THE LOSS OF THE ELBE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1204, 29 March 1895, Page 33

THE LOSS OF THE ELBE.

FURTHER LIGHT UPON THE STORY. A complete official list of the passenger* and crew who sailed from Bremerhaven on board the Elbe shows that altogether there were 354 persons on board at the time of the collision, of whom only 20 were saved. The total number of lives lost was, therefore, 334. The steamer which came into collision with the Elbe was the Crathie, of Aberdeen, which had just left Rotterdam, and put back to that port seriously damaged. Her bow was completely carried away. The Crathie is of 475 gross tonnage, and was built in 1883 at Kinghorn. STATEMENT BY THE CAPTAIN OE THE crAthie.

Captain A. Gordon, master of the Crathie, says : —At half-past 5 in the morning the weather was dark, but without fog. When the collision took place I was at the foot of the companion, and was about to go on deck, when I felt a very severe shock and heard a loud crash. The water came pouring into my cabin, and I thought my ship was going to the bottom. I hurried on deck, and the first thing 1 saw was a. large strange ship across the Crathie'a bows. Immediately after the collision the Crathie's engines were stopped and reversed. I was not able to distinguish, the name of the other ship on account of the darkness, but I was under the impression that the other steamer proceeded on her voyage. We followed her for some distance, but soon lost sight of her, the Crathie not being able to go full speed owing to the damage she had received, her bows being completely stove in down to below the water-line. We lay to for about two hours, but we neither saw nor heard anything more of the other vessel. I feared vaj steamer would not be able to. keep afloat, but when we ascertained that there was no immediate danger we made for Maassluis. The Crathie then came on here for caulking and necessary repairs. In reply to a question whether he had not taken any steps to save the crew and passengers of the other ship, Captain Gordon said that his own vessel was in such a state that he expected she would go down every minute. He followed the other steamer a short time, but found she went faster than the Crathie, and he thought she was safe. Captain Gordon subsequently stated that the collision seriously damaged the bows of his ship, as a large derrick, crane, winch and anchors were dangling in a dangerous position over his vessel's side and threatening to hold her. THE MATE'S EVIDENCE. The mate of the Crathie says:— Although it was very dark, there was no fog. I was on the quarter-deck, when I suddenly saw three lights ahead. The next instant I perceived a vessel painted in a light colour and with two funnels, also painted some light colour, right across our bows. It was impossible to avoid a collision. A difference of 10 yards, in our rate of speed, would have averted it. After we struck the other ship we could not get our ropes and chains clear, and had to cut them. We heard no cries forhelp or commotion. Immediately after the collision the other ship showed blue and red lights, and we returned the same signal, which we understood to mean that neither vessel was in need of assistance. Our stoker, who was asleep, was injured bysome of the broken plates that came through the sides of the ship. They tore off one of his ears. UNDER, ARREST. The Crathie has been placed under arrest at Rotterdam by the North German Lloyd with a view to instituting a claim for damages against the owners. SERIOUS CHARGES BY PASSENGERS.

Three of the surviving- passengers of tha Elbe—namely, Mr C. A. Hofmann, Mr John Vevera and Mr Eugene Sehlegeh, embarked on board the Cunard steamship Umbria for New York. Mr Vevera, who stiH suffered much from bruises and tha effects of immersion, but who spoke deliberately, though he seemed to feel strongly, said, in reply to a press representative.:—

You ask me to tell you about the collision. Very well. I want to say, first, thafe the crew of the Elbe were cowards, and those of the Crathie were brutes. . . X ( ran towards a boat which was beingj lowered. Some of the crew were preparing to get into her, and they thrust me aside, and said, " This is for tha I ladies, go away \" I did not care to interfere when I knew it was for the ladies, although I learned afterwards that the, dastardly fellows used it themselves, and that there was only one woman saved,, whom I afterwards got out of the water myself. I went to another boat. Again I was thrust aside, and ran towards another boat. Several of the crew were lowerinjr her in a confused, reckless manner, and when I got near to her I saw them let go some of the ropes which held her at the stern, and the next moment all the occupants were pitched into the ocean. I ran to another boat which was being lowered The men who were getting into it seized me bodily and threw me back. I called them cowards and fought with them, but f. e^°^?° Wer ? d I ? e - But when the boat touched the water I jumped from the buk

warks and alighted into the boat, and it was while rowing to shore that we saw the . woman who Was saved. She was iloating. They wanted to row past her, but I called out to them, and they reluctantly consented to pick her up. I consider that most of the lives were lost through the cowardice and carelessness of the crew. It was nearly 25 minutes after the collision happened that the vessel weno down, and the crew did nothing but try to save their own lives. Nobody seemed to have any power of command. The only man who seemed to give any orders to try and save the women and children was the cook, and I heard him order the third officer to carry out instructions to help them. Officers ! Those sort of officers have no right at sea. Why, when the collision happened, they let off all the rockets at once, and there was nothing else to give signals of distress with. You know as well as I do that if there had been proper discipline the whole of the boats could have been lowered in 25 minutes. It was a most horrible thing to see that vessel go down and to hear the shrieks of the people on her and those in the water. . She began to ! settle down at the stern, and the more she went under the water the more the people crowded to the bow. There they were, all standing and crushing like rats; screaming and praying and blaspheming. Then when the' water got half over her the bows cocked up for a moment, and then she shot down like a bolt. It was a sight which will haunt me to the end of my days. Mr Hofmann, when asked for his story, replied:—

Yes; why should I conceal anything ? Have I not lost my wife and my boy through the neglect of officials and the cowardice of their crew ? When the collision happened I rushed for my wife and my seven-year-old hoy, and together we tried to get into two boats. But each time we were repelled, and cast aside by the men who jealously guarded their own means of escape. Then we came to the boat in which I escaped. I lifted my boy in, and was helping in my wife, when an officer and some men came and said the boats for the women and children were on the other side of the ves3el. They hurried my wife away, they snatched from my arms my little son, and I let thefth go because I thought they were looking after them. But if I had known -r-if I had known that they did not intend to save them, I would not have deserted them. They threw my little boy out of the boat on to his back, but I hardly thought it brutal then because I thought he would be saved. I say with Vevera that, if they had not been cowards, and if the officers had been really officers, most of the people, as well as the crew, could have been saved. Do I feel safer in going back by an English line ? Yes ! Oh yes I There is discipline and bravery on a -Cunarder, and on other big English boats.

THE OTHER SIDE. The manager at the London office of* the North German Lloyd Company, referring to these statements, says that they are contradictory in many ways, and be taken with a certain amount of caution. In his judgment, everything that had come to light went to show that the officers and crew behaved with admirable coolness, and maintained their discipline to the last. The officers and crews of the North German Lloyd steamers were selected with the utmost care. Mr Vevera seemed to have overlooked altogether the difficulties under which the men were working at the time, and not to have made the least allowance for anything. AN EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENT.

Mr Vevera, with reference to the rescue of Miss Boecker, makes a very remarkable statement. He says that after the boat capsized in which she had taken refuge she was found clinging to an oar on the starboard side of his boat, and some one shouted, "Push her off." He cried out, " For God's sake, save the lady," and it was only by the united exertions of himself and JBoethen that she was dragged into the boat. She seemed paralyzed. Miss Boecker says that Boethen was a sea cook going to join his ship in France, and had it not been for his coolness and knowledge of seamanship no lives, in all probability, would have been saved. Nearly all the passengers managed to get on deck, but very few of them had life-belts on. THE MAN WHO RESCUED THE SURVIVORS. William Wright, the skipper of the smack Wild Flower, to whose ability and humanity the survivors admit that they owe their lives, has been loaded with small tokens of gratitude. After describing his discovery of the Elbe's boat, he says : " When we got near enough I cast a rope, but they were so numbed with cold and wet that they could not make it fast for a time. We pulled them round to the lee side of the smack, and about half of them jumped on board, but jthe strain and the heavy sea caused the rope to part, and the remainder were once more adrift. I shoved the tiller down, and let go the jib-sheet, and by this time the boat was 100 yards astern ; but eventually we came up again, and another line was made fast. Four of them were dragged in, leaving the woman and three or four others in the boat. The woman was lying in the water at the bottom of the boat. She had on a long coat, no boots or dress, and a muff. Pilot Greenham helped me to get her out on j to the smack. As , soon as the other men were on board, the line again parted, and the lifeboat was lost. I got the lady below, and asked all the others to go into the engine-room whilst she undressed and wrapped herself in blankets and rugs which I found for her in the cabin. I am sare another half-hour would have killed some of them, for the ice was 6in thick on my deck, and the water froze as it came on board. We cut up some.beef, and made

cocua, and did our best to warm them till we got to Lowestoft. The night was clear and a good one for seeing lights. Had there not been some seamen on board the little boat it must have been swamped. They kept its head to the seas." f Nothing has been heard of any other survivors, though the collision seems to have occurred within sight of several fishing smacks. E. Gravells, skipper of the Tara, says : " Shortly before 6 o'clock on Wednesday : morning I was hauling my gear, and had just got the fish on when I saw rockets going up from a large steamboat. We were in the locality of the spot where the collision is said to have occurred. I bore down towards the rockets, but before we got to within half a mile the steamship suddenly disappeared, and I said to my men, ! ' I lay a guinea she has gone down/ I saw another steamer disabled, showing a blue light. I cruised around for some time, and the other vessel also stopped in the vicinity for a time, and then went off before I could come up with her. I saw a third steamboat pass, but she went along without stopping at all. I saw no wreckage, and certainly sighted no small boat, or I should have picked it up. When it was daylight I could see nothing to tell what had taken place. The nearest I got to the ship which was showing the rockets was 600 yards, perhaps more." The skipper was very much surprised to learn that a small boat had been picked up, and that over 300 people had gone down with the craft he first sighted. James Elliott, skipper of the smack Competitor, stated that the weather at about the time the disaster had occurred was very clear, and he could see the lights of vessels a mile away from his smack.