CARGO STEAMER’S END

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3447, 19 November 1932, Page 8

CARGO STEAMER’S END

$ TRAGEDY OF A NIGHT. ONLY THREE MEN ESCAPE. Vancouver, October 12. Three survivors, a cadet and two seamen, arrived here by the President Madison from the wreck of the American cargo steamer Nevada, which struck a reef on the Western Aleutians at full speed at midnight, and foundered there hours afterwards. The captain, mate, second mate, and twenty-nine of the. crew perished. The captain and wireless officer refused to leave the vessel, and went down with her. The second mate perished in an attempt to swim ashore with a line. James Thorsen, of Portland, Oregon, aged 17, describes the scene. “1 was a cadet on the Nevada, so I was in the pilot house that night. We were thirteen days out of Portland, my first voyage. It was 8 o’clock at night, dark and foggy. We were going ahead full speed. Suddenly I heard a grating noise, and felt a slight shock. Then there was a second grating noise, and third. We couldn’t see anything. But we knew what had happened. “The second mate, Wendt was his name, ordered the engines to be stopped, and called for the captain. He ordered the whistles to be blown, and the alarm bells rung. We rushed on deck, and over the side we could see the combers breaking. “My God!” the mate said, “we’re lost.” The captain came up on the bridge then, and he ordered all the boats to be slung out. By this time the ship was pounding on the rocks, and we knew she would break up. It was rough, dark, a'nd foggy when we jumped into the boats and lowered them.

A Boat Capsized. “There were seventeen in our boat as we pushed off. We could see another boat full of men behind us. At first we got on all right, but suddenly, as we were about half a mile from the ship, a big wave swamped us and the boat capsized. I managed to hold on to the boat as it went over. Oh, but the water was cold. There were a lot of other fellows hanging to the boat, too, but I don’t remember who they were. Then one by one they just dropped off and disappeared. After a while I was the only one hanging to the boat. Then another big wave washed me off and I had to swim for it. Ahead I could see land, maybe half a mile away. I kept on swimming. I don’t remember much about the swim, except that the water was cold and there was oil all over the top of it. I had to keep my head well out or I would have swallowed enough oil to choke me. Then I got into the breakers. They threw me up on the rocks and pulled me off again. Then my head hit something. It was the lifeboat empty. The thing 1 knew I was rolled up on a beach. “I could hardly stand up, but after a while I managed to walk a little way and I found Gonzalo. We just lay there all night wondering what had happened to the others. In the morning we looked along the

shore and found Fritz Dewall. He 6 an able seaman. He is sick in bed still from the effects of the oil on the water. So the three of us were there alone. The Final Tragedy. “When it got clearer we could see the central part of the Nevada still on the reefs out about a mile and ahalf or two miles from shore. The bow and stern had broken off, leaving the bridge and the superstructure still sticking out of the water. We could see two men moving on the bridge. We’ll never know for sure who they were. It must have been Captain Johansen for one, and the other was either the wireless operator, Bill Robertson, or the third mate, Joh'nson. Then the bridge started to go under, and the men jumped into the sea. We never saw them again. There was no boat left on the Nevada because we found the wreckage of the last one later. “Well, we felt pretty sure at first that the Oregon would come along. We knew she wasn’t far off. The sparks—that’s the radio operatorhad locked himself up in his room and set out an SOS before we left the ship. .We just sat and waited for the Oregon to come along. About 1 o’clock in the afternoon we saw her. “Some rolls of red Manila paper had washed up on the beach from the Nevada’s cargo. We tore some of the outside paper off and found some dry pieces inside. So I took some big squares of it and stood up on a high rock and waved it to let the Oregon know some of us were alive. They put off a lifeboat, and it started in to shore. We thought then we were going to be rescued. But it couldn t get through the breakers. We sat there and watched it, thinking that if it couldn’t come in we were done for. After about three hours it went back to the ship and the Oregon started to steam away. That was the worst moment. We felt sure then that it was all up with us. We didn’t think any other boats would come along, so we just sat there and expected to die. We were so all in by this time that it didn’t seem to matter much. “We sat there all day and all the next night. There was some flour washed ashore, and we tried to eat it, but it made us sick. We found a little stream and drank some water, and just sat around. Then about 10 o’clock the next morning we saw another ship coming through the fog. Weren’t we glad, though. We waved the red paper again, and they put oft a lifeboat. We wondered whether they would have to turn back, too.’