THE BURNT LINER

Evening Star, Issue 21822, 11 September 1934, Page 9

THE BURNT LINER

DEAD AND MISSING NUMBERS STILL UNCERTAIN Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. NEW YORK, September 10. A message from Ashbury Park, Now Jersey, states that a Press survey on Saturday night showed that 430 of the passengers and crew of the Morro Castle had been accounted for, with 130 dead or missing. Ninety-nine bodies were checked at the central morgue at Seagirt, the National Guard headquarters. Two bodies were found in the cabin of the vessel, which was beached off Board Walk. The Ward Line, owners of the vessel, 1 announced that 162 persons are believed to have lost their lives, with the total of the rescued 398. It is believed that many of the passengers were trapped in the cabins. Some bodies have been taken to neighbouring towns and not reported yet. OFFICERS AND CREW CRITICISED TRIBUTE TO ACTING CAPTAIN NEW YORK, September 9. Many of the passengers are inclined to blame the officers and crew for various types of alleged negligence and inefficiency, but others claimed that they did everything possible and blame the hysterical fright of many of the passengers for the Targe loss of life. One unidentified member of the crew declared that the chief officer, Mr Warms, kept the motors going as long as he could keep the vessel directly into the wind to retard the flames from spreading, and only gave up and ordered the anchor to be dropped when the power failed. EXPLANATION BY CREW. The crew’s explanation why so few gained the boats is that passengers, to reach the boat deck, must have dashed through smoke and flames in a panicstricken state. Many insisted on staying on the lower decks and could not be pushed or carried upwards. Finally, members of the crew say, they took what passengers they could and left to save their own lives. SURVIVORS' NARRATIVES YOUNG WOMAN'S ALLEGATION NEW YORK, September 9. Stories of fire, panic, and death in the burning Morro Castle continued to be told to-day as the survivors recovered from exhaustion and the shock of their experience. With an official inquiry to start to-morrow most of the officers and members of the crew are reticent with regard to details of the disaster, but surviving passengers gave harrowing details of their adventures. Only one, however, Miss Doris Waeker, whose father perished, could contribute information with regard to what happened immediately prior to the alarm. Her story indicates that the officers were aware of the conflagration some time before the signal was given to the passengers to stand by. “ Some time early this morning I was walking to my cabin from a late party and noticed a fire blazing in the library. An officer, 1 do not know who he was, asked me not to spread the alarm, because it might create a panic among the passengers.” Miss Waeker, added that she immediately returned to her cabin and awakened her parents, who had barely dressed before the alarm was given, and a panic started. A TRAGIC SWIM, In addition to giving information about the fire, Miss Waeker gave a heartrending account of saving herself and her mother, while her father perished. She said ,she was a good swimmer, and alternately aided her mother and father, who were indifferent swimmers, to reach the shore. “ Father had sinus trouble, and it was very difficult for him to breathe in the water. Waves kept washing over us. Although I tried to keep them both up, finally father said, ‘ Let me go, I’ve had enough.’ 1 couldn’t do that, but he soon became unconscious and then died. After four hours a fishing boat picked mother and me up, but they wouldn’t take father’s body. They said they were only picking up live people.” SIX HOURS IN THE WATER. COMPLAINT AGAINST SAILORS. Dr Gouverncur Morris Phelps, a prominent New York surgeon, his wife, and their tweuty-five-year-old son were all saved, but after extreme suffering. Dr Phelps and his wife, with life preservers, were six hours in the water before they reached the shore. The son said he clung to a rope with his body half immersed in water for six hours before be was rescued. All three complained bitterly of the manner in which the sailors handled the lifeboats, and claimed that some contained hut a handful of the crew and no passengers. They insisted that they could easily have picked up many of those in the water, hut struck off for shore. PERILS NOT REALISED. One of the survivors said he believed that many, particularly women, perished as the result of a sense of modesty, waiting to clothe themselves fully. Most, however, were wearing either sleeping garments or evening clothes. With the Jersey coast lights plainly visible some failed to realise that they were five or six miles away, and in confidence returned to their cabins to save jewellery and other valuable possessions, and were cut off by the flumes. A most touching rescue was that of a couple tightly, bound together, .who

had been married by Captain Wilmot only a few hours before he died the previous evening. Incidentally, Captain Wilmot’s body was probably cremated in his own cabin. Apparently only the ship’s surgeon knew where the body was placed, and he perished ip the disaster. Among the survivors are seventy-two-year-old twins, Michael Bulk and his sister, Mrs Katie Noteboom. In the panic she found her brother with the crew, handling the hose. She forced him to abandon the fire-fighting efforts and leave the vessel with her. A sailor told of his efforts to save an eleven-year-old girl, whom he identified as Margarita or Martha Soeuz, the daughter of a famous Cuban physician. He said that the child swam up to him in the water with her face badly burned, “ but she didn’t whimper while I kept her afloat. After a long time she was getting weaker. She became unconscious, and I held on until I was sure she was dead.” INCENDIARISM SUGGESTED THE OFFICIAL INQUIRY. NEW YORK, September 10. (Received September 11, at 10 a.m.) Acting Captain W. F. Warms/ of the Morro Castle, told the United States Government Inquiry to-day that ho, suspected that the blaze was started by an incendiarist, basing his belief on the fact that an incendiary attempt was made on the boat on its previous voyage. The company’s formal report on that fire was produced at the hearing and agreed with the details of Acting Captain Warms’s story that he found charred paper in the cargo. He said that lightning did not hit the ship. The first word of the fire that he had was at 2.45 a.m., when the deck watch informed him. “ I sounded the general alarm a few minutes before 3 o’clock,” be said. PORT OFFICIAL’S ALLEGATIONS WORK OF COMMUNISTS. HAVANA, September 10. (Received September 11, at 10 a.m.) Captain Oscar Hernandez, chief of the Havana port, declared to-day: “ The Morro Castle fire seems to have been the work of Communists, apparently of a passenger who boarded the ship with fire-making chemicals in his baggage.” SEARCHERS WITHDRAWN WORK TOO DANGEROUS NEW YORK, ,September 10. (Received September 11, at 10 a.m.) An Asbury Park (New Jersey) message states that two explosions in the wreck of the Mono Castle to-day decided the officials to withdraw the searchers, for fear of further blasts, feeling that the fire should be allowed to burn out before operations were continued. FIRE IH ANOTHER VESSEL INCEHDIARISTS AGAIN BLAMED BALBOA, September 10. (Received September 11, at 10 a.m.) Several officers of the Grace liner Santa Rita, which made port under her own steam to-day with a fire in the hold, declared: “ The fire here and also on the Morro Castle was the work of an international radical organisation.” Carbon monoxide gas was rushed fifty miles out to the Pacific Ocean by the Canal Zone tug Favourite, and helped to check the fire, which was slowly working through the cargo. Captain Stevenson said the fire was under control. PASSENGERS BLAMED FOR PANIC NEW YORK, September 10. (Received Sept. 11, at 12.10 p.m.) Captain Warms testified that a locker in the writing room “ blew out ” at the start of the fatal fire. “ I believe that there was gasolene or kerosene in it.” He denied the reports that lifeboats left the ship without orders, and said that the panic was created by the passengers, many of whom refused lo get into the lifubouie.