SEA TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 243, 12 September 1929, Page 8

SEA TRAGEDY.

WHEN SHIP WENT DOWN. SURVIVORS’ STORIES. Survivors of the ill-fated coastal steamer San Juan (2152 tons) which sank recently after colliding with the tanker S. C. T. Dodd (7050 tons) off the coast of Southern California, tell pitiful tales of women trying to save their children. “Take my baby first,” pleaded one young mother, whose cnild and herself were both lost. Captain Bleumchen, of the S. C. T. Dodd, said that men, women and children, leaped overboard from the San Juan in a desperate effort to save themselves, but most of them were drowned. Hollis Pifer, aged six, is the only child surviving from the collision. When the crash came his mother ran on deck with him in her arms. The ships were momentarily interlocked, the S. C. T. Dodd’s bow buried deep in the ancient steamer’s side. Mrs Pifer hurled her son into the air, and he landed on the S. C. T. Dodd’s deck, looming above. The ships drew apart, and the mother was lost. SEARCH FOR RELATIVES. Scenes of great sadness and distress were witnessed when the S. C. T. Dodd arrived early next evening with 27 survivors. Scores of women looking for husbands or sons thronged the wharves, very few finding their loved ones amongst those saved. Captain Bleumchen, of the S. C. T. Dodd, blames the master of the San Juan.

“The vessels,” he said, “were proceeding on passing, courses, when the San Juan changed to cross the S. C. T. Dodd’s course. I ordered full speed astern, assuming that the Sin Juan would maintain her course . full speed ahead, and so escape; but evidently Captain Asplung feared that he could not get across, and he tried to go astern as well. The result was that the San Juan did not get by, and we could not help a collision. “The ship went down so quickly that not one of her lifeboats was launched. The only ones saved were those lucky enough to grasp wreckage and hang on.” . . Sixty-eight persons are missing — probably all drowned.