Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
Herbert Haddock informed of the disaster by wireless operator Ernest James Moore at 2250 ET on 14 April. After receiving a CQD call from "Titanic", Haddock calculated a new course and headed directly to her. He also sent for an engineer to set the ship's engines to full power. When from "Titanic", at approximately 1600 ET on 15 April, Haddock received a message from Captain Rostron of RMS "Carpathia", explaining that continuing on course to "Titanic" would gain nothing, as "All boats accounted for. About 675 souls saved [...] Titanic foundered about 2.20 am." Rostron requested that the message be forwarded to