RMS Carpathia

RMS Carpathia was a combination cargo-passenger liner built for the Cunard Line around the turn of the 20th century. She was designed with utilitarian purposes in mind, capable of carrying vast amounts of goods and even livestock and a relatively small number of passengers across the Atlantic.

In April 1912 the ship was mid-Atlantic between New York and Fiume when an urgent distress call was received by her radio operator, Harold Cottam. The White Star Line’s new vessel, the largest ship in the world, had struck an iceberg and was sinking fast. What happened next was an extraordinary display; Carpathia’s master, Captain Arthur Rostron, ordered his crew to raise all possible steam and sent his ship roaring through the night in a desperate attempt to reach Titanic’s last position. Tragically, by the time Carpathia arrived, the White Star liner had already gone but the rescue efforts saved over 700 people and cemented Carpathia’s name in the pantheon of ‘hero ships’.

The rest of Carpathia’s career was quiet until the outbreak of the first world war when the ship was put to work as a troop transport. In July 1918 the Hero Ship faced disaster herself when she was torpedoed by a German submarine and sent to the bottom.