100 years radio rescue at sea

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January 23, 2009, marked the 100th anniversary of the first time a radio call for help resulted in saving many lives at sea. It was not the morse signal SOS, but an earlier code - CQD. CQ was the morse signal meaning "Calling all stations", the D indicated distress.

radio room At 5:30am on 23 January 1909 the British Royal Mail steamship Republic, out bound from New York to the Mediterranean, with 460 passengers and a crew of 300, was rammed amidships by the Italian Lloyd SS Florida while in dense fog south of Nantucket Island. Florida was carrying 830 survivors of the 1908 earthquake in Sicily to New York. The engine room of the Republic was flooded, leaving the vessel without power and electricity. The Marconi wireless operator on the Republic, Jack Binns, jury rigged some batteries and was able to send out the CQD distress call and their position coordinates. It was received by the Marconi station RMS Republic operator on Nantucket Island, who then relayed the weak signal. In turn it was picked up by Henry Tatersall, the radio operator on the RMS Baltic heading to New York. After 12 hours steaming slowly through the fog, in the late evening, the Baltic finally reached the Republic and the Florida (which had no radio) and took on all the passengers and most of the crew from both ships. The Republic sank the next day while being towed. The Florida, although badly damaged, managed to reach New York under its own power with a skeleton crew.

Henry Tattersall, the Marconi radio operator on the Baltic, stayed at his post for 52 hours during which he transmitted several hundred messages. Jack Binns stayed at his post on the Republic until sinking became imminent. On previous voyages he had demonstrated the radio equipment to a number of U.S. congressmen, but none believed that it was capable of saving lives. This opinion changed after 1240 passengers and 300 crew from both vessels were transferred to the Baltic without incident, in spite of a 2.5 meter (8 feet) swell. Only six people lost their lives in this disaster; three crew members of the Florida (asleep in the bow) and three passengers of the Republic, who all died as a result of the collision itself.

This demonstration of how wireless could save lives captured the world's attention. The New York Times also had wireless equipment, on the roof of its headquarters, and printed the messages, as received, in many special editions. At that time only about 100 ships, mostly British mail ships, were equipped with Marconi radio sets. After this event radio installations were added to many passenger carrying vessels. By the end of 1909 the Marconi company operated 143 shipboard installations, by 1912 the number had grown to 589. That was the year that the Titanic disaster, 15 April, gave dramatic evidence of the neccesity of equipping passenger carrying vessels with radio. Within a year, the number of ships equipped with radio had grown to 1500.

In the year 1909 there were two other notable ship disasters in which radio played a major part in rescue. 10 June 1909, the Cunard liner Slavonia was wrecked of the coast of the Azores islands. The call SOS was sent out and was received by two other ships that sped to the rescue. As a result no lives were lost.
12 October 1909, S.S. Antilles ran aground in the Bahama Islands. A radio distress signal was received by S.S. Comus which took all the passengers to safety.

It is of interest that 47 years later, 25 July 1956, the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket under almost identical circumstances, in spite of radar and other modern communication devices. In this collision 46 died and 1660 passengers and crew were rescued due to the immediate response of other vessels in the area. The Andrea Doria sank several hours later, the Stockholm with badly damaged bow managed to reach New York.

HISTORY

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