How A Little Immigrant Ship Rescued The Titanic Survivors
Sometimes courage, altruism and hope make all the difference
If a 21-years-old British boy had gone straight to bed after his shift ended, 109 years ago, today the world would be a different place.
Young Harold Cottam was the wireless operator aboard RMS Carpathia in 1912, and there would likely be no Titanic survivors around if he had not, by sheer chance, left his headset on while undressing for bed.
While he was untying his shoes he received messages from Cape Cod stating they had private traffic for the Titanic: the channels had been jammed with passenger communications from the huge passenger ship for days: everybody wanted to try the new wireless technology, and the messages probably weren’t urgent or anything. Harold’s workday was over, and he could have very well waited until morning to forward the dispatch.
But he didn’t. Harold was a good guy who always tried to be helpful and, at half past midnight on the night of April 15, he sent a message to the Titanic, stating that Cape Cod had incoming traffic for them.
To his utter bewilderment, the reply was a frantic distress signal stating that the Titanic had struck an iceberg and was in need of immediate assistance.
