The sinking of the RMS Titanic on the night of April 14-15, 1912 is among the most infamous disasters in history. Yet, both factual and fictional accounts of the event often skip from the mayhem and death at the ship following its collision with the iceberg, to the lives of the survivors, once safely back on shore.
In addition to the aid provided by the RMS Carpathia crew, who delivered surviving Titanic passengers to New York, there was unprecedented international coordination and communication that went into the rescue and relief effort. Here are five examples of how the world responded to the tragedy and tried to help the roughly 2,200 people aboard the doomed ocean liner.
1. Distress Messages Were Received and Relayed
From 1912 through 1922, Thomas Bartlett served as the operator of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Station, located directly adjacent to the Cape Bear Lighthouse in Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island. The bulk of his job involved communicating with ships and ice-breaking steamers approaching the Northumberland Strait, but during his shift on the night of April 14, 1912, he received an S.O.S. distress signal transmitted from a passenger ship sinking off the coast of Newfoundland: the R.M.S. Titanic.
The station, where Bartlett lived with his wife and six children, was the first in Canada to receive a land signal from the ocean liner. "He relayed the message to Charlottetown, but by the time it was received in Halifax, they had already heard,” Charles MacNeill, vice president of the Cape Bear Lighthouse and Marconi Station board of directors told the CBC in 2017. Still, Bartlett took action and did what he could to initiate rescue efforts.
2. The Carpathia Dodged Icebergs to Rescue Survivors
Upon receiving the Titanic’s distress signal, Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia made the decision to pick up speed and head towards the sinking ship. Not only was the Carpathia the first on the scene, it was the only ship to rescue surviving passengers of the Titanic.
“Before their rescue, the over 700 Titanic survivors had been floating on the open sea, amongst icebergs, for hours,” says Eric Cimino, chair of the history department at Molloy College. “They were able to witness the sunrise and then the appearance of the rescue ship Carpathia.”
According to Cimino, the Carpathia was “a relatively outmoded ocean liner,” and some of the survivors had to be hauled aboard in makeshift chairs, including children who were placed in canvas bags. “Once aboard, the crew had to figure out what to do with the hundreds of new passengers, many of them traumatized and frantically searching for information about their loved ones,” he explains.
3. Disaster Relief Awaited Survivors in New York City
Upon receiving news of the “unsinkable” ship’s demise, New Yorkers immediately began to organize disaster relief for the survivors, who would arrive on the Carpathia in a matter of days. Some of the city’s most prominent society women formed a group called the Women's Relief Committee, and wasted no time coming up with a comprehensive plan for providing necessary services and resources for surviving passengers—especially immigrants and others who traveled in “steerage.”
“While men of the first cabin get a lot of credit for their heroism aboard the Titanic—[putting] "women and children first"—women led the subsequent relief efforts on behalf of survivors in New York City,” Cimino says. “When survivors arrived at Manhattan's Pier 54, the Women's Relief Committee was there with food, clothing and emergency funds.” Additionally, social workers from the Travelers' Aid Society and the Council of Jewish Women were also stationed at the pier, and guided second- and third-cabin survivors to temporary, safe lodging in the city, he adds.
4. Medical Care Was Provided on Both Land and Sea
The Carpathia had a medical staff of three physicians—Dr. Frank McGee, an English surgeon and the head doctor on board, Dr. Vittorio Risicato of Italy, and Dr. Arpad Lengyel of Hungary—who quickly gathered supplies and established makeshift first-aid stations in each of the ship’s three dining rooms.
“Doctors mostly treated injuries such as broken bones, fractures, and bruises,” says Cimino. “There were also cases of people fainting, having convulsions, and suffering from 'delirium,' probably as a result of trauma.”
When the Carpathia arrived at the Port of New York on the evening of April 18, 1912, 20 ambulances from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and the Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell’s Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) were parked at the end of East 26th Street, near the pier, ready to transport seriously ill or injured survivors. Additionally, a ferry boat, the Thomas S. Brennan, was “equipped as a hospital craft” and was ready to receive and treat those who needed medical attention. “Dozens of survivors were also taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity,” Cimino adds.
5. Cable Ships Were Sent to Recover the Dead
Following the attempts to rescue surviving Titanic passengers, efforts were also made to recover the bodies of those who perished. As the closest major seaport to the Titanic wreckage with railroad connections, the White Star Line chose Halifax, Nova Scotia as the base for the retrieval and processing of the deceased. The company chartered the CS Mackay-Bennett, a cable ship, to make the trip, as the crew was accustomed to navigating the North Atlantic ocean and its often treacherous conditions, and were experienced wireless operators.
The Mackay-Bennett departed on April 17, 1912, equipped with coffins, canvas bags, 100 tons of ice, embalming fluid and other tools, as well as an undertaker and a chaplain. The cable steamer’s crew recovered 306 bodies over the course of five days; of those, 116 had to be buried at sea because the ship ran out of embalming supplies. On April 22, the White Star Line chartered the CS Minia: the second of three Halifax-based ships sent to search for bodies.
Ultimately, the three vessels recovered a total of 328 bodies, 209 of which were brought to Halifax. While 59 of the bodies were identified and returned to their hometowns via train, the remaining deceased were laid to rest in three of the city’s cemeteries.
