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| news of Titanic reaches NYC |
In despair, and left with no option, Thayer decided to jump. 'I was pushed out and then sucked down. The cold was terrific. The shock of the water took the breath out of my lungs,' he says of the terrifying plunge.
'Down and down, I went, spinning in all directions. Swimming as hard as I could in the direction which I thought to be away from the ship, I finally came up with my lungs bursting, but not having taken any water.'
After latching on to a life boat, Thayer watched as the ship's passengers battled against the inevitable. 'We could see groups of the almost 1,500 people still aboard, clinging in clusters of bunches like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs or singly, as the great after-part of the ship, 250 feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a 65 or 70-degree angle.'
He describes being haunted by the horrifying cries of the people who slowly died around him - and his own survival.
'It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for 20 or 30 minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure,' he said.
Thayer said the most poignant part of the catastrophe was that the lifeboats, some of which were 'only partially loaded', did not return to rescue those crying for help in the water.
He describes how several hundred more people could have been saved had the boats, which were only four or five hundred yards away, turned back.
Although Thayer escaped the disaster, his life ended tragically. Five years after he wrote his memoir, he committed suicide following the tragic death of his son in WWII.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126944/Titanic-survivor-John-B-Jack-Thayer-III-reveals-horrifying-cries-dying-victims.html#ixzz1rbvzNwuj
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