In the early days of the Great War, the U.S. Government was struggling with how to deal with wireless stations in relation to U.S. neutrality. We’ve seen other examples of how they were dealing with communications in the Atlantic.

But the Pacific was also a theater of war, with Japan at war with Germany. In this news clipping from a hundred years ago today in the Bryan (Texas) Daily Eagle and Pilot (October 16, 1914), the U.S. Government had ordered the closing of the Marconi Company station in the Hawaiian Islands.

In violation of U.S. neutrality, the station had sent a message reporting the presence in Honolulu of the German gunship Geier. The U.S. had ordered the station closed unless the company could come up with a satisfactory explanation. Japanese warships were reportedly speeding toward Hawaii.  The next day’s issue of the paper reported that the order to close the station was rescinded, the company having apologized for the breach of neutrality.

The ship was subsequently interned by the neutral United States.  When the U.S. entered the war, the ship was seized by the U.S. Navy and became the USS Schurz.  In 1918, the ship was rammed by a freighter, killing one crewman and injuring twelve.  The ship was then abandoned and sank three hours later.

SMS Geier in 1894. German Federal Archive photo, via Wikipedia.