Timeline Article: The Cries of the 1500



When Titanic sank she left 1500 people at the surface. Some were lifeless bodies, and some were struggling in the freezing water, waiting for a lifeboat to return and help them. It was the sound of the screams from these poor souls that would haunt the Titanic survivors forever.

"The agonizing cries of death from over a thousand throats, the wails and groans from the suffering, the shrieks of the terror-stricken, and the awful gasping for breath of those in the last throes of drowning, none of us will ever forget to our dying day."

First Class Passenger
Colonel Archibald Gracie


"The sounds of people drowning are something that I can not describe to you, and neither can anyone else. Its the most dreadful sound and there is a terrible silence that follows it." 

Second Class Passenger
Eva Hart


Third class passenger, Frankie Goldsmith was nine years old when Titanic sank. He was traveling with his mother and father. His father perished in the sinking. After the disaster, Frankie and his mother settled in Detroit, where he grew up near Tiger Stadium. When the Tigers played, the roar of the crowds reminded him of the sound of the Titanic victims screaming as they struggled in the water. Consequently, Frankie never took his children to baseball games.

Even though the people in the nearby lifeboats could hear these horrible sounds, only one lifeboat will go back to help.