Man on board Titanic recounts harrowing moment he had to evacuate the ship
A man who was on board the Titanic has recounted the harrowing moment he was forced to evacuate the ship.
The fateful incident took place on April 14, 1912, while the Titanic was embarking on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The ship was four days into its trip, having set sail from Southampton and was destined for New York City when disaster struck.
Hitting an iceberg, passengers scrambled to evacuate on lifeboats and Frank Prentice recalled his own experience on the ship in a BBC documentary titled The Great Liners from 1979.
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He said: “There was no impact as such, it was just like jamming your brakes on a car and that was that, she stopped.
“We had a port hole open and I looked out and the sky was clear, stars were shining, the sea was dead calm and I… couldn't understand it.”
Despite the fact that the Titanic was considered ‘unsinkable’, the iceberg did irreparable damage and it was sinking fast.
Some people had already evacuated with the available lifeboats, the ship began to lift up into the air and Prentice decided it was time to leave.
He continued: “She lifted up quickly and you could hear everything crashing through her, everything that was movable was going through her and then she went down and seemed to come up again so I thought, ‘well now I’m going to leave’, and I was hanging on to a board.
“We had two boards, starboard and port, which said, ‘keep clear propeller blades’ and I was hanging on to one of these and I was getting higher and higher in the air and I thought, ‘well now I’ll go’ and I dropped in.
“I had a lifejacket on and I hit the water with a terrific crack and luckily I didn’t hit anything when I dropped in. There were bodies all over the place and then I looked up at the Titanic, so the propellers were right out of water, the rudder was right out, I could see the bottom and then gradually she glided away and that was the last of the Titanic.
“I didn’t want to die, I mean and I didn’t see much chance of living, but I was gradually getting frozen up and by the grace of God I came across a lifeboat and they pulled me in.”
Prentice was later rescued along with others by the RMS Carpathia, which was the closest ship to the Titanic when the distress call was issued.
The ship raced at top speed to reach the lifeboats and successfully rescued 705 survivors before taking them to New York.