In honour of the 103rd anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Carpathia, I would like to share this incredible account of her and her crew in regards to what took place on the night of the rescue for our beloved ship, Titanic.
It’s an amazing read! Enjoy! The Rescue.
Does anyone have access to complete, decent quality copies of any of those ships' deck plans? I've been able to find low-quality partial deck plans for Carpathia and Britannic but nothing good enough quality for the labels to be readable and they're both missing decks, and I haven't found anything at all for Californian so I doubt those are out there. I'd also be happy with a complete set of plans for Carpathia's 'half-sister' ships RMS Saxonia and Ivernia.
The original post is here, text copied over with permission from the author.
Edit: Wow! While I really appreciate that someone liked this enough to take the time and money to gild this post, it isn't my writing. If you really like it and want to thank the original author, you should shoot her an ask on Tumblr. (Don't worry, you don't need to be logged in or have an account for that.)
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a shi
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