Man with a Camera: William Dana Reynolds and the 1923 Earthquake Disaster
August 27, 1923. The "Pleasure Palace" S.S. Taiyo Maru departed from Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, carrying 886 passengers headed for Yokohama, Japan. Oil producer William Dana Reynolds was on a cruise to the Orient with his wife Vera Hunt Reynolds and five-year-old daughter Helen Elizabeth. Their plans were to tour Japan, China, Hong Kong and perhaps even India.
For their excursion, the family left behind the dust, grit and Wild West glamour of Bartlesville, Oklahoma where William Dana had amassed a fortune as oil scout and investor in the fledgling oil industry. By 1923, he was one of the largest producers in that state. He followed the example of his father, oil pioneer George M. Reynolds, also of Bartlesville. The George Reynolds' family had arrived in Oklahoma on covered wagons in 1901 after working the oil fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. George had worked his way to the top in the oil business and was recognized across the country as a successful, independent oil producer.
The late summer cruise of 1923 was to be a fateful voyage for the Reynolds' family. On September 4 a massive earthquake struck Japan. The earth was ripped apart just under Tokyo and Yokohama, setting off massive ocean currents and a tsunami that stretched from Sagami Bay across the Pacific. With the Japanese floating "palace" just four days out of Yokohama, Helen would later recall the giant ship being "picked up and rocked on the ocean surface as if it had been a toothpick."
Luckily, the tsunami struck the liner on open seas. She escaped with a badly damaged rudder and minor damages and was able to continue on the voyage after sending out frantic SOS signals. Other Pacific steamers lost contact with her in the chaos that followed, and sent out reports that the ship had sunk at sea.
When the Taiyo Maru arrived in the harbor of Yokohama four days after the quake, it was met by widespread death and devastation. The piers were burning, as was all that remained of the ancient city. It was the first international ship to enter the harbor, which would later make young Helen a celebrity as the "First American Child in to Yokohama" after the earthquake.
Unable to secure a dock with all the piers destroyed, the steamer set anchor in the harbor. The passengers were witness to hundreds of bodies floating in the waters. Eight men on board evaluated their risks and decided to leave the ship, one with a camera: Dana Reynolds. For the next hours, and upon his return several days after the initial quake, he recorded some of the horrors of the devastation. The danger was extreme on land due to violence and reports of cholera, and the wealthy visitors were shocking in their spotless white trousers and sports coats, oddly uninjured and snapping photos.
— Lee Gregory Stewart, Granddaughter of Dana and Vera Reynolds