Rescue of 217 from Watery Grave Another Triumph for Radio. . . Every Person on Honolulu Has Been Saved. . . Man’s Mastery of the Radio and Fellowship of Seamen Prevented Horrible Tragedy. . . S O S Call Brought Aid. . . Everything from Pleasure Craft to Dreadnaught Caught Distress Signal and Rushed for Spot; Passengers and Crew Had Abandoned the Burning Ship
By The Associated Press
San Francisco, Oct. 13—The passengers of the City of Honolulu, which burned at sea, were transferred to the United States Army transport Thomas from the rescue ship West Faralon at dawn today, according to an official message received by the Federal Telegraph Company. The Thomas is due in San Francisco tomorrow, but it is expected she will be at least a day late.
The message said the City of Honolulu was burned beyond repair, and that it would be two days at least before any ship would be able to approach her on account of the intense heat. The message indicated that the transfer of the passengers had been effected without any particular incident.
Two messages sent by the Thomas today to army transport headquarters here were made public upon their receipt. The first said the Thomas was along the West Faralon at 3 a.m. and the second said that it had been decided to wait until dawn to transfer the passengers “as they are asleep.” According to this last message the West Faralon advised the Thomas that it did not have proper accommodations for the passengers and crew of the City of Honolulu.
The second message gave the list from the City of Honolulu as 39 women, 35 men and 187 members of the crew.
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By the Associated Press
San Francisco, Calif., Oct. 13—The radio man’s bridle on space, and that hardly less potent thing, the fellowship of those who go down to sea in ships, stand responsible today for the safety of 217 persons—the ship’s company of the steamer City of Honolulu, which burned yesterday.
The readiness with which mariners of half a dozen craft from pleasure yachts to dreadnaughts of the Pacific fleet, offered themselves for the rescue of their distressed fellow travelers afloat, was but an echo of a story first told so long ago that men have forgotten the time of telling, but the tale of the radio’s part belongs to a more modern generation. They mingled, this old thing and this new one, to save life.
Ship Burned Rapidly
Early yesterday, while she was 670 miles of San Pedro, Calif., fire broke out in the second-class cabins of the Honolulu, one time pride of the North German line and more recently leader of the Los Angeles Steamship Company’s new Hawaiian service. Unaccountably, the flames gained such headway on the fighting crew that two hours later, it was necessary to abandon the ship. But before that time came, the radio had cried far and wide the “dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot (SOS)” that means disaster, distress and human extremity on the high seas.
Two ships, the steamer Enterprise of the Matson line and the Thomas, an army transport, eastbound from Hawaii, caught the signal and turned toward the position the operator had given.
A pleasure craft, the Casina, cruising to Honolulu with a party including Crompton Anderson, brother-in-law of the owner, E.L. Doheny, who is in New York, caught the appeal and turned her bow that way. Los Angeles caught the signals, and navy vessels stood by to race with death to the scene of the fire. San Francisco caught the signals and waited a while until the radio operator on a distant ship had turned that vessel too, toward the scene.
West Faralon First to Arrive
It was that ship, the West Faralon, M.M. Walk, master, that swept down the sea lanes to the City of Honolulu, and effected the rescue. But she did not get there until four hours after the flames had forced the captain, his first officer, the chief engineer and the radio operator, who had stayed behind to serve to the utmost the passengers confided to their care, to leave the blazing hulk. The officers stayed to advise, suggest and confer; the radio operator stayed to keep the West Faralon advised, lest she miss the boat loads of passengers floating nearby and the rescue be delayed.
The fire broke out between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning; the passengers were put over side at 8; the captain left the steamer a little after 10; the West Faralon arrived about 2:30 in the afternoon. By 2:45 the last boat load of castaways had been hauled aboard the West Faralon and that ship, her every corner crowded with cargo and human salvage, lay to a mile from the fire-swept vessel, and all hands watched her burn.
Passengers Be Transferred
The Thomas’ officers planned to transfer the City of Honolulu’s passengers from the crowded freighter early today rather than risk accident in the darkness of the early morning. The Thomas will bring them to San Francisco. They had been bound for Los Angeles.
There, just before the Thomas reached the West Faralon, the story was broken this morning, for shore radio stations ceased communicating with the vessel so that the West Faralon radio might be used to guide the transport to her. The cessation left much untold—the cause of the fire, the reason it spread with such rapidity, the fight against it and those more gripping details that made up the story of the fight in the lifeboats, and the rescue, and, then, too, rescuers and rescued were much occupied with the business of settling down aboard the West Faralon, but they did find time to write and sign and have sent a message expressing their appreciation of the fight made by Captain B.H. Lester of the City of Honolulu against the fire, and his care for their comfort and safety afterward and of the unselfish service of Captain Walk’s rescue. The rest was left for today.
Are German Ships Hoodooed?
The City of Honolulu is the third former German liner to figure in a mishap while sailing from a Pacific port. The first was the Mount Vernon, formerly the Kronprinzessen Cecilie, and the second was the Empress of Australia, formerly the Von Tirpitz.
The Mount Vernon suffered a whole chapter of accidents soon after she came to this coast several years ago. Mysterious breakdowns were the rule rather than the exception while she was engaged in ferrying homeward from Vladivostok, Czecho-Slovakia soldiers of the Siberian expeditionary force and the Russian orphans marooned there by the Soviet’s eastern advance.
The Empress of Australia had to put back to port a few days ago when it was found her main shaft was out of line.
Hulk to Be Towed In
The freighter West Faralon, which rescued the passengers and crew of the steamer City of Honolulu, notified the shipping board today that after transferring the passengers to the transport Thomas, she would tow the hulk of the burned vessel toward Los Angeles until met by tugs. The West Faralon gave her position as approximately 850 miles off Los Angeles.
From the front page of The Twin City Sentinel, Winston-Salem, N.C., Oct. 13, 1922
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