"WE have struck an iceberg. Badly damaged.
Rush aid."
Seaward and landward, J. G. Phillips, the
Titanic's wireless man, had hurled the appeal for help. By fits
and starts—for the wireless was working unevenly and blurringly
—Phillips reached out to the world, crying the Titanic's
peril. A word or two, scattered phrases, now and then a
connected sentence, made up the message that sent a thrill
of apprehension for a thousand miles east, west and south
of the doomed liner.
The early despatches from St. John's, Cape Race, and
Montreal, told graphic tales of the race to reach the Titanic,
the wireless appeals for help, the interruption of the calls, then
what appeared to be a successful conclusion of the race when
the Virginian was reported as having reached the giant liner.
