RMS Carpathia was a Cunard Line transatlantic passenger steamship built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson in their shipyard in Wallsend, England.

In April 1912, she became famous for rescuing survivors of the rival White Star Line's RMS Titanic after it struck an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Carpathia was sunk during World War I on 17 July 1918 after being torpedoed three times by the German submarine U-55 off the southern Irish coast, with a loss of five crew members.

[4] Rather than attempting to fully regain prestige by spending the additional money necessary to order liners that were fast enough to win back the Blue Riband from the German Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse or large enough to rival the Oceanic in size, Cunard tried to maximize their profitability in order to remain solvent enough to fend off any takeover attempts by the competing shipping conglomerate by the name of International Mercantile Marine Co.[citation needed] The three new ships were not particularly fast, as they were designed for immigrant travellers, but provided significant cost savings in fuel economy.

The three ships became both instruments and models through which Cunard was able to successfully compete with its larger rivals, most notably IMM's lead company, the White Star Line.

Like her predecessors, her design was based on a long hull, a low, well-balanced superstructure, and four masts fitted with cranes, allowing for effective handling of larger amounts of cargo than was customary on an ocean liner.

[6] The RMS Carpathia was constructed by C. S. Swan & Hunter at their shipyard in Wallsend, England for the Cunard Steamship Company, to operate between Liverpool and Boston alongside the Ivernia and Saxonia.

The second-class accommodation also included a walnut-panelled smoking room located in the aft deckhouse and a handsome library at the forward end of the bridge (A) deck.

The third-class dining saloon extended the full width of the ship and seated 300 passengers, with walls panelled in polished oak and teak dado.

[11] The Carpathia made her maiden voyage on 5 May 1903 from Liverpool, England,[8] to Boston, Massachusetts in the US, and ran services between New York City[13] and Mediterranean ports, such as Gibraltar, Algiers, Genoa, Naples, Trieste and Fiume.

Mainly third-class small cabins were converted to large shared dormitory rooms while adding first-class accommodation to areas that were previously second-class.

[18] Among its passengers were the American painters Colin Campbell Cooper and his wife Emma, author Philip Mauro, journalists Lewis Palmer Skidmore and Carlos Fayette Hurd, with their wives Emily Vinton Skidmore and Katherine Cordell Hurd, photographer Dr. Francis H. Blackmarr, and Charles H. Marshall, whose three nieces were travelling onboard the Titanic.

Also on board were Hope Brown Chapin, honeymooning youngest daughter of the former Governor of Rhode Island, Russell Brown, Pittsburgh architect Charles M. Hutchison and his wife, Sue Eva Rule, the sister of Judge Virgil Rule of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, as well as Louis Mansfield Ogden with his wife Augusta Davies Ogden, a granddaughter of Alexander H.

[citation needed] On the night of 14 April, the Carpathia's wireless operator, Harold Cottam, had missed previous messages from the Titanic, as he was on the bridge at the time.

[19] After his shift ended at midnight, he continued listening to the transmitter before bed, and received messages from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, stating they had private traffic for the Titanic.

[26] Captain Rostron decided that the survivors should be hoisted aboard the ship through the between-deck entrance nearest the waterline and posted Árpád Lengyel there, because he had paramedic experience and was tasked to perform the initial diagnosis.

News of the disaster rapidly spread on shore, and the Carpathia became the centre of intense media attention as she steamed westward towards New York at an average speed of 14 knots.

Hundreds of wireless messages were being sent from Cape Race and other shore stations addressed to Captain Rostron from relatives of Titanic passengers and journalists demanding details in exchange for money.

[24] Rostron ordered that no news stories would be transmitted directly to the press, deferring such responsibilities to the White Star offices as Cottam provided details to the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic.

Rostron was knighted by King George V, and was later a guest of President William Howard Taft at the White House, where he was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honour the United States Congress could confer upon an individual.

[38] On 15 July 1918, Carpathia departed from Liverpool in a convoy bound for Boston, carrying 57 passengers (36 saloon class and 21 steerage) and 166 crew.

[41] U-55 started approaching the lifeboats when the Azalea-class sloop HMS Snowdrop arrived on the scene and drove away the submarine with gunfire before picking up the survivors from the Carpathia around 1:00 p.m.

The Carpathia sank at 11:00 a.m. at a position recorded by the Snowdrop as 49°25′N 10°25′W / 49.417°N 10.417°W / 49.417; -10.417, about 1 hour and 45 minutes after the torpedo strike, and approximately 120 mi (190 km) west of Fastnet.

[41] On 9 September 1999, the Reuters and AP wire services reported that Argosy International Ltd., headed by Graham Jessop, son of the undersea explorer Keith Jessop, and sponsored by the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), had discovered the RMS Carpathia's wreck in 600 ft (180 m) of water, 185 mi (298 km) west of Land's End.

[43] In 2000, the American author and diver Clive Cussler announced that his organisation, NUMA, had found the true wreck of the Carpathia in the spring of that year,[44][45] at a depth of 500 ft (150 m).