[1965 interview with Radio Operator Joe Danko]
"On March 1st [1911] after four months of practical machine shop, and shipboard electrical instruction, and only two weeks of wireless theory, I was suddenly assigned to radio duty at the yard radio station NAH. The station boasted of a Stone 15 KW 120 cycles rotary gap transmitter with tapped primary and secondary Helixes for changing wave lengths. The wireless specialty IP-76 slide tuner could be used with a choice of detector crystals, such as Parakin, Iron Pirites, Galena, Carborundum, and so forth. The headset was a novel wireless specialty type with adjustable magnets. The T-type antenna was supported by two wooden masts about 150 feet high and an elaborate copper plate ground system was buried under the station and around the station located between the two masts.
"The original open spark gap fed by battery actuated vibrator coils, like the popular Ford ignition coils, followed by the 50 or 60 cycled powered induction coils, were gradually giving way to the 120 to 500 cycle rotary gap and disk quenched gaps of Stone,Marconi, Kilbourne Clarke, Chris Lowensteine, Fessenden and others. And the transmitting condensers usually consisting of tin foil sheets sandwiched between glass photographic plates, had defaulted to banks of copper coated Leyden jars, or Dubelair encased mica and foil condensers. The Coheror had been replaced by the liquid faraden with it's fine silver coated platinum wire, in contact with a tiny cup of dilute nitric acid, often going in and out of contact with the roll of the ship. But the Flemming valve, a adaptation of the Edison effect and simple stress of crystal detector were just coming into their own.
"The Titanic was equipped with a 5 KW disk discharger and a Flemming Valve receiver. Despite such improvements, the normal range of shipboard transmitters of that early period was rather limited. about 500 miles for the huge Titanic,and around one hundred miles for the Carpathia class. Therefore as the collision with the iceberg occurred about mid Atlantic, the actual details of the tragedy were quite slow in reaching the shore.
"It was normal practice for Marconi equipped vessels to transact traffic with Marconi land stations; the Telefunken DD ships with TWT the Telefunken German controlled station, and so forth. Never-the-less there was a gentlemanly agreement among our group of stations around New York to assist one another in times of difficulty. There was OHX the New York Herald station at the battery, TWT the Telefunken station at 11th and Broadway; MSC the Marconi Station at Seagate; and WN on top of Wanamakers store for company business with the store in Philadelphia. It is believed that David Sarnoff was the operator of WN at this time. Then too there was dependable "doc" Hudson, a fine amateur up on Riverside Drive. He and TWT were the DX hounds of that period, always competing for distance, and twiting one another to such an extent that on one occasion the German operator challenged Old Doc to a pistol duel. He didn't know that Doc was an expert munitions tester with the DuPont Powder corporation until OHX gently broke the news to him. It was still a man's world, "BR" (before regulations). Words like Hell and Damn could be still be used without reprimand from an FCC.
"Normal scheduled placed me in the operator's chair at NAH on the 6 to midnight trick in the evening of Monday the fifteenth 1912. After routine official reports and contacts with Washington NAL, and other Naval stations, and revenue cutters, it was our duty to scan the ether waves for any unusual information regarding shipping, weather, signal reception, etc. The relief operator had not alerted me as to the events out in mid-Atlantic. All Monday morning of April 15th 1912 the Carpathia was busy plucking the living and the dead from the sea. And, after future exhaustive search until nightfall, set it's course for New York.
"About 8:30 pm I heard faintly the steam ship Carpathia calling the Marconi station MSC at Seagate. After several more insistent calls without reply from MSC, I called the ship and offer to relay the message. My offer was immediately accepted. Evidently NAH was the first and most convenient, under the circumstances, able to effect a readable two-way contact with the vessel. Therefore for the next hour or so, through the intermittent static and the bedlam of radio interference, we struggled with his message of over 800 words addressed to the New York office of the Associated Press via Western Union.
"Surprisingly the message contained the complete list of survivors of the Titanic, picked up that day by the Carpathia. After my final acknowledgement of the message, I immediately turned to our land wore circuits to the western union office in New York and relayed the message in "Morris", to the tune of the clickity clack of the sounder. Without interruption the Western Union operator copied my tired and sloppy fist at about 30 words per minute, finally correcting my word check from 805 to 808 due to some discrepancy in the method of handling the address count. He was certainly a real 'pro'. Sometime later Seagate came on the air, and I relayed the message to him for his disposition."
"...one state of this tragedy still haunts me. Early next day Tuesday, April 16th, we were advised that the cruisers USS Salem and USS Chester had been dispatched by presidential order to intercept and contact the Carpathia still far off shore. They were to ascertain the state of certain prominent passengers: John Jacob Aster, Isadora Strauss, Van Gugenheim, and particularly Major Archebald W. Butts, who was returning from Europe presumably with confidential information for President Wilson. Later it was confirmed that all had perished.
"The Salem and Chester made repeated efforts to contact the Carpathia, even with the aid of NAH, but without result. Earlier in the day I had intercepted a message from MSE at Seagate to the rescued Harold Bride as follows: "Hold your story for dollars in 4 figures. Signed, Sammish". Was this the reason for Carpathia's continued silence, even ignoring presidential concerns?
"At the congressional investigation following the docking of the Carpathia, it was learned that the British Marconi company employed Jack Philips, the senior operator of the Titanic, at 6 Lb Sterling approximately $28 per month. And Harold Bride, a second operator, at 4 Lb Sterling, about $20 per month. This seemed like a paltry insurance premium for the potential safety of over 2200 lives.
"As of this period, only four ships carried two operators. All other wireless equipped vessels, presumably for economic reasons, shipped only one. Of course a primary use of this new medium of communication was for company business and for its revenue value in public messages. It is doubtful that a 24 hour vigil could have saved all the lives as the rescue ships had been too far away. There were still many variable and unpredictable factors involved in a fair appraisal of the true insurance significance of wireless despite the famous Jack Binns S.O.S. episode of January 23, 1909 on a White Star liner Republic.
"It was also disclosed that Cottom of the Carpathia failed to acknowledge the calls from the cruisers Salem and Chester because the Navy operators used the American Morris Code while he was versed only in the Continental Code, despite the fact that there is a difference of only 11 letters between the two. This claim is questionable, because Navy operators, for the sake of uniformity, were drilled in the Continental code. Besides, I had offered to act as a relay station and could handle either code. All our pertinent station records were later requisitioned by congress for this investigation.
"Admittedly many of the American wireless operators of that day had been dyed in the wool railroad telegraphers using the Morris Code. It was however almost essential for a land station man to be able to send and receive over air and land wire both Morris and Continental. The US revenue cutters Mohawk NRM and Seneca NRE had Morris men. Occasional we encountered a Navy former signalman who like the dots & dashes of the "Arnord Blinker Code" thus adding to our confusion. A certain transition from the clickety-space-clack of the land wire sounder with its traditional Prince Albert tobacco can resonator to the more soothing dit-dat-buz of the wireless signal was also quite disturbing and confusing.
"The Titanic was reportedly unsinkable, with facilities for isolating any flooding or damaged compartment. Was Major Butts the possessor of highly secret and confidential information bearing on a darkening cloud between Great Britain and Germany with war actually declared 2 years later? Was the sinking of the Titanic opportunely accelerated by sabotage to prevent delivery of this confidential information carried by the President's emissary? And at the same time destroy England's new potentially high capacity troop carrier? It could be in light of the cloak and dagger international activities always in progress.
"The proceeding is a true and factual account of my connection with that tragic episode.
This is a transcript of the 1965 interview with wireless operator
Joe Danko. Both historical and informative, it was made possible through
the California Historical Radio Society News (Audio) Vol. 10 No. 3.