SS ''Haimun'' was a Chinese
steamer ship commanded by
war correspondent Lionel James
Lionel "Little Train" James (May 25, 1962 – February 25, 2022) was an American professional American football, football player who was a running back for the San Diego Chargers in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football ...
in 1904 during the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' of London. It is the first-known instance of a "press boat" dedicated to war correspondence during naval battles.
The recent advent of
wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is the transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using electrical cable, cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimenta ...
meant that reporters were no longer limited to submitting their stories from land-based offices, and ''The Times'' spent 74 days outfitting and equipping the ship, installing a
De Forest transmitter aboard the ship.
The ship sent its first news story on 15 March 1904.
While they covered naval manoeuvres in
Port Arthur and the
Gulf of Pechili, De Forest employee H. J. Brown
was careful to only transmit their stories to the
British-ruled Weihaiwei receiving office from the waters belonging to neutral countries, or within
international waters
The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed region ...
. The receiving tower was manned by 21-year-old De Forest employee H. E. Ahearn.
Nevertheless, the ship's presence during wartime meant that it quickly aroused suspicion, and it was
boarded and searched several times by Japanese ships, as well as being
shot across the bow by the Russian warship ''
Bayan''.
On 15 April 1904, the Russian government announced its intentions to seize any ships owned by neutral countries that had the radio equipment that could potentially give away their military positions to enemies, a thinly veiled threat against ''Haimun''.
Lord Lansdowne quickly dismissed the Russian announcement as "unjustifiable and altogether absurd".
In the end, faced with the prospect of Russian charges of
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...
as well as Japanese indignation at not having been foretold about the receiving station constructed without their permission, James dismantled and abandoned the boat, from which he had sent 10,000 words of
copy, and continued his war correspondence the traditional way through Weihaiwei.
[Robertson, Patrick. ''Robertson's Book of Firsts: Who Did What for the First Time''. Bloomsbury Publishing (2011). p.891]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haimun
Passenger ships