Istrian sailors on the Carpathia

Abstract

Carpathia was a vessel owned by the British Cunard Line which went down in history as the rescuer of the castaways from the Titanic, a passenger ship that famously sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean. Since 1903 the Carpathia had sailed on the transatlantic line between Rijeka and New York and was mostly used for the transportation of emigrants, employing many Croatian sailors, especially from Istria and the Kvarner. In this paper I discuss the names and fate of the unknown Croatian sailors from Labin area who participated in the rescue of Titanic passengers in April 1912 drawing on eyewitness accounts, their written records, and the available literature. By analysing the British Cunard Line official list from 1912 I discovered that out of the 240 crewmembers, 83 sailors came from Istria and the Kvarner. This well-known list is now expanded with 17 names of sailors from the Labin area. Fieldwork also helped find the families of their descendants. These new mariners were located by checking the surname frequency in Labin’s environs. Most came from Sveta Nedelja, Kršan and Labin. By analysing the list I conclude that they worked as waiters, stokers and greasers with a monthly salary from 76 to 127 Austro-Hungarian crowns. They were proficient in foreign languages and often served as interpreters. For some, that ship was a ticket to a better life. I was also able to determine that 20 mariners from Istria and the Kvarner who sailed on the Carpathia in 1912 defected from the ship and stayed in New York.