Collision Course

by Moscow, Alvin;

  Linda, whose last recollection was going to sleep on the Doria, cried “I want my mama” as she was extricated from the wreckage by the Spanish seaman and two Swedish sailors. Thinking Linda was a Stockholm passenger who had wandered to the ship’s forecastle, off-limits for passengers, with her mother before the collision, the three crewmen scanned the wreckage of the bow for the girl’s mother. About fifty feet away on the starboard edge of the deck, some thirty feet behind the peak, they caught sight of a human form. But they did not mention this to the weeping girl who cried repeatedly in pain, “I want my mama.” The woman’s body on the bow appeared beyond reach on the other side of a jumble of shattered steel and wood.

  Carried in the arms of one of the Swedish sailors, Linda was intercepted en route to the hospital by Chief Purser Dawe emerging from his office for a second trip to the bridge. “What happened to the girl?” Dawe asked, and in Swedish the sailor gave the officer his conjectured account of the two Stockholm passengers on the bow at the time of the collision. The chief purser took from his pocket the passenger list for that voyage and asked: “What’s your name?”

  “Linda Morgan,” she replied in English. “Where’s my mother? Do you know where my mother is?”

  “No, but I’ll look for her,” Dawe said.

  The chief purser checked his list for the name Morgan and then for the name given him by the girl, Cianfarra. “Where do you come from?” he asked, perplexed at finding neither name.

  “From Madrid,” she said. And that didn’t help.

  Finally, observing her different surroundings, she said, “I was on the Andrea Doria. Where am I now?” and the mystery was solved.

  The first patient to reach the hospital that night, Linda was put to bed on a small couch in the doctor’s consulting room of the ship’s hospital. Nurse Yvonne Magnusson administered a quarter per cent morphine sulphate to relieve her pain and she dozed in her tiny private room until the doctor, still tending to crewmen in the bow, returned. As the story of Linda Morgan circulated among the Stockholm crew she became known and is remembered to this day as the “miracle girl,” the source of a modern sea legend.

  On the open deck of the bow Valdemar Trasbo, a short lightweight officer of the Purser’s Department, crept gingerly through the dangerous wreckage to recover the lifeless body of the woman seen perched precariously near the edge of the deck. The thirty-two-year-old assistant chief steward crept cautiously through the ruins on the Stockholm bow. When he reached his destination, he gazed upon the unclothed body of a heavy-set elderly woman, sitting upright and facing the ship in a pose that made him think of a gallant statue. Reddish-brown hair flowed down to her shoulders and on a finger of her outstretched left hand was a gold ring with a blue stone setting. Trasbo turned his head away for a moment to compose himself. He had two fears. If jostled, the body might fall over the edge and be lost in the black sea below. Worse, the section of mangled bow on which he was resting might break off and carry him with the dead woman to the sea below.

  Keenly aware of the risk to his own safety, he crawled to the edge of the deck, grasped a lifeless arm and pulled. To his unforgettable horror, the arm came away from the body. He dropped it, appalled. After a moment of indecision, he made another attempt. He tried to pull the body toward him by the hair, but the hair came away in his hand. With that he abandoned his gruesome endeavor and crawled back to safety. From his description, the woman later was identified as Mrs. Carlin of Cabin 46 on the Andrea Doria.

  Meanwhile, Second Officer Senior Enestrom discovered a simple way of clearing the water that flowed from the ruptured sprinkler system through the A- and Main Decks. With the captain’s approval, he and Second Officer Junior Abenius opened two large doors in the side of the ship on A-Deck. The water which did not flow off of its own accord was swept out the open doors with brooms.

  Captain Nordenson, realizing that the pumping operations would never gain any headway against the sea flowing into No. 1 hold, told the Engine Room to empty the ship’s forward fresh-water tanks. There was no need for a supply of fresh water, he reasoned; the Stockholm certainly wasn’t going on to Sweden. As ninety tons of water was pumped out of No. 1 fresh-water tank, the ship’s bow rose in the water, relieving the pressure of the sea on the second watertight bulkhead.

  Chief Purser Dawe reported that his stewards and pursers had checked and accounted for all passengers. There were no serious injuries among passengers, he told the captain.

  As the flow of messages to and from the bridge, handled by Carstens-Johannsen, dwindled, Captain Nordenson told his somewhat shaky third officer to take a position fix. Once again Carstens went to the radio direction finder, and this time he was so nervous in handling the instrument, he mislocated the Stockholm’s position by some five miles.

  It was shortly after midnight that Captain Nordenson, reasonably assured of the seaworthiness of the Stockholm, made his first announcement to his passengers. “Attention please,” he said in English over the loudspeaker system to the whole ship. “This is the Captain speaking. We have collided with the Italian passenger ship Andrea Doria. But there is no danger. There is nothing to worry about.”

  The forthright announcement, delivered in a tone of voice so calm and deliberate, took the spark out of passenger speculation. Some passengers returned to their cabins but most were not to be denied their expectation of further excitement. There was little enough for any of them to observe on the Stockholm itself and the fog and mist obscured all but an occasional glimpse of the lights of the Andrea Doria in the distance. Except for the hurried movements of the crew flitting by, everything in the passengers’ quarters appeared normal. The ship was well lighted, the slight list was barely noticeable, and the bow and crew’s quarters forward were off-limits and guarded by sentinels of the crew.

  One hour and five minutes after the collision, the Stockholm received an appeal from the Andrea Doria with all the earmarks of desperation. YOU ARE ONE MILE FROM US. PLEASE, IF POSSIBLE, COME IMMEDIATELY TO PICK UP OUR PASSENGERS—MASTER.

  The radio message from the captain of the Andrea Doria posed a dilemma for the sixty-three-year-old master of the Stockholm. The urgent appeal indicated the Doria must be in imminent danger of sinking. But then, the captain reasoned, why didn’t they launch their lifeboats? His first responsibility was for the safety of his own passengers and he could not send away his own lifeboats while the remotest possibility existed that the Stockholm might need them. Yet he could not refuse lifeboats to a sinking ship one mile away. He radioed the Doria: HERE BADLY DAMAGED. THE WHOLE BOW CRUSHED. NO. ONE HOLD FILLED WITH WATER. HAVE TO STAY IN OUR PRESENT POSITION. IF YOU CAN LOWER YOUR BOATS, WE CAN PICK YOU UP—MASTER.

  A minute later, at 12:21 A.M., the Doria replied: YOU HAVE TO ROW TO US. And a minute later, the Stockholm sent back: LOWER YOUR LIFEBOATS. WE CAN PICK YOU UP. This rather argumentative exchange, apparently between the respective radio officers of the two ships, then was referred to the two captains.

  Thirteen minutes later, Captain Calamai sent an explanation with a renewed appeal. WE ARE BENDING [listing] TOO MUCH. IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT BOATS OVER SIDE. PLEASE SEND LIFEBOATS IMMEDIATELY.

  Captain Nordenson, meanwhile, conferred with Chief Officer Kallback and Second Officer Enestrom who told him that they thought the Stockholm was out of danger of sinking. The second bulkhead was holding and would hold firm against the sea. The captain dispatched word to be radioed to the Doria: the Stockholm would send lifeboats in forty minutes. He ordered Kallback and Enestrom to see to the manning, equipping and launching of all of the Stockholm’s three motor lifeboats and four of her eight hand-propelled craft. The other four lifeboats would remain aboard—just in case.

  As Enestrom was leaving the bridge, the captain called him back. “Stand there,” he said, indicating the wing of the bridge, “and listen to hear if the loudspeaker system is working properly.” The captain switched on the system and announced to the passengers: “This is the Captain speaking. As I have said befor
e, we have collided with another ship. Now we are going to launch our lifeboats. But they are not for us. They are to pick up survivors from the other ship. There is no danger on the Stockholm.”

  Enestrom went down to help with the launching of the lifeboats, marveling that the “old man” thought of everything.

  Chapter Eight

  “I WANT TO SEE THE CAPTAIN”

  More than half of the crew of the Andrea Doria, or about 300 men, swarmed over the starboard side of the ship in the furious effort to launch the eight lifeboats on the lower side. In an atmosphere tense with apprehension because of the list, the fear of capsizing and the useless port-side lifeboats, the men scrambled onto the starboard boats and frantically tore away the bindings, hooks and blocks which secured the boats to the davits. This was done in remarkable privacy for a crowded ship. Few passengers actually witnessed the lowering of the boats. Instinctively, the passengers had sought the high and seemingly safer side of the canted ship, and those who did wander to the lower side were directed by crewmen to go to the high side. With the boats carried in davits high and away from the decks of the superstructure, there was no panicked stampede by passengers for the boats. But Captain Magagnini and the three officers working with him had other troubles.

  Of the eight lifeboats hanging in a line, the first two were jammed in davits near the hole in the side of the ship, and the davits could not be lowered away from the ship. No. 1 boat was a small craft of 58-person capacity, used for emergencies such as to rescue a man overboard. No. 3 was a motor-boat which carried a radio transmitter and receiver with a capacity for 70 persons. When the remaining six big boats, bearing consecutive odd numbers from 5 to 15, were lowered one by one from their davits, they swung in the night air far from the side of the listing ship. It was impossible to secure them to the side of the ship at the Promenade Deck to take aboard passengers. Captain Magagnini saw he would have to alter the Andrea Doria’s abandon-ship plan.

  All vessels which carry passengers are required by law to have a pre-arranged plan for abandoning ship in emergency and that plan must be tested once on every voyage, just as the alarm bell and the watertight doors are tested once every day. The abandon-ship plan on the Andrea Doria, as a plan, was the simplest one possible. Passengers were merely to don lifejackets and assemble at four muster stations along the Promenade Deck: first-class passengers in the first-class lounge, cabin-class passengers in their grand ballroom and tourist-class passengers on the open deck of the bow and the open deck aft near their own swimming pool. That was all. From the muster stations, the crew would lead the way to waiting lifeboats, which had been lowered and secured to the sides of the ship on both sides of the Promenade Deck. It was only a short walk to the lifeboats, and passengers, young or old, had only to take one step down from the deck into the lifeboats. The glass-enclosed Promenade Deck had a ceiling-to-floor sliding door at each lifeboat position which could be pulled open at the appropriate time. If the ship were filled to absolute capacity of 1,250 passengers and 575 crew, there was room enough for everyone to step into one of the sixteen lifeboats and be lowered away from the ship in about forty-five minutes—in theory. Only eight men would have to remain on board to operate the eight winches which controlled the descent of all sixteen boats.

  The theory—once again—was based on the assumption that the ship would not list more than 7 degrees and all lifeboats would be available for the passengers. But the Andrea Doria had listed 18 and 19 and then 20 degrees immediately after the collision. Half the lifeboats could not be lowered and the other half hung too far from the ship. Captain Magagnini faced one more unfortunate problem: passengers’ baggage, which had been piled high on the starboard side of the Promenade Deck that afternoon for unloading at the pier the following morning, made disembarkation from that deck unfeasible.

  After consulting with Captain Calamai, the harried Captain Magagnini, still in his pajamas and bare feet, gave the signal to lower the lifeboats to the sea without passengers. The boat crews, made up of deckhands and trained stewards, swarmed into the lifeboats. There was no exact counting of the men. Those who crewed the portside lifeboats as well as those on the starboard side swarmed aboard the lifeboats being lowered. Captain Magagnini authorized five extra men for each of the boats, which normally called for a crew of twenty. The extra men were to help handle the lines and the more difficult task of taking passengers aboard at sea level instead of at the Promenade Deck. Jacob’s ladders, shackled to the deck at each lifeboat position and stored folded inside each boat, unrolled automatically down the side of the ship as the starboard boats were lowered to the sea.

  The lifeboats, operated by pumping hand levers back and forth which turned the propeller, were no sooner in the water than they were propelled beyond the danger of the inclining ship and out of sight in the fog. Captain Magagnini sent Second Officer Franchini in Boat No. 9 to round up the other lifeboats and to direct them back to the ship. The officers agreed that it would be best to concentrate the abandon-ship operation on the open decks of the stern, which were closer to the sea than the high Boat Deck. There were three decks which could be used at the stern: the Promenade Deck where the tourist-class passengers were mustered near the swimming pool, the Upper Deck fantail which extended beyond the Promenade Deck, and the small capstan deck with its open sides below the fantail. Captain Magagnini led his men back to the stern and set them to work finding all available ropes, fire hose pipes and hawsers by which passengers could climb down to the boats.

  Purser Bertini led some fifty passengers from the muster station on the bow, which seemed to him the most dangerous spot on the ship, aft on the Promenade Deck just as Boats No. 1 and 3 were pushed free of their jammed davits. As Boat No. 3 bumped down alongside the ship, it was secured to the Promenade Deck by its stern and held fast by an entrapped line. It was the only boat loaded at the level of the Promenade Deck. When Boat No. 3 reached the water, however, its crew could not start the motor.

  Peterson, the chiropractor from Upper Montclair, New Jersey, in his search for help first enlisted the aid of a twenty-five-year-old seminarian of Philadelphia named Raymond Waite. The slender clerical student followed Peterson back to the wreckage of Cabin 56 and together they tried to lift the rubble away from Mrs. Cianfarra. From the position of the two women it was obvious that Mrs. Cianfarra would have to be freed before they could get to Mrs. Peterson. But the combined strength of the two men was not enough to move the inert mass which entrapped the two women.

  Peterson went off once again in search of help and this time he found a cabin-class waiter named Giovanni Rovelli who was busy on the Promenade Deck handing out the reserve lifejackets. Rovelli, a forty-eight-year-old Genoese, heard Peterson’s frantic plea and decided to help this burly, distraught passenger whose wife was trapped with another woman. Little did he know then that he was embarking on a life-or-death struggle that was to take more than four hours.

  Rovelli, a wiry thin little man, found he could wriggle about far more easily in the tangled wreckage of Cabin 56 than could the 200-pound Peterson. Rovelli worked furiously in the wreckage, tossing the lighter pieces of splintered wall partitions and furniture away from the women. But he realized he would need a jack or some similar tool to lift the heavier wreckage. Peterson meanwhile had left in search of a doctor for his wife and Mrs. Cianfarra. Rovelli carefully explained to the two women the need for a jack. He assured them repeatedly that he would not desert them; he would return with a jack and they would soon be free of all this. Then he left them alone.

  On the high side of the Promenade Deck, near the forward door leading to the ship’s Winter Garden, Peterson found the ship’s two doctors and five nurses. The whole medical staff was tending to the two hospital patients who were lying on the deck wrapped in blankets. Despite the blankets, Rosa Carola was shivering so violently that Dr. Tortori Donati feared she was about to expire. Peterson, wearing only a curtain he had ripped from a baggage closet around his waist, demanded medical help, s
pecifically morphine.

  The doctor’s initial hesitation struck Peterson as the height of callousness. To the doctor, the half-naked passenger seemed no different from many of the hysterical passengers who had demanded his attention for what he considered exaggerated ailments. But Peterson did get through to the doctor finally that he needed morphine for two women trapped in Cabin 56. The doctor promised he would look in at Cabin 56 as soon as he could and that he would bring morphine from the hospital.

  Thirteen-year-old Peter Thieriot had a worse time trying to find help. After he had fallen asleep again, he awoke with the irrepressible feeling that he was slipping out of bed. He tensed his body to stay in bed, but finally, unable to sleep, he got up and switched on his cabin light. To his amazement he saw that his bed, the floor and the whole cabin was tilted toward the porthole on the starboard side. The ceiling was split open from one end of the room to the other. The boy then realized that the ship’s motors were quiet and he rushed to his porthole to see the ocean below, not far from the porthole. He had not heard the collision but he realized that the ship was in danger. He dressed quickly and headed for his parents’ cabin without the slightest idea of what had wrecked the ship. Picking his way over the rubble in the foyer, he reached the continuation of the corridor on the other side of the foyer but there a bulge in the smashed starboard wall blocked his way.