ON MARCH 14, Fraser and James walked up to the wireless station and met Pop Athearn and Harry Brown, James seeing the Americans for the first time. They went over all aspects of the wireless system, and Athearn assured James that four hours’ work on Haimun, in fitting out the wireless cabin and putting up antennas, would give wireless communication up to 100 miles. This meant that James would be able to communicate from Chinampo.

True to their word, the Americans completed the work, and the Haimun was ready to sail at 6pm. On board was Fraser, who was hoping now to join up with the Japanese land forces, as a correspondent, Commander William Colquhoun, The Times’s “special naval correspondent”, Captain James Jardine and Captain Berkeley Vincent, British military attachés, Harry Brown and Lionel James. James had a few moments to contemplate, and could be forgiven if he was a little moved by the occasion.

“Here we are at the opposite end of the world equipped in every detail, in pursuance of an absolutely novel idea and one most comprehensive in its development, within a month of the opening of hostilities.”

The Haimun sailed out into the Yellow Sea. James was eager to test the wireless with his first message. Should he steam out to sea twenty miles, fifty or seventy miles? Twenty miles was very little in wireless. Seventy miles would be a better test — more impressive. He decided on 20 miles and told Brown when to send. Sitting in the cosy saloon, he soon heard the loud rhythmic crackle of the spark as Brown keyed out the message to Weihaiwei. In the lonely hut on Liutung Island, under that troublesome mast, sat young Athearn, with that schoolboy look. He would have the headphones on, pencil in hand, paper at the ready, and be listening. Brown keyed the historic opening sentence:

“I am at sea on board the Times steamer Haimun, en route to Chinampo” . . . Would Athearn hear the message? Had he received it? The crackling of the spark stopped and James suffered “a minute or two of silent tension” as he waited for some signal from Athearn. Then Brown bellowed out from the wireless cabin in his deep voice: “That’s Pop Athearn — message O.K.”

Reporting the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05 James felt the thrill of the moment. They had done it! He had done it! It had taken them 74 days since leaving London to do this. The war was in its thirtieth day. Conscious that he was the “agent responsible for all that had been developed”. James nevertheless recognised that this achievement in journalism should be credited to The Times. He remembered de Forest, who had had such faith in his system and had guaranteed that it would work. From a sea convulsed by naval warfare, James had sent a wireless war message that was published the next day, in a London newspaper, 14,000 miles distant. It was a first in wireless history.

This first wireless news message sent from a war zone was published in The Times on March 15, 1904, and repeated the next day. Here is how it appeared on March 16:

(from our special correspondent.)

By de Forest’s wireless telegraphy via Weihaiwei, March 15, 10.5am.

I am at sea on board the Times steamer Haimun, en route to Chinampo. The military developments foreshadowed in my previous telegrams should be taking place very soon, as, according to later information, the ice is disappearing fast.

[The above appeared in our second edition of yesterday.]

James was aware that the message was weak on content. It was a safe dispatch and, after all, had been sent as a test to see if the wireless system and the Weihaiwei telegraph service could be used as planned. It was a safe news item because it had to satisfy Tonami, the Japanese censor on board, whom James would have to get to know better. The hallmarks of James’s later wireless messages were there — the material was from “our special correspondent”, sent by “de Forest wireless telegraphy” and then telegraphed by cable to London “via Weihaiwei”. Athearn had taken down the wireless message on the evening of 14 March but he did not bring it to the telegraph office until the next morning when it was sent about 10am. The message would have arrived in London soon after midnight. The first edition had been printed, but a night editor saw the cable come in and insisted on getting it in to the second edition. Hence the message appeared in The Times on March 15.

• Reporting the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05: Lionel James’s First Wireless Transmission to The Times by Peter Slattery, is published at £30 by Global Oriental, PO Box 219, Folkestone, Kent CT20 2WP. ISBN 1-901903-57-5. info@globaloriental.co.uk