At each port of call on our run to the Mediterranean and Adriatic, Captain Rostron was feted and hailed as the hero of the Titanic. The facts had by that time become known authentically, and it was recognized that his fine seamanship had been responsible for saving many lives. At that time (11 P.M.) the Titanic was not more than twenty miles from the Californian. The mammoth ship was driving on, at her utmost speed of twenty-two and one hall knots, trying to make up time, and headed toward the icefield. Cottam smiled as he heard the curt reply from Phillips to Evans, "Shut up, old man, I'm busy!" 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. If the Californian had carried two wireless operators, instead of only one, the S O S would almost certainly have been heard in that ship only ten miles away. Rostron was highly praised for his efforts in both the American and the British inquiries into the disaster. [19] [20] [21] [22] Later life [ edit ]

The Carpathia was too late to witness the Titanic’s final plunge but her arrival in the early hours of morning enabled her to rescue all 706 survivors from lifeboats in the icy sea. The book ends with three touching cameos that bring the human dimension of this famous rescue story vividly to life. Harold Cottam, wireless operator from the Carpathian, worked tirelessly through the night to send home names of survivors and was assisted by Harold Bride, his counterpart on the Titanic, who had to be carried into the wireless room because of his frostbitten feet. Captain Rostron refused, despite his exhaustion, to let clamouring newspaper reporters anywhere near his passengers. Molly Brown, one of the grateful survivors, collected funds and arranged for medals and money to be distributed among the crew of the Carpathian.

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These eight musicians continued playing cheerful tunes, until the water flooded around their ankles. Then, as their final number, and adieu to life, they played the hymn, Autumn, after the last boat had been lowered. Every man in that brave little band went down with the ship, and perished.

Arthur Rostron was born at Bank Cottage, Sharples, a suburb of Bolton, Lancashire, England, to James and Nancy Rostron in 1869. He received his education at Bolton Grammar School and Bolton Church Institute. [3] In 1884 Rostron then joined the Merchant Navy Cadet School Ship HMS Conway as a cadet. After two years of training on the Conway, he was apprenticed to the Waverley Line of Messrs Williamson, Milligan and Co. in Liverpool on the iron clipper ship Cedric the Saxon. [4] The barque Camphill - one of Rostron's earliest vesselsBefore the words were out of my mouth, the Globe reporter had charged down the gangway like a bull moose and had disappeared into the crowd. 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. Captain Rostron came on to the bridge, and I told him of the latest ice warning. He called the Wireless Operator and asked him what ships were within his range.

When these two messages were handed to Captain Rostron, he envisaged for the first time the possibility that the Titanic might actually be foundering. Until then, he had assumed that she was seriously damaged-otherwise she would not have sent out a distress signal—but he expected that she would remain afloat, and that possibly the whole of her passengers, crew, and mails would have to be transferred to the Carpathia, or to other steamers which might hasten to the rescue. News-cables reported that many prominent people had booked passages in the Titanic for her maiden voyage. Among them were the multimillionaires, John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, George D. Widener, Isidor Straus, Joseph Bruce Ismay (Managing Director of the White Star Line), Colonel Washington Roebling (builder of the Brooklyn Bridge), Charles Melville Hays (President of the Grand Trunk Railway) and J.B. Thayer (President of the Pennsylvania Railroad)—some of the richest men in the world—and many others in the mere million-dollar class. I was then called up for twelve months' training in warships, to qualify as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. I was in my thirtieth year. May and I were married in London on June 28, 1913, while I was on leave from naval training. The Cunarder Mauretania was famous for her manoeuvrability at full speed. She answered her helm instantly in all conditions; but this quality was not built into the Olympic and the Titanic. They were clumsy ships. There was too much brag and not enough seaworthy performance in their construction. But in seafaring, as in every other human activity, men may learn from experiences that are sometimes dire. To put a stop to the fantastic rumours that were flying around, the United States Senate appointed an Investigation Committee to take evidence on oath without delay. This inquiry opened at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Friday morning, April 19 (the day after the Carpathia berthed).As Captain Smith, and also First Officer Murdoch, had gone down with the ship, they had atoned for any errors of judgment which might have been ascribed to them. Their view of the sequence of events could never be ascertained; but this disaster was too tremendous to be explained away by finding one scapegoat, or two, or three, to bear the brunt of the blame. It could be explained, and was explained ultimately, as the fatal culmination of a long and complicated sequence of interrelated causes which lay deep in human nature itself—the errors of judgment made by many fallible men, in greater and lesser degrees of responsibility. Cottam, half dressed, sprang up to the bridge, told Dean of the message, and then woke the Captain. It was therefore safe enough, in practice, to proceed at eleven knots, in an ice region, even in darkness, when night-visibility was good; but it was not safe for a vessel of the bulk of the Titanic to proceed at 22½ knots among bergs, when the sea was smooth and there was no surf breaking around the base of the bergs to assist the lookout man to sight them. The Titanic had been launched at Belfast on May 31, 1911, and was being fitted out much more elaborately than the Olympic. She was described in newspaper reports as "the Wonder Ship," and "the Last Word in Luxury." Advance publicity acclaimed. her as "the Unsinkable Ship" and as "the Biggest Ship in the World." In fact she was of the same design and dimensions as the Olympic, and in the final computations of gross tonnage the Olympic was 111 tons heavier: the Olympic 46,439 gross tons, the Titanic 46,328 gross tons. Rostron continued in command of the Carpathia for a year before transferring to the RMS Caronia (1904). Afterwards, from 1913 to 1914 he took command of the RMS Carmania (1905), RMS Campania, and RMS Lusitania. Rostron was captain of the RMS Aulania when the First World War began and the ship was requisitioned as a troopship, which Rostron continued to command. In 191

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 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 White Star office released the news, received per the Olympic, in time for publication in the New York evening papers on Tuesday. It was to the effect that 1,800 persons had probably perished, and that 675 were saved, mostly women and children. We in the Carpathia had no means of knowing the intense excitement that this announcement would cause in New York and throughout America and the wider world. In the Carpathia we had a dozen pairs of eyes on the look out for bergs. It happened that I sighted the first one we met with, because I had been specially told off for that purpose, and I had keen eyesight, and I knew what to look for, and I was keyed up to abnormal alertness; but, if I had not sighted it, the men in the crow's nest, or on the bows, or on the other wing of the bridge, would assuredly have done so in time to sing out a warning to the men in the wheelhouse who were standing on the alert for that very warning.When I returned to the bridge, after an absence of twenty minutes, as we got under way again, I saw a huge man, at least six feet four inches tall, and powerfully built in proportion, standing near the Captain.