Cape Cod History

1912: Cape listens as Titanic sinks

Wireless messages unanswered from Cape Cod to Titanic

The horrific message read, "CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD SOS Come at once. We have struck a berg. CQD OM ('It's a CQD, old man'). Position 41 46 N., 50 14 W. CQD SOS."

Shortly after midnight on this day in 1912, on the 13,600-ton Cunard liner Carpathia approximately 1,100 miles east of Cape Cod, wireless operator H.T. Cottam was preparing for bed after a long night of sending and receiving messages.

Three hours earlier, the Carpathia's captain, Arthur H. Rostrom, alarmed by warnings from other ships of ice in the vicinity, asked Cottam what other vessels were within range of the wireless.

The Mesaba, the Baltic, the Caronia, the Frankfurt, Mount Temple, Virginian, Birma, and the Olympic, Cottam answered, and a new White Star Line luxury liner -- the 45,000-ton Titanic, the largest passenger steamship in the world.

"Thank you," said Rostron, as described in the 1974 book "Titanic: The Maiden Voyage," by Geoffrey Marcus. "I suppose you'll be turning in presently for the night."

"Yes, sir," replied Cottam. "I may listen to Cape Cod for a while, (referring to the Marconi wireless station in Wellfleet), in case there is any news of the coal strike in England."

A few hours later, Cottam put on the wireless earphones for what he thought would be the last time that evening and sent a signal to the Titanic. The response was a curt "K" ("Go ahead").

Cottam signaled back, "GM OM ('Good morning, old man! Do you know there are messages for you at Cape Cod?"

"At the swift response to his enquiry, Cottam's heart nearly missed a beat," Marcus wrote six decades later. "For out of the night came the dread CQD, the international distress call."

"CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD SOS Come at once. We have struck a berg. CQD OM ('It's a CQD, old man'). Position 41 46 N., 50 14 W. CQD SOS."

"In trousers and shirt Cottam raced up to the bridge and breathlessly informed the Officer of the Watch, who in turn awakened the Captain," Marcus wrote. "On hearing the almost incredible news, the first thing Rostron did was to give orders to turn the ship around" and ordered full steam ahead to the Titanic.

But the Carpathia was nearly 60 miles from the Titanic and capable of a top speed of only 17 knots. Two hours later, the Titanic plunged to its watery grave in the bone-chilling North Atlantic, taking more than 1,517 of her 2,223 passengers and crew with her. Another 90 minutes would pass before the Carpathia arrived at the scene and rescued 706 survivors from the Titanic's lifeboats.

(illustration credit, http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk)