The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-14
MARINE
THE sHERMAN's EXPERIENCE.


Wireless is not all that it is claim
ed TO be when an army transport gets
within range of the big fleet. as was
experienced by the Sherman on her
last trip home. The following ac-
count of the CONSERVATION experienced
by the sherman's passengers as they
reached the wireless zone of the war
ships while anchored in Magdalena
Bay, comes from San Francisco:
The fleets at Magdalena Bay!"
shouted somebody from the deck Ct
the revenue cutter Golden Gate yes
terday in response to a request for
news for the passengers who lined
the rail of the Sherman. The mention
of the fleet was the signal for a groan
from the people on the transport
Yes, We know all about the fleet.
Please don't rub it in
The fleet was a sore subject on the
Sherman, which arrived yesterday
from Manila, and thereby hangs a tale
of a wireless war in which the Navy
literally reduced the Army to a whis-
per. The Army is proud of the Sher-
mans wireless record, and as the
troopship neared the Coast and the
conversation zone the operator pre-
pared to forward through the atmo-
sphere a batch of messages varying
in Importance from strictly official
business to the fiippant "Ah there"
from some fresh little subaltern to the
girl he had left behind him.
There was no mistaking the CONVEX
sation zone when the Sherman enter
ed it. The ships at Magdalena Bay
were chattering like magpies. Mare
Island, North Head and Point Iona
occasionally contributed a brief ac-
acknowledgement or stemmed the tide of
fleet talk with a cipher message for
the commander-in-chief. Whenever
there seemed to be pause. the Sher-
mans operator tried to call Mare Is
land.
Crash, crash, crash" went the Sher-
mans call, and the Sherman's oper-
ator listened intently only to hear in a
few minutes not a reply but some
more conversation 'FRONT.' the Connecti-
cut. After a few hours the persist
ence of the operator was rewarded
with this-from the Connecticut:
Who's that trying to butt in?'
The Army transport Sherman" the
operator FASTENED to reply as he gath
cred up his stack of messages and
prepared to send them.
The Army must go away back and
sit down. The Navy will do all the
taIkings That was the substance, if
not the exact wording, of the Connec-
ticut's reply.
Some of the messages from the fleet
were in cipher, but many were not,
and as the Sherman waited patiently
for another opening the operator
listened to messages like this:
lis the mascot better?"
Tell Billy not to forget that little
dinner
THE cherub sends his love-
Finally, about twenty-four hours be-
fore the Sherman sighted land Mare
Island wirelessed the Connecticut:
There's an army transport been try
ing to break in for hours. Give him
a chance
The Connecticut replied: "AH right,
he can have the track for ten min
utes"
This is why the Sherman's people
ruff1ed at the mention of the fleet, and
also why the only message received
from the Sherman was a brief aero
gram announcing that the transport
would be in by ten o'clock.
sAMUELs' RECORD.
The n. Y. Maritime Register gives
the record of Samuel Samuels, notice
of whose death has been previously
given, as follows:
Samuel Samuels, who sailed the Hen