COLLISION IN A FOG.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 55, 5 March 1909, Page 3

COLLISION IN A FOG.

FLORIDA BASTS THE REPUBLIC-.

PASSENGERS' THBD-EDTG EXPERIENCES.

StAGNIFIOENT RESCUE WORK,

ABE "ARRIVAL" OP BINNS.

The disaster to the White Star liner I' Eepnblic, 100 miles off the American coast I on the morning of Saturday, January 23, ' 6 npplies a wonderful story of the sea. The Kepnblie, with 231 passengers in I the first cabin, 111 in the steerage, and ; about 300 officers and crew, was christened the "millionaires' ship" before she! l cleared New York, because of the number I ] of conspicuous and enormously wealthy j' Americans who were on board, in quest of ! pleasure in the Mediterranean. < HOW TBE DISASTER OCCURRED. ] At foul o'clock in the morning, whenlij feeling her way through a dense fog, she I •jras rammed hard cmidships by the Italian immigrant ship Florida. The vessels i did not sight each other until only a few -j yards apart. The crash was terrific The I 1 Florida instantly rebounded, and was < gone into the darkness as suddeni3- as 6he I < had come. So quick was it, that the oiii- < cers on the Republic were unaware of : the identity of the vessel which had dealt i ths great liner her death-blow. i Within a few seconds of the shock hun- s dreds of men, women and children, in J various stages of undress, were rushing 1 from below to the decks of the Republic, i Every light was extinguished. Torrents ' of water roared through the great cavity i in the vessel's side, extinguished the *■ fires and stopped the engines. A panic ; < apptared inevitable. But it did not occur. 1 The Bepublic has, in her commander. Cap- ' fain Sealby. an officer of strong personal- t Jty and prompt action, and he rose supe- 1 trior to the occasion. As the saloon pass- 1 cngers scrambled together on deck, he 1 gathered them about him, and in a brief, ' forceful speech, assured them that the '< vessel was in no danger of sinking, and « advised them to return quickly to their c warmest clothes. By nearly all the ad- * vice was at once accepted; Meanwhile, *■ the crew were called to quarters, the * bulkheads closed, and the lifeboats made - 1 ready for launching. Despite Captain 1 Pealby's assurance, the immediate aband- r onment of the steamer appeared impera- i tive. A TRIUMPH FOR MARCONI. In the midst of all this tumult another s mind was working as coolly and efi'ec- i tively as the captain's. Jack Binns, the s young Marconi operator on board, went ? direct from his berth to the instrument. 1 He found the room a mass of wreckage, c hut the wireless appartus was intact, and| 3 perched among the ruins, he clicked on j t the magic letters, " C.Q..D." the Marconi a signal for a vessel in distress. Again j * and again went the message, broadcast,! t through the atmosphere, to be picked up a ty any receiving instrument on land or ] * sea within a radius of between 200 and s 300 miles. For something like two hours U Einnj appealed vainly. Then out of the ! i fog and darkness came the response, "G," r which, in the international code, repre- I sents, "I am coming." And, immediately I afterwards Binns had t*t»e satisfaction of 1 knowing that he was in touch with half' v a dozen instruments. His appeal had 1 1 been heard on the sister White Star ship i s Baltic, and French mail ilner La Lorraine,' I by the operator of the wireless station in l ilassaehusetts, and other stations along 1 the coast. Binns now began to talk to some purpose. He flashed the name of the vessel, her exact latitude and longitude, the nature of the mishap, and the urgent necessity for assistance. Clicking away, hour after hour, he sent out thousands of words, which were picked up with ease and accuracy, and which gave to the Press on both sides of the Atlantic detailed reports of the disaster long I before the survivors got within sight of i ° Jand. t

HIANSFEERING THE PASSENGERS. Although the Florida got badly damaged with the impact, her immediate condition did not appear dangerous, and her captain proceeded to try and pick up the vessel that had been rammed. This he was able to do after some time, and getting as close as possible, he offered to take off the passengers and crew from the Republic. As the condition of the White Star liner was considered precarious, transhipment was at once commenced. The fog was still very dense, but the eea-svas, fortunately, calm. In the words of one report, " The laconic wireless sentence spoke of the woes of the millionaires from the luxurious cabins of the Bejmblic, alter the collision, to the sticky, garlic-smelling lower deck of the emigrant vessel, where, perforce, they mixed with the least fascinating representatives of Itaiy—some from the stricken districts of tlie South, where the earthquake took place. The removal of even personal baggage was not permitted. Some left great raluatle3 behind, and few had more clothing than the garments they had donned on the first alarm." KEUEF STEAMERS TO THE RESCUE. All this time, the heroic wireless operator was busy, leading a number of relief steamers to the rescue. "This hunt in the fog was a sort of 'blind man's buff.'" One of the strangest and weirdest scenes recorded in the annals of modern eeafering. Bound for the same spot, unaMe to get their bearings, almost feeling laeir way, unseen and unheard, yet constantly, .to one another, as though side |>y side, were five huge greyhounds of Atlantic and four revenue cutters. Collision threatened them, and the fate *hat had overtaken the Republica lurked -or them in the fog, ,but still they kept en. "Have you found her? Are you talking with her?" *■' The Star liner Baltic has the honour sighting the disabled steamer, and the density of the fog is conveyed by + . , that alth °ugh she was near by at 2 o'clock in the afternoon not until t> oclock could she definitely locate her fehip. A few hours later the wind «M; sea rose, and as the Florida was J*™§ more water, it -was resolved short- % midnight to again tranship the jeputocs passengers to the Baltic—a aufieult undertaking, which occupied come six hours. The Florida's immigrant ? as sengers ! convinced that the decision ri«w the VeS3€l meaat thafc she ™»c emtang. Were controlled with great diffiiT"'l; ,ey made a number of rushes ■#r the lifeboarts, but were kept off by tv "J? use of fists and handpikes, and Z,° fiice T 5 ' revolvers; but. despite this Jl'M j the darkness and rising sea, ti,r mds * ye « taken off without a single Y Tom beginning to end the *" - - was attended by general of mind and individual acts of S?,' TT' . Which wUI make * e ver famous. «*« feme Lheil ste£UJlßd for New York> ftsP. ™ 'Jad a demonstrative welcome. Welc™ nacu f a]l y. American's great ** the plaudits oa bofcn lidee .$■ iaa AtuiEtio wsro oMofly ior C&pt»ia

|Seal'by and Jack Binns. Sealby and his crew refused to leave ibh* ship -with, the ■ passengers, ia the vaia tope that ehe [might be towed into port. She went down at nine on Monday night, still some distance from the shore. The crew had left some time before, but *he commander and the mate, 'Williama, remained on hoard until the huge vessel sank under them. Their chances of being saved were slender. THE CAITAIS'S STORY. The dramatic story is vividly told by Captain Sealby.— "It -was dark. The vessel commenced to crumble end cra-ck, and her stem commenced to go down very rapidly. I directed Williams to burn blue lights, and I fired five charges from my revolver, to warn the cutters to cast off, as we were sinking. We ran from the bridge to the forecastle. The decks were all awash, and we were sinking quickly. Williams caught hold of the port rail and I got up the rigging as far as the forward running lighit, about 100 ft up the mast. I rested there, and fired my last shot from my revolver. Then the water ■caught up with mc. The sweep of the waves. spread out my heavy coat, and made the air inside of it a sort of lifepreserver.

"It was dark all Tound mc, and 1 was swept 'by a rolling mass of waiter. 'I was caught in this in a sort of whirlpool, and churned round. When I came to the surface I tried to pull my coat off, but it stuck. A considerable amount |of debris, pieces of broken plank, lengths jof steps, and odd articles from the ship littered the sea around mc, and 1 managed to get hold of some spars, and finally captured a hatch. After that, in spite of the heavy sea which was running, I .managed to pull myself on to this , hatch and make a life-raft of it, lying across it in s spreadagle fashion, in this ' way I floated about for some time. Searchlights were playing all over the j water, but it seemed to mc that they could never find mc. The searchlights from two revenue cutters and a tug I were concentrated on the. spot where the Repuiblic had gone down, but somehow they missed mc. I managed to load the chambers of my revolver again, and fired several times in the attempt to attract attention. Then I got hold of a towel floating among the wreckage, and waved that when the light flashed on mc. Then out of the darkness sprang \ a boat, and I was hauled aboard her. 1 was weak and exhausted, and was glad to find myself safe in her, with my mate. Williams, who had stuck to mc to the last. He was pretty well finished, like myself, and both of us suffered acutely i from the cold." | THE HERO OF THE WIRELESS. Binns, whose name will always be as- ; sociated with the history of wireless, is a young Englishman, only 23 years of age. He comes from Peterborough, I Northamptonshire, and has crowded a lot into his short life. When 13 he 'became a telegraph messenger at the Great j Eastern station there, and nearly had his career cut short by being run over by a train, both legs being injured. Afterwards he learned every instrument and then went to learn the Marconi system at Liverpool, mastered it in three weeks, and was carried shoulder high to the station on leaving. 'He was in the Mediterranean at the time of the earthquake in Messina, and tried for three days to raise the wireless station in the south of Italy. The triumph of Marconi is complete. (Had the Elorida been equipped with a wireless instrument the vessel would not have collided, six lives would have been saved, and the Repuiblic, whose value is placed at £300,000, would not at this moment be at the bottom of the Atlantic.