PS: I'd better clarify one thing: The Californian's operator, Cyril Evans, was also giving Titanic an ice warning but it was informal and chatty, something like "Hello, did you know we were surrounded by ice and are stopped?" Unfortunately his signal, being nearest, was stronger than the one Phillips was trying to attend to, and not only was it irritatingly loud and unexpected, it blocked out the fainter one Phillips needed. If Evans - not that I'm trying to blame either of these men - had submitted a formal report with a MSG prefix, Phillips would have had to relay it to the bridge. After disaster struck Phillips remained at his post sending signal after signal, including the now-standard SOS one which was a fairly new distress call at the time. He worked as long as was physically possible and went down with the ship; but his young assistant survived.