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DISTRESS ROCKETS FIRED

"After that I was on the bridge most of the time sending out distress signals, trying to attract the attention of boats ahead," he said. "I sent up distress rockets until I left the ship, to try to attract the attention of a ship directly ahead. I had seen her lights. She seemed to be meeting us and was not far away. She got close enough, so she seemed to me, to read our Morse electric signals."

"Suppose you had a powerful search light on the Titanic, could you not have thrown a beam on the vessel and have compelled her attention?"

"We might."

H. J. Pitman, the third officer of the ship, was the first witness on April 23d. By a series of searching questions Senator Fletcher brought out the fact that when the collision occurred the Titanic was going at the greatest speed attained during the trip, even though the ship was entering the Grand Banks and had been advised of the presence of ice.

Frederick Fleet, a sailor and lookout man on the Titanic, followed Pitman on the stand. Fleet said he had had five or six years' experience at sea and was lookout on the Oceanic prior to going on the Titanic. He was in the crow's nest at the time of the collision.

Fleet stated that he had kept a sharp lookout for ice, and testified to seeing the iceberg and signaling the bridge.

Fleet acknowledged that if he had been aided in his observations by a good glass he probably could have spied the berg into which the ship crashed in time to have warned

the bridge to avoid it. Major Arthur Peuchen, of Toronto, a passenger who followed Fleet on the stand, also testified to the much greater sweep of vision afforded by binoculars and, as a yachtsman, said he believed the presence of the iceberg might have been detected in time to escape the collision had the lookout men been so equipped.