The NEW BERN
PUBLISHID WEEKLY
IN THE HEART OP
'^ERN NORTH
>^>«7r
cy
0
VOLUME 15
NEW BERN, N. C. 28560, FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1972
NUMBER 18
Yesterday was when you
could find a book about the
sinking of the Titanic in most
New Bern homes. This sea
tragedy, like the death of Floyd
CoUins in a Kentucky cave
many years later, had
tremendous impact here and
everywhere.
Television comics including
Johnny Carson sometimes
resort to sick jokes about the
Titanic, displaying atrociously
bad taste. It wasn’t funny when
it happened, and remembering
the 1,635 who perished, it stiU~
isn’t funny.
Probably all of the 705 who
survived would have gone to a
watery grave, but for a young
wireless (^rator of Russian
ancestry, who was holding down
the mittoight watch alone in a
midtown New York skyscraper.
He was an employee of the
American Marconi Company.
During a span of three years he
had graduated from the Nan-
tuckett Island station, a vital
communication link for Atlantic
vessels, to night duty in the
Manhattan office high above
Broadway.
It didn’t matter to him where
he worked. Solitude gave him a
chance, when he caught up on
routine traffic meraages, to
perfect his knowledge of radio,
then in its infancy. He could
transmit 45 words a minute for
an eight hour stretch,
somethii^' rather astounding.
The date was April 14, 1912.
The night was unseasonably
cool, and damp. Someone less
fond of lonely vigils would have
found the weather and
surroundings depressing, but he
was as cmtented as he was
alert.
Shortly before the stroke of
midnight he picked up an SOS
flash from the Titanic, a huge
White Star liner headed to
America from Europe on her
much proclaimed maiden
voyage.
A thousand miles away, in the
North Atlantic, the largest
vessel aflat had struck an
iceberg and was sinking. The
young operator h(^[>ed fervently
that the faint distress signal
was a hoax.
He was sure it wasn’t when
the desperate call for im
mediate help came again,
moments later. He relayed the
Titanic’s last known position to
other ships in the general area,
and contacted newspapers ana
press services to keep them
abreast of any information he
received.
For three days and nights the
young wireless operator stuck
by his key without sleep oi
relief, determined to complete
his task. In tribute to his ef
ficiency, President Taft ordered
all other wireless stations along
the Astern seaboard off the
air.
Hour after hour, until a
Cunard liner, the Carpathia,
steamed into New York harbor
with the survivors, he rdayed
messages to rescue ships and
issued lists of survivors to an
anxious and grieving world.
Those 72 hours, hunched over
a wireless key, were without
ecedent. What sort of human
ling was this who could fight
(Continued on page 8)
Smt-Craww fllmmtg ^wblfr Clbrarg
.
IS#'?"'
CAN’T BELIEVE I ATE THAT WHOLE
THING.”—-Photo by Wooten-Moulton Stu^o.