THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1959.
A thousand people wait for rescue aboard a doomed, sinking liner
Leave us to die plead the wives in Cabin 56
PROBABLY the only man aboard the Andrea
Doria to see the Stockholm's bow inside the Italian liner and live was Thure Peterson, a museu- lar giant of a man, and a distinguished medical specialist. He and his wife Martha were in Cabin 56 on the upper deck, their beds separated by a built-in chest of drawers. Mrs Peterson had been reading. Just before eleven o'clock she turned out- the light. The collision came at nine minutes past eleven.
Paterson was conscious of a tremendous thud, the sound of steel ripping and the vision of a greyish-white hulk, which was the Stockholm's prow, passing by him.
It occurred to him that he was flying through space
and then he lost consciousness.
He heard none of the commotion in the corridors us first- class passengers poured out of their cabins,
The 35-year-old wife awoke to
d herself gripped from her
shoulders to her feet in a tangle of splintered furniture and cell- ing fragments.
She was unable to move. Her body seemed numbed and aching as if it, in some felsebed WAY, WHs in pain and she herself could not feet
It.
Not alone
→ For the passengers on the sloping docks of the Italian finer Andrea Doria, one moment transformod despair into hope.
That was when the French liner le do France, ablaze with lights, throw her majestic assistance into the rescue. But for one man it meant nothing. His wife was trapped in a wrecked cabin. Others could go. For him there could be no rescue while that one life was at stake...
COLLISION COURSE by ALVIN MOSCOW
So the young men forcibly bound the screaming old man in a net and lowered him away. Mrs Lin Dooner, who climbed up from C-Deck with JK. I' two-year-old daughter The cabin, or what was left Maria on her back, fended for of it, was dark, a greyish-black. herself teaving the ship. She All she could see was wreckage found a rope, fed it about her about her, but she becane te girl and lowered the child
unbly aware that she was not away, But the rope broke, Plone in this purgatory. Almost • directly abuvi her lega sumeone else.
Was
It was the woman who had been in the cubi) next door. Her name was Mrs Jane Cianfarra, Mes Citisera had turned off her night light in her cabin, and re- Lained
consciousness
the wreckage of Cabin 50.
His reward
the United would not
Haveli, a 48-year-olf Udn, Yaud, they feared wiry title man, heard Peter States Government NDA'M ples, and decided to admit them without their pass- help him, tittle knowing e ports which they had lost. WAN embarkluk on a life-or- death strucele Chat was to lust four hours, Kuveli
Found
could མ
Sebastian
the
the wafers
Nutla
оп
One thoughtful member of the crew supplied a group the Boat Deck with a bottle of sacramental Scotett to keep up their spirits.
Glorious sight
The mother dived in and surfaced with her child..
some op-
* ★ ★
Search fails
Rovelli returned.
а
܆
Both women again pleadeđ with the nien to leave thera to die in the wreskart. Ther Implored Peterson and Rovelif to save themselves before the ahip sank.
Bul on that cubject Both of the same mind:
beller there was 3417 actual FRANCE. "Praise the Lord," vibrated under the blows, send- cut away a cumbersonie mat- danger of sudden death,
tinci "Thank God," sald ing down more debris over the tress, pliers or wire cutters to In the cabin-class ballroom, hundreds of men and women in women. Pekon meanwhile ship the bedsprings-and the two members of the band led one form or another. Every- had injected the morphine into still essential jack to lift heavy passengers in song to pass the one, or almost everyone, smilled the arms of his wife and Mrs beams. Many
priests, muns, and me, while nezi by a small or sighed in relief and Sun Clanfarra. seminarians returning from wriggle his gall body about into comfort passengers. Monsignor 1920 vintage to bolster their
summer visits to Rome helped group of middle-age Americans began to sing and
carolled the old favourites of plouded. the tanged wreckage of Cabin 56 far more easily than the
the ship's courage. burly Peterson could. He work chaplain, had taken the Holy darily, turning aside the Eucharist from the altar of the tiplier piccup of splintered wall chapel after the collision. and furniture away from The 24-year-old
Breaking Ulic moller wonen,
•hesitated
into the smallest bita nut 11 moment. But he realised that
of debris could possible, he went about the ship Following her daughter over heavitt pieces,
und com- the side, she plunged into the only be shifted with the help of giving consolation
those who helt jack. While Peterson
way Union seeking
blon Waty
medical help, before
"Coppia domění
And so they walled for one, (wy, and almost three hours Rovelli carefully explained Hostri Jrst Christi custodiat The two women this
without knowing essential animam tuam in vitam acter-
what had He
them yam" (May the boxls of our
happened to the ship ussured need.
Christ, preserve
what was going to happen to repeatedly he would not desert Lord, Jesus
it until shortly before two Rem. Then he left them alone your soul into life everlasting), see him. She alrained to locate turning from an extendert hofl-
p'clock in the morning. him, but then he was silent. Mas day in Haly, leaped overboard while he went in scares of the But he refused to give general absolution. For that there was
Then the hundreds of-passen- Cianfarra realised she had heared to save a pretty 19-year-old
no need, he insisted-there was gers on the port side of the her husband die. She believed girl, Melanie Ausulni, he had
BO Imminent danger of death. Promenade and Boat Decks of her own life was ebbing.
had his vye on throughout
the Andrea Doria all saw at He tried to lift the wreckage They Succeeded, Ally In the voyage.
In another part of the ship, approximately the same time plining the women, but it de- freving Mrs Cianfarra's "right however, Father
huge fed his efforts too. He sent a leg. Thomas the glorious sight of a
Her other leg romalnett Kelly,
watchman for an axe to chop entrapped in twisted bedsprings. woman a young priest from ship. Large block letters in Chleago, gave general absolu- white lights blazoned her nome trough the enbin wall, but the The men decided they needed tion to other passengers in the across the
venteered plywood increly tools: scissors or a knife
fame
остал und
up with Marla. A few minutes later She was aware immédiately of
mother and daughter her husband, Camille Clanfarra,
were hauled into a lifeboat. near by. She could hear him
John Vali, a 27-year - pkl groan, murmuring as if in exeru-
waiter re- cinting pain, but she could not Kater New York
Her head and face were wet with blood, one hand was smash- ed and her legs somehow were trapped.
to The
Melanle, emigrating United States with her family. had Inst her grip on a rope.and Bad been knocked unconscious In her fall into the position, Vali leaped
water. was pinned against the steel wall saved her life.
in after her and
Eight months
Fler body, finmovable in a erouched half-sitting
of an elevator shaft which back later he married her.
ed in the Peterson rubin.
The two women, after dis- oriented envering one another,
themselves to their luntion. They had concluded they were alone and lust and would ge down with the ship.
Then They heard the voice of Mrs Peterson's huband,
The people alxrd the rescue ships now gathering round the Andrea Doria could hear a dis- sonunt churnde Ti walls screams that rose and died away and se again.
A promise
jack,
*Th
Rumours
Io
Phaos during the first two hours following the, collision was confined almost exclusively to the stern decks of the ship where the tourist-class passen- Rers gathered,
The rest of the ship was rela- tively calm and quiet. In the cabin and first class quarters of the Promenade and Bout Ducks, passengers did not even know
TURE PETERSON had the ship was being abandoned.
bern hurled from his
own cabin, No. 56, through
Once having reached the wall into fir Clanfarras muster Etations and the port cabin, No. 58. There he re- side of the ship, people settled gotned consciousHQAN and down to wall for word of what found himself half-burled in to do and what to expect.
debris.
The waiting was agony, for He wriggled free, colled to no word caine. Speculation and Captain Boyd, master of the his wife, sluggered out into the runours were rampant; there freighter Cape Ann, looking corridor and then back into hd through his binoculars, Saw Cabin 50.
pleסיום
crawling abo the steeply sloping but still kril-
tondy decks.
Some of the Andrea Doria's weeping with
passengers were fear.
Prayers
been
explosion, collision....a submerged wreck hind been struck....the ship could was sinking....the ship
In the dark, crawling on his haud and knees, he brushed by the lifeless body of Clanfarre, but possibly sini....rescue ships were on the way....the Doria his neighbour.
Pelerson reached his wife would soon continue on Is way and Mrs Cianferrn by wriggling to New York. his massive body through
People clung to the handrails,
narrow gap torn in a partition stanchions, and to other people; they sat on the floor of the
But these were far ouinum- wall,
bered by Italian immigrants Inside Cabin 56 he was-sur- lounges and on the deck chairs who, having climbed to the open rounded by the wreckage which along the port Promenade Deck avek, fell to their knees in held the two women trapped. prayers of thanksgiving for Beyond was the hole in the side leaning against the wall of the and on the deck of Boat Deck,
their deliverance,
were
of the ship. He tried to move These prayers generally the debris, but it was too heavy. followed by more le needed help if there was to prayers and beseeching of be any chance of patron
saving the for personal women. sainis safety and the safety of tho Histing adip--
The more fervent the prayers, the more loudly did the Italian Catholles cry out for their saints in heaven to hear them. Add- ing to the general bedlam were those calling at the tops of their valces not to their saints but to jost kin.
--In-the-quiet of the wrecked" cabin both women told him to leave them and save himself. He assured them he
would
return shortly with enough
superstructure.!
Some complained bitterly that they were told nothing. Others went about comforting those who were weeping und thase in feRK.
Three fears
manpower to move a moun~ In the first and. cabin-class
tal of wreckage.
needexi
hod
lounges, children were strelched Clearly the women
out on the floor everywhere, Members of the crew distri Promenade Deck Peterson found the lap of a parent.
urgent inedien help. On the asleep, their heads cushioned In buted spare lifejackets from the the ship's two doctors and Ave reserve boxes on deck and tried nurses. To the doctors this man, come
Italian immigrants who
to this part of the ship to muster passengers on
the wearing only a curtain ripped from the decks below, covered port side of the ship,
from a closet, seemed at first with black oli, were in Some passengers joined the no different from the many dis- need of comfort. crew in helping other passen- tressed and sometimes hysterical
most
fears of the immigrants.
gers climb over the rail to the passengers with whom they had There was a pattern to the But Peterson did get through Firstly, they feared they would
hanging ropes. Klaua Dorneich, had to deni,
* 28-year-old German motor
about their whisto
The
be drowned; they feared rescue
salesman, joined with four to one of the doctors his specific by a ship which would return Austrian students in lowering request for morphine. okter passengers from the deck doctor promised he would go to them to Italy, and then, if they of the ship with a rope led Cabin 00 AE soon
tho were taken to their new chosen morphine arrived from hospital, Peterson was not the sort of man to let things rest there.. York, Jomph Maggió, hýrldrie zie hind found a cabin-class aily baulked at the idea of waiter named Giovanni Rovelli. trusing his lo to z'fose). busy, hànding out Die jackets.
But a 72-year-old blind shoo- maker from Brooklyn, New
The book, Collision Course, from which this series 18`* adapted, will be published In Britain by Longinasiz.
01.
FOUR D. JONES
YQUICKLY NOW
YOU CAN'T KEEP
BOYS
OHT BE PUSHED AROUND!!
|PERVIOS]
FERDINAND
night-ILE
nor
DE
Genoa
unable to TO PETERSON, the arrival and jack anywhere, and of the He de France joined Pelerson mid the changed nothing. His wife wreckage. Together the medi- men were and Air Cianfarre were still cal specialist of Upper Mont- they would not leave the ship trapped in Cabin 56.
clair, a wealthy suburban com- until both women were, freed. The ship's doctor, Dr Tortort munity in New Jersey, and the
waller from Donali, fübfllled his pledge to ship's
As Polerson irled to bolster bring morphine for the two worked as equals in the single the spirits of his wife, Rovelli women. He handed over the elevour to move
upon himself to wreckage took it plilat and syrlige to Peterson away from Mrs Clanfarra, who courage Mrs Clonfarra. when Peterson explained that had to be freed before there
As the be, too, was a doctor.
could be any hope for Mrs Dr Donati crawled into the Peterson.
her his made
own special smashed hallway of Cabin 36
Over and over The two men had never met again he reassured her, "Don't
responsibility and came upon the body of before, nor did they stop for worry, lady, I will get you out Clanfarrs, and confirmed that introductions during their of here."
he was dead,
I AIN'T GONNA STAND FOR IT, IDEMAND TO BE TURNED LOOSE, I
WANT...
SIT DOWN
AN DRY
Upl
BRICK BRADFORD
AN-ANDWER TO DUR WATER PROMEM JO WHAT WE NIDED
WHAT DO YOU FIND
A WELL-Y
MAY BE ALAKSTAS
· GOOD AS A WIE Lužná
COME ON TO
אפאס שירד
COMPARTMENTZ.
LOOK
·CON
ON THE
struggle.
by MADDOCKS
night wore on
en-
he
#
to
Personal Idently seemed to mean nothing to the steward who was risking his life for a
he had never before.
(Continued b Para 7).
FILE ON
THE FOOT CHIL
CASE
NON-ILL GIVE YOU
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usim drop-in editiidgm of Sirip writing Bui4.
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cholars prefer
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AND GAVE THE
WATURL)
By Paul Norris
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