As RMS Carpathia arrives on the scene Titanic’s survivors are hauled aboard. Bruce Ismay retreats to a private cabin, refusing to speak to his fellow passengers. Rumours swirl on land as word of the disaster reaches New York and Washington. Titanic’s radio operator gets a life changing offer. And as Carpathia approaches Manhattan, the press are already figuring where to pin the blame… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Josyann Abisaab, Stephanie Barczewski, Jerome Chertkoff, James Delgado, Ray Hanania, Veronica Hinke, Clifford Ismay, Tim Maltin, Stephen McGann. Special thanks to Southampton Archives, Culture and Tourism for the use of the Eva Hart archive. Visit SeaCity Museum for an interactive experience of the Titanic story (seacitymuseum.co.uk) Written by Duncan Barrett | Produced by Miriam Baines and Duncan Barrett | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by Miri Latham | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Anisha Deva, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines and Dorry Macaulay | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann | Nautical consultant: Aaron Todd. Get every episode of Titanic: Ship of Dreams two weeks early and ad-free by joining Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened as the Carpathia approached Titanic's last position?
It's the early hours of April the 15th, 1912. The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia is steaming through the night, full speed ahead. Ever since the ship's wireless operator Harold Cottam received Titanic's distress call at 12.25 that morning, Carpathia has been in crisis mode. Captain Arthur Rostron has ordered every last drop of steam to the engines.
He's doing his best to cross the 50-odd miles separating them from Titanic in record time. The decks of the ship are shaking as the engines are pushed to their limit. Unlike Titanic, Carpathia is a modest single-funneled workhorse. Her top speed, officially at least, is 14 knots, compared to Titanic's 23. But right now, Rostron is squeezing 17 knots out of her.
Chapter 2: How did Captain Rostron prepare for the rescue?
Blazing through the darkness, he knows he's taking the lives of his passengers in his hands. More than once, Carpathia has had to dodge an approaching iceberg, A deeply religious man, Rostron will later write that the hand of God must be on the helm that night, as his ship zigzags around the bergs. By 3.30 AM, Carpathia is approaching Titanic's last recorded position.
On board, everything is in readiness. Blankets have been laid out in public rooms. Tea, coffee, and hot soup are all on hand, not to mention copious quantities of brandy. The crew have even sourced some heavy-duty restraints, in case any of Titanic's survivors have lost their minds.
Up in the crow's nest, the lookouts are keeping a sharp watch, scanning the horizon for Titanic's four giant funnels. But all they can see, far away in the distance, is a little green light. It's too low in the water to be a liner, let alone the biggest ship in the world. Rostron orders Carpathia to slow down as they approach.
He sounds the ship's whistle to alert those in the water that they're coming. At 4 a.m., as the first rays of daylight begin to break through the night, Carpathia's lookouts spot a small boat a quarter of a mile away. It's Titanic's lifeboat two. The wind is rising now, and the surface of the water is becoming choppy.
Rostron orders his second officer, James Bissett, to board the lifeboat and help the survivors aboard Carpathia. Be careful that she doesn't capsize, he warns him. As Carpathia pulls up alongside the little boat, Bissett and three colleagues clamber down rope ladders. Inside, they find Titanic's fourth officer, Joseph Bogthor, along with a mixture of men, women, and children.
Many of the survivors are in no state to climb the ladders. They have to be winched up to the deck instead. One woman, wearing a fur coat over her nightie, is clutching something tightly to her chest. Bissett assumes it must be a baby, until she cries out in terror, Be careful of my doggie! Last but one out of the boat is Joseph Boxall.
Bissett climbs up the ladder after him and takes him to Carpathia's bridge. Where is Titanic? Captain Rostron asks him. Boxall's face is ashen. Gone, he replies. She sank at 2.20 a.m. There's a moment of stunned silence. Then Rostron asks, were there many left on board? Hundreds and hundreds, Vauxhall replies. Perhaps a thousand, perhaps more. His voice breaks with emotion. My God, sir, he cries.
They've gone down with her. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Titanic Ship of Dreams, Part 10.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did the survivors face in the lifeboats?
Titanic's distress position was ten miles wrong.
Tim Moulton, author of 101 Things You Thought You Knew About the Titanic But Didn't.
So actually Carpathia had steamed at full speed towards ten miles away from where the actual Titanic was sinking?
Since Carpathia's wireless operator received Titanic's distress call three and a half hours earlier, They've been storming towards the coordinates given in the message. 41 degrees 44 minutes north, 50 degrees 14 minutes west. Those coordinates are based on a calculation made by Titanic's fourth officer, Bokthor. But it turns out his figures are off.
because of a one-minute error between taking a star sight on the deck and transferring that correct timing onto the ship's chronometer time. There was a one-minute error made in that, which equates to a 10-mile error. But by absolute luck that night, and there was luck as well as bad luck,
The true position of the sinking Titanic and indeed her floating lifeboats was on the wrong track between the rescue ship and the wrong position. So it just so happened that they picked up the lifeboats by accident because of where they happened to be when they had the wrong distress position.
This stroke of luck undoubtedly saves many lives. Captain Rostron has been pushing Carpathia's engines to the limit. But even so, he only just arrives in time to rescue the 700 or so men, women, and children in Titanic's lifeboats. Conditions in the North Atlantic are deteriorating fast.
the wind was getting up, the waves were getting up, some lifeboats were fairly swamped. Had Carpathia arrived, say, two or three hours later, it's likely that there could have been no survivors from the Titanic.
Some have already been forced to abandon their original lifeboats. My great-uncle Jimmy McGann has spent most of the night on the upturned collapsible B, along with junior telegraphist Harold Bryde and Titanic's second officer, Charles Lightoller. A few hours ago, they were beating away fellow survivors with their oars to prevent the collapsible from capsizing.
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Chapter 4: How did Bruce Ismay react after the disaster?
And they threw down rope ladders and people like my mother and other grown-ups had to climb up in mid-ocean up a swaying rope ladder, which she said was the most terrifying thing. A sailor behind sort of holding on. And then what can the children do? We couldn't climb up a rope ladder. So they got this big luggage net The mesh is fairly wide apart. It's quite a big mesh.
Children would have slipped through it. So each child was put in a sack. And I ended up being petrified when I was put in that sack and it was tied around and the sack full of these children were put into these huge nets and quite safely, of course, hauled aboard. But that really was quite terrifying. Then having got on board, of course, I couldn't find my mother. And I didn't find her for hours.
Eva and her mother got separated during the night when 5th Officer Lowe started moving passengers between lifeboats, attempting to make space for survivors.
When the dawn came up and we were being picked up by the Carpathia, I wasn't in the same lifeboat with her. I'd been spent the rest of the night after she had gone. I'd been lifted out of the boat, spent the rest of the night screaming for her. And I found her, of course, on the Carpathia. She was looking for me and I was looking for her.
But that must have been quite dreadful for people like my mother, who would look round to see if my father had by any chance made it. But nobody did, of course.
Esther Hart isn't the only mother on Carpathia frantically searching for a missing child. Lebanese migrant Shanina Abisab spent the night in collapsible sea, along with white-style boss Bruce Ismay and an extremely distraught woman who'd lost her son. Dr. Josiane Abisab,
She said that several passengers had actually froze to death in her lifeboat. And next to her on the lifeboat, there was a woman who was sobbing hysterically. And that woman was the mother of a child called Tommy. Once the lifeboat reached the Carpathia, this mother who had lost her son was continually crying, hugging another child, a small child to her breast.
Several hours after they had been taken on board the Carpathia and given some clothing, Shanina was coming from her cabin when she saw a nurse carrying a child wrapped in a blanket. And she recognized that child as being Tommy. So she told the nurse the story of the mother, the grief-stricken mother, and she handed Tommy. the little boy to Sianine, who took the little boy to his mom.
And Sianine said that that reunion was a sight she will never forget.
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Chapter 5: What was the impact of the Californian's inaction?
Before Bruce left the ship, Senator Smith boarded to subpoena Bruce to attend the investigation. So basically, at that point, Bruce couldn't leave New York, couldn't leave American shores. And the same applied to what was remaining of the certain year officers.
Smith clearly thinks ISME could be a flight risk.
Bruce would have liked to have got back to Britain. In fact, he did send a letter to Senator Smith saying, will you allow me to return to England to see my family, my loved ones? And if you would like me to come back to America to attend the American inquiry, I shall do so voluntarily at your discretion.
However, Senator Smith denied that request, so Bruce was basically grounded in America until he'd answered all the questions on the American inquiry.
As Senator Smith's inquiry gets underway, the exchange of letters between him and Ismay will grow increasingly acrimonious. I am not unmindful of the fact that you are being detained in this country against your will, Smith tells Ismay. But the horror of the Titanic catastrophe, and its importance to the people of the world, calls for scrupulous investigation.
I am working day and night to achieve this result, and you should continue to help me, instead of annoying me and delaying my work by your personal importunities. As the head of the White Star Line for over a decade, and now president of the International Mercantile Marine as well, Bruce Ismay isn't used to this kind of treatment.
On Thursday evening, with Carpathia docked at Pier 54, Titanic survivors begin to disperse. Eva Hart and her mother are greeted by an aunt they've never met, who invites them to come and stay with her while they arrange travel back to England. The Women's Relief Committee provides them both with a complete change of clothes. Oh, they were wonderful to us.
We had the most wonderful things given to us, yes. They were very kind.
Uncle Jimmy is sent straight to hospital to recover from the effects of exposure.
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