Still more wonderful is the invention of wireless telegraphy, which has come to the ship as the greatest blessing and boon within recent years. With the general principles of its working the reader is, no doubt, already familiar, and the present volume need not enlarge upon them, but [the accompanying illustration] will be found interesting as showing the Marconi room with a telegraphist at work on a Cunarder. For a distance of 2,000 miles from Liverpool wireless connection can be maintained between the ship and the shore, whilst passing liners many miles apart are enabled to communicate with each other to their mutual benefit and safety. Whilst these pages are being printed a transatlantic wireless service has been instituted between Europe and America, and it is indisputable that the next naval war will be considerably influenced by the employment of wireless gear on board battleships, cruisers, scouts, and the bigger mosquito craft. Of the invaluable aid which already the wireless system has been to the steamship in peace we could give countless instances had we the space; but the following will suffice to show its utility within the last two or three years. On May 28th, 1907, the German liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, whilst on her voyage was enveloped in a dense fog and passed, without sighting, close to another steamer sailing in the same direction. The German ship, however, heard the other’s sirens, and knowing that the Cunard Caronia was on the same track, and might run some chance of collision with the unseen vessel, the German captain sent a wireless message to the Caronia, and two hours and a half later received a reply from the latter which showed that the third steamer was on the Cunarder’s course, and might have been a danger to her.
THE MARCONI ROOM ON A CUNARD LINER.
From a Photograph. By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co.
A clear case of the avoidance of costly salvage was afforded in April, 1910, when the Allan liner Carthaginian, which had left Liverpool a week earlier for St. John’s, Newfoundland, was disabled at sea owing to the breaking of a piston-rod. She was able by means of her “wireless” to inform the same owners’ Hesperian of her mishap, and the latter received the news when a hundred miles west of Malin Head, County Donegal. The Hesperian thereupon went to her sister’s assistance, and took the ship, with her 800 emigrants on board, in tow for the Clyde. Still more interesting is the thrilling rescue which was obtained from the sinking liner Kentucky by the Alamo, which took place in February, 1909. The following statement, taken from a daily newspaper of the time, needs no embellishing, and the simple facts speak once more for the triumphant victory which the new telegraphy has obtained over some of the terrors with which the sea is inevitably associated:—
“A full statement obtained to-day from Mr. W. F. Maginnis, the operator in the Kentucky, who sent the wireless message received by the Alamo, is a most dramatic narrative. The wireless telegraphic apparatus was installed in the Kentucky just before her departure on a 14,000-mile cruise round Cape Horn, and to it forty-five men owe their lives.
“Early on Friday morning, during a heavy storm, the engineer informed Mr. Maginnis that the ship was doomed. An hour later Mr. Maginnis got into wireless communication with the Alamo, then about ninety miles away, but not until noon was it possible for the captain to get an exact observation of his position.
“‘Half an hour before that,’ says Mr. Maginnis, ‘the electrician came to me and said that the water was creeping up and that the dynamo power would soon be lost. All hands were then directed to abandon all other work and devote themselves to keeping the water away from the dynamo. The turbine engine and dynamo were wrapped in canvas and power was thus preserved until the vital message was despatched.’
“When the Alamo at 3.30 p.m. reached the Kentucky, the deck of the sinking vessel was almost awash. The crew, despite the high seas, were rescued by the boats without mishap, and when they had clambered on board the Alamo they immediately gave three cheers for Mr. Maginnis.
“The Kentucky was insured for £14,000. Her seams opened wide during the storm.”