Relationship to Titanic disaster / inquiries.
Departed Boston April 16, 1912 for Liverpool via Quebec. Aboard was Boston Globe reporter Winfield Thomas, whose assignment was to monitor wireless traffic between Carpathia and other wireless stations and to see that a précis of this traffic was retransmitted to a land station from which it was to be sent to the Globe's Boston office.
On Wednesday April 17 at 6:10 a.m., wireless communication was established with Carpathia. In addition to Thomas's commitment to the Globe, Franconia operator transmitted to the Sable Island Marconi station (MSD) several personal messages of Titanic survivors — mostly of the passengers' names and the word "Safe."
Data:
July 23, 1910
Launched.
February 24, 1911
Maiden voyage, Liverpool - Queenstown - Boston and return.
1911-1914
New York - Mediterranean service during winter season.
February 15, 1915
Requisitioned, converted to a troop carrier.
October 4, 1916
Mediterranean Sea, 200 miles northeast of Malta, en route from Alexandria to Marseilles: Torpedoed, sunk by German submarine UB-47 . (12 lost.)
On Sunday, July 27, 1913, while on a crossing from Liverpool to Quebec, Franconia stopped over the site where Titanic went down. Wreaths of laurel picked in the garden of the late W.T. Stead were cast into the sea.
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