KINGMAN REEF WRECK

Evening Star, Issue 22627, 20 April 1937, Page 16

KINGMAN REEF WRECK

AN EPIC OF THE SEA HEROIC RESCUE RECALLED Kingman Reef, the speck on the Pacific which has been suddenly lifted from obscurity to a place in the world's news as a necessary stopping place on the air route from America to .New Zealand, has its own tragic history of shipping disasters. This doubtless arises from its dangerous conformation, awash at low water and sunken at high water except for one tiny point that rises sft above the surface of the Pacific. One of the most stirring stories of endurance and seamanship in the history of the Pacific had its beginning at Kingman Reef on April 16, 1889. At 10 o’clock that night the barque, Henry James, coal laden, bound from Newcastle to San Francisco, struck the reef and speedily filled, the seas sweeping clean over her. The ship’s company numbered 30, of whom 11 were passengers, including women and children. With difficulty two boats were .launched, and all were taken into them. J A bag of bread, a few tins of fresh provisions, with a keg of water for each boat, and a compass and chart were all that could be got together from the wreck. Palmyra Island, then uninhabited,. was about 35 miles distant, and fortunately both boats succeeded in reaching it safely before nightfall next day. ABSENCE OF WATER. On Palmyra Island the worst difficulty with which the company were faced was the absence of drinking water The island was far off the usual track of shipping, and fearing that all might perish, ns it was evident that other shipwrecked crews had done there before them, the mate, Donald M'Donakl, volunteered to try to reach Samoa, about 1,300 or 1,400 miles distant, in one of the boats to obtain assistance. Four of the sailors readily volunteered to accompany him on the desperate journey. All the provisions that could be spared to the boat’s crew were 71h of bread, already water-soaked, two small tins of meat, a quantity of cocoanuts gathered on the island, and a keg of water. Owing to lack of instruments the chances were greatly against the adventurers ever reaching their destination, but on the nineteenth day they sighted land and were assisted in to Apia. Their sufferings

j had been terrible, and three of the five were completely prostrated. Fighting against thirst and sickness, they had been reduced to chewing the leather of their shoes and of a telescope cover. RESCUED BY MARIPOSA. Among the vessels in Apia at the time were H.M.S. Calliope and_ the United States war vessel Mohican. After three days the schooner Viudex, 40 tons, was chartered to go to the rescue of the survivors on Palmyra Island. M'Douald and two of his companions, ■ though still helpless as a result of their privations, accompanied the Vindex. She took 20 days to reach Palmyra Island, only to find that the wrecked company had been rescued 13 days before. A message left behind explained what had happened. An officer of the Mohican had got word to the mail steamer Mariposa of the plight of those on Palmyra Island, and the Mariposa had gone 1,500 miles out of her course to rescue them. Fortunately they had discovered water on the island soon after M‘Don ald had left them, and, with this they had subsisted on nuts and grasses and fish caught in the lagoons. For his heroic part in the rescue M'Donakl was afterwards presented with Lloyd’s medal, sometimes known as the Victoria Cross of the sea. Captain M'Donald, as he afterwards became, retired from the sea in 1899 and settled near Oamaru, where he died in .1931. The medal and the log hook afid chronometer of the Henry James are in the possession of the Waitaki Boys’ High School at Oamaru.