Tag Archives: Clive Cussler

Whatever Happened To….RMS Carpathia?

RMS Carpathia (date unknown) Image: public domain
RMS Carpathia (date unknown)
Image: public domain

I got a note asking what happened to RMS Carpathia, the Titanic rescue ship, after 1912.

RMS Carpathia was a Cunard line transoceanic passenger liner and primarily made runs between New York, Gibraltar, Genoa, Naples, Trieste, and Fiume. During World War I she retained doing commercial runs but did carry both Canadian and American troops to Europe.

On 17 Jul 1918, she was sunk by a German U-Boat in the Celtic Sea. Three torpedoes were fired and one hit the port side and the other the engine room killing two firemen and three trimmers. A third torpedo hit as they were lowering lifeboats. All 57 passengers and 218 surviving crew members got off in lifeboats. The German submarine did surface and threatened the lifeboats. Fortunately the HMS Snowdrop arrived on scene and drove it away and rescued the survivors.

The wreck was thought located in 1999 by team headed up by Graham Jessop on an expedition sponsored by National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA). However that proved to be the liner Isis that sank in 1936. Noted author Clive Cussler announced in 2000 that his organization (NUMA-the fictional agency in many of his books that Dirk Pitt works for) had found the wreck at a depth of 500 feet and upright on the seabed. The wreck is now owned by Premier Exhibitions, the same group that also owns RMS Titanic, Inc which obtained salvage rights to Titanic. The company has recovered artifacts from the wreck for display in the Rescue Gallery in its Titanic:The Artifact Exhibition.

Source(s):
1. RMS Carpathia (Wikipedia)
2. Press Release:Artifacts From Titanic’s Rescue Ship, Carpathia, to Make World Debut at the Science Museum of Minnesota(9 April 2009, 4-traders.com)
3. Cunard Line: Carpathia (Encyclopedia Titanica)

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