If ever 7 words changed the fate of so many people, it was “Keep Out, I am Working Cape Race”.
At the turn of the 20th Century Marconi perfected his radio transmission system and it had the potential to overwhelm the cable line that had been laid across the Atlantic many years before.
Although he had managed to transmit directly across the Atlantic from shore to shore, it wasn’t as yet a practical proposition to do it consistently and so he set up a station at Cape Race – the nearest to Europe – and another one at Valentia in Ireland – the nearest to North America.
He then put his operators, whose wages his company paid for, on board ships, with the promise to the shipping lines that they would receive and transmit important navigation information between ships with the aim of making the oceans a safer place. And it is a fact that losses and deaths in the important shipping lanes declined significantly.
However, the sinking of the Titanic stunned the world and at the subsequent public enquiry Marconi gave his evidence that seemed to confirm the instructions that had been issued to his employees concerning the priority that “navigational” messages were to receive
But as the enquiry unfolded, it became clear that Marconi had been … errrr… economical with the truth. What was really happening was that Marconi was using the ships to bounce messages across the Atlantic by radio. And when the Titanic came into the range of the radio station at Cape Race the radio operator started to transmit a battery of Marconi’s commercial messages that lasted for three hours.
During this period, the Californian had become embedded in the ice and as the radio operator of the Californian knew that the Titanic was on the same track as his ship but an hour or so behind, he tried to send an urgent message to the Titanic to give it a warning.
It was then that the operator on the Titanic cut him off with his curt message, and the ice warning never made it to the Titanic‘s captain. The fate of the Titanic was thereby sealed.
At the subsequent public enquiry the Chairman asked the radio operator of the Californian “I’m sure you didn’t mean to listen but could you say what character of messages the Titanic was transmitting?”
The operator replied “I’m sure that these messages were of a private nature”.
Now this is Trepassey Bay, with the town of Trepassey in the background. Trepassey Bay is only an hour or so from Cape Race and the town played an important part in the history of aviation.
If you ask most Americans who was the first to fly the Atlantic they would reply “Charles Lindbergh”. But in fact much to their surprise and to the surprise of many others, at least 91 people (maybe 92 if a mysterious stowaway is included, and maybe even 94 if the mysterious fate of a pair of Portuguese aviators is ever unravelled. They disappeared on a flight across the South Atlantic and were never found, but a raft made from parts of their aircraft was discovered washed up on a remote part of the coast of Brazil) crossed the Atlantic before the Flying Fool.
Most British people would reply “Alcock and Brown” – but to the surprise of many people, that’s not correct either. What Alcock and Brown actually achieved was the TOP flight across the Atlantic.
There was an earlier trans-Atlantic flight by a US Navy Pilot by the name of Albert Read. However his flight was a little different. It was in a seaplane along a route marked by a line of US Navy ships, he made several stops on the way, had a break in the Azores before starting again for Lisbon, and the two other seaplanes that accompanied him failed to make the journey.
Nevertheless it is the first trans-Atlantic crossing no matter by what standards you measure his flight, and it has never ever received the credit that it deserves. And of course he set off from Trepassey Bay in Newfoundland.
If you hunt around the town you might, if you are lucky, eventually find a little plaque to commemorate Read’s efforts.
As for Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air and who set off from here (and she did not pilot the aeroplane, no matter who insists that she did. In her memoirs she states that “Schultz did all the flying … I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes”), and the Marquis of Pinedo, who was first to fly the Atlantic in both directions and who set off from here on the return trip, there’s nothing at all.
So from Trepassey I went off to see Cape Race, seeing as I was here.
And I was lucky too. Although the place was closed up, someone had come by to collect the post and she allowed me to visit the museum. There are quite a few artefacts there from the time of the Titanic, and they were recovered on site.
When the Marconi station closed down, it was simply bulldozed into the earth with everything still inside. When the museum was proposed, the volunteers scavenged in the debris for the artefacts to exhibit.
This gentleman set the seal on my little trip, and gave me his seal of approval. Sitting there on his rock giving me a round of applause as I drove past him.
What with porcupines, moose and bear, and now seals coming along to mark my progezss, I’m having more than my fair share of wildlife. I’m disappointed that I haven’t seen Godzilla however.
And despite what you might be thinking, this is NOT a Ford Sierra.
This is actually a Merkur Sierra – for the Sierra and the Scorpio were exported to North America under the Merkur trade name. The experiment didn’t last very long at all and you will be very lucky to be able to find one these days. I couldn’t believe my luck.
So now I’ve found a little Bed and Breakfast on the edge of St John’s, and I am immensely happy that I bought that cheap little GPS in Windsor a few weeks ago – it’s more-than paid for itself just with tracking down these obscure places.
