Carpathia is seen sinking on 17 July, 1918, in this painting by an unknown artist. I think the image may have been a color plate in an old book from the early 20’s such as Archibald Hurd’s, A Merchant Fleet at War, or in one of the many editions of “The Wonder Book of Ships” from the late twenties through the mid to late 1930’s. I was wondering about the images historical accuracy, Carpathia still appears in commercial colors, although she had been operating under charter since 1916. She was apparently also carrying paying passengers at the time of her sinking, which wouldn’t seem to be in keeping with her service as a Government transport. I guess it’s possible the Government allowed her carry passengers on west bound crossings, as she had no need to be carrying troops over to America. The surfaced submarine (U-55) is actually correct as seen here, there are surviving photographs of this event that were taken from the submarine itself. Carpathia took a long time to sink, nearly 2.5 hours, and it took a total of three torpedoes from the U-55 to finally send her to the bottom.
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