Cable ship Mackay Bennett chartered to search for dead bodies of the Titanic according to the Dutch newspaper Middelburgsche Courant dated Friday 19 April 1912

The cable ship Mackay Bennett (1) was chartered by the White Star Line to inspect the area where the Titanic (2) sunk and loaded last Wednesday a cargo including coffins for the dead bodies which were expected to be found. On board were some persons experienced with embalming. The cargo also included more as 100 tons of ice. The correspondent described a large number of wagons loaded with ice destined for the quay where the coffins were piled up to a height of ten feet.

The edition dated 24 April reported that the ship recovered the bodies of Astor and major Butt.

Another newspaper De Zeeuw dated 25 April reported that the cable ship Minia left Halifax to replace the Mackay Bennett which latter ship was ordered to return with the 50 recovered recognizable bodies on board to Halifax.

Notes

1. The edition of 14 October 1909 reported that she succeeded in towing away an iceberg with a length of 160 feet which was stranded above the end of the cable off the east Coast of Nova Scotia. Despite 600 feet iron cable fitted to the iceberg were all efforts unsuccessful until explosives were used breaking the iceberg into parts. She was launched at the shipyard of John Elder&Co, Glasgow, Scotland in September 1884, since May 1922 used as a storage hulk and finally broken up in 1963. With a gross register tonnage of 2,000 tons were her dimensions 76 (between perpendiculars)-82 (over all) x 40 x 7,47 (moulded) metres or 250’-270’x 40 x 24’6”. Fitted out with two compound inverted two cylinder engines and two cylindrical single-ended multi-tubular boilers. Build for the Commercial Cable Company. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_Mackay-Bennett. In fact she seemed to recovered 306 bodies! See for instance the website http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/titanic/ships.asp?Ship=Mackay-BennettThere is even a film of her arrival with the bodies on board, see the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs3i0ADnlsA2. The passenger liner of the White Star Line Titanic sunk on 15 April 1912 after a collision with an iceberg underway from Southampton to New York City. It was her maiden and last voyage which caused the death of 1,514 people. Her building at the shipyard of Harland and Wolff at Belfast, Ireland was ordered on 17 September 1908, her keel was laid down on 31 March 1909 (yard number 401), launched on 31 May two years later, completed on 2 April 1912 and eight days later she left the harbour.