(Testimony taken separately before Senator Smith on behalf of the subcommittee.)
(Mr. Hemming was sworn by the chairman.)
10368. Where do you live?
- 51 Kingsley Road, Southampton.
10369. What is your age?
- Forty-three.
10370. What is your occupation?
- Seaman.
10371 Have you ever had a rate as a seaman? Have you a rate as A.B.?
- Yes, sir.
10372. How long have you followed the water?
- Since I was 15 years old.
10373. Have you sailed the North Atlantic before?
- Yes, sir.
10374. How often?
- I have been with the White Star Line for five years.
10375. On what boats on that line have you served?
- On the Teutonic, the Adriatic, the Olympic, and the Titanic.
10376. In what capacity?
- At a lamp trimmer, boatswain's mate, and boatswain.
10377. What was your position on the Titanic?
- Lamp trimmer.
10378. What were your duties?
- To mix the paint, and all that kind of thing for the ship, and to look after all the decks, trim all the lamps, and get them in proper order. That is all, I think. To put the lights in at nighttime and take them off at daybreak.
10379. Where were you the night of this accident?
- I was in my bunk.
10380. Were you asleep?
- Yes, sir.
10381. Were you awakened by anybody?
- I was awakened by the impact, sir.
10382. What did you do when you were awakened?
- I went out and put my head through the porthole to see what we hit. I made the remark to the storekeeper [possibly J. Foley]. "It must have been ice." I said, "I do not see anything."
10383. What made you think it was ice?
- Because I could not see anything.
10384. You mean you looked to see if you saw the lights of another boat, and, not being able to see any such thing, you thought it was ice?
- Yes, sir.
10385. Had you ever seen ice in that part of the ocean before?
- No, sir.
10386. Had you ever been through that part before, on your route?
- Yes, sir.
10387. What did you do then?
- I went up under the forecastle head to see where the hissing noise came from.
10388. What did you find?
- Nothing.
10389. Go right along and tell what you did.
- I did not see anything. I opened the forepeak storeroom; me and the storekeeper went down as far as the top of the tank and found everything dry.
I came up to ascertain where the hissing noise was still coming from. I found it was the air escaping out of the exhaust of the tank.
At that time the chief officer, Mr. Wilde, put his head around the hawse pipe and says: "What is that, Hemming?" I said: "The air is escaping from the forepeak tank. She is making water in the forepeak tank, but the storeroom is quite dry." He said, "All right," and went away.
10390. What did you do then?
- I went back and turned in.
10391. Do you mean that you went back to your bunk and went to sleep?
- Me and the storekeeper went back and turned into our bunks.
10392. How long did you stay in your bunks?
- We went back in our bunks a few minutes. Then the joiner [possibly J. Hutchinson] came in and he said: "If I were you, I would turn out, you fellows. She is making water, one-two-three, and the racket court is getting filled up."
Just as he went, the boatswain came, and he says, "Turn out, you fellows," he says; "you haven't half an hour to live." He said: "That is from Mr. Andrews." He said: "Keep it to yourselves, and let no one know."
10393. Mr. Andrews was of the firm of Harland & Wolff, the builders of the ship?
- Yes.
10394. How long was that after the ship struck this ice?
- It would be about a quarter of an hour, sir, from the time the ship struck.
10395. What did you do then?
- I went on deck to help to get the boats out.
10396. On which side of the deck?
- On the port side.
10397. What boat did you go to? To which station did you go?
- My station was boat No. 16 on the boat list.
10398. To what boat did you go?
- I went and helped turn out; started with the foremost boat, and then worked aft.
10399. Did you assist in turning out the boats?
- Yes, sir.
10400. What boat did you get to first?
- I am not sure whether it was No. 4 or No. 6.
10401. On the same side, the port side?
- Yes, sir.
10402. Was it No. 4 or No. 6 that you went to first? Was it one or the other, I mean?
- It was one or the other.
10403. Did you help to turn out both boats?
- I went on the boat deck. They were turning the boats out. As I went to the deck, I went there where were the least men, and helped to turn out the boats.
Then I went to the boats on the port side, to do the same, until Mr. Lightoller called me and said, "Come with me;" and he said, "Get another good man." I says, "Foley is here somewhere." He says, "I have no time to stop for Foley." So he called a man himself, and he said, "Follow me."
10404. A passenger?
- No, sir; a seaman. He said: "Follow me." So we followed him, and he said: "Stand by to lower this boat." It was No. 4 boat."
We lowered the boat in line with the A deck, when I had an order come from the captain to see that the boats were properly provided with lights.
10405. What did you do when you got that order?
- I called Mr. Lightoller and told him that I would have to leave the boat's fall; so he put another man in my place.
10406. What other man did he put in your place, if you know?
- I do not know who it was, sir. I went away into the lamp room lighting the lamps, and I brought them up on deck.
10407. How long were you gone?
- About five minutes.
10408. Proceed.
- Then I lit the lamps and brought them up, four at a time, two in each hand.
The boats that were already lowered, I put them on the deck, and asked them to pass them down to the end of the boat fall. As to the boats that were not lowered, I gave them into the boats myself.
10409. Did you give one to each boat?
- What was not lowered at that time; yes, sir.
10410. How many had been lowered before you got there with the lamps?
- Some few, sir. I could not say how many.
10411. Three or four?
- Yes; quite three or four.
10412. More than that?
- I could only see one side when I first came up.
10413. That was the port side?
- They were on the port side, sir.
10414. But several boats had gone?
- Yes, sir.
10415. Without lights?
- They were lowered. I do not know whether they got lights or not.
10416. But they were lowered without lights?
- Yes, sir.
10417. What did you do with these lights or lamps that you had? Did you put them in the other boats?
- For the boats that were not lowered, I gave them to somebody in the boats.
10418. How many boats did you put them into yourself on the port side?
- I could not say, sir. Two or three.
10419. What did you do, then, after that?
- After I had finished with the lamps, sir, when I made my last journey they were turning out the port collapsible boat. I went and assisted Mr. Lightoller to get it out.
After the boat was out I went on top of the officer's house and helped to clear away the port collapsible boat on that house. After that I went over to the starboard side. The starboard collapsible boat had just been lowered.
10420. Do you mean lowered or pushed off?
- Lowered. She was away from the ship.
10421. Then what?
- I rendered up the foremast fall, got the block on board, and held on to the block while a man equalized the parts of the fall. He said, "There is a futterfoot in the fall, which fouls the fall and the block." I says, "I have got it;" and took it out. I passed the block up to the officers' house, and Mr. Moody, the sixth officer, said: "We don't want the block. We will leave the boat on deck." I put the fall on the deck, stayed there a moment, and there was no chance of the boat being cleared away, and I went to the bridge and looked over and saw the water climbing upon the bridge. I went and looked over the starboard side, and everything was black. I went over to the port side and sawa boat off the port quarter, and I went along the port side and got up the after boat davits and slid down the fall and swam to the boat and got it.
10422. When you say everything looked black, you mean that there were no boats in sight?
- Everything was black over the starboard side. I could not see any boats.
10423. You swam out to this boat that you saw?
- Yes, sir.
10424. How far was it from the side of the Titanic?
- About 200 yards.
10425. Did you swim that 200 yards?
- Yes.
10426. Did you have a lifebelt on?
- No, sir.
10427. When you reached the boat, what did you find?
- I tried to get hold of the grab line on the bows, and it was too high for me, so I swam along and got hold of one of the grab lines amidships.
10428. What did you do then?
- I pulled my head above the gunwale, and I said, "Give us a hand in, Jack." Foley was in the boat. I saw him standing up in the boat. He said, "Is that you, Sam?" I said, "Yes;" and him and the women and children pulled me in the boat.
10429. Who had charge in that boat?
- Perkis, quartermaster.
10430. And they pulled you in?
- Yes, sir.
10431. What did you find in the boat?
- It was full of women.
10432. How many were there?
- There were about 40.
10433. How many men were there?
- There were four men?
10434. Who were they?
- Quartermaster Perkis, and there was Foley, the storekeeper, and McCarthy.
10435. A sailor?
- A sailor; yes, sir; and a fireman.
10436. What is his name?
- I do not know his name, Senator.
10437. Were there any children in the boat?
- Yes, sir; there were children in the boat.
10438. How many?
- Two young ladies and a little girl.
10439. Altogether, then, there were how many; about 40 women and men and two or three children?
- I did not see the babies until after we got on the Carpathia. I did not see the babies at all when I got in the boat.
10440. But they were in the boat?
- Yes.
10441. And how many were there of the children?
- Three, sir. I think it was three. I would not be certain, but I think it was three.
10442. I gather that there were 47 people put in the boat?
- There would not be 47 altogether, then, sir.
10443. How many?
- About 40, all told, I should think, at that time, sir.
10444. What was done after you got into the boat?
- They had been backing her away, to get out of the zone from the ship before the ship sank.
10445. You did not return to the ship's side?
- No, sir.
10446. Not at all?
- No, sir.
10447. Or to the place where the ship sank?
- After the ship had gone we pulled back and picked up seven.
10448. Who were they?
- I am not able to say, sir.
10449. Who else?
- Stewards, firemen, seamen, and one or two men, passengers; I could not say exactly which they were; anyway, I know there were seven altogether.
10450. Name what you can of them.
- There was one seaman named Lyons, and there were one or two passengers and one or two firemen. Dillon, a fireman, was one of them.
10451. The others of the crew; can you recall that you picked up any of them out of the water?
- The storekeeper.
10452. What is his name?
- It was the steward's storekeeper.
10453. Do you remember his name?
- No, sir; I do not remember his name.
10454. Who else?
- That is all I know of, sir.
10455. You say there were two passengers in your boat?
- I said one or two. I could not say exactly. I know there were seven men altogether. That is all I know.
10456. Do you know who these passengers were?
- I know one was a third class passenger.
10457. What was his name?
- I do not know, sir.
10458. Where was he from?
- That I could not tell you, sir.
10459. Was he an Englishman or an American?
- I spoke to him, and I do not think he was an Englishman.
10460. Do you think he was an American?
- He spoke very good English, but I have an idea that he was a foreigner of some sort.
10461. You picked these seven men out of the water?
- Yes, sir.
10462. Did they swim to the boat, or did the boat go to the men?
- Both. They swam toward the boat, and we went back toward them.
10463. After you got these seven men in, what did you do then?
- We hung around for a bit.
10464. Did you see any more men?
- No, sir.
10465. Did you hear any more crying?
- We heard the cries; yes, sir.
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