WIRELESS CALLS FOR HELP
The S. O. S. call was ticked out by Edward Bomford, the junior wireless operator. Bomford had just come on duty to relieve Ronald Ferguson, when the Storstad rammed the Empress. Both young men were thrown to the deck. As they picked themselves up they heard the chorus of the disaster, the cries, groans and screams of injured and drowning passengers.
An officer came running to the wireless house with orders from Captain Kendall, but Bomford, at the key, didn’t have to wait for orders. He began to call the Marconi station at Father Point, and kept at it desperately until he had the ear of the Father Point operator.
Then young Bomford turned his wireless to search the river and gulf, and he hurled the news of the Empress’ fate for 500 miles oceanward. Many steamships picked up the call, but they were hours away. They started for the position given, but long before they had made any progress the Empress and two-thirds of her ship’s company were under fifteen fathoms of water. Fourteen minutes is too brief a time for much rescue work.