Millicent ham radio enthusiast David Walshaw talked about a little-known aspect of the R.M.S. Titanic when the Millicent-based South East Family History Group held its July monthly meeting.
The bare details of the 1912 maritime tragedy are well-known.
The ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage and sank with the loss of 1517 lives.
During his 35-minute talk, Mr Walshaw focussed on the heroic efforts of her two wireless telegraph operators on that fateful night and also displayed some working replicas of radio telegraph equipment from that era.
Wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride played pivotal roles as they were advised of ice fields ahead of the collision and informed the Titanic captain.
They also sent out numerous distress calls when the so-called “unsinkable” ship began to slip beneath the waves.
Due to many errors, some of their distress calls were either ignored or were not received by nearby ships who could have rendered assistance.
The exception was the S.S. Carpathia which was four hours steaming away and rescued about 700 survivors.
Its arrival was too late for the likes of Phillips who was pulled into a lifeboat but died presumably of hypothermia.
However, Bride survived and lived another 44 years.
According to Mr Walshaw, numerous lessons were learned from the tragedy such as locating the radio room alongside the bridge.
