 1350 victims to their death.

The first reports giving the total of survivors at 675 were varied by more favorable news early today, first from Captain Rostron of the Carpathia who gave the number at about 800 and later by the positive announcement of the White Star line that there are 858 survivors aboard the Carpathia. But with these revised figures there remain 1,341 persons, passengers and crew, of the Titanic who are today unaccounted for.

Hope clung desperately this morning to the belief that the steamers Virginian and Parisian of the Allan line may have picked up survivors in addition to those on board the Carpathia but this was practically despelled when the Sabel Island wireless station reported that the Parisian had no survivors on board.

The Virginian and the Parisian therefore appear to hold out no hope of further reducing the extent of the calamity. The Carpathia, having on board the only survivors accounted for is coming in slowly to New York. All hope for details of the tragedy and its effects are centered on this ship. She will be in wireless communication with Sable Island tonight, with Nantucket on Thursday and she will reach New York some time Thursday night.

London, New York and Paris are grief stricken and overwhelmed by the news of the disaster. Tearful crowds of relatives and friends of passengers on board the Titanic thronged the steamship offices in all three cities, waiting hours after hour for news that more often that not when it comes means bereavement and sorrow. People in Paris and London went to bed last night in the belief that all the passengers on board the Titanic had been saved. This morning brought them the appalling truth.

Of the survivors on board the Carpathia by far the largest number are women and children. Many men of great prominence on two continents are among the missing. No word has been received of Col. John Jacob Astor; his wife, however has been saved. Alfred G. Vanderbilt was not aboard as first reported. He is in London. Isador Strauss, the New York millionaire merchant and philanthropist who was on board has not been reported among the survivors...

New York, April 16. - Although rated as one of the most able commanders, the career of Captain Smith of the Titanic recently was marred with ill-luck. He commanded the Titanic's sister ship the Olympic when that vessel collided with the British cruiser Black Hawk. Exonerated of all blame for this occurence, he was placed in charge of the Titanic only to graze disaster when his new charged fouled the steamship New York after leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage which has ended so disastrously. He had been in the lines employ for thirty years.

New York, April 16. - The official announcement of the White Star line of positive news that there are 868 survivors of the Titanic on board the [Carpathia] that the names of only 315 of those have been sent in by wireless shows that there are 553 persons rescued from the Titanic whose names have not been received here.

Montreal, April 16. - The Allan line issued the following statement: "A Marconi from Captain Gambell, of the Virginian, says he arrived on the scene too late to be of service and is proceeding to Liverpool."

The Weather signal station at the gulf of the St. Lawrence reported heavy fogs off Nova Scotia. Violent thunder storms broke last night, traveling eastward. Such conditions left small hope for the rescue of any survivors that might be still adrift on rafts or boats.

Montreal, April 16. - A wireless received here says that Charles M. Hayes, President of the Grand Trunk Railway is among the survivors aboard the Carpathia. The wife and daughter already had been reported saved...

Washington, D.C., April 16. - Senator Guggenheim in telephone consultations with the White Star line office in New York, was unable to learn the fate of his brother, Benjamin Guggenheim, reported one of the wealthiest men in the world. So far as is known his wife did not accompany him.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 16 - The Allen liner Parisian reports by wireless via Sable Island that she has no Titanic passengers aboard.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 16. - The Parisian steamed through a heavy field of ice looking for passengers afrom the ill-fated ship. No life rafts or bodies were sighted among the floating wreckage, which covered a large area.

The Parisian reports say that the weather was cold and that even if persons had been on the wreckage, the would in all probability have perished from exposure before they could have been picked up. The Parisian is expected to reach here tomorrow morning.

St. John, N.F., April 16. - All hope that any of the passengers or members of the crew of the Titanic, other than those on the Carpathia, was alive, was abandoned this afternoon. All of the steamers which have been cruising in the vicinity of the disaster have continued on their voyages.

St. Johns, N.F., Apr. 16. - Messages from Cape Race seem to indicate that a very large majority of the men aboard the Titanic went down with the ship. Messages from the Carpathia picked up by the Cape Race wireless station state that all of the boats launched by the crew of the Titanic have been accounted for; the boats were filled largely by women and children but had sufficient members of the Titanic's crew to guide them.

The belief is general here this forenoon that all who survived the wreck are on the Carpathia...

London, April 16. - The apparent fact that the Titanic's boats were not sufficient to accommodate the ship's personnel is causing much comment here. The law does not provide the number of boats the largest ships shall carry. It was passed before the present great liners were designed.

New York, April 16. - J. B. Ismay, vice-president of the company owning the Titanic, is reported among the survivors on the Carpathia.

The Salem Ordered Out.
Washington, D.C., April 16. - The President has also ordered the speedy Scout Cruiser Salem to proceed to sea at once from Hampton Roads, Va., and meet the Carpathia. The Salem is equipped with the latest wireless apparatus in the navy, capable of sending a distance of 1000 miles. By order of the President her commander will obtain a complete list of the Titanic's survivors and send the names by wireless to the government here.

Warned of Icebergs.
Harvre, France, April 16. - The Presse Nouvelle quotes the captain of the French liner La Touraine as saying that he sent a wireless despatch reporting the presence of icebergs to the captain of the Titanic, who acknowledged the message with thanks.

Women and Babies.
Aurora, Ills., April 16. - Mrs. Oscar W. Johnson of St. Charles, Ills., with two little girls, returning from a winter spent in Sweden, were passengers on the Titanic. The women and her babies are believed to have perished.

Echo of the Iroquis.
Chicago, April 16. - Mrs. Ida S. Hippach, wife of L. A. Hippach, a wealthy glass dealer and her daughter, Jean, aged eighteen are among the Titanic's survivors picked up by the Carpathia. Mr. and Mrs. Hippach lost two sons in the Iorquis the after fire in Chicago...

Had Premonition
Racine, Wis., April 16. - "I dread this trip to Denmark. I have a feeling I will never return alive." With these words to her brother Mrs. Peter C. Hanson of this city even went so far as to tell the kind of funeral she wanted and the kind of flowers. She went to New York and sailed for Denmark in February with her husband. They were returning on the Titanic. Their names do not appear with the survivors...

Wreckage But no People
Halifax, N.S., April 16. - The Sable Island cable ship Minima reported this afternoon through wireless here that she sighted a great mass of wreckage but no boats or rafts from the Titanic. This for the time being disposes of the hope that the Minima which was anchored off Cape Race when the Titanic first called for help might have picked up some of the Titanic passengers.

Lawrence Daily Journal
Lawrence, Kansas
April 16, 1912

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