Desperate Hours

Richard Goldstein

Description

"A stupendous feat of reportage."
-Ron Powers, cowriter of Flags of Our Fathers

Praise for Desperate Hours

"Goldstein's book is packed with detail. . . . This description of the Doria's sinking is especially moving."
-The New York Times

"A stupendous feat of reportage. Goldstein has virtually put us into lifeboats and sent us hurtling into the North Atlantic on the night of July 25, 1956."
-Ron Powers, cowriter, Flags of Our Fathers, and author of Dangerous Water and Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore

On an extraordinary summer's night in 1956, in a fog off Nantucket, the world-renowned ocean liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm and, eleven hours later, tragically sank. But in that brief time the Doria became, after the Titanic, the most storied vessel of the century, as nearly 1,700 people were saved in an unforgettable rescue punctuated by countless acts of heroism amid confusion, terror, and even cowardice.

In the tradition of Walter Lord's A Night To Remember, Desperate Hours re-creates the ill-fated voyage, from the passengers' parting waves at Genoa, to their last evening highball in the Doria's lavish lounge, to the unbelievable realization that catastrophe was imminent. Richard Goldstein draws from dozens of interviews, court documents, memoirs, and reports that relate never-before-told stories. He also presents technical findings that shed light on the blame for the disaster. The result is a definitive history of a fateful day, a legendary liner, and a deadly shipwreck now considered by scuba divers to be the Mount Everest of the deep.
Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

PART I: THE VOYAGE

1. "Brace Yourself".

2. "A Floating Art Gallery".

3. "Take the Doria, You'll Never Forget It".

4. "A Picture of Scandinavian Efficiency".

5. "The Times Square of the Atlantic".

6. "Each Shall Alter Her Course to Starboard".

PART II: THE COLLISION.

7. "Why Doesn't He Whistle?"

8. "I Think We Hit an Iceberg".

9. "Don't Worry, There's Nothing Wrong".

10. "Need Immediate Assistance".

PART III: THE RESCUE.

11. "This Is No Drill".

12. "How Many Lifeboats?"

13. "We Are Bending Too Much".

14. "Let's Pray to St. Ann".

15. "We Won't Leave You".

16. "Lady, You're Lucky to Be Alive".

17. "Light Up Everything, Quickly".

18. "You Have to Have Courage".

19. "Get Your Cameras".

20. "Bulletin . . . Bulletin . . . Bulletin".

21. "You May Go, I'm Staying".

22. "Seaworthiness Nil".

23. "That Thing's Going Down in Five Minutes".

24. "It Is Incomprehensible".

25. "How Good God Is to Me".

26. "Oh, What a Climax".

27. "It's My Baby".

28. "I Lost My Love for Italians".

29. "This Is a Jumbled Story".

PART IV: THE QUESTIONS.

30. "The Passengers Were Highly Excitable".

31. "It Could Have Been a Patch of Fog".

32. "The Stability of the Ship Was Low".

33. "I Could Have Changed Course".

PART V: THE MEMORIES.

34. "Why Did I Get Spared?"

35. "The Poor Man Was Destroyed".

PART VI: THE SHIPWRECK.

36. "It's Got the Mystique".

Appendix.

Sources.

Index.

Sujets

• Ships
• Histoire
• Estocolmo
• Richard Goldstein
• Geography
• Desperate Hours
• Ship
• History
• Andrea Doria
• Stockholm

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 27 juillet 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470238417
• Langue: English

Extrait

Desperate Hours
Desperate Hours
The Epic Rescue of the Andrea Doria
Richard Goldstein
Copyright 2001 by Richard Goldstein. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012 [phone], fax [phone], e-mail: [e-mail].
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
This title is also available in print as ISBN 0-471-38934-X. Some content that appears in the print version of this book may not be available in this electronic edition.
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For Nancy
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
P ART I T HE V OYAGE
1 Brace Yourself
2 A Floating Art Gallery
3 Take the Doria, You ll Never Forget It
4 A Picture of Scandinavian Efficiency
5 The Times Square of the Atlantic
6 Each Shall Alter Her Course to Starboard
P ART II T HE C OLLISION
7 Why Doesn t He Whistle?
8 I Think We Hit an Iceberg
9 Don t Worry, There s Nothing Wrong
10 Need Immediate Assistance
P ART III T HE R ESCUE
11 This Is No Drill
12 How Many Lifeboats?
13 We Are Bending Too Much
14 Let s Pray to St. Ann
15 We Won t Leave You
16 Lady, You re Lucky to Be Alive
17 Light Up Everything, Quickly
18 You Have to Have Courage
19 Get Your Cameras
20 Bulletin . . . Bulletin . . . Bulletin
21 You May Go, I m Staying
22 Seaworthiness Nil
23 That Thing s Going Down in Five Minutes 174
24 It Is Incomprehensible
25 How Good God Is to Me
26 Oh, What a Climax
27 It s My Baby
28 I Lost My Love for Italians
29 This Is a Jumbled Story
P ART IV T HE Q UESTIONS
30 The Passengers Were Highly Excitable
31 It Could Have Been a Patch of Fog
32 The Stability of the Ship Was Low
33 I Could Have Changed Course
P ART V T HE M EMORIES
34 Why Did I Get Spared?
35 The Poor Man Was Destroyed
P ART VI T HE S HIPWRECK
36 It s Got the Mystique
Appendix
Sources
Index
Acknowledgments
I m grateful to the men and women-the rescued and their rescuers-who shared their memories of an extraordinary summer s night on the North Atlantic.
For providing photographs or helping me obtain documents and other materials, a special thank you to Commander David Corey, Norman Cubberly, Richard Faber, Joe Griffith, Linda Morgan Hardberger, Dr. William Homan, Carol and William Johnson, Captain Robert Meurn, Leonardo and Giovanna Paladino, Lennard Rambusch, Jerome Reinert, and Francesco Scotto. Don Bowden of AP/WideWorld Photos and Tom Gilbert of TimePix smoothed my research in their photo archives.
Lennart Angelmo, Robert Bierman, Lars Hemingstam, Mary Kirson, Henrik Ljundstrom, Captain Robert Williamson, and Dr. Preston Winters helped me locate people whose lives were touched by the collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm . Henrik Nordstrom translated correspondence in Swedish.
George J. Billy, chief librarian at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and Richard Corson, chief librarian at the State University of New York Maritime College, provided pointers for my research there.
I benefited greatly from the support and guidance of Stephen S. Power, senior editor at John Wiley Sons, and Emily Loose, who first saw the possibilities in this story at Wiley, and from the efforts and enthusiasm of Jim Hornfischer at The Literary Group International.
My wife, Dr. Nancy Lubell, was there as always with love and encouragement.
Introduction
She was the most lovely ocean liner of her day, a fantastic blend of aesthetics and technology, a symbol of Italy s revival from the ravages of World War II. But more than four decades later, the enduring image of the Andrea Doria, viewed in the old black-and-white newsreels, is that of a funnel inexorably tipping closer to the sea as a summer s dawn gives way to a sun-splashed morning.
On the fogbound night of July 25, 1956, the Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm 45 miles south of Nantucket Island. The Stockholm s bow ripped a massive hole in the Doria s starboard side, causing her to list severely. Eleven hours later, she was lying on her side at the bottom of the North Atlantic.
It was forty-four years since the unsinkable Titanic had been sliced by an iceberg. The Doria, too, had been deemed the ultimate in safety on the seas-her radar the most modern, her hull divided into eleven watertight compartments. The Stockholm also possessed radar for the most impenetrable of nights. And yet, as on that April night in 1912 off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the impossible came to pass.
The death of the Doria retaught a lesson that speaks to the world of today: The most modern of technological wizardry guarantees nothing without a respect for its limitations and sound judgment. A series of miscalculations on the bridges of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm brought the two ocean liners together as if they had been destined to converge.
And the loss of the Doria, renowned for her silhouette and her artwork, also told of the fragility of life. One moment we may have everything, in the next all can be lost.
This was underscored when a woman evacuated by one of the lifeboat crews that saved almost seventeen hundred people-history s greatest peacetime rescue at sea-was interviewed for the newsreels upon arriving at a Manhattan pier.
I was a happy bride ready to set up home with all my belongings, the woman said. I had beautiful clothes, beautiful family jewelry, beautiful silver. I am destitute. I ve got nothing else, not even a handbag. I lost all my documents. I ve got my husband, that s all. I hope America will welcome me and help me because physically and morally, I m wrecked.
In the era of the Doria and the other great liners, travel proceeded at a leisurely pace. Passengers dressed splendidly for dinner. Fine food was coveted and frequent-flier miles unimagined. Ocean liners possessed distinct personalities evoking a sense of place. Airplanes come off the assembly line by the dozen-a ship is much more of a human thing, Commodore Harry Manning, who guided the liner United States to an Atlantic speed record in 1952, observed in the aftermath of the Doria s sinking. A ship is the property of a nation, a symbol of a nation. It is not only the ship of a company, it is the ship of a people.
The sinking of the Doria symbolized the waning of a graceful approach to travel. Two years later, the advent of commercial jetliners transformed week-long transatlantic journeys into seven-hour hops.
The Andrea Doria retains her allure today. She is known as the Mount Everest of the deep, a magnet for divers seeking adventure or perhaps a sampling of her elegant china. But the arrival of high tech in deep-sea diving, enabling hundreds to explore the Doria each summer at depths of up to 250 feet, carries its own peril. The skill and judgment of some divers have evidently failed to measure up to the wondrous equipment, and so the Andrea Doria has continued to claim victims more than forty summers after she departed from the venerable harbor at Genoa for the last time.
PART I
The Voyage
CHAPTER 1
Brace Yourself
What a strange tune for a Swedish band to be playing.
A puzzled Carol Johnson picked up the strains as she peered into the North Atlantic night through the porthole in her cabin-No. 112 on the motorship Stockholm, en route from New York to Copenhagen and then its home port of G teborg, Sweden.
Carol and her husband, Bill, each aboard an ocean liner for the first time, were eagerly anticipating immersion in their Swedish heritage. Carol, a slim, blond woman, had just turned twenty years old. She was Brooklyn-born, but all four of her grandparents were Swedish immigrants. Her maiden name was Lundquist. Bill Johnson, a lanky twenty-three-year-old with a crew cut, was the son of a former Swedish-American Line seaman who had come to America as a young man. His father, Charles Johnson, had considered Sweden to be God s kingdom on earth. Now the son was going to be studying Swedish on a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Lund, having completed graduate studies at Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Although he was a minister with two small congregations in New Jersey, he had joined the Stockholm crew as a glasswasher to obtain free passage for his wife and daughter.
Crewmen were not normally allowed to have their families with them, but G. Hilmer Lundbeck, New York manager of the Swedish-American line, had quietly permitted Carol and the couple s five-week-old daughter, Karin, to come along. Bill was required, however, to sleep in the crew cabins. At this moment-a bit past eleven o clock on the night of Wednesday, July 25, 1956-he was chatting with a fellow seaman named Alf Johansson in their quarters near the bow.
Karin, having just been fed, was lying beside her mother in the lower bunk of a two-tiered berth when Carol heard music. She recognized the popular tune, of course, but could not fathom why it had been selected for the dancing pleasure of all those Carlsons and Olsons traveling to