Radio: S O Stinks

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At 10 o'clock one night last week, the U. S. Coast Guard Station at Jacksonville, Fla. picked up a spluttering S O S. Over the 600-metre radio band used by ships at sea came a frantic story of explosion, fire, death on the Elder Dempster (British) tanker Dunkwa, 90 miles southwest of Miami. Nobody waited to ask questions. Coast Guard cutters sped to sea, searched the calm Atlantic for miles around the given position. But no shipwreck could be found. Meantime, shipping experts ashore who knew the Dunkwa's, regular run, from Europe to West Africa, began to wonder how she came so tar off her course. Then, while the S O S's continued to crackle in, Lloyd's reported the Dunkwa safe in port at Rotterdam.

Still the messages kept coming. One reported that 38 persons, one a woman, had gone down. This was signed off with "Okay, big boy." Another message charted a strange position: "Eighteen days out of Calcutta, 40 miles south of Hialeah." (Forty miles south of Hialeah race track lie the Everglades.) After several hours: "Don't speak English." Last message, toward 5 a. m.: "Will sink in two hours. Ten inches of water in my room."

Suspecting more than water in the sender's room, the radio agencies ashore reported the whole business to the Federal Communications Commission, which got on the job late, but with the meagre direction finder information available, at week's end had narrowed down its search for the S O S sender to the vicinity of Tampa Bay. Possible penalty: $10,000 fine, two years in jail.

Said Coast Guard headquarters, understandably cranky after empty hours of searching the sea: "The whole thing stinks."