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Famous Sea Rescues by Karl Baarslag Hard Cover 1935
Famous Sea Rescues by Karl Baarslag
Formerly titles SOS to the rescue
Hard Cover
310 pages
Copyright 1935
CONTENTS
PREFACE by CAPTAIN FELIX RIESENBERG . . vii
CHAPTER
I. CQD AND SOS1 The history of CQD and SOS. A preliminary statement of the development of sea use of wireless. The International Morse Code.
II. JACK BINNS SENDS OUT THE CQD 18 The first major sea disaster in which great loss of life was avoided by the use of wireless. The Republic rammed by the Florida off Nantucket. The Republic with a wireless set and one operator, Jack Binns -the Florida without wireless. Cooperation of the shore stations. 1909.
III. THE UNSINKABLE SHIP 40 The heroic story of the Titanic. Phillips' last message. The part played by wireless, and the shadow of a steamer, the Californian, close by, her operator off duty. The great run of the Carpathia. Captain Rostron's superb seamanship. 1912.
IV. THE Empress of Ireland 79 Fog and the steering rules. Wireless again plays its part. The rapidity of disaster, following collision between the Empress of Ireland and the Storstad in the St. Lawrence. 1914.
V. THE Roosevelt AND THE Antinoe 98 Captain George Fried's heroic rescue of the crew of the foundering Antinoe. The radio direction finder; an epic of the Winter North Atlantic. 1926.
VI. THE Vestris 119 The Vestris founders off the Virginia Capes. The slow and inevitable progression of a major sea disaster. Overloading and its results, the delayed SOS. The radio log, a drama of rescue. Death of O'Loughlin, radio operator. Tragedy of the S.S. Montoso, close at hand, unequipped with radio. 1928.
VII. FIRE AT SEA 154 Fires at sea since the days of radio. The St. Cuthbert, the Templemore, the Volturno, L'Atlantique, the Georges Philippar and the Morro Castle.
VIII. THE UNLUCKY Tashmoo 195 An epic of steamship economy. Story of Arthur Finch, the "thirty-cent workaway," who saved the Tashmoo and all on board, and his "reward."
IX. PIONEER WIRELESSMEN 219 The first men to go to sea as wireless operators, and some of their experiences. The early sets, the anarchy of the air. Comedy and complications. The struggle for control and regulation of the air waves.
X. GIRL MARINE RADIO OPERATORS 249 Miss Graynella Packer, first seagoing woman radio operator. Other women go to sea as "brass pounders." So far women operators never in disasters.
XI. MEMORIAL258 Honour roll of the heroic dead. Summary of those recognized and those forgotten; their stories.
INDEX 305
PREFACE
IF SINCERITY, knowledge, and deep understanding of the way of the sea are elements out of which a man may write a book, then Karl Baarslag has made a book that is a piece with the great ocean-sea itself. He has taken the wonder of wireless telegraphy, and has given us an absorbing story of the beginning and growth of this new art of universal communication as it affects man's efforts on the sea. So rapid and vast has its progress been that the thirty-odd years since radio began have crowded within this short span a dramatic sea story as exciting as that of the centuries gone before. During this time of greater and ever greater ships, of heavier tonnage, of increased speed and luxury, have come a number of major disasters. We find them recorded in this book, from a new viewpoint, that of the center of information, the "radio shack," and we live amid high hazard and supreme sacrifice with the newest recruits to the sea, the young "brass pounders."
Cooper, Marryat, Dana, Melville, and Conrad have written of the same sea but of another day, a day not more heroic than is the present time of Normandies and Queen Marys. Karl Baarslag, in writing Famous Sea Rescues, cleaves to fact. It is more thrilling than any adventure of the imagination and contains much hitherto unpublished material.
The author is an experienced seagoing radio operator. He brings to his pages the fascinating lore of an intensely prideful calling and with this a message of brotherhood refreshing to this time of discord. At sea, when SOS flashes through the 600 meter band, all men of whatsoever race or nationality are one.
Great lessons have been learned out of the prevention of disasters, as in the remarkable collision of the SS. Florida with the SS. Republic, in which wireless played so brave a part, and through the succession of tragedies, growing out of size and speed and fog and fire, wherein the radio apparatus and its operators saved many lives and did much to preserve the stories of these occurrences, from which greater safety at sea has been achieved.
The reader will want to know why and how this book has been written. No better answer can be given than that set down by Karl Baarslag himself.
"As a marine operator I naturally developed an interest in the early use of distress calls. I found that many seagoing radio operators had died at their posts, or had gone down with their ships, and that some of their names were perpetuated on a Memorial cenotaph in Battery Park, New York.
"This, by the way, is not a very inspiring or imposing monument. It contains merely the operator's name, his ship, and the date and place of each disaster. Nothing is told as to who these men were or the manner of their deaths. Such facts, of course, would be gathered in a written record and would have no place on a monument. Careful and thorough search revealed the surprising fact that no work of reference, or collection of factual data, existed, recording the part radiotelegraphy has played in marine disasters, or how many of these little known operators had lost their lives. No one, radioman or layman, had gathered the epic stories of the wirelessmen. Even the committee charged with the care of the Memorial and the duty of inscribing the names on it, possessed but the scantiest of meagre records. The stories behind the names lay buried in forgotten reports, in crumbling, yellowing newspapers, or in long deceased house organs. In many instances, these stories were kept alive only in someone's uncertain and dimming memory ; few actual records of any sort existed. Someone had reported men as lost with their ships and the names of these obscure radiomen were added to that of Jack Phillips of the Titanic, for whom the cenotaph was originally intended.
"Even the origin of the SOS signal was obscure and surrounded by fanciful misconceptions. To collect and assemble this material seemed a task of four or five months' research. As the labour of unearthing and assembling these long-buried and forgotten stories proceeded, months slipped into years, and the outline and scope of the present work gradually took form in my mind. Its purpose is threefold :
"First, to record in permanent form, the outstanding sagas of the sea in which radio played any part, and to tell, for the first time, the `inside' radio story of these disasters, as interpreted by a professional radioman, unadorned by romance or fancy.
"Secondly, to acquaint the general public, reading and travelling, with the real `Sparks,' the ship's radioman, his work, training, daily life, and traditions.
"Thirdly, to bring to public attention the steady, year by year, decline in shipping losses since 190o as the use of radiotelegraphy was extended to a greater and greater number of ships, and to point out from the disasters of the past, with their heavy loss of human life, the imperative necessity of more adequate and stricter radio laws; also to point out the necessity of bringing our own antiquated radio laws into reasonable conformity with those of other ship owning nations.
"It is also hoped that the book will make available to the newer generation of radiomen the inspiring stories of their predecessors at the key, before these epic sagas of their craft are lost or forgotten.
"Throughout the preparation of this work, two main guiding principles have been rigidly adhered to - accuracy and thoroughness. Many months of work were spent because of the latter consideration and much material had to be rejected because of the former. To compile a dependable work of reference was the paramount motive ; to tell some interesting stories was a secondary consideration.
"As a seagoing operator, I have had the advantages of contact and experience but have also been restricted by obligations. It has been necessary to confine the work to actual records, leaving sentimental and unmerited laudation, sensational fiction and popular romance to non-radio and landsmen writers. No man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet, nor, it might be added, to those engaged in the same calling.
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