|
Although Carpathia was one of the
largest Cunard ships in service in the
early 1900s, the White Star and North
German Lloyd lines were operating
20,000-ton ships at that time. Cunard
operated Carpathia on the
Liverpool - New York or Boston route in
summer and on the Mediterranean route
from Trieste and Fiume - America in
winter carrying mainly Hungarian
emigrants. Carpathia became famous
after steaming full speed through the
ice-covered North Atlantic while
answering the distress call of the
sinking Titanic. Although she
covered 50 miles to reach the accident
site in about 4 hours, Titanic had
already sunk leaving only 705 survivors
in lifeboats. All the survivors were
taken onboard Carpathia and
delivered safely to New York. At the time
of that incident, the crew of the cargo
ship Californian saw the flares,
as they were only six miles from the
stricken Titanic. It is still a
mystery why they never responded to the
flares or distress calls on the
wireless.
By 1915, the British Admiralty had
requisitioned Carpathia to serve
as a troopship. On July 17th 1918,
approximately 120 miles west of Ireland,
Carpathia was steaming in a convoy
bound for Boston when they came under
attack by a German submarine. Two
torpedoes slammed into
Carpathia’s side causing
irreparable damage. While her crew of 223
where evacuating the 57 passengers, a
third torpedo struck killing five of the
crew. Carpathia stayed afloat long
enough for all her passengers and
surviving crew to escape in lifeboats.
She sank at 12.40 am, two and a half
hours after the first torpedo struck.
Although the escorting warships failed to
sink the submarine, their relentless
depth charge assault allowed the sloop
HMS Snowdrop to pick up
Carpathia’s survivors. The
surviving passengers and crew were
returned to Liverpool.
|