Rescuing Titanic: A true story of quiet bravery in the North Atlantic (Hidden Histories)

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Powerful is the force of routine. As eight bells sounded for the change of the watch, the lookout man in the crow's nest sang out the long-drawn wailing cry, "A-a-all's WELL and LIGHTS burning BRIGHTLY ... " Chief Officer Hankinson That error of judgment was one of many such in the net of circumstances that dragged the Titanic to her doom. So he learned that, while he had slept snug, fifteen hundred people, whom he could have saved, had drowned. Yet, on analysis of the evidence given at the subsequent official inquiries, it became clear that heavy blame for their inertia could not be placed personally on the drowsy mariners of the Californian. There were excuses for their faulty reasoning at each stage. The blame lay on shipowners generally, for not having realized that one wireless operator in a steamer was not enough. When the last of the lifeboats had been lowered, there had remained on board the sinking ship 1,390 men, 103 women, and 53 children. Somewhere in this sequence of events there was a delay, or there were cumulative delays, amounting to a loss of a fractional period of time, perhaps not more than one or two seconds, which would have been sufficient, at the liner's speed of 38 feet per second, to enable her to clear the obstruction or to reduce its impact to a minor glancing blow.

She left Queenstown at 2 P.M. on Thursday, April 11, bound for New York, having on board 1,316 passengers and 891 crew–a total of 2,207 souls. Arthur Rostron, responsible for the safety of 1,035 souls in his own ship, but knowing that more than 2,000 people were in peril twenty miles away, and that every minute was precious, drove the Carpathia at forced full speed, in darkness, into the icefield in which the Titanic had met with disaster! The Titanic, sir," said Cottam, "coming in very strong. She seems to be only thirty or forty miles away, but may be more, as she has a powerful transmitter. She's sending marconi to Cape Race. Then there's the Californian. She's stopped her engines for the night because she's surrounded by ice." The lists went on and on. These famous people and their womenfolk were the creme de la creme of America's upper-class society. Their names were household words in that period when wealth, social distinction, or intellectual and artistic achievements occupied the newspaper space that nowadays is given to film actors, sporting champions, and criminals. Her Captain, Arthur Rostron, had to make a series of courageous practical decisions to enable his ship to exceed her maximum speed, prepare to retrieve possible survivors and dash through the icefield in the dark, without alarming his own sleeping passengers.As the Carpathia carried only one wireless operator, his instrument was left unattended while he took his meals, rest, and recreation. He sent and received messages only in Morse, with ear phones clamped over his head. Being an enthusiast, he was to be seen crouched over his apparatus, sending or receiving messages, for many hours throughout the day, from 7 A.M. until 11 P.M. or even midnight. The wireless distress call was not sent out immediately. I had heard nothing new from Cottam at midnight, when I was relieved on the bridge by First Officer Dean. I handed over the Carpathia's course and details to him, and went to my cabin below the bridge. Captain Rostron's cabin was in darkness. He had gone to bed two hours previously. This was nothing for us to worry about, as we were to the southward of it, but I informed the Captain, who remarked, "It seems to be a big field. Keep a sharp lookout. Carry on!" This was the first exact information received by the Californian of the disaster that had occurred on her horizon, within an hour's steaming range if she had gone to the rescue.

Mat: Can you share a little with us about what you’re currently working on and what we can look forward to reading from you in the future? The Carpathia's first-class smoking room would be converted to a dormitory to accommodate Titanic survivors, Author Luke Palmer introduces his new book, Play (Firefly Press) about four boys growing up together, the challenges, the friendships, and what hap... On leaving the Hogue, I spent a few more very happy days in London, and then returned to Liverpool and the Cunard service. My appointment as a Sub-Lieutenant in the R.N.R. was officially confirmed by a notice from the Admiralty on January 25, 1912.

Rostron subsequently returned to the Cunard Line. He was made first officer of RMS Lusitania in 1907, but was transferred to the Bresica and promoted to ship's captain the day before Lusitania's maiden voyage. [3] Bresica and his next several ships served the Mediterranean region, including his first passenger ship, RMS Pannonia, whose New York City – Mediterranean route he commanded from 1 January 1911. [8] He became captain of the passenger liner RMS Carpathia on 18 January 1912. [8] By this time a lieutenant in the RNR, Rostron was decorated with the RNR Officer's Reserve Decoration (RD) on 9 November 1909. [9] He was promoted to commander in the RNR on 18 January 1912. [10] The Titanic rescue [ edit ] RMS Carpathia I may remark now, in the retrospect of the years, that, in this incident, and what followed it, my own feelings and senses were concentrated to a rare pitch of intensity. I dare say that every man on the bridge and on lookout in the Carpathia felt likewise that his nerves were as taut as violin strings, attuned by the hand of a master player. A speed of 22½ knots (say 25.9 statute miles per hour) is equivalent to approximately 2,280 feet per minute, or 38 feet per second. Assuming that the berg was sighted exactly half a mile dead ahead, there would be one minute and 9½ seconds in which to avoid a head-on collision. In smaller steamers, which travelled at speeds of from 11 to 15 knots, the time margin between the first sighting of a berg and the alteration of course to avoid collision was correspondingly increased to as much as two minutes, which was ample for manoeuvring when a sharp lookout was kept and alert men were on the bridge.

But swarms of reporters and photographers now came on board, and remained until after midnight, getting stories from the survivors and from our passengers and crew.Yes, travel broadens the mind, doesn't it?" she said, earnestly. In many years of being quizzed by passengers, I found that it helped them to remember the difference between port and star­ board if I reminded them that P-O-R-T has the same number of letters as L-E-F-T. Similarly, the navigation light on a vessel's port side is the same colour as port wine. Every profession and trade has its own technical terms, but sea­faring men have to explain their mysteries to passengers, especially on pleasure cruises-with as much patience as possible, and usually enjoy being quizzed. Captain Rostron took the young officer by the arm, and said quietly and kindly to him, "Never mind that, m'son. Tell me, were all her boats got away safely?" Her First Wireless Operator J. G. Phillips, had gone down, but the Junior Operator, Harold Bride, was saved. Ships equipped with wireless usually carried only one operator. It had not occurred to shipowners that three operators are required to stand watches in rotation for an efficient twenty-four hours service per day. The main duty of the operators was to send and receive commercial marconigrams for passengers to and from shore stations, which relayed them as telegrams. Ships' messages were also transmitted as marconigrams. These included messages between ships, such as ice warnings, or between ships and the shore, with expected times of arrivals or owners' instructions and suchlike.

This was a fatality unparalleled, illuminating the vanity of human wishes and the power of courage in extreme adversity. No wonder, then, that the people of two continents, and beyond throughout the world, informed only briefly of the fact that the Titanic had sunk, with heavy loss of life, were now eagerly awaiting the details of that tragedy, which only the survivors in the Carpathia could divulge.

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Flora: I really enjoyed working on the passenger spread. Deciding which individuals to highlight was great fun. In the end I wanted to show a range of the types of people who were travelling on passenger ships like the Carpathia such as rich socialites and more middle-class travellers. The shelves of Titanic literature are full of mistakes made, drills missed, obligations unfulfilled.