Tribute to Radio Hero

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 45, 24 May 1929, Page 2

Tribute to Radio Hero

eee Wireless Operator's Sacrifice. ee Somp considerable time has now elapsed since the ill-fated Vestris met with disaster, but the subject has been brought to greater prominence by a glowing tribute paid by "La Haut ‘Parleur," one ‘of the leading French radio magazines, It will be recalled that the Vestris met with disaster on the New, YorkBuenos Aires route, and through the supreme sacrifice of its radio operator, Mr. M. J. O’Loughlin, and his two sub: ordinates help was summoned in tine to save the majority of its passeng and crew. Had it not been for devotion of these gentlemen, the fate of this vessel would have been listed as a mystery, comparable only with that of the "Marie-Celeste." The Vestris was equipped with a very fine wireless omntfit, capable of communicating a distance ranging te 15,000 miles. When it became evident that the Vestris was doomed,’ the operator commenced transmitting and carried on for three hours with his main transmitter, "‘llowing up with the emergency transmitter until the ship was abandoned. After the ship heeled over and the engine-room became flooded with water, it is evident that with power cut off the operator had to switch over to his emergency set, operated by battery power. It was then, with the wireless cabin’, rapidly filling with water, O’Loughlin |" and his subordinates continued their gallant work, and enabled a considerable number of lives to be saved. In publishing on its front page a photograph of the operator in his cabin, "Le Haut Parleur’ state,. "Among those who each day in life’s drama simply and magnificently make the supreme sacrifice of their lives, must be named in particular these wireless telegraphists of the Vestris, who died at their post to save the lives of others. They knew at the tragic moment when their ship began to fill that no one would bear witness to their sacrifice, and spurning the instinct of conservation of life, remained to die. Obsessed with the greatest: idea-duty -they let slip before them their"hopes and ambitions, visualising forthe last time those who remained at home-now so distant. Governed by their unwavering hands the sparks continued to until the critical moment when t waves drowning the apparatus cam: in their turn to seize these indefatigables and to cut short their last SOS. Dragged in’ the depths, they became the victims of an unselfish devotion to remain in those silent \vaters, the sole guardians in death of that submerged vessel." ~