MR. WOOLNER: On that A deck. Then we hopped up onto the gunwale preparing to jump out into the sea, because if we had waited a minute longer we should have been boxed in against the ceiling. And as we looked out we saw this collapsible, the last boat on the port side being lowered right in front of our faces.
SENATOR SMITH: How far out?
MR. WOOLNER: It was about 9 feet out.
SENATOR SMITH: Nine feet out from the side of A deck?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes.
SENATOR SMITH: You saw a collapsible boat being lowered?
MR. WOOLNER: Being lowered; yes.
SENATOR SMITH: Was it filled with people?
MR. WOOLNER: It was full up to the bow, and I said to Steffanson: "There is nobody in the bows. Let us make a jump for it. You go first." And he jumped out and tumbled in head over heels into the bow, and I jumped too, and hit the gunwale with my chest, which had on this life preserver, of course, and I sort of bounced off the gunwale and caught the gunwale with my fingers, and slipped off backwards.
SENATOR SMITH: Into the water?
MR. WOOLNER: As my legs dropped down I felt that they were in the sea.
SENATOR SMITH: You are quite sure you jumped 9 feet to get that boat?
MR. WOOLNER: That is my estimate. By that time, you see, we were jumping slightly downward.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you jump out or down?
MR. WOOLNER: Both.
SENATOR SMITH: Both out and down?
MR. WOOLNER: Slightly down and out.
SENATOR SMITH: It could not have been very far down if the water was on A deck; it must have been out.
MR. WOOLNER: Chiefly out; but it was sufficiently down for us to be able to see just over the edge of the gunwale of the boat.
SENATOR SMITH: You pulled yourself up out of the water?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; and then I hooked my right heel over the gunwale, and by this time Steffanson was standing up, and he caught hold of me and lifted me in. Then we looked over into the sea and saw a man swimming in the sea just beneath us, and pulled him in.
SENATOR SMITH: Who was he?
MR. WOOLNER: I do not know.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you pull anybody else in?
MR. WOOLNER: No; by that time we were afloat.
SENATOR SMITH: Did anybody leave your lifeboat?
MR. WOOLNER: Leave it?
SENATOR SMITH: Yes; after you got in.
MR. WOOLNER: No.
SENATOR SMITH: Or attempt to leave it?
MR. WOOLNER: No. By that time were bumping against the side of the ship.
SENATOR SMITH: Against the Titanic's side?
MR. WOOLNER: She was going down pretty fast by the bow.
SENATOR SMITH: You were still on the port side? Forward or aback, or amidships?
MR. WOOLNER: We were exactly opposite the end of the glass windows on the A deck.
SENATOR SMITH: How many men did you find in that collapsible boat?
MR. WOOLNER: We found one sailor, a steward, and one other man.
SENATOR SMITH: And your friend and yourself?
MR. WOOLNER: And the man we pulled out of the sea.
SENATOR SMITH: That made six.
MR. WOOLNER: Yes.
SENATOR SMITH: How many women were there in that boat?
MR. WOOLNER: I did not count them. It seemed quite full of women and children. I should think there were about 30.
SENATOR SMITH: About 30 women and children?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: How many children?
MR. WOOLNER: I did not count them, but quite a bunch.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you know any of the women, or do you know any of them now?
MR. WOOLNER: I can not remember their names. One lady had a broken elbow bone. She was in a white woolen jacket. She sat beside me eventually.
SENATOR SMITH: What officer, if any, did you find in that collapsible boat when you got in?
MR. WOOLNER: No officer.
SENATOR SMITH: Who took charge of that boat?
MR. WOOLNER: There was a seaman in the stern who steered her with an oar, but when we got out among the other boats, we obeyed the orders of the officer who was in charge of the bunch of boats.
SENATOR SMITH: Who was that, if you know?
MR. WOOLNER: I think it was Mr. Lowe, the man who got his sail up.
SENATOR SMITH: He got his sail up?
MR. WOOLNER: Afterwards; not then, but later. I think his name was Lowe.
SENATOR SMITH: How far out from the side of the Titanic did you go before you stopped?
MR. WOOLNER: We got out three oars first, and shoved off from the side of the ship. Then we got her head more or less straightaway, and then we pulled as hard as we could, until I should think, we were 150 yards away, when the Titanic went down.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you see her go down?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes.
SENATOR SMITH: Were you near enough to recognize people on deck?
MR. WOOLNER: No.
SENATOR SMITH: As she went down did you see or feel any suction?
MR. WOOLNER: I did not detect any; she seemed to me to stop for about 30 seconds at one place before she took the final plunge, because I watched one particular porthole, and the water did not rise there for at least half a minute, and then she suddenly slid under with her propellers under the water.
SENATOR SMITH: She went down bow first.
MR. WOOLNER: Yes.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you hear any explosion?
MR. WOOLNER: No; a sort of rumbling roar, it sounded to me, as she slid under.
SENATOR SMITH: What, if anything, can you say to the committee regarding the discipline or absence of discipline on the part of the officers or crew after the impact?
MR. WOOLNER: I saw no want of discipline.
SENATOR SMITH: Was there any warning or signal given, to your knowledge, after the boat struck, to passengers in their rooms?
MR. WOOLNER: I can not tell you, because I simply went to my room and got my life belt and came away­­
SENATOR SMITH: You found Mrs. Candee?
MR. WOOLNER: She was waiting at the door of her stateroom, and I took her up on deck.
SENATOR SMITH: Had she received any warning at that time from anybody?
MR. WOOLNER: Only from my asking the steward whether the orders were that we should put on life belts.
SENATOR SMITH: But, so far as you know, no special warning had been given to her at that time?
MR. WOOLNER: I can not tell whether the steward went to her room; but, you see, there was no call for it. She knew what the orders were.
SENATOR SMITH: Who fired those two shots, do you know?
MR. WOOLNER: Mr. Murdock, so far as I can tell.
SENATOR SMITH: Mr. Murdock, the chief officer?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; he was the first officer, was he not?
SENATOR SMITH: You are quite certain it was not Mr. Lowe?
MR. WOOLNER: I am pretty certain. I think I recognized the voice of Mr. Murdock.
SENATOR SMITH: Mr. Lowe says he fired three shots as his lifeboat was being lowered.
MR. WOOLNER: I do not remember them.
SENATOR SMITH: You got off about 150 yards from where the ship went down, and then you tied up with these other boats­­
MR. WOOLNER: We rowed on and on for some time.
SENATOR SMITH: Was your boat alone?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; for quite a considerable time we simply rowed out into the sea.
SENATOR SMITH: For how long a time?
MR. WOOLNER: I should say a quarter of an hour. We heard other boats around about us, and when the eyes got accustomed to the darkness one could see a certain amount.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you have any light in your boat?
MR. WOOLNER: There was a lantern, but there was no oil in it.
SENATOR SMITH: After pulling out for 15 minutes or so, what took place?
MR. WOOLNER: Then some officer came along and said, "I want all these boats tied up by their painters, head and tail, so as to make a more conspicuous mark"; and we did that; and there was no call to row much after that because we were simply drifting about.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you go back to the scene of the wreck after pulling out 150 or 200 yards?
MR. WOOLNER: No.
SENATOR SMITH: Was there any attempt made by your boat to go back, so far as you know?
MR. WOOLNER: Not by our boat; no.
SENATOR SMITH: Did the women urge that the boat be taken back?
MR. WOOLNER: No.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you hear any officer say that the boat should be taken back to the scene of the wreck?
MR. WOOLNER: I did not.
SENATOR SMITH: After you got tied together, what did you do?
MR. WOOLNER: We drifted about for a long time.
SENATOR SMITH: Drifted?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; just drifted about. There was nothing to do.
SENATOR SMITH: And waited until daylight?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; and then dawn began to break very slowly, and we could see more.
SENATOR SMITH: During the time that you were drifting about did you see any lights in any direction other than those that were on the lifeboats?
MR. WOOLNER: I could not tell; but there was a green light that appeared, not all the time, but most of the time, down to the south.
SENATOR SMITH: How far away?
MR. WOOLNER: I could not tell, but I should think about half a mile or a mile.
SENATOR SMITH: That was probably the green light that was on Officer Boxhall's boat?
MR. WOOLNER: Very likely. I did not identify it.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you see any lights beside that, in any direction, that looked like the lights of a ship?
MR. WOOLNER: No.
SENATOR SMITH: Or did you see any rockets?
MR. WOOLNER: I think I saw a rocket, rather in the direction where the Carpathia came up; but it was very distant.
SENATOR SMITH: How long before the Carpathia came up?
MR. WOOLNER: Considerably after the sun rose.
SENATOR SMITH: After daybreak did you sight the Carpathia right away?
MR. WOOLNER: No, sir; we did not sight the ship. Other things happened before then.
SENATOR SMITH: Tell what happened.
MR. WOOLNER: An officer came down and said he wanted to empty some of the people out of his boat, because he wanted to go and rescue some people who were on what he called a raft; and they put some people out of the boat, as many as our boat would hold. Probably 5 or 6 were put in our boat, which brought us down very close to the water.
SENATOR SMITH: That was Mr. Lowe's boat?
MR. WOOLNER: I think it was.
SENATOR SMITH: And they took the people out of Mr. Lowe's boat?
MR. WOOLNER: Into other boats.
SENATOR SMITH: And did they put some oarsmen into Mr. Lowe's boat?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; and then he got a crew, mostly of sailors, I think.
SENATOR SMITH: He recruited a crew from amongst those lifeboats?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; or he may have turned out certain men from his boat and got others.
SENATOR SMITH: And you went in the direction of this swamped boat?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; and took the men on board.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you go with him?
MR. WOOLNER: No, no. We were very heavily laden then.
SENATOR SMITH: When it got daylight did you see any icebergs or floating ice?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; a number of icebergs.
SENATOR SMITH: How near the place where the Titanic went down?
MR. WOOLNER: It was rather difficult to identify that unless one took the wreckage that was floating away as an indication of where she went down. Taking that, I would say that the nearest was several miles away; but there were a great many of them.
SENATOR SMITH: At daylight?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; and they were of different colors as the sun struck them. Some looked white and some looked blue, and some sort of mauve, and others were dark gray.
SENATOR SMITH: Did any look black?
MR. WOOLNER: A dark sort of gray.
SENATOR SMITH: How large were they?
MR. WOOLNER: It is very difficult to tell.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you see any as large as the Capitol Building here?
MR. WOOLNER: No; there was one double­toothed one that looked to be of good size.
SENATOR SMITH: How high; 100 feet high?
MR. WOOLNER: I should think it must have been; but it was a considerable distance away.
SENATOR SMITH: About 20 or 30 feet higher than the Titanic?
MR. WOOLNER: It may easily have been that.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you see any field ice?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes.
SENATOR SMITH: How much of that?
MR. WOOLNER: I saw a faint line, what looked like a faint line along the horizon; but when we got on the Carpathia, we saw it was a huge floe which stretched out, I do not how far, but we were several hours steaming along it.
SENATOR SMITH: Twenty or thirty miles?
MR. WOOLNER: Quite that, I should say.
SENATOR SMITH: And did that field ice follow closely these icebergs?
MR. WOOLNER: No; they looked more like scouts out in front.
SENATOR SMITH: Out in front?
MR. WOOLNER: By out in front I mean to the south.
SENATOR SMITH: That is, the icebergs were out south of the field ice.
MR. WOOLNER: That is the way it looked to me.
SENATOR SMITH: The field ice came down behind how far?
MR. WOOLNER: One could not see whether it moved at all. It seemed to be absolutely stationary the whole time; but there were lumps on it, sort of lumps like haystacks or little mountains.
SENATOR SMITH: I have not yet been able to discover ­ and I hope you will pardon me for persisting ­ how far to the north of these large icebergs this field ice lay.
MR. WOOLNER: From the boat it looked like a little white, thin line along the horizon. I could not possibly judge how far.
SENATOR SMITH: That is, the water line?
MR. WOOLNER: The water line, and then a line of brilliant ice. From the boat I could not tell how far it was?
SENATOR SMITH: Did the icebergs seem to be moving?
MR. WOOLNER: I did not watch them very closely.
SENATOR SMITH: The Carpathia lingered in that vicinity for an hour or so?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes; she seemed to come up very slowly and then she stopped. Then we looked out and we saw that there was a boat alongside her, and then we realized that she was waiting for us to come up to her instead of her coming to us, as we hoped. Then, just at that time, when we began to row toward the Carpathia, Mr. Lowe came down with his boat under sail, again, and hailed us and said, "Are you a collapsible?" We answered, "Yes." He said, "How are you?" I said, "We have about all we want." He said, "Would you like a tow?" We answered, "Yes we would." So he took our painter and towed us away from the Carpathia, and then we looked and saw that there was another little group of people standing up in the sea who had to be rescued, and there were about­­­
SENATOR SMITH: Where were they?
MR. WOOLNER: They were standing on an upturned boat.
SENATOR SMITH: That is, on the bottom of the upturned boat?
MR. WOOLNER: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: How many of them were there?
MR. WOOLNER: I do not know how many of them, but it looked like a dozen or 13.
SENATOR SMITH: Were there any women among them?
MR. WOOLNER: One; one woman with black hair. A man helped her in the boat first, when it came alongside.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you go in that boat?
MR. WOOLNER: We were only our painter's length away. Mr. Lowe took them all on board his boat.
SENATOR SMITH: Would you recognize them?
MR. WOOLNER: The men?
SENATOR SMITH: Yes.
MR. WOOLNER: One man I saw was a first­class passenger whom I had seen the saloon.
SENATOR SMITH: Look at that young man back of you and see whether you saw him there?
MR. WOOLNER: I do not remember him.
SENATOR SMITH: Who had charge of that upturned boat?
