Deyner´s Notes!

*⌛* Reading time: 9 minutes

I can bet by now not a single person in the whole world has not seen (or at least heard of) the movie “Titanic” directed by James Cameron and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

In that film (and others films as well) is depicted how another ship (RMS Carpathia) come to the aid of a sinking Titanic in the middle of the cold night of April 14, 1912. As we all know RMS Carpathia arrived somehow later to help most of the people already dying in the cold waters of north Atlantic despite the efforts made to speed up the rescue mission. However, due to RMS Carpathia efforts many lives were saved that day that otherwise would have been lost in those hours of despair.

That awful night that ship was like 60 miles away from Titanic and when the Carpathia’s wireless operator heard the Titanic’s S.O.S and C.Q.D. calls, its Captain, Mr. Arthur H. Rostron, ordered go quickly to the place where the signal came from. But did you know that the same night there was another ship even closer to the place where Titanic was sinking...in fact...20 miles away?

It was the SS Californian, another British steamship operated by British Leyland Line company. Curiously, this two ships were somehow near the Titanic sinking place that night but despite having both received the help signals, only the RMS Carpathia helped. That why the Carpathia is known as “The Ship That Rescued Titanic's Survivors” while the Californian is know as “The Ship Who Watched Titanic Sink”...Much has been written about the RMS Carpathia but the SS Californinan history is poor documented and very little has really been said about it.

So, what happened? Let's take a quick look at the history of both ships and then lets go back in time to the night of April 14, 1912 to see what happened according to some facts.

....Mysterious isn't? Let´s go, put on your life jacket and your coat...we go back in time ... NOW!

RMS Carpathia

According to The Irish Post and the Wikipedia page dedicated to RMS Carpathia, this ship was launched by the Sawn Hunter & Wigham Richardson Company from their shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1902. It initially operated as a transatlantic service for immigrants eager to travel to America before being refitted as a cruise ship in 1905. It was a tiny ship for 1912 standards with just 541 feet long and 64 feet wide with a service speed of 15 knots.

Fig 1. *The RMS Carpathia (https://www.irishpost.com)*

By January 1912, the Carpathia was operating under the command of Captain Arthur H. Rostron, making some transatlantic crossings that brought poor immigrants to America and the wealthy to the Mediterranean for pleasure cruises and exotic expeditions. By April 11th, 1912 it found itself making one of such journeys to America with some 700 people on board.

It successfully took part in the rescue of the survivors left behind after the sinking of the Titanic and arrived to New York Harbor on the morning of April 18 carrying 705 survivors of the tragedy. The crew, officers and the Captain received honors and medals from both the United States government and the British one.

Fig 2. *Another photo of the RMS Carpathia (https://owlcation.com)*

Two years later, in 1914, the First World War began and Carpathia was transformed into a troopship, transporting Canadian and American troops into Europe during the war. It remained on the Liverpool-New York route without major incidents from 1915 until 17 July 1918, when it was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U55, 170 miles west of Bishop Rock. Five crew were killed, but the remaining 215 on board, including 57 passengers, were rescued by HMS Snowdrop.

SS Californinan

This steamship owned by the Leyland Line was constructed in Scotland in the Dundee Docks. Launched in November 26, 1901, it was designed primarily to transport cotton, but also had the capacity to carry 47 passengers and 55 crew members.

Fig 3. *The SS Californian photographed on the morning after Titanic sank (https://owlcation.com)*

This ship completed its sea trials on 23 January 1902 and sailed without a Marconi wireless apparatus until 1912 when it was installed one of this devices in a refitted cabin. The year 1911 saw Captain Stanley Lord became master of the ship. In April 14th, 1912 the SS Californian constantly contacted Titanic and some other near ships to inform about some ice fields with which the Californian nearly collided with. While keeping the distance, is a known fact that the Californian was once so close to Titanic like 5 miles away, so close that Captain Lord was able to spotted the Titanic's lights on the horizon. Hours later, somehow, it refused to assist a sinking Titanic arriving to the sinking site even later that RMS Carpathia.

Fig 4. *Another photo of the SS Californian (https://alchetron.com)*

Days later it arrived to Boston starting then the nightmare of having to explain why they did not help and assisted on time to Titanic survivors. Captain Lord would spend the rest of his life trying to clean up the image the rest of the world had upon him. The SS Californian continued in normal commercial service until World War I, when the British government took control of it. On November 9th, 1915 it was torpedoed twice (first time by U-34 and the second time by U-35) and sank near Cape Matapan, Greece.

Unlike RMS Carpathia which wreckage has been discovered already and explored several times, Californian's wreck remains undiscovered...maybe forgotten by history as a way to collect a debt.

So what happened then? Conspiracy theory?

To be completely honest we maybe never know for sure what happened that awful night in the cold waters of north Atlantic. There are some key facts which can be analyzed to somehow find out why one ship helped the Titanic while the other didn't help at all.

We all know that unwritten sea rules state that in case of sinking any ship near the sinking location must help survivors to get out of the water and render first aid. SS Californian indeed headed its way to the sinking place just to find the RMS Carpathia gathering all the survivors and rendering first aid...so, this was not the problem with the behavior of this ship, the problem was why they didn't show up on time being the nearest ship, receiving Titanic messages of help and seeing several rockets lunched from the place of the disaster?

Fig 5. *Californian's close proximity to Titanic that night. Less than 20 nautical miles Northwest of the sinking ship. (https://owlcation.com)*

This has been a mystery since the very beginning of this story. In the first place it highly contrasts the attitude of each captain.

Captain Rostron from the Carpathia was summoned from his cabin in the middle of the night after received the Titanic’s S.O.S in the wireless operator cabin and he immediately ordered the ship to assist the sinking ship. While this ship made its way to the Titanic, Captain Rostron issued a series of orders to prepare the Carpathia for rescue operations: extra rooms, officers’ quarters and common rooms were prepared to receive survivors, dining rooms were transformed into makeshift hospitals, hot water and steam supply to passenger cabins were cut to increase the ship’s top speed which went from 14.5 knot to 18 knots – helping the Carpathia go faster and save an hour of journey.

As soon as the Carpathia approached to the place of sinking Captain Rostron ordered to fire green starburst rockets to alert the sinking ship, or its survivors, beginning then the rescue mission in the middle of the night. Having rescued 705 survivors the Carpathia was dangerously over capacity, however Captain Rostron decided to take his chances and they set sail for New York arriving a few days later.

On the other hand Captain Stanley Lord ordered the Californian to stop for the night, concluding it was too dangerous to proceed because the high amount of ice fields they've found. Once spotted several rockets fired from Titanic the Californian's crew woke up Captain Lord who suggested to establish a contact via morse lamp. No effort was ever made to wake the wireless operator. He suggested that the rockets were company signals of some kind while his officers believed there was a more serious nature behind the rockets.

After seeing about 8 rockets fired, the Californian crew began to worry and this was reported to Captain Lord who did nothing. When the radio operator woke up he heard the news about the Titanic sinking and then informed to the Captain the bad news. Stanley Lord ordered the Californian to go to Titanic's position but instead of a direct route, he ordered a twisted, longer route that he would later claim, in the inquiry, was to Titanic's last broadcasted position....so many bad decisions in one night.

Fig 6. *A photo depicting SS Californian arriving to Titanic' s sinking place (from the perspective of RMS Carpathia) (https://owlcation.com)*

As many of the later inquiries concluded, it is almost sure that it was a fault from Captain Stanley Lord, his irresponsibility and mishandling of the situation lead to many more lives lost that night. Some people said he was cowardly and despite knowing the reality of the situation he preferred not to involve his ship and crew in a dangerous mission in the middle of the night with so many icebergs floating. The truth is that Captain Lord's testimony was inconsistent with the testimony of the rest of the crew where it is clearly seen that the whole crew thought about a disaster while the Captain thought about it like “a different way for a ship belonging to another company to communicate with another ship of the same shipping company”.

More incriminating evidence upon Captain Lord, or a suspicious lack thereof, came in the form of Californian's logs. Its scrap log mysteriously disappeared sometime between the night of the disaster and Californian's arrival in Boston. The official log gave no mention of Titanic, a nearby ship, or rockets of any kind.

Another thing people asked years later was why once gathered in the place of the disaster both the RMS Carpathia and the SS Californian, Captain Lord did not take any survivors into his ship to relieve the overweight that the Carpathia had...question unanswered yet....

Fig 7. *Taken by a passenger on board Carpathia on April 15, 1912 showing one of Titanic's collapsible boats and some survivors (https://owlcation.com)*

Final thoughts...by now

Over the years many conspiracy theories have appeared due to, somehow, the lack of information (or misinformation) about the inactivity of the SS Californian. The truth is that, in practice, if Captain Lord had acted immediately, many more lives would have been saved that night, although the Titanic would have irretrievably sunk.

Many people led by films and novels written about that historical fact, do not know about the existence of the SS Californian and what it could have done to assist the survivors...simply because in those novels and films it is not mentioned at all unlike the RMS Carpathia which took direct action on the events that happened that night. Now that you, dear reader, know about the existence of this ship, you can image maybe a different end to the James Cameron's film...maybe a happy end where Rose and Jack save their lives, arriving to New York Harbor on the deck of the Californian and living together forever ever.

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