MARINE TRAGEDY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 243, 11 September 1934, Page 7

MARINE TRAGEDY

SUSPICION OF INCENDIARISM. ATTEMPT ON PREVIOUS TRIP. EVIDENCE AT INQUIRY. (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 11, 9.10 a.m. NEW YORK, Sept. 10. Acting-Captain W. F. Warms, of the Ward liner Morro Castle, told the United States Government inquiry to-day that he suspected the blaze had been started by an incendiarist, basing his belief on the tact that an incendiary attempt was made on the boat on its previous voyage.

The company’s formal report on that fire, produced at the hearing, agreed with the details of Captain Warms’s story that he had found charred paper in the cargo. He said lightning did not hit the ship. The first word of the fire 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,” he said. An Asbury Park (New Jersey) message states that two explosions in the wreck of the Morro Castle to-day decided the officials to withdraw the searchers for the fear of further blasts, feeling that the fire should be allowed to burn out before the operations were continued.

An Havana report says Captain Oscar Hernandez, .chief of 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.”

SURVIVORS^_VERSION. WARNING ALLEGEDLY DELAYED.

EXPERIENCES IN WATER,

NEW YORK, Sept. 9. Stories of fire, panic and death in the burning Morro Castle continued to be told to-day as survivors recovered from the exhaustion and shock of their experience. With an official inquiry to start to-morrow most of the officers and members of the crew were reticent regarding details of the disaster, but survising passengers gave harrowing details of their adventures.

Only one, however, Miss Doris Wacker, whose father perished, could contribute information regarding what happened immediately prior to the alarm. Her story indicates that officers were aware of the conflagration some time before the sigfnal was given to passengers to stand by. “Some time early in the morning I was walking to my cabin from a late party and noticed a fire blazing in the library,” she said. “An officer, Ido not know who he was, asked me not to spread the alarm because it might sreate a panic among the passengers.” Miss Wacker added that she immediately returned to her cabin and awakened her parents, who had barely dressed before the alarm was given and the panic started. In addition to giving information about the fire, Miss Wacker told a heartrending account of saving herself and 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,” she said. “It was very difficult for him to breathe in the water as the waves kept washing over us. Although I tried to keep them both up, finally father said, ‘Let me go, I’veliad enough.’ I couldn’t do that, but ho was soon unconscious and then died. After four hours a fishing boat picked up mother and me, but tliey wouldn’t take father’s body. They said they were only picking up live people.” A sailor told of his effort to save an 11-year-old girl, whom he identified as Margarita or Martha Saenz, daughter of a famous Cuban physician. He said 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 beeamo unconscious, and I held on until I was sure she was dead.” TRAPPED BY FIRE. One of the survivors said that he believed that many, particularly women, perished as the result of their sense of modesty. They delayed fully to clothe themselves. Most, however, were wearing either sleeping garments or evening clothes. With the Jersey coast lights visible some failed to realise 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 flames. A most touching rescue was a couple tightly bound together who had been married by the skipper, Captain Wilniot, only a few hours before lie died on the previous evening. Incidentally, Captain Wilmot’s body was probably cremated in liis own cabin. Apparently only the ship’s surgeon knew v/here the body was placed and he perished in the disaster. Among the survivors are 72-year-old twins, Mr Michael Dulk and his sister, Mrs Katie Noteboom. In the panic she found her brother with a crew detail handling a liose, and forced him to abandon his fire-figliting efforts and leave the vessel with her. CRITICAL REMARKS.

Many passengers were inclined to blame the officers and crew for various types of alleged negligence and inefficiency, but others claimed they did everything possible and blamed the hysterical fright of many passengers for the large loss of life. One unidentified member of the crew declared that the chief officer, Mr Warms, kept the motors going as long as lie could to keep the vessel directly into the wind and retard the flames spreading. He gave up and ordered the anchor to be dropped only when the power failed. , Dr Gouverueur Morris Phelps, a prominent New York surgeon, his wife, and 25-year-old son were all saved, but after extreme suffering. Dr Phelps’s wife, with life preservers, was six hours in the water before she reached the shore. Her son said he clung to a rope with his body half immersed in water for six hours before he was rescued. All three complained bitterly of the manner in which the sailors handled the lifeboats. They claimed that some contained but a handful ot members of the crew and no passengers, and insisted that they could easily have picked up many in the water, but struck off for the shore. The crew’s explanation as to why so few gained the boats is that, the passengers, to reach the boat deck, must have dashed through smoke and light flames. In their panic-stricken state many insisted on staying on the lower decks, nor could they be pushed or carried upward. Finally, members of the crew sav they took wliat passengers they could and left to save their own lives. CASUALTY ESTIMATES. A message from Asbury Park (New

Jersey) says that a Press survey on Saturday night showed that 430 of the passengers and crew of the Morro Castle were accounted for, with 130 dead or missing. Ninety-nine bodies were checked at the central morgue at Seagirt, the National Guard headquarters. Two were found in a cabin on the vessel, which was beached off the board walk. The Ward Line, owners of the vessel, announced that 162 persons are believed to have lost their lives, with the total rescued 398. It is believed that many were trapped in the cabins; jilso that some bodies were taken to neighbouring towns and have not hecn reported yet.

GRACE LINER AFIRE. “WORK OF RADICAL ORGANISATION.” Received September 11, 9.25 a.m. BALBOA, Sept. 10. Several officers of the Grace liner Santarita, which made port under its 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.