The Tale of the Antinoe
These days, technologies such as sonar, radar and satellites warn us of dangerous weather and shipping hazards in our paths when we head out beyond sight of land. Helicopters, rigid-shell lifeboats with inbuilt motors, and clear and easy radio communications make rescue at sea easier and safer. But imagine what high seas rescue was like before these machines and technologies were invented. Imagine trying to affect a rescue in a roaring hurricane not with a helicopter, but with a wooden, oared lifeboat. Imagine life-or-death communications where you didn’t have radio or walkie-talkies – just the flashing pulses of a manually-operated Morse-lamp. No GPS. No satellite tracking – just maps, charts, maritime chronometers and a pair of compasses to find your way.
Imagine all these challenges and more, which were faced by the men who carried out one of the most famous ocean rescues of the early 20th century.
The S.S. Antinoe is completely forgotten today. If you stopped most people in the street and asked, they would have absolutely no idea what it is. And yet, this was an event which made international headlines when the news broke. It turned ordinary sailors into celebrities and heroes before they’d even set their feet back on dry land! A tale of endurance, bravery and sheer ballsiness not yet coming to a motion-picture theatre near you! Forget “The Perfect Storm”, the events surrounding the S.S. Antinoe are far more spectacular!
Wednesday, 20th of January, 1926 – The Roosevelt Departs
The year is 1926. American ocean liner, the S.S. President Roosevelt, is steaming out of New York Harbor. In charge of this vessel is Captain George Fried. The Roosevelt’s ultimate destination is the port of Bremerhaven, Germany, but it will make various stop-offs along the south coast of England along the way.
The voyage to Europe will be long. A week at sea at least. The weather was bad before the ship had even left American waters, but it couldn’t stop just because it was wet and cloudy – the Roosevelt had 200 passengers on board who had paid for safe passage, along with several thousand bags of U.S. Mail.
Before the days of satellite weather-tracking, the main way for ships to attain accurate weather forecasts was in the form of the telegraph. Ships out at sea sent Morse Code radio-messages between each other, warning of things as storms, icebergs, and other ships in distress. The President Roosevelt didn’t know it yet, but it was sailing into a storm of unimaginable ferocity.
A postcard of the S.S. President Roosevelt from the 1920s.
The Roosevelt was not just steaming into a storm. It was steaming into one of the fiercest hurricanes ever witnessed in the north Atlantic. Over the coming days, the situation on board ship deteriorated significantly and a number of measures had to be taken to ensure the safety of the passengers and of the ship. Roosevelt passengers were kept below-deck, forbidden from going outside, for their own safety. Lifelines were thrown up outside and inside the ship, to catch people who stumbled or fell when the ship rolled.
When it was safe to cook, stewards would soak table-cloths in water and wring them out before laying the tables. The wet fabric would prevent place-settings and dishes from sliding off the tables in the dining saloon when the ship rolled or plunged through another wave. And things only got worse as the voyage continued. By the third day, Capt. Fried ordered the ship’s engines to be run at reduced speed. It would be pointless to operate them at full-tilt and burn precious coal in a futile attempt to get anywhere in this storm. And so the Roosevelt laboured onwards.
Sunday, 24th of January, 1926 – The Antinoe Calls for Help
Despite the raging storm, Capt. Fried of the Roosevelt was determined that nothing more than the most essential precautions be taken, to prevent causing a panic among the passengers. As a result, regular crew-shifts went on as normal. There were no double watches or any other abnormal crew activity. Everyone was just expected to do their regular duties. If the situation got significantly worse, then extra measures would be taken.
With this mindset, the crew went about their duties. At four o’clock on Sunday morning, wireless-operator Kenneth Upton relieved his colleague and took up his position in the radio-room. He slipped on his headphones, sat down at the desk, and prepared himself for a long, boring shift of a whole lot of nothing. Considering the storm, there was probably nothing going on out there! How wrong he was!
Not two hours later, at 5:40am, a barely discernible message gurgled through the air. Because of the hurricane, radio reception was appallingly bad, and Mr. Upton could barely hear the frantically hammered-out Morse Code.
The cry for help came from the Antinoe, a British freighter-vessel which was fighting for life. It was severely damaged by the storm, unable to move, developing a heavy starboard list and had lost all her lifeboats, which had been ripped off her decks or smashed to pieces by the storm. She had no way of giving her position with great accuracy as the hurricane made it impossible for the crew to take a reading of their position by the sun or the stars.
Realising the gravity of the situation, Upton immediately informed Capt. Fried.
Using the Antinoe’s feeble radio-transmitter as a reference-point, Capt. Fried was able to determine through triangulation (using two known positions to find a third) the Antinoe’s location. Unfortunately, he also determined that it would take six hours just to get there!
The Tale of the Antinoe
The Antinoe was captained by Harry Tose. It had departed its port of embarkation on the 14th of January and had sailed without incident until the 23rd when it ran into the same hurricane battering the S.S. President Roosevelt. Heavy seas had damaged the ship severely. In all the heaving, rocking and rolling, an ice-chest had been knocked loose when the ship rolled from a wave. The heavy ice-chest had fallen and smashed against the ship’s steering-mechanism, rendering the vessel impossible to steer.
Despite throwing the damaged ice-chest and other broken parts overboard and trying to fix the broken steering mechanism, the ship was in sufficient enough danger that Capt. Tose ordered an S.O.S. signal to be sent out. Two ships responded: One was the S.S. President Roosevelt. The other was the famous Cunard ocean-liner, the R.M.S. Aquitania. In the end, it was the Roosevelt which dared to stay alongside the stricken Antinoe and attempt a rescue-mission in the midst of an Atlantic hurricane.
The Arrival of the S.S. President Roosevelt
Around midday, the two vessels found each other. Capt. Tose of the Antinoe wanted his ship taken in-tow and hauled back to safety…wherever that was! Capt. Fried agreed, but had no idea HOW to do it! Three attempts at bringing the Antinoe under tow failed. The weather was too rough and either the towline never caught on, or it would snap once it had been fastened to the Antinoe.
By that evening, the situation was spinning further and further out of control. The nonstop pounding of the waves had smashed in the Antinoe’s decks. This flooded the engine-room, killing the generators and depriving the ship of all electrical power. Now, she had no lights, no heating and no radio! And to cap it off…it started snowing in the middle of the ocean! Capt. Fried knew that he if abandoned the Antinoe now, her crew were almost certainly going to die.
The raging storm was wreaking havoc on both ships. The wind, the crashing waves, the pitch blackness and the white-out blizzard conditions made keeping visual contact between both ships almost impossible! For a period of several hours on Sunday night, it was impossible for the Roosevelt to see the Antinoe – the blinding snow rendered the Roosevelt’s powerful searchlights impotent, and Capt. Fried feared the very real possibility of a single wave slamming both ships together and sending them to the bottom of the sea!
The Antinoe had no lifeboats of her own, so to try and carry out a rescue-mission, Capt. Fried ordered his officers to use their own lifeboats to row across to the Antinoe and bring back survivors. The Chief Officer, Mr. Miller called for volunteers. Positioning the ship to launch the lifeboat, Miller and eight men got into the boat and it was lowered away into the raging sea. It was a complete disaster! The ship rocked unexpectedly, slamming the lifeboat against the hull! Two men were thrown out and were drowned at once. The other seven were quickly hauled back on-deck. The lifeboat was considered a total loss.
Monday 25th of January, 1926 – Lifeboats Lost to the Sea
By the next day, things were getting desperate. In numerous failed attempts to maintain contact with the Antinoe, the Roosevelt lost another four of her own wooden lifeboats and was running out of patience and time…especially time! Because, gallant as Capt. Fried’s actions and intentions were, he could not stay alongside the struggling Antinoe indefinitely. His supplies of fuel and food were finite. On top of that, he had passengers who he was supposed to take to Europe. He had mail on board which he was supposed to deliver to Germany!
So what? That was the attitude that Fried took. And he told anyone who asked him, just so! He was not about to leave until the job was done. And that was final! And that was what he told his bosses, too! In fact, Fried sent telegrams back to his company offices in New York, informing his superiors of the situation, and stating quite firmly that come Hell or High Water, he would stay alongside the Antinoe until the ship either sank, until an effective rescue had been completed, or until he could no-longer render assistance.
These words of defiance which were flashed across the ocean went on to have an incredible effect which few, least of all, the people at the centre of this drama, could possibly have foreseen. Trapped at sea, nobody on either the S.S. President Roosevelt, or the Antinoe could possibly know that Capt. Fried’s telegrams back to New York were at that very moment making the rescue of the Antinoe an internationally-observed incident!
Tuesday, 26th of January, 1926 – Rescue At Last!
The next day, the weather finally started to let up. The Roosevelt was able to re-establish contact via searchlight with the Antinoe and rescue-attempts began anew. A lifeboat was successfully launched and rowed over to the Antinoe.
Upon sighting the boat, Capt. Tose insisted that all married men, with the exception of himself, should go first. As a result, the first dozen men to abandon the Antinoe were the ones with wives and families waiting at home. Rowing back and forth between both ships for several hours, the crew and captain of the Antinoe were successfully evacuated to the decks of the Roosevelt. The lifeboat, badly worn out by the rough seas, was cast adrift.
One last attempt was made on the 27th to rescue the badly-damaged Antinoe but when once again the towline snapped, all aboard agreed that to keep trying was a waste of time. They left the ship to founder, and then sailed for Plymouth, England.
Back on Dry Land!
The toll had been heavy. The Antinoe was lost. Two crew from the Roosevelt had drowned at sea and six of her lifeboats had been destroyed by the hurricane during a rescue that had lasted three and a half days! But all twenty-five members of the crew on board the Antinoe had been saved!
When the Roosevelt and her crew arrived in Plymouth, England at the end of the month, they were greeted like heroes! Wild applause followed them, and reporters jostled for interviews! Newsreel cameras rolled, flash-bulbs popped! Mrs. Tose ran up on board the Roosevelt to be with her husband. Later, she publicly thanked Captain George Fried in front of the newsreel cameras, for delivering her husband, Captain Harry Tose, and his crew, safely from the jaws of certain death.
News of the dramatic rescue flashed around the world as fast as telegraph could take it. Articles appeared in the Straits Times in Singapore, the Buffalo Evening News in the United States, the Argus in Melbourne, and The Queenslander in Brisbane. The arrival of the triumphant President Roosevelt and its exhausted passengers and crew was filmed for posterity by newsreel cameras when it docked in England.
The saga of the Antinoe, and the ship which rescued its crew became legend! When Captain Fried and his men returned to America, they were treated once again to a heroes’ welcome, and given a ticker-tape parade through the center of New York City! The Antinoe was probably one of the most famous sea-rescues in history since the Titanic, and would not be eclipsed in peacetime until the sinking of the Andrea Doria in the 1950s.
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My father,Harold Thomas Cornick, was crew member of the SS Antione saved by SS President Roosevelt. I have his merchant seaman discharge record which shows the loss off the SS Antione in mid Atlantic.
Hello, my grandfather, James McKeown was a crew member of the ‘Antinoe’ saved by the ‘President Roosevelt’. I’ve seen him on You Tube : Heroes All 1926. Did you know him?
Hello
Have only just picked up on your message. No, I’m afraid I didn’t know your grandfather. In fact I am still investigating details of the crew of the Antinoe.
I found out through Lloyd’s Register of Shipping that many old maritime records are held in Southampton at the City Archives – e-mail address: city.archives@southampton.gov.uk or tel: 023 8083 2251 or Maritime & Local Collections e-mail address: maritime.local.collections@southampton.gov.uk or tel: 02380 237584
Hi Gerald
Maybe I can help? Let me know if there is anything specific I can do. I know a maritime report about the loss of SS Antinoe is on-line, but it gives no information about the crew. Which one was your father? If you find out anything new (or old, I should say) I will be very interested to hear. There are also several articles.:- https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22751338
https://www.sfmx.org/wp…/Memories-of-Rescue-January-1926-by-John-P-Hahn.pdf
Thanks for your comments. I have visited Southampton Civic Centre where the City Archives and Maritime and Local Collections are based. I plan to book appointmements in due course to continue my investigations. It was my father who was an engineer on the SS Antinoe, not my grandfather. In the photograph of the crew on- line I think he is to the right of the picture
Hi again Alice
I’m afraid I misread the text I received giving your reply to my earlier comments. In particular, I didn’t appreciate your response was preceded by my comments, hence my reference to father and grandfather. Apologies for the confusion. Just to say, if I happen to come up with any interesting information when I visit Southampton again, I will contact you.
If ever in Nanaimo you can see the painting by Charles Dixon called The Brotherhood of the Sea at the office of Huntsman Law, which painting depicts this event leaving little doubt as to the ferocity of the storm and the bravery of the crew of the Roosevelt.
My father was a seaman on the SS Hastings sailing for Liverpool from New York. The Hastings also answered the SOS and stood by pumping oil while the Roosevelt attempted rescue. Dad took several photos during the storm showing damage to the Hastings but used up all his film before reaching the Antinoe. He was an excellent sketch artist and made eseveral sketches of the rescue. Several years ago I obtained a print of a painting by Norman Wilkinson titled “I Will Not Abandon You.” which depicts the rescue. The similarities between the print and Dad’s sketches are stunning.
I wish I could’ve found out more about the Antinoe disaster. There’s hardly any information online. Everything in this article was gleamed from maybe…3-4 sources. And that was it!!
My grandfather, Frank Monroe Upton, was 4th Officer on the SS Roosevelt. He manned one of the lifeboats in this rescue. He was a Medal of Honor recipient in WWI and served in the Navy through WWII. For his part in this rescue he received numerous medals from government and maritime organizations in both the U.S. and Great Britain. I have his sterling silver footed platter given him by the British government, a simple oaken barometer given him by Lloyd’s of London, a lithograph of the rescue from the London Times and a disc of NY Times articles covering the days of the rescue. He received various other medals and awards too numerous to mention. I knew him until his death in 1963 …..he never once mentioned his lifetime of service and heroism. I have had to glean all of his maritime life piecemeal. Thank you for this article.
My Father & his fellow crew members, and especially myself and my Brother and our late Mother who died in 1982, owe a great debt of gratitude to your Grandfather and his fellow crew members on The SS President Roosevelt, especially those who lost their lives. Without their supreme sacrifice and heroism myself and my Brother wouldn’t be here now.
Hello Dale. Searching the web, I just noticed that Spink.com has Frank M. Upton’s (your grandfather) awards and medals up for auction. (not sure how current this is). There is also a wonderful writeup on his career.
https://spink.com/lot/21003000477
Thought you might be interested.
Jim Wright
Hello Dale,
Do not know if you are following comments on throughouthistory.com regarding the 1926 rescue of the SS Antinoe by the SS President Roosevelt, but would like to offer the following. As I mentioned on March 16th, your grandfather’s 1926 medals, photographs and certificates are being auctioned off tomorrow, April 4, 2023 on Spink.com at 10:00 AM, London time. It will be Auction# 21003, Lot 477. Your grandfather Frank M. Upton was in the same lifeboat as my Uncle John Hahn, who took the first 12 of 25 men off of the deck of the Antinoe. I hope this information is of some value.
Regards,
Jim Wright, Harmony Township, NJ USA
Just to follow up my posting dated August 6th 2018, I duly visited the City Archives & the Maritime & Local Collections in Southampton. Regrettably I was not able to discover any more information concerning the SS Antione & the rescue of the crew by the SS President Roosevelt. Apparently, some time ago, all maritime records originally held by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping were dispersed across a number of locations across the globe & this is probably why there is no more information available in the UK.
Hello Gerald. My name is Jim Wright. My Uncle John Hahn was in the 2nd lifeboat that rescued men from the Antinoe. I did extensive research in the early 1990s and have a list of the 25 Antinoe crew members if you are still interested. Among them was your father, the 4th engineer and Alice’s grandfather, who was listed as a fireman. I also have a listing of the Roosevelt’s crew, including Dale’s grandfather Frank Upton, who was on both the 2nd and 3rd lifeboats. I think much of this info came from page 26 of the New York Times newspaper of January 31, 1926.
Thank you all for keeping their memory alive.
Dear James
Thank you so much for contacting me. I was of the impression that I had come to the end of my research into the Antinoe/ President Roosevelt , particularly as I have been unable to establish any record of the Antinoe at Lloyd’s of London.
If it isn’t too much trouble I would appreciate a copy of the list of the crew of the Antinoe and also the crew members of the President Roosevelt involved in the rescue.
I must say that myself and my Brother cannot thank the crew of the President Roosevelt enough for saving my Father’s life with a number of them sacrificing their own lives.
I did read somewhere that the Antinoe/President Roosevelt story is more dramatic than the sinking of the Titanic. With all the information in the public domain, including Pathe News and the Press, for a while now I have been wondering whether it could be made into a film. However, perhaps it’s best to leave things as they are.
Best wishes and thanks in anticipation
Gerald cornick
Dear Gerald,
A pleasure to hear from you. After visiting my Uncle in Florida in the early 1990s, I spent countless hours over the next 3 years researching this amazing sea rescue. Needless to say, I have quite a bit of information. If you send me an email; jimwright01@yahoo.com, I will gladly send you a .pdf copy of the crew listings. (30 years ago, all was done via snail mail and paper).
Look forward to hearing from you and revisiting this epic sea tale.
Regards, Jim Wright
Hello, all. I have recently been contacted by Jim Wright regarding this group interested in the Antinoe rescue. I am the grand-niece of Capt. Harry Tose and researched the rescue extensively in 2010-11 for a presentation and an article I wrote for my local genealogical society. The article, “He Wore His Buttons Well”, is available for public view here: https://www.bifhsgo.ca/acr-journal in Vol 17 No. 2 Summer edition of 2011. It is based on quite a number of sources, which are listed at the end of the article. My breakthrough in my research came when I located some news articles for sale from a gentleman in Texas. My presentation also attracted the attention of a previously unknown cousin who was the grandson of Harry Tose. We continued work on Harry, his career and the Antinoe for some time after my article was published. Unfortunately, Michael has recently died. He would have been delighted by this website.
Another source which some of you may want to try and locate is the epic poem written by E.J. Pratt, a Canadian poet who was fascinated by the rescue and wrote a long poem – book length – about it all. The detail in the poem is extensive, giving a blow by blow telling of the tale. It is this poem which gave me the title of my article. Check online or your local library to see if you can find a copy. Michael and I both purchased copies online.
I have a number of sources with various bits of information. I will hunt some of them out and see if I can post them here. If not, interested people can contact me here and I will arrange to get copies to them somehow. I know I do have the wreck report from Southampton. It states that they abandoned the Antinoe in a sinking condition at 481N and 361W. The log books and ship’s papers went down with the ship. This is why there is no Crew Agreement documents on file.
I look forward to further discussions and hearing each of your families’ stories about this amazing event.
Dear Barbara
I was very interested in your message. My name is Gerald Cornick and I am from near Winchester in the UK, Winchester being about 17 miles from Southampton.
My father, Harold Thomas Cornick, was the fourth engineer on the S S Antinoe and it was only in 1922 that he completed a five year apprenticeship. He left the sea in the early 1930s and died in 1967.
Hello, Gerald. Jim mentioned you in particular from this group. I’m very happy to hear from you! When I started my research on the Antinoe all I knew was E.J. Pratt had written a poem about it and my great-uncle was the captain of the ship. And here I am corresponding with someone whose father served with Harry Tose! Tell me, did your father ever talk about Captain Tose?
I’m afraid I don’t know much about him from a personal perspective. He died when his son was 18 and his son did not maintain contact with the rest of the family nor talk about his father’s exploits.
Unfortunately, no stories were revealed to us about his crew of the Antinoe and all I have discovered has been from public records.
I would be happy to share whatever I have of interest to you. Some material I have on my computer (though even finding it there can be challenging – I’m not the most organized person around). Perhaps you and Jim and I could form an email group where we can correspond about what each of us knows and what we have that can be shared. I have set up a new email account for this purpose and you and Jim can contact me directly at RooseveltandAntinoe@gmail.com. In the meantime, I will hunt out what I have easily available and start to look for the less readily available materials. I look forward to knowing what you know about the rescue. This really is so exciting!
Dear Barbara
Regrettably, my Father died when I was only 22 and, being a rather private person, he said very little about his experiences in mid Atlantic so I haven’t got any information to add to what we already know. I will, of course be in touch if any fresh information comes to light.
Dear Barbara
The only additional information I can give you is that, until relatively recently, I was in possession of my Father’s papers, an Indenture from when he served a five year apprenticeship from 1917, his Certificate of Competence as an Engineer, and his Discharge book which clearly confirms the sinking of the Antinoe in 1926. In view of my age and failing health I have donated these items to the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester Dorset, UK as they link into information that was already held by the Centre. I have retained copies. I hope that this benefits the overall picture especially as the ship’s log books and papers went down with the ship.
In future I will, as you suggest, communicate with you and Jim via your new email account
Kind regards
Gerry
Thanks, Gerry. I’d be interested to know who your father apprenticed with. I don’t suppose his discharge gives much in the way of details of the sinking. I’ve seen the item for my own grandfather when his ship was torpedoed in 1917 and it really didn’t give any detail. I had to look for the ship’s record to find the details of where it happened.
Jim’s uncle’s write up of his role in the rescue was a lovely addition to my knowledge of the situation based on my research.
I believe I have Crew Agreements from the Antinoe’s trips prior to her loss. I will locate them and check to see if your father was onboard. If so, would you be interested in a copy of the agreements? I will check other records I have for any mention of your father and will let you know if I find anything else.
Thanks, again, for getting in touch with me.
Barbara
Dear Barbara
I am not sure whether you are aware that there were two ships named Antinoe. One was the vessel shipwrecked in the Atlantic on which my Father served. The other one was torpedoed in the Second World War. My Father was apprenticed to a company called Cosens & Co Ltd of Weymouth, Dorset, UK. As I previously indicated, my Father’s Discharge Record clearly shows he was shipwrecked in mid-Atlantic. In my last posting to Jim I did suggest that we should, perhaps, use the new email account you have set up and I am presently awaiting his reply.
Very best wishes
Gerry
Note: It is with sadness that I report the passing of our dear friend Gerrald Cornick, the son of SS Antinoe crew member Harold Thomas Cornick. I was informed by his son David that he passed away peacefully on Saturday, June 10, 2023 with his family at his side. We will miss his gentle spirit and his valuable contributions to our research into the January 1926 rescue of the crew of the British steamship SS Antinoe by the US Lines SS President Roosevelt.
Rest in peace Gerry.