REMEMBERING RMS CARPATHIA
Exhibition celebrates heroic crew who worked to rescue passengers after Titanic sank in 1912
The BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND RMS Titanic sinking — with more than 1,500 men, women and children lost — would have been far worse without the heroic efforts of another vessel’s crew.
To commemorate the rescue of more than 700 people from the dangerous Atlantic Ocean icefields near Newfoundland, over four gruelling hours, the Belfast Titanic Society is staging an RMS Carpathia exhibition.
IRISH COAST
The July 17-Aug. 17 event coincides with the 100th anniversary of the Carpathia’s sinking off the Irish coast during the First World War.
Janet Rostron, great-granddaughter of Arthur Rostron — captain of Cunard Line’s Carpathia during the Titanic disaster — is “keen to find out what happened to those who were saved — and those who did the saving — on that fateful night,” she said in a statement from Titanic Belfast.
RESCUE MISSION
People were invited to share their stories about the April 15, 1912 rescue mission.
Selected submissions will be shown aboard SS Nomadic — a tender boat that transported passengers from Cherbourg, France, to the Titanic before its fateful maiden voyage — then to RMS Olympic and other ships.
Much smaller, the tender shared the style and fixtures of both luxury liners. Providing military service during both wars, the last surviving White Star Line vessel was a floating restaurant in Paris for more than 30 years.
After being saved from the scrap yard in 2006 and rebuilt, SS Nomadic was opened for tours at Hamilton Graving Dock near the Titanic museum in Belfast. Ships were repaired and maintained at the dock into the 1990s.
A major attraction since opening in 2012, Titanic Belfast offers realistic displays plus stories of the people involved.
Millvina Dean, of England, nine weeks old when rescued, was the last living survivor when she died in 2009 at age 97.
Actors portray passengers and crew members in realistic voice and film recordings. Visitors can even “feel” the Royal Mail Ship’s power via recently installed vibrating handrails beside a glass floor overlooking enlarged photos of the mighty engines.
The $7.5-million Titanic’s construction is also exhibited with photos and voices representing some of the 3,000 workers — some as young as 14 — who laboured 54 hours a week watched over by “The Hat.” That term was for the bowler hat worn by the foreman to protect him from “accidental” hits from falling rivets, guide Dee Morgan said.
Many of the photos were taken by Rev. Francis Browne during part of the liner’s maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to Cherbourg, then back to Ireland, where the Jesuit priest disembarked before its departure for New York.
After the ship sank en route to New York, his pictures became widely available.
Two ships chartered from Halifax, plus three other Canadian vessels that joined the search after Carpathia arrived, retrieved 328 bodies, with five more found by passing steamships.
Victims not buried at sea were taken to Halifax, where more than 100 unidentified bodies still rest in numbered graves.
Due to confusion with the passenger list — including names of people who cancelled their trips — exact figures remain unsubstantiated.
RUSTING REMAINS
Film taken in 1985 during oceanography professor Robert Ballard’s discovery of Titanic, show the ship’s broken, rusting remains 3.81 km below the Atlantic’s surface.
Despite subsequent evidence discovered by close observation and modern-day scientific methods, mistruths and speculation persists.
In addition to the museum and Nomadic, several original buildings survive at the former Harland and Wolff shipyard. These include the former company headquarters and drafting offices, which reopened last September as the $50-million, 119-room luxury Hotel Titanic Belfast.
Celebrities among the more than 4.4-million people who have visited Titanic Belfast in the past six years include Prince Harry and then fiancée Meghan Markle. The couple visited while touring Belfast, two months before their May 19 wedding.