SHORN IN TWO

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1929, Page 2

SHORN IN TWO

MIDNIGHT COLLISION

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 4. "

. Seventy-eight souls went,' to theft ’•/' 'death in’ the Pacific.;Ocean, in a mid- < night collision bet\yeen ■ the coastwise steamship San Juan and .the Standard Oil tanker S. ;Podd in the ’ most fearful marine'disaster .which

has occurred, on the. .'Pacific • Ccntst ' '• during the past 'twenty years! That

hvas' the estimate, made' on : the.. basis *<•' of incomplete-passenger and crew lists •'■'••and stories !df resuscitated survivors.

rescued by the. Do_dd> and the‘steijiip ship Munami” after the. San Juuii had’ plunged, stern first, to the bottom of the ocean, carrying most of its vie-' tims trapped while asleep in their , hunks and staterooms below decks." " Bit *by bit, gathered from hysterical, shaken, incoherent survivors, who ■’ arrived on the Dodd in San Francisco port in tow of the coastguard tug Shawnee, the story of horror was pieced together. According to the stories of the survivors, the 47-year-old ,San Juan apparently was shorn almost in two by the heavy stem of the tanker, and sank beneath the sea before the .passengers in their staterooms and the crew members in their ,-j. bunks had 'even an opportunity to ~, realise the vessel had been struck. .“The ship sank in three minutes,” -i%j August ' Olson, Becond officer of the San Jilan. t ‘ HORRIBLE DEATH LURCH. For-a moment after the crash the two - vessels hung Itogether. man 'scramb|led ..to safety from the Sail M Juan to the Dodd, and a small hoy was handed over the< railing by h , :, woman on the San Juan. Then, as / the Dodd. backed , away,, the old San ~j. Juan staggered and gave her death: . • lurch. From her slanting, decks, ’ >JfOU tilting higher and higher ;for the fatal dive,; arose the shrieks of ter- ■ • ...rifled women, the cries of children, the horrified shouts of men, and the fallowed orders to !th© crew. By ' ones, twos and threes, passengers and sailors scrambled to the rails ancj themselves or. fell headlong into ' * /the sea’. 'Most of these were on deck or had quarters on the upper deck. Few 0f,.. those 1 below had time ' 'to scramble on deck . and plunge ■ from the', fast-sinking -vessel!': !• j t;-There was -no time to. launch the . ..life-boats or don "life-preservers. So sudden was the catastrophe that the order to “lower away” probably could '! not have been carried out. That acounted for the serious charge \of "owardice brought against the crew. The Dodd’s lifeboats were quickly in the water Over the black, heaving seas they - cruised,. picking up struggling, men and Women, guided .by the ' •'/Searchlights''of the tanker and the for help that floated over the waves. Almost as the Dodd’s boats ~dr,uplf.th0 1 .the fog.bank, which had been lurking a mile off, swept down on the • scene. It blotted out the struggling castaways, clinging to wreckage or 9wiinming through the heavy seas toward the boats. It dimmed the powerful searchlights of the 'tanker until they gave but a feeble glow on the waters. Only the efies •' of the shipwrecked were left to guide. " the rescuers. One by one twenty-nine ■ Survivors were picked up, swimming "■‘feebly, clinging to bits of wreckage and boxes which had been swept off • the decks by the crash, > FLEET OF RESCUE SHIPS. . ■'• i • After the vessels struck, Clifford ■°aulson, first radio operator on the /’’ San Juan, barely had time to flash voa’%ut, “We are struck,’' before he was ! 'ic forced to jump from, the radio house tfivoifto the sea. He-'was among those aiifknptcked up by the Dodd. As the ,Bg (steamships swung apart, the tankkOlCFr’s wireless spluttered its S.O.S. • to its aid in the rescue ((M work the steamer Munami, of the McCormick Line. The same wireless ' call sent rescue ships- rushing from • ' San Francisco. '~-’ K In the meantime the Munami lowered away its small boats and picked up’ 'Eleven• Survivors, and they were transferred to the Shawnee, the Munami proceeding on its way to Los ■:/■ -Angeles. Out from Santa Cruz rushed a fleet of 250 fishing boats, manned by men inured to the sea and its perils. ■ Scattering over the ocean off Pigeon Point they began a systematic search • for wreck victims, alive or dead, but their efforts were in vain. The fog, so dense that one could see no more than 100 of 200 feet in any direction, blanketed them in.. CREW CHARGED WITH COWARDICE. Theodore Granstedt, one of the 1 survivors, /was unmeasured in dev. nouncing the crew for what he described as their “cowardly desertion of the passengers, and especially the ■■ women and children.” '• “When the crash cameV the entire crew deserted their posts and saved themselves,” declared Granstedt. “They jumped to save themselves and made no effort to launch a boat or save a soul. I was in my stateroom ", :with Mrs Granstedt when the Dodd 'fj struck us. We jumped out of our berths and triod to switch on the electric light, but could not. We ‘"threw clothing over us and went to , the deck, the boat then having a ' heavy list to the port side. We v stood a moment on the deck with ■ some . friends, Mr and Mrs John Ol'i "• sen anil their daughter Helen. Justthen the boat took a final unexpected : v "lunge and we were all drawn down !? ‘ ’into the whirl pool. “I saw nothing m»re of the others.

When . I came to the surface four other people were in the water near me," but not my wife nor any of the Olsens. I held on to a piece of wood and remembered nothing more until I was 1 revived on the Dodd.” Granstedt was rescued from the deck of the Dodd and was the last survivor picked up by that vessel. He was suffering, acutely from shock and immersion.

Another tale of the suddenness of it-he disaster was told by. Gqorge Haines, steward on board the San Juan. “I heard a crash and hurried to the deck to see everybody running about madly and jumping overboard. The ship was settling already. The captain went down with her, and as far as I know the last man to leave was Tullee, the chief officer. He turned to me and s^id: ‘You fool, jump,’ and I jumped. Lifeboat No. 1 of the Dodd picked me tip., It was well manned.” WOMAN GETS A “THRILL.” Out of the terror and tragedy of the wreck of the Sah Juan, Marjorie Dansby, a San Francisco girl, only woman survivor picked up and brought home by the Dodd, still retained her sense of humour. “How do I look in these clothes?” she askqd, pirouetting like a mannequin in tho faded blue overalls and man’s shirt donated by a member of • the Dodd’s crew. “I never was so pleased with any clothes as these. All I had on was my birthday suit when they picked me up. We sat around earlier in the evening wishing for a little excitement. Well, we got it ■plenty, and not the kind we were looking for, either. A shipwreck is terrible, but it is a mighty thrilling experience if one lives ta remember it.”

Mrs Dansby was on her way to Southern California for a vacation visit to her mother and baby, she said. She shared a stateroom with another woman and was not yet asleep,, though she had undressed and gone to bed when the crash came.

“There was a terrible crash. 1 did not stop for clothes. I ran out on deck in just my nightie. Everyone was terribly frightened—knew something awful had happened. The ship ■began * to sink. I jumped near the prow into the water.” “Did you swim?” someone asked. “You’re right I, did,” she answered. “Were you scared?” “Say,” came tho sharp i-espon.se, “did you ever spend threequarters of an hour in the ocean, with people screaming and, sobbing

around you? Oh, no, I wasn’t seared! Not a bit.” After an interval that was in fact from .'half to three-quarters of an hour, but seemed like an eternity, she was picked up by one of the rescue boats and taken aboard the Dodd. She was uninjured. “Were you cold?” someone asked her. “I felt like I was stepping out of ; a hot tub,” she grinned with sarcasm. “I am a good swimmer, so I iust kept moving and after a while someone, I do not know whom, lifted me into a boat. So here I am, darned lucky to he here.” Mrs Dansby, with her boyish boh still damp and curling about her forehead, iooiced like a. girl in her ’teens. “Gee, what a kick!” was her terse comment on tho whole experience. “Biggest thrill I ever had in my life. But I won’t be sorry to get into some real clothes again and to put my feet on terra firina." SOME SUFFOCATED BY OIL. Many passengers and members of the crew went down with the ship without even a fighting chance for j.fe. Trapped in stalterooins and bunks, without light, panic stricken as the ship heeled over and began to sink, men, women and children perished below the decks. Clad in night attire, scores rushed to the sloping decks. Looming alongside, so close that a 14-yeav-old boy and a member of the San Juan crew leaped to the safety of her steel decks without oven getting 'wet, was the Dodd. Others tried but failed, and plunged into the sea.

As tho waves closed over tho San Juan the . Dodd’? lifeboats pushed forward to the spot where the vessel went down. The swimmers had little chance for life unless supported by wreckage or life preservers. Tons of oil from the San Juan’s tanks and boilers bubbled to the surface and spread a viscous, suffocating smear ovfcr the surface of .the water. Swimmers with mouths and nostrils filled with the deadly stuff, suffocated and drowned, strangulation resulting. Many others went down after a few minutes of brave but futile stiugghagainst the icy chill of those 1 acific waters.

A Danish architect, Martin Hanson,, said: “Only recently I came from Denmark. I had been unable to find work in San Francisco. Wo decided to go to Long Beach to try there. 'So we drew our last 400 dolilars -from the bank and packed all our belongings in trunks, which went down with the San Juan. My wife and our two children, Eric, aged 4,

and Ola, aged G, and I were in our cabin below dock when the crash knocked us to the floor. Startled at first, we did not know what to do. But, realising our danger, my wife and I wrapped a coat about each of tho children and rushed up on the port side of the fore dock. 'I lie San Juan was already listing to port. The big tanker was right off the port how. I tried to shout above the terrible din to someone on the tanker to catch my children. I wanted to throw them off, but I didn’t have time.

“Without warning the San Juan rolled suddenly to port and we were thrown into the water. 1 don’t know tv hat became of my wife and the hoy she held. She was a good swimmer. I cannot swim. 1 hold the other hoy with one arm. Then as 1 was trying to find something to cling to to keep me afloat the San Juan rolled under. The centre of it seemed to buckle and explode., I was sucked under. Tt must have knocked me unconscious. When 1 came to I was on the surface again. My hoy was gone. A floating mattress came my way and I grabbed it. Someone on the tanker threw me a life preserver on a lino and pulled mo. aboard N I wish I hadn’t been saved. Everything I have is gone. Why couldn’t I have died, too?”