HOW THE DISASTER OCCURRED.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13101, 28 April 1908, Page 7

HOW THE DISASTER OCCURRED.

OVER THIRTY LIVES LOST. (Received April 27th, 11.58 p.m.) LONDON, April 27. The Gladiator was returning from Portland to Spithead in a blinding snowstorm. When steaming past Port Victoria, well inside the first point, at a speed of ten knots, she sighted the St. Paul, approaching at a rather faster speed, about 200 yards away. The officer in charge of the liner gave orders to reverse tho engines, and to go full speed astern, but the collision was unavoidable. The liners bow crashed into the Gladiator's starboard side, nearly amidships, cutting into her engine room up to her centre lino

The liner went astern, and the cruiser began to list heavily. She steamed for tho beach, and took ground about 400 yards from the shore, and then turned over on the starboard side. When she heeled over a number of the crew jumped into the water, and others were thrown into tho water. Some tried to swiim- ashore. The rest of the crew clambered over to the port side, whioh was standing well out of the water, and remained there until rescued by boats.

The inrush of the sea into the boiler room, following the liner's backing out, caused, some say, the boilers to explode, scalding and injuring many. The closing of the watertight doors prevented the vessel foundering. With her fore boilers and engines working at high pressure the vessel got close in shore before she was unmanageable. A stoker below at the time states that the first warning was the crash of the liner's' bow .into the messroom, which killed a man on the spot.

Tho crew displayed perfect discipline, quietly awaiting their turn to be taken ashore.

The liner's fore bulkhead averted very Borious damage, though, her stem was injured both above and below the water. »

It is known that six of the Gladiator's crew were drowned or died of injuries, and six injured are in hospital. Lieut. Graves and thirty hands aro missing.

The St. Paul had 500 passengers. The Gladiator is on a soft bottom, and in a sheltered position. It is expected that salvage operations will be successful. The crew numbered 300. It is feared that the missing perished.

The Gladiator is a protected secondclass cruiser of 5750 tons, completed in 1900 at a cost of £287,600. The St. Paul is a liner of 11,629 tons, belonging to tihe American; line, one of the lines incorporated in Mr Morgan's Atlantic Combine. She is one of the few largo libers built in America, indeed of the linere of over twenty knots ©peed only she and her sister ship, the St, Louis, came from America.