Titanic Calling: Wireless Communications during the Great Disaster

by Michael Hughes (Editor), Katherine Bosworth (Editor)

Published in commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, this book tells the story of that fateful night from an unusual through the many wireless communications sent to and from the land stations and the ships involved as the tragic events unfolded.
Drawing on the extensive record of wireless transmissions in the Marconi Archives, Titanic Calling recounts this legendary story the way it was first heard, beginning with repeated warnings—just hours before the collision—of several large icebergs unusually far south and alarmingly close to the Titanic’s course. The story follows senior operator Jack Phillips as he sends distress messages to nearby ships and shows how these urgent calls for help were received and rapidly relayed across the Atlantic in a desperate attempt to save the lives of the Titanic’s passengers and crew. Finally, the distant SS Virginian receives the Titanic’s final, broken message. The story concludes with the rescue of the fortunate survivors, who radio messages to loved ones from aboard the RMS Carpathia while safely on their way to New York.

 

Illustrated throughout with photographs of the messages and including full transcripts of original material, the book also features an introduction to the development of maritime wireless communications and a discussion of the Marconi Archives’s Titanic collection. The forced brevity of the messages lends the narrative a startling sense of immediacy and brings to life to the voices of the individuals involved.

Genres: Nonfiction

163 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Brent]

A fascinating look at the early days of wireless communication and how it was employed during the Titanic disaster.

[Medhat The Fanatic Reader]

This was an interesting take on the Titanic sinking, one that explored the wireless communications prior, during, and after Titanic foundered, which made it an angle worth tackling in this little book.

I had a few issues with the writing style, but the information that this book presented was certainly valuable in the sense that it gave me an overall background about the Marconi wireless company and how Marconi transformed the maritime shipping and trading, and of course how Marconi's device played an important role in saving around 705 survivors in the lifeboats.

We also get glimpses of ships communicating between each other (some of which were from and to Titanic) and some inland stations in response to Titanic's distress calls, which were significant most especially to the UK inquiry.

[Jason]

A book with the marconigram collection from various ships