A SERIES of dramatic messages chronicling the moments when Captain Sir Arthur Rostron and his crew of the Carpathia rescued passengers from the stricken Titanic have been sold in New York for nearly $30,000 — £18,500.
Three messages, including one which details the events of the rescue, were sold together for $15,000 at the Bonhams Titanic: 100 Years of Fact and Fiction auction.
Sir Arthur, a former Bolton School pupil, lived in Astley Bridge.
One of the messages, timed and dated 2.10pm NYT, April 15, 1912, reads: “We received distress signal call from the Titanic at 11.20pm and proceeded right to the spot mentioned.
On arrival at daybreak we saw ice 25 miles long apparently solid, quantity of wreckage and number of boats full of lives.
“We raised about 670 souls. Titanic has sunk she went down in two hours. Captain and all engineers our captain sent order that there was no need for Baltic to come any further so with that she returned on her course to Liverpool.
“We have two or three officers aboard and the second Marconi operator who had been creeping his way through water at 30 degrees for several hours. Mr Ismay is aboard.” J. Bruce Ismay was the managing director of White Star Liners, who built the “unsinkable” Titanic.
After his rescue, he was ostracised by London society as a coward. A further six Marconi messages, dated April 15 and spanning the period from 3.55pm to 5.37pm, sold for $12,018.
One, from the Carpathia to another ship, the Titanic’s sister Olympic, warned any attempt to pass through the ice would be too dangerous for the second ship, and stated there was “absolutely no hope searching Titanic’s position.”
Another, signed by Sir Arthur himself in response to a request for a list of survivors, Some of the messages between rescue ships said: “Captain chief 1st and sixth officers and all engineers gone also doctor all pursers one Marconi operator and chief steward.
“We have second third fourth and fifth officers one Marconi operator on board.
Rostron.”
Sir Arthur became the only Bolton man ever to receive America’s highest award — the Congressional Medal of Honour — presented by President William Howard Taft in the White House
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