Graphic: Bangor University

In April of 1912, the cargo-passenger liner SS Mesaba radioed an ice warning to RMS Titanic. The message was received but never made it to the bridge. 

The supposedly unsinkable Titanic then hit an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage, with the loss of 1,500 lives. Mesaba herself was sunk, by a torpedo in World War I in 1918.

Now, the BBC reports that Bangor University researchers, using state-of-the art multibeam sonar, have been able to identify the Mesaba‘s wreck and pinpoint her final resting place.

The Mesaba was one among 273 shipwrecks lying in 7,500 square miles of Irish Sea, which were scanned and cross-referenced against the UK Hydrographic Office’s database of wrecks and other sources. They include trawlers, cargo vessels and submarines as well as large ocean liners and tankers.

Mesaba, like Titanic, was built in Belfast. The ship was torpedoed by German U-boat U-118 while making a convoy voyage from Liverpool to Philadelphia.

Twenty lives were lost, including that of the ship’s commander and a young able seaman from Wrexham, when it sank about 21 miles (34km) off Tuskar Rock, south-east of Rosslare in Ireland.

SS Mesaba photo: State Library of Queensland

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.