SS Kyle

The S.S. Kyle was launched on April 17th, 1913 by Mrs. R.G. Reid, wife of the President of the Reid Newfoundland Company. The Kyle was named in accordance to Fleet Tradition, as the vessels in the Reid Coastal Fleet were all named for Scottish towns. The agreement between Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. and the Reid Newfoundland Company which foresaw the construction of the SS Kyle was signed on April 17, 1912. A little less than a year later construction of the ship at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England was completed and on April 7, 1913 the Kyle was launched by Mrs. R.G. Reid, wife of the president of the Reid Newfoundland Co. On May 20th of that same year the S.S. Kyle sailed through the Narrows of the St John's Harbour (Photo below) for the first time under the command of Captain Lorenzo Stevenson. At this time the ship was described by the Evening Telegram as being a "specimen of marine architecture."

The ship was to join the Reid Newfoundland Coastal Fleet to provide a Labrador region with it's first regularly scheduled service. The S.S. Kyle was the 10th ship to join the Reid Newfoundland Company's prestigious Alphabet Fleet. Although it may not have had the grandeur of some of the ships in the fleet it was the fastest and having been strengthened for ice was the strongest as well. For this reason the S.S. Kyle was sometimes used as an ice breaker. During it's lifetime the Kyle was known as Newfoundlanders "Bulldog of the North" provided many valuable services to citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition to passengers and cargo, the Kyle also carried a doctor whom the people would receive medical attention from.

Newfoundland Railway, Passenger, Supplies, Cargo, Supplies, Mail service, Icebreaker

The Alphabet Fleet started with eight boats which were built in Scotland beginning in 1897. The Argyle, Bruce, Clyde, Dundee, Ethie, Fife, Glencoe and Home, each given a Scottish name by the Reid family whose ancestry comes from Scotland. In subsequent years the fleet was increased by the addition of new vessels: the Inverness, Kyle, Lintrose and the Meigle. As the fleet name suggests, all ship names began with consecutive letters of the alphabet. The Alphabet Fleet gradually disappeared from Newfoundland and by the 1970s the Kyle was the only one left in the Province. Property of the Newfoundland Government, she lies beached at Riverhead, Harbour Grace.

The Story that has been mentioned many times is that after a sealing trip when the Kyle was struck with major ice damage. Guy untied its lines one day and hoped the winds would take it to sea to collect the insurance but the winds reversed and blew the Kyle down Conception Bay, first landing in one of the other towns until a huge iceberg broke her free and dragged her to the end of the Bay where she sits now. Guy Now knowing the Kyle was not going to move he flooded the hull and has never moved from its resting place.

The SS. Kyle was the Queen of the pan fed coal steam ships on the Eastern seaboard. Her Colors were derived from the black hulled schooners and and yellow Newfoundland dories. The Reid Newfoundland company use of the Kyle was to provide Labrador with its first regularly scheduled passenger service shortly after commissioning , to the North Sydney / Port-Aux-Basques ferry service. In addition to her other duties the Kyle also provided medical services to the people of the coastal region. Her medical officer would often be summoned ashore to examine a patient. Patients who needed hospitalization were taken aboard and ferried to the nearest hospital or medical centre. The medical officers Life aboard the Kyle primarily of dental extractions and motion sickness. During World war II the Kyle played a vital role in the ferrying Newfoundland troops to the mainland to join the Canadian Troops in preparation for battle on the front lines on Europe. Tales have been told that the Kyle preformed ice breaking services for Russia during this period.

The Bulldog of the North as many Newfoundlanders knew her, the sight of the black smoke from the stacks of the Kyle sparked a frenzy of activity in her ports of call.

The Fokker VIIA "Old Glory", at the Old Orchard Beach airfield, the day before its attempted transatlantic flight, in September 1927 before her fate.

The Daily Mirror however, did not give up hope. The SS Kyle was chartered and under the command of Captain Ben Tavenor another search began. On September 9 the SS Kyle set sail from St. John’s and it reached the apparent position of the Old Glory’s last plea for help on September 12. After the officers on the SS Kyle did a careful study of the winds and the sea in the area - thirty miles of an east by south course were followed. Eventually an oily current headed for the east was detected and a floating object was spotted in the distance. The floating object turned out to be the half-submerged wing of an airplane approximately 34 foot in length. Boats were sent out to retrieve any debris from the aircraft and a boom was used to lift the wing onto the SS Kyle. As the wing was lifted out of the sea, the stars and strips of the Old Glory were revealed. The wing still contained tank sections full of gas. As well, retrieved, was part of the landing gear with a wheel still attached.

For several more days the SS Kyle searched for the Old Glory’s rubber raft which had not been found and which could possibly contain surviving crew members. Sadly, however, the rubber raft nor any survivors turned up. The wreckage of the Old Glory was later brought to Bay Roberts where it was carefully studied.

The SS Kyle also aided in the rescue of the sailors during the USS Pollux and USS Truxton disaster at Chambers Cove near St. Lawrence on February 18, 1942.

As published in the Beacon, Gander, NL. This column is copyrighted and must not be used without permission of the Beacon and Frank Tibbo.

Frank Tibbo has given us permission to post this column as of July 21, 2010

Dec. 10, 2009

Old Glory, It’s not a happy story but at least it’s somewhat interesting in that part of the airplane, Old Glory, is in Gander.

It all started a few years after the Wrights. Some pilots, a lot of whom were considered ‘wacky’, were actually dreaming and planning to attempt to cross the North Atlantic Ocean. Less than ten years after the Wrights’ first flight, just before the outbreak of World War I, Britain’s Lord Northcliffe, who owned the London Daily Mail newspaper had an idea that would sell newspapers. He said the Daily Mail would pay £10,000 for the first successful flight to cross the North Atlantic. In 1913, that was a fortune. Besides being a fortune, it would ensure everlasting fame for some participant. As we know, Alcock and Brown picked up the booty for their amazing flight on June 14-15, 1919.

Other newspaper barons got the idea, and prizes were offered for various North Atlantic feats. Charles Lindbergh won hotel owner Raymond Orteig’s prize of $25,000 on May 20, 1927 for the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris.

On June 7, 1927, Clarence Chamberlain and Charles Levine flew to Germany, breaking the nonstop distance record with a total of 3,911 miles flown.

A prize that hadn’t been captured was for a flight from New York to Rome. That’s where the story of Old Glory begins.

James Dewitt Hill, an experienced pilot with more than 5,000 hours, and Lloyd Bertaud had teamed up and had begun to look for a sponsor for the long flight.

Philip Payne was the editor of William Randolph Hearst’s New York’s Daily Mirror. Payne, an avid aviation enthusiast convinced Hearst to sponsor a flight from New York to Rome as a publicity stunt in order to boost the newspaper’s circulation. Hearst agreed and bought a Fokker F.VIIA monoplane, an aircraft that had proved itself over and over.

The newspaper began publishing stories about the impending flight and public interest grew. They named the Fokker aircraft ‘Old Glory’.

Everything was done to ensure a safe flight. It had the best survival available and a radio station was installed with the call letters WRHP (for William Randolph Hearst). It also had a waterproof, wind‑powered automatic transmitter, which was designed to send out the radio call letters in Morse code, allowing ships and stations along its proposed northern route to track their progress.

On September 6, 1927, at 12:23 p.m. Old Glory lifted off the airfield at Old Orchard Beach, Maine to the cheers of more than a thousand spectators. The publicity generated by the newspaper had worked. The National Guard had to be brought in to control the crowd and telegrams poured in from all over the world. What Randolph Hearst apparently didn’t know was that Philip Payne, his editor, was going along with Hill and Bertaud for the ride.

The last time anybody saw Old Glory was 11:57 p.m.. when it flew over the steamship California approximately 350 miles east of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Reports said it appeared to be flying at an altitude of only 300 feet.

At 3:57 a.m. on September 7, an SOS message was heard followed by another a few minutes later.

The distress calls were picked up by the steamship Transylvania. Captain David Bone turned his ship in the direction from which the calls had been made. It took the ship five hours to reach the area where it was thought the aircraft was when it sent the SOS. Nothing was found.

Randolph Hearst then chartered Newfoundland’s SS Kyle to go out and search the area in the hope that the aircraft may have floated and the three men may have survived.

The SS Kyle searched for five days and on September 12, 1927, it discovered some wreckage of the aircraft. Parts of the wing, undercarriage and superstructure were hauled on board and brought ashore. The remains were returned to New York, and pieces were sold as souvenirs.

At the beginning of the column I mentioned that part of the aircraft is in Gander. Mr. Gord Peckford inherited a piece of Old Glory from his mother and on it is the inscription:

“Part of wing of aeroplane ‘Old Glory’ lost at sea in transatlantic flight from New York to Rome. Picked up by SS Kyle Sept. 12, 1927. Lat. 52 37 N ; long 39 23W B. Tavernor, Master SS Kyle”

Perhaps the SS Kyle’s most noted search and rescue mission, which attracted to her worldwide attention, was the search for the ill-fated “OLD GLORY,” the American monoplane which had departed from Maine hoping to be one of the first aircrafts to successfully cross the Atlantic. On September 7, 1927 the Old Glory took off from Old Orchard, Maine en route to Rome, Italy. The flight was sponsored by the New York Daily Mirror and there were three men aboard the aircraft, pilot - Lloyd Bertraud; aviation expert James 0. Hill; and Phillip Payne, managing editor of the Daily Mirror. On this day, the plane was spotted over different areas of Newfoundland but shortly after leaving the Newfoundland coast, the Old Glory encountered some difficulties. For a while, ships at sea received distress calls from the troubled aircraft, but then there was nothing. Many ships hastened to the area of the North Atlantic where the Old Glory’s SOS message indicated that the aircraft might be but an extensive search of the ocean 600 miles from the nearest land turned up nothing. The Daily Mirror however, did not give up hope. The SS Kyle was chartered andunder the command of Captain Ben Tavenor another search began. On September 9 the SS Kyle set sail from St. John’s and it reached the apparent position of the Old Glory’s last plea for help on September 12. After the officers on the SS Kyle did a careful study of the winds and the sea in the area - thirty miles of an east by south course were followed. Eventually an oily current headed for the east was detected and a floating object was spotted in the distance. The floating object turned out to be the half-submerged wing of an airplane approximately 34 foot in length. Boats were sent out to retrieve any debris from the aircraft and a boom was used to lift the wing onto the SS Kyle. As the wing was lifted out of the sea, the stars and strips of the Old Glory were revealed. The wing still contained tank sections full of gas. As well, retrieved, was part of the landing gear with a wheel still attached.