MS Prinsendam. Wikipedia photo.
Thirty five years ago today, Chief Radio Officer Jack van der Zee performed an act of heroism that was later recognized by Queen Beatrix. On October 4, 1980, the passenger ship MS Prinsendam of the Holland-America line was in severe distress off the coast of Alaska with about 350 passengers and 200 crew. There was a fire in the engine room, the ship was being flooded, and it ultimately sank.
Due to the lateness of the hour, few vessels in the area were monitoring the radio, although virtually every vessel at sea was equipped with an automatic alarm to alert for any SOS calls. The Prinsendam contacted the U.S. Coast Guard, which advised that the ship should send an SOS to alert the vessels in the area to assist in the rescue. The decision rested with the ship’s master, Cornelis Dirk Wabeke. Captain Wabeke refused to do so. Because the SOS would allow assisting ships to assert salvage rights, he instead ordered radio officer van der Zee to send the message as a mere “urgent” message. Since the radio officers of nearby ships would not be at their stations, van der Zee realized that no nearby ship would hear the message.
Van der Zee, already feeling the heat of the fire through his shoes, made a courageous decision. Realizing full well that the decision could result in loss of his job and pension, and even imprisonment for mutiny, decided to ignore the captain’s order. Instead, he sent the message as an SOS, prefaced by the signals that would activate the automatic alarms of other nearby ships.
Within minutes, other ships were alerted to the looming disaster, and raced to the scene to assist. Within hours, the ship was sunk, but U.S. and Canadian military and Coast Guard rescuers were on the scene, assisted by the civilian vessels alerted by van der Zee’s mutinous act,
For his act of heroism, van der Zee was recognized by Queen Beatrix by the award of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.
An audio file of van der Zee’s call of SOS DE PJTA, along with more details and documents, can be found at this link at archive.org. Also see the web page of N1EA, one of the other operators (of the supertanker WIlliamsburgh, WGOA) who assisted in the rescue.
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I have recently taken interest in this event (after discovery in my ham radio logbook from 1982 of a CW contact with N1EA, one of the principals). According to plural other on-line sources, the MS Prinsendam did capsize and sink, but it was not until after some days, rather than hours. Which doesn’t detract from the story in any kind of significant way, as the ship had already begun listing to port, and that with increasing severity.
There is a new book out on this, which I’ve just ordered (but has yet to arrive): “None Were Lost – The Prinsendam Fire and Rescue”, over 400 pages with 30 photographs. I look forward to its arrival.