At 3 roy p.m. one afternoon last week, at latitude 22:10 North, longitude 51:28 West1,900 miles east of Havana, Cuba, on the regular trade route from Barbados to Englandthe wireless operator of the British tanker El Ciervo began tapping out an alarm: SSS...SSS...SSS...
Long familiar to landlubbers has been the distress signal SOS. Contrary to landlubber tradition, S 0 S is not an abbreviationeither for "Save Our Souls" or "Save Our Ship." It is simply one of the clearest, simplest signals that could be devised from the Morse Code: Dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot.
S S Sthree triplets of dotsis a new signal, invented and...