TERRIBLE NIGHT AT SEA

Evening Star, Issue 21037, 26 February 1932, Page 1

TERRIBLE NIGHT AT SEA

ATLANTIC LINER’S VOYAGE STRUCK BY HUGE WAVE WOMAN PASSENGER KILLED. On a tempestuous voyage home from New York to Glasgow the Anchor liner Tuscania was struck by a huge wave in lAid-Atlantic recently. One woman was fatally injured, another sustained shock, which left ner partially paralysed, and more than thirty other people were injured. Men and women passengers in evening dress were drenched, but displayed heroic calm throughout a terrifying ordeal. It was easily the worst voyage the Tuscania had experienced. Doors were wrenched from their hinges and smashed by tremendous seas, and water poured down companionways into tho cabins. The woman who lost her life was Mrs Vera Rodgers, aged fifty-five, of Coleraine, County Derry, She was a cook in Now York, and her employer had paid her passage home so that she could spend the holiday season with her family. The liner put in at Belfast Lough, and Mrs Rodgers’s body was ■borne ashore for burial in her native village. Another woman died during the voyage, but tho Anchor Line state that sho succumbed to cancer and not to shock. She was ill v. hen she went on board at New York. In all about 800 persons were on the Tuscania when she sailed from the United States. The weather was fine then, but two days later the liner ran into a storm, v Twice during the next twenty-four hours the ship had to be turned about to face head-on to the following seas. Then the storm reached its climax. A tremendous sea poured over the stern of the ship and swept across the decks and into the companionways. Women and children found water rushing into their cabins, and, under the impression that the ship was sinking, they became hysterical. The chief'officer, Mr Joseph Carrar, and other offi 7 cers, however, allayed their fears. The injured were rushed to the ship’s hospital and attended by the surgeon and stewards’. HOW MRS RODGERS’S DIED. Mr John M'Guire, a native of Fife, who was travelling to Scotland on holiday, described the' scene in these words:— “All over the ship: passengers were thrown to the decks, and groups of people who were talking just before the wave struck us found themselves in a heap. Mrs Rodgers was flung from a chair in which she was resting and fell on her'head. ■ ■. “Passengers who had only had a shaking carried her, very gravely hurt, to tho surgery, and everything possible was done for her, but she died. Several passengers who were standing at tho how of the ship were in danger of being washed overboard. Officers and seamen, however, succeeded in rescuing and pacifying them, “ Immediately after the sea had inundated the liner, dining rooms, cabins, and lounges were flooded, in some places to a depth of nearly 2ft. ‘“For a few minutes wo did Pot know what might he our fate, but those who were not hurt devoted all their attention to the injured. Dripping with water, bruised, and shaken, tney cheer-fully-comforted the injured passengers, and then set about helping the staff to dry soaked clothes and furniture.” COMMANDER’S COOL COURAGE. Mir M'Guire spoke in high praise of the Tuscania’s commander, Captain Rome, for the “cool courage” with which he handled the*situation. Captain Rome stayed on the bridge practically the whole of the voyage. Another passenger said he saw a steward flung head first into a sink and a pile of dishes fall on him. With the return roll of the ship the steward was flung to tho floor. ,A third roll sent iiim into the sink again. An official statement by the Anchor Line gives this account of the great wave:— At 9 p.m a heavy sea broke, flooding the working alleyway of the thirdclass passengers’ section and third-class dining room aft. The ship lurched badly, and this and the rush of water knocked over several passengers.. A number of passengers, in addition to Mrs Rodgers, received minor injuries, but only eight required attention from the ship’s doctor, mostly suffering from bruises and shock. - The ship sustained no structural damage whatever. The behaviour of the passengers and crew was admirable after the first excitement, and ship life soon returned to normal. PREVIOUS ROUGH PASSAGES. In 1930, when ' the Tuscania was on the way to New York, a hurricane, travelling at 110 miles per hour, struck the liner. On that occasion a woman passenger was hurled down tho companionway, and with five other passengers was injured. On December 3 the Aquitanja was struck by a big wave on tbo outward Atlantic journey. The wave smashed the bridge protective screen, and the flying glass injured the captain and the quarter-master. On December 14, 1930, a wave which struck tho Berengaria smashed six deck windows, buckled the forward promenade deck, tore the door off the cooks’ galley, and carried away a ladder. Several passengers were injured. _ The Berengaria figured in a similar experience in November, 1925, when waves smashed furniture and crockery, and did damage to the extent of £2,500. Twenty-five passengers were hurt, though none seriously. In January, 1927, a woman passenger on the Berengaria was badly hurt by a diuge wave which struck the ship, and afterwards there was a procession of passengers to the doctor with minor injuries.