On June 10, satellite phone contact was lost between Abby
Sunderland, a 16-year old attempting to become the youngest person
to circumnavigate the globe solo by sailboat, and her parents in
California. Despite the loss of satellite phone contact, however,
two of her three GPS distress beacons could be detected. The next
day, Australian authorities dispatched an Airbus 330 from Perth to
travel the 2,300 miles to the location of the signals in the middle
of the Indian Ocean, beyond the authorities’ normal range of search
and rescue. Upon arriving near the signals, observers on the plane
spotted her within minutes and established radio contact. A French
ship picked her up on June 12.
This event prompted me to attempt to confirm my late
grandfather’s story, relayed to me by my father, that he was on the
first ship to participate in a rescue at sea resulting from a radio
distress signal, that he had suggested to a passenger that he
should take pictures, and that, upon docking in New York, a
newspaper had paid the exorbitant sum of $500 to this fellow
passenger for his roll of undeveloped film.
The online Ellis Island archives show several arrivals by
a James Augustus Thunder (or similar names). One arrival occurred
on January 25, 1909, when “Jas. Augustus Thunder,” age 29, arrived
from Liverpool aboard the Baltic. I further confirmed that
the Baltic arrived after it had engaged in the first
rescue at sea resulting from a radio distress signal.
Before dawn on January 23, the outgoing White Star Line
ship Republic had collided with the incoming Italian
Florida near Nantucket in dense fog. Two Republic
passengers and three Florida crew were killed instantly.
(Another Republic passenger later died from his
injuries.)
On board the Republic was Jack Binns, the ship’s
“marconi-man,” that is, an employee of the Marconi Company who
operated the “wireless telegraphy” patented by
Guglielmo Marconi in 1896. Wireless telegraphy was to
telegraphy what a cellphone today is to a landline. The ship was
using the wireless telegraphy as an amenity — passengers were able
to send and receive business and social messages.
The collision threw Binns from his bunk. His cabin was
crushed on three sides, flooded with cold water, and a stiff cold
breeze blew threw it. Using a signal that had been established in
1902 by the Marconi International Marine Communication
Company, Binns sent out a distress call with a range of two
or three hundred miles. The signal was received at
Siasconsett station on the island of Nantucket. That station, with
its stronger signal, relayed the distress call. The incoming
passenger ship Baltic and several other civilian and
military ships responded.
After Binns had sent and received his initial signals, the
ship lost power. Binns dove into the water in his cabin to locate
storage batteries. Using his newly-rigged radio, he remained at his
station all day and night on January 23.
During the day of January 23, the Republic
transferred its 461 passengers and most of its 300 crew members via
lifeboats to the Florida. At nightfall, the
Baltic was the first of the responding ships to locate the
Republic. The Baltic had been in the area of the
Republic for some 12 hours, trying to find the ship in the
dense fog by radio, explosions, “submarine bell” (a below water
acoustic device), and a fog horn.
Because of the condition of the Florida, all of
the passengers and most of the crew of both the Republic
and Florida were transported that night (January 23-24) to
the Baltic. This transfer required 83 boatloads and
consumed 10 hours’ time. The lone passenger not transferred was the
injured Republic passenger who refused to be transferred a
second time. The Florida had 839 passengers, all of them
survivors of a 1908 Sicilian earthquake. So, with crew, some 1,650
people were transferred on the open sea, at night, in eight-foot
swells, in dense fog, in the middle of winter. The Baltic
itself had 489 passengers and 229 crew.
Binns and four dozen other crew voluntarily boarded the
Republic for her tow by other responding ships, but later
that day, about 4 p.m., all but the captain and second officer
abandoned the Republic. Five hours later, the
Republic sank (January 24, 9 p.m.). Its captain and second
officer had remained on board the ship as it went down, the captain
having climbed the masthead and swimming away at the last moment.
In the dark and swelling sea, they were located. All of the
Republic’s cargo, including the coffins of the deceased
passengers and the luggage of the Republic’s passengers,
sank.
For 52 hours, H.J. Tattersall and G.W. Balfour, the
Marconi operators aboard the Baltic, had relayed messages
between the various responding ships and
land.
Aftermath
At the time of the 1909 Republic-Florida
collision, there were 180 ships equipped with wireless
telegraphy. There were two more incidents in 1909 that utilized the
distress signal. On June 10, the liner Slavonia was
wrecked off the coast of the Azores and the distress signal was
sent. No lives were lost. On October 12, the Antilles ran
aground in the Bahama Islands. Again, a distress signal was sent
and all passengers were saved. By 1912, 589 ships were equipped
with Marconi radios. Within a year after the April 15, 1912 sinking
of the Titanic, 1500 ships had
them.
There were a number of connections between the
Republic-Florida-Baltic and the Titanic,
including:
• The Republic and the Titanic were
owned by the same company.
• Jack Binns was originally slated to be the radio
operator on the Titanic’s maiden voyage; and
• The captain of the Baltic during the rescue,
Captain Ranson, was at the helm of the Baltic when he
warned the Titanic — by radio — that icebergs had been
sighted.
Not only was the Republic-Florida rescue
newsworthy because it was effected with a radio distress signal, it
was newsworthy in an additional way. The radio operators of various
ships involved in the rescue were in contact with land operators,
so the Republic-Florida rescue became the subject of
multiple editions of daily newspapers, allowing readers for the
first time to learn of events at sea in nearly real
time.
Did a Baltic passenger take pictures at the
suggestion of my grandfather? Did this passenger sell a roll of
undeveloped film to a newspaper for $500? I don’t have the full
answer to these questions, but I can confirm that at least one
Baltic passenger took a picture
of the Republic.
