Bernie Palmer took this snapshot ofice and icebergs from the deck ofCarpathia; she identified the larger ofthe icebergs as the one that sank the Titanic. She likely got this information from one of the survivors, who would have been in a lifeboat in the vicinity for some time before being rescued by Carpathia.
Somerville, Massachusetts. He served as president of the Somerville High School Wireless Society from 1906 to 1909, after which he went to sea for a voyage or two. Back on shore, he joined a friend installing radio stations along the Massachusem coast, which resulted in a job with the Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in Boston, inscalling, maintaining, and servicing radios. This was what he was doing when the call came in from the Globe. Unfortunately, the heavy volume of amateur calls, bad static, and "general bad conditions" prevented them from hearing any of Carpathia's messages from the Boston area. Cheetham and Stevens borrowed a crystal receiver from their employers and hopped aboard a northbound train from Boston to the fishing town of Gloucester on Cape Ann, a neck of land that sticks out easterly into the Atlantic. Once there, the local Globe representative
deck, and she even snapped a shot of the iceberg that had sunk the invincible ocean liner. She also took photos of the ice floes in the vicinity of the wreck before Carpathia left the area. Without enough food for everyone aboard to continue the cruise to the Mediterranean, Captain Rostron aborted the original itinerary and headed back to New York to disembark the traumatized Titanic passengers. Carpathia stayed in communication with the shore while steaming for New York. Suspecting this might present an opportunity to eavesdrop, W D. Sullivan, city editor of the Boston Globe, commissioned local radio operators J.M. Stevens and Harry Cheetham to try to intercept Carpathia messages for exclusive news scoops. Henry R. C heetham was one of the pioneers of American radio. As a boy, he communicated over distances with tin cans on a string and signal flags, and, as a youth, he made his first radio antenna out of wire snipped from hay bales from a neighbor's barn near his family's home in Harry Cheetham was a proud member ofthe Signal Troops ofthe Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. In this photo from 1916, he is in civilian clothing, to the right of the wireless radio unit.
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SEA HISTORY 138, SPRING 2012