RMS Baltic

Baltic was born of Thomas Henry Ismay's late-1890s decision to pull the White Star Line out of the race for speed and build slower, larger, more comfortable ships. She was the third of the four liners over 20,000 tons dubbed the Big Four — after Celtic and Cedric, before Adriatic — built at Harland and Wolff in Belfast as hull number 352.

Mid-construction, the company decided she should be the largest ship ever built. With the hull already standing, she was cut in two and the after part set back nearly six metres to take an addition, adding almost 3,000 tons. Launched on 21 November 1903 and delivered at Liverpool on 23 June 1904, she measured 23,876 gross register tons — the world's largest ship until May 1906 — with twin screws, triple-expansion engines and a service speed of 16 knots.

Her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York left on 29 June 1904 under Captain Edward Smith, the future captain of the Titanic, and made the crossing in 7 days, 13 hours and 37 minutes with 906 passengers aboard. She proved more popular than her sisters, probably owing to her more spacious accommodation: a glass-roofed dining room, a smoking room with stained glass, a veranda café, and second-class quarters roomier than the norm of the day. The enlargement had a cost, though — her machinery was never upgraded to match her new tonnage, and she struggled to hold the service speed the schedules demanded.

On 23 January 1909 the White Star liner Republic, rammed in fog by the Italian ship Florida, sent out the CQD distress call; radio operator Jack Binns coaxed the signal out on battery power, and Baltic's operator picked it up around six in the morning. Sixty-four miles away, Captain J. B. Ranson turned his ship around and spent the day hunting through the fog — by his estimate 200 miles of zigzagging — finding the ships by rocket and bomb signals around 7 pm.

Florida's crowded decks were emptied and every passenger transferred to Baltic in the night and the fog, without a single loss; the only five deaths were those killed in the original collision. It was the first time wireless telegraphy had played a leading part in saving lives at sea, and New York greeted Baltic and the survivors with an enormous crowd. Her passengers subscribed commemorative medals for the three captains and for Binns.

Three years later she stood on the other side of the story. On 14 April 1912 Baltic wirelessed an ice warning to the Titanic — icebergs and field ice at 41° 51' N, 49° 52' W — signing off "Wish you and Titanic all success." When the SOS came via the Caronia, she diverted for nine hours, but was too far away to help.

When war came in 1914, Baltic and the Adriatic kept the Liverpool–New York run open — with the Lapland, Zeeland and Vaderland, the company's only transatlantic service — while Celtic and Cedric went off to be converted into auxiliary cruisers. She was still on that civilian run when she collided with the steamship Comal at the exit of the Ambrose Channel on 19 November 1914. From 1915 she was requisitioned as a troop transport under the Liner Requisition Scheme, carrying large quantities of oil in her bunkers and double bottom besides.

The U-boats came for her. On 26 April 1917 the German submarine U-66 tried and failed to torpedo her, then hung on for a two-day pursuit from which the liner emerged unscathed. Weeks later she carried Major General John J. Pershing and the first representation of the American army to enter the European war — a staff of 67 officers, a squad of 50 privates and a large civilian clerical force — to a British port.

The War Department's first communique on the deployment, released on 9 June 1917, recorded an "uneventful voyage of 10 days onboard the White Star liner Baltic", the party received with full military honours and welcomed in London by the Earl of Derby and Viscount French. A commemorative plaque went up in her main hall. During the first ten months of 1918 she brought 32,000 Canadian soldiers to France, ceasing military service on 12 December that year to resume her civilian trade.

Back on the Atlantic, Baltic was refitted in 1921 — migrant traffic had thinned, and her third-class capacity fell from 1,800 to 1,166 — reboilered in 1924, and converted to a more affordable cabin-class ship in 1927. Among the migrants she carried was a three-year-old Isaac Asimov, who arrived with his family in February 1923. From 1928 she became a regular at Canada's new Pier 21 immigration terminal, making 18 voyages there, and in December 1929 she went to the rescue of the sinking schooner Northern Light.

The Great Depression and White Star's internal crisis sealed her fate. The new Britannic of 1930 proved very successful, the Cedric was scrapped at the end of 1931, and the arrival of the Georgic in 1932 finished the argument: the old ship made her last crossing on 17 September that year. Sold with the Megantic to Japanese shipbreakers for £33,000, she left Liverpool for Osaka on 17 February 1933 under Captain Corfe, ending a career of twenty-eight years.