GRAPHIC DETAILS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18499, 11 September 1934, Page 7

GRAPHIC DETAILS

MORRO CASTLE DISASTER SURVIVORS’ ACCOUNT MANY PATHETIC SCENES CRITICISM OF THE CREW (Klee. Tel. Ctpyright—United Press Assn.) NEW YORK, Sept. 9. Stories of fire panic and death in the burning Morro Castle continue to bo told to-day as the survivors recover ed from exhaustion and the shock of their experience. With the official inquiry (o start to-morrow, most of the officers' and members of the crew are reticent regarding the details of the , disaster, but the surviving,, passengers gavo 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 the officers were aware of the eontiagra tion for some time before the signal was given the passengers to stand by. • “Home time early in the morning-1 was walking- to my cabin from a late party,’ she said, “when 1 noticed, a lire blazing in the library. An officer, I do not know who he was, asked mo not to spread the alarm, because I might create a panic among the passengers.’’ Miss Wacker added thnt she immediately returned to her cabin and awakened" her parents, who had barely dress eel before the alarm was given and the panic started. ALLEGED NEGLIGENCE

In addition to giving information about the lire, Miss Wacker told a heart-rending account of saving herself and her mother, while her father perished. Miss Wacker is a good swimmer, and alternatively aided her mother and her father, who wore indifferent- swimmers, to reach the shore. “ Father had sinus trouble, and .it was very difficult for him to breathe in the water,” she said. “The waves kept washing over us. Although 1 tried to keep them both up, finally, father said: ‘Let me go, I’ve had enough.” I couldn’t do that, but he soon become unconscious and Iheu died. After four hours a fishing boat picked mother and me up, but they would not take father’s body, and said they were only picking up live people.” Many 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 blamed ‘the hysterical fright of many passangers for tho large loss of life. One unidentified member of the crew declared that tho chief officer, Mr. Warms, kept the motors going- a s long as he could in order to keep the vessel directly into the wind and retard the flames from spreading, and only gave up and ordered the anchor to be dropped when the power failed. PANIC-STRICKEN PASSENGERS Dr. Gouverneur Morris Phelps, a prominent New York surgeon, and his wife and 25-year-old son were all saved after extreme suffering. Dr. Phelps and his wife, wearing life-belts, 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 the,' -water for six hours before he was rescued. All throe complained bitterly of the manner in which the sailors handled the lifeboats. They claimed that some lifeboats contained but a handful of the crew and no passengers, and insisted that the crow could easily have picked up many in the water, but struck for the shore.

The crew’s explanation of why so few gained the boats is that the passengers, to reach the boat-deck, must have dashed through the smoke, light and flames, and in a panic-stricken state many insisted on staying on the lower decks, nor could they be pushed or carried upwards. Finally, members of tho crew say they took what passengers they could and left to save their own lives.

A sailor told of his effort to save an 11-year-old girl whom ho 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 did not 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.”

PERISHED THROUGH MODESTY One of the survivors said he believed that many, particularly women, perished as the result of a sense of modesty, having delayed to - fully clothe 'themselves. Most, however, were wearing either sleeping garments or their 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 flames.

The most touching rescue was of a couple, tightly bound together, who had been married by the skipper. Captain Wilmot, only a few hours before lip 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 in the disaster. Among the survivors were 72-year-old twins, Mr. Michael Bulk and his sister, Mrs. Katie Notebook. In the panic she found her elderly brother with a crew'detailed lo handling the. hose, and forced him lo abandon the fire-fighting efforts and leave the vessel with her.

A press survey on Saturday night showed that 430 of the passengers and crew were accounted for, with 130 dead or missing. Ninety-nine, bodies were checked at the central morgus, the Seagirt National Guard headquarters. Two were found in. a cabin of the vessel, which is beached off the board walk.

The Ward Line, owners of the vessel, announced that lf>2 persons are believed to have lost their HvJ's. with the total rescued n.s 30S. It is believed that many were trapped in tho cabins, and also that some bodies were taken to neighboring towns and have not been reported'vet. .