Outbound The 51st westbound crossing of
Andrea Doria to New York began as a typical run on the North Atlantic. Her most recent eastbound crossing from New York had concluded on 14 July 1956, and after a three-day turnaround, she was scheduled to be outbound from Genoa on Tuesday, 17 July. On this run, she was booked to roughly 90% of her total passenger capacity, with 1,134 passengers travelling aboard: 190 in first class, 267 in cabin class and 677 in tourist class. Combined with a crew of 572, a total of 1,706 persons would sail aboard her to the United States. On the morning of 17 July,
Andrea Doria began to take on her first passengers at 8 a.m. A total of 277 embarked there: 49 first class, 72 cabin class and 156 tourist class. Among those traveling in first class were Hungarian ballet dancers Istvan Rabovsky and
Nora Kovach, who had defected from the Soviet bloc to the United States just three years earlier. The ship departed at 11 a.m. on the first leg of her journey. She arrived at Cannes on the
French Riviera mid-afternoon that same day. An additional 48 passengers boarded there: 30 first class, 15 cabin class, and 3 tourist class. Among them was a Hollywood actress who would become one of
Andrea Dorias most famous passengers,
Ruth Roman, travelling with her three-year-old son Richard. The famous songwriter
Mike Stoller was aboard as well. From Cannes
Andrea Doria sailed southeast to Naples, arriving the following morning. A total of 744 came aboard there: 85 in first class, 161 in cabin class, and 498 in tourist class. Most of the latter were emigrants from impoverished regions of southern Italy on their way to new lives in North America. She departed just after 6 p.m., arriving two days later off
Gibraltar. A total of 65 passengers boarded: 26 first class, 19 cabin class, 20 tourist class, before she set out for New York. On 25 July, just before noon, the passenger liner
Stockholm of the
Swedish American Line departed
New York Harbor on her 103rd eastbound crossing across the Atlantic, headed to her home port of
Gothenburg, Sweden. At 12,165 tons and in length, roughly half the size of
Andrea Doria,
Stockholm was the smallest passenger liner on the North Atlantic run during the 1950s. Completed in 1948, she was of a much more practical design than
Andrea Doria. Originally built to accommodate only 395 passengers in two classes,
Stockholm was designed without the opulence of
Andrea Doria because the Swedish-American Line was aware that the rapid growth of air travel would bring an end soon to the age of transatlantic passenger travel. However, they did not envision the massive surge in tourism fueled by the buoyant American economy that arose during the 1950s. As a result, the Swedish-American Line withdrew
Stockholm from service in 1953 for an overhaul that included an addition to her superstructure to provide accommodations for an additional 153 passengers, increasing her capacity to 548. This proved successful, as by 1956
Stockholm had gained a worthy reputation on the North Atlantic.
Stockholm left New York booked almost to capacity, with 534 passengers and a crew of 208. She was commanded by Captain Harry Gunnar Nordenson, though
Third Officer Johan-Ernst Carstens-Johannsen was on duty on the
bridge at the time of the accident. This was his first time alone on the bridge of a ship, and he had been up since 06:00 that morning supervising baggage-loading and passenger-boarding in New York.
Collision course To save time, the
Stockholm set a homeward course south of the
Nantucket Lightship and north of the recommended eastbound course for ships leaving the United States, placing
Stockholm directly in the path of inbound westward traffic, a violation of the 1953
North Atlantic Track Agreement to which the Swedish American Line was a signatory. Cruising under clear skies,
Stockholms speed was approximately in visibility Carstens-Johannsen estimated to be . The waters of the North Atlantic south of
Nantucket Island are frequently the site of intermittent fog, as the cold
Labrador Current encounters the
Gulf Stream. As
Stockholm and
Andrea Doria were approaching each other head-on in the heavily used shipping corridor, the westbound Italian liner had been traveling in a heavy bank for hours. The captain had reduced speed slightly from , activated the ship's
fog-warning whistle, and had closed the watertight doors, all customary precautions while sailing in such conditions. However, the eastbound
Stockholm had yet to enter the bank's western edge, and was seemingly unaware either of it or
Andrea Dorias movement within it. As the two ships approached each other in failing light at a combined speed of , each was aware of the presence of another ship only through radar. Compounding this, they apparently misinterpreted each other's course, and made no initial radio communication. The original inquiry established that in the critical minutes before the collision,
Andrea Doria gradually steered south, to her left, attempting a
starboard-to-starboard passing, while
Stockholm also turned about 20° southward, to its right, an action intended to widen the clearance of a
port-to-port passing, but instead put the two vessels on a direct collision course. As a result of the extremely thick fog that enveloped
Andrea Doria as the ships approached each other, the two were quite close by the time visual contact was established. By then, the crews realized that they were headed straight into one another; in spite of their last-minute evasion maneuvers they could not avoid ramming. In the last moments before impact,
Stockholm turned hard to starboard (right) and was in the process of reversing her propellers, attempting to stop.
Andrea Doria, remaining at her cruising speed of almost engaged in a hard turn to port (left), her captain hoping to outrun the collision. Around 11:10 p.m., the two ships collided, with
Stockholm T-boning the starboard side of
Andrea Doria.
Impact and penetration Andrea Doria and
Stockholm collided at almost a 90° angle.
Stockholms bow, heavily reinforced for operations in the icy North Atlantic, pierced
Andrea Dorias starboard side about one-third of her length from the bow, under the ship's bridge. It penetrated the hull to a depth of nearly , and the keel. Below the waterline, five fuel tanks on
Andrea Dorias starboard side were torn open, and they filled with thousands of tons of seawater. Meanwhile, air was trapped in the five empty tanks on the port side, causing them to float more readily, contributing to a severe list. , heads to New York.
Andrea Doria was designed with her hull divided into 11 watertight compartments, separated by steel bulkheads that ran across the width of her hull, rising from the bottom of the ship's hull up to A Deck. The only openings in the bulkheads were on the bottom deck, where watertight doors were installed for use by the engine crew and could be easily closed in an emergency. Her design specified that if any two adjacent watertight compartments were breached, she could remain afloat. In addition, following the rules and guidelines set by the International Conference for Safety of Life at Sea of 1948,
Andrea Doria was designed to handle a list, even under the worst imaginable circumstances, but not one greater than 15°. However, the combination of the five flooded tanks on one side and the five empty tanks on the other left her with a list that, within a few minutes of the collision, exceeded 20°. While the collision itself penetrated only one of
Andrea Dorias watertight compartments, the severe list would gradually pull the tops of the bulkheads along the starboard side below the level of the water, allowing seawater to flow down corridors, down stairwells, and any other way it could find into the next compartment in line. The collision had also torn into an access tunnel running from the generator room, which was located in the compartment directly aft of where the collision had happened, to a small room at the forward end of the tank compartment containing the controls for the tank pumps. But a fatal flaw in
Andrea Dorias design existed, as at the point where the tunnel went through the bulkhead separating the two compartments, no watertight door was present. This allowed the generator room to flood rapidly, contributing to not only an increase in flooding, but a loss of electricity.
Andrea Doria sent this
SOS call: SOS DE ICEH [this is
Andrea Doria] SOS HERE AT 0320 GMT LAT. 40.30 N 69.53 W NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE It was only through the initial radio distress calls sent out by each ship that they learned one-another's identity. Soon afterward, the messages were received by numerous radio and Coast Guard stations along the New England coast, and the world soon became aware that two large ocean liners had collided.
Assessing damage and imminent danger Immediately after the collision,
Andrea Doria began to take on water and started to list severely to starboard. Within minutes, the list was at least 18°. After the ships separated,
Captain Calamai quickly brought the engine controls to "all stop". One of the watertight doors to the engine room may have been missing, though this issue was later determined to be moot. Much more importantly, however, crucial stability was lost by the earlier failure during routine operations to
ballast the mostly empty fuel tanks with seawater as they were emptied, as the builders had specified (which, however, makes refueling more costly). Owing to the immediate rush of seawater flooding the starboard tanks, and because the port tanks had emptied during the crossing, the list was greater than would otherwise have been the case. In the engine room, engineers attempted to pump water out of the flooding starboard tanks, but to no avail. Only a small amount of fuel remained, and the intakes to pump seawater into the port tanks were now high out of the water, making any attempt to level the ship futile. As the list increased over the next few minutes to 20° or more, Calamai realized that his ship was doomed. Aboard
Stockholm, roughly of her bow had been crushed and torn away. Initially, the ship was dangerously down by the bow, but emptying the freshwater tanks soon raised the bow to within of normal. A quick survey determined that the major damage did not extend aft beyond the bulkhead between the first and second watertight compartments. In spite of her condition, the ship was soon determined to be stable and in no imminent danger of sinking.
Rescue operations On
Andrea Doria, the decision to abandon ship was made within 30 minutes of impact. A sufficient number of lifeboats for all of the passengers and crew was split evenly on each side of the Boat Deck. Procedures called for lowering the lifeboats until they could be secured alongside the glass-enclosed Promenade Deck one level below, allowing evacuees to climb out of windows directly into the boats. However, it was soon determined that the port side lifeboats were unlaunchable due to the severe list, which left them high in the air: lowering them would cause them to collide with the exposed hull, and cause them to tip. Compounding things, the list also complicated normal lifeboat procedures on the starboard side, making it necessary to lower the boats empty and somehow get evacuees to board them at water level. This was eventually accomplished through ropes and
Jacob's ladders. In fear of causing a panic and stampeding of the starboard lifeboats, Captain Calamai decided against giving the order to abandon ship until help arrived. In the meantime, Second Officer Guido Badano made announcements over the loudspeaker system instructing passengers to put on their lifebelts and go to their designated
muster stations.
Andrea Dorias radios had limited range, so her distress message making it clear that additional lifeboats were urgently needed was relayed to other ships that could receive it. The
United States Coast Guard from New York City also coordinated on land. In this case being in a busy shipping lane proved helpful to
Andrea Doria. The first ship to respond to her distress call was the freighter
Cape Ann of the
United Fruit Company, which was returning to the United States after a trip to
Bremerhaven, Germany. Upon receiving the message from the stricken
Andrea Doria, Captain Joseph Boyd immediately set a course for her. With a crew of 44 aboard and only two 40-person lifeboats, the assistance
Cape Ann could offer was limited, but within minutes, she was joined by other ships heeding the distress call. The
United States Navy transport , en route to New York from
Livorno, Italy, with 214 troops and dependents also responded to the signal and made immediate progress towards the site. Her captain, John Shea, was placed in charge of the rescue operation by the US Navy and readily ordered his crew to prepare their eight usable lifeboats. Also joining the rescue was the United States Navy
destroyer escort . east of the collision site, the
French Line's was eastbound from New York en route to her home port of
Le Havre, with 940 passengers and a crew of 826 aboard. At 44,500 tons and in length, the 30-year-old luxury liner was among the largest and fastest passenger liners on the North Atlantic run. On that voyage, having left New York the same day as
Stockholm, she was under the command of Captain Raoul de Beaudéan, a well-respected veteran of the seas who had served the French Line for 35 years. Upon hearing of the collision and the distress call, de Beaudéan was at first skeptical of the thought of a modern ship like
Andrea Doria actually foundering, and knew that if he did steer back to the collision site only to find that
Île de France was not needed, it would mean having to return to New York to refuel and delay her passengers, which could have been a financial blow to the French Line. At the least he needed to contact
Andrea Doria to size up the situation. His attempt was unsuccessful, but after communicating with
Stockholm,
Cape Ann, and
Thomas, he grasped that the lives of over 1,600 people were at risk, turned
Île de France around, and set a direct course for
Andrea Doria. Indeed, help was direly needed, as in spite of the efforts made aboard
Andrea Doria to launch her starboard lifeboats many left only partially loaded, carrying in all only 200 panicked crewmen and very few passengers. While other ships nearby were en route, Captain Nordenson of
Stockholm determined that his ship was not in any imminent danger of sinking, and, after assuring his mostly sleeping passengers of their safety, sent some of his lifeboats to aid in the rescue. In the first hours many survivors transported by lifeboats from both ships were taken aboard
Stockholm. As he approached the accident scene less than three hours after the collision, Captain de Beaudéan of
Île de France became concerned about navigating his huge ship safely among the two damaged liners, other responding vessels, lifeboats, and possibly even people in the water. Then, just as she arrived, the fog lifted, and he was able to position his ship in such a way that the starboard side of
Andrea Doria was somewhat sheltered from wind and waves. He ordered all exterior lights of
Île de France to be turned on. The sight of the illuminated
Île de France was a great emotional relief to everyone involved.
Île de France managed to rescue the bulk of the remaining passengers by shuttling its ten lifeboats back and forth to
Andrea Doria, receiving lifeboat loads from those of the other ships already at the scene, and any of ''Andrea Doria's
starboard boats left. Some passengers on Île de France'' gave up their cabins to grateful survivors. Many other acts of kindness were reported. In all, 1,663 passengers and crew had been rescued from
Andrea Doria. The badly damaged
Stockholm, through the use of both her own lifeboats and those from the stricken
Andrea Doria, took on a total of 545 survivors, of whom 234 were crew members from
Andrea Doria who had left the vessel ahead of the passengers; 129 survivors had been rescued by
Cape Ann, 159 by
Private William H. Thomas, 77 by
Edward H. Allen, including Captain Calamai and his officers. One American sailor, who slept through the entire collision and evacuation, was rescued from the abandoned, sinking liner by the tanker
Robert E. Hopkins.
Île de France played the largest role in the rescue, taking on 753 survivors. Shortly after daybreak, a four-year-old Italian girl with head trauma and four seriously injured
Stockholm crewmen were airlifted from that ship at the scene by helicopters sent by the Coast Guard and
United States Air Force. A number of passengers and some crew from both vessels were hospitalized upon arrival in New York.
Andrea Doria capsizes and sinks 's
Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of
Andrea Doria minutes before she sank Once the evacuation was complete, Captain Calamai of
Andrea Doria shifted his attention to the possibility of towing the ship to shallow water. However, it was clear that it was doomed. After all the survivors had been transferred onto various rescue ships bound for New York,
Andrea Dorias remaining crew began to disembark – forced to abandon the ship. By 6:00 am, even Captain Calamai was in a rescue boat. The sinking began at 9:45 am and by 10:00 that morning the Andrea Doria's starboard side dipped into the ocean and the three swimming pools were seen refilling with water. As the bow slid under, the stern rose slightly, and the port propeller and shaft became visible. As the port side slipped below the waves, some of the unused lifeboats snapped free of their davits and floated upside-down in a row. It was recorded that
Andrea Doria finally sank bow first 10 hours after the collision, at 10:09 am on 26 July 1956. The ship had drifted from the point of the collision. Aerial photography of the stricken ocean liner capsizing and sinking
won a
Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for
Harry A. Trask of the
Boston Traveler newspaper.
Return to New York; families Because of the scattering of
Andrea Doria passengers and crew among the various rescue vessels, some families were separated during the collision and rescue. It was not clear who was where, and just who had survived, until all the ships with survivors arrived in New York. In all, six different ships participated in the rescue of the passengers and crew of
Andrea Doria, including the heavily damaged
Stockholm, which steamed back to New York under its own power with a
United States Coast Guard escort after the others. During the wait, New York City–based
ABC Radio Network news commentator
Edward P. Morgan broadcast a stirring account of the collision, not telling listeners that his 14-year-old daughter
Linda Morgan had been aboard
Andrea Doria and was feared dead. It was later revealed that she had been thrown from her bed when the two ships collided only to land on
Stockholm's deck, suffering moderate but not life-threatening injuries and earning the epithet "miracle girl". The following night, after learning the good news, Edward P. Morgan's emotional broadcast became one of the more memorable in radio news history. Among
Andrea Dorias passengers were Hollywood actress
Ruth Roman and her three-year-old son, Richard. In the 1950 film
Three Secrets, Roman had portrayed a distraught mother waiting to learn whether or not her child had survived a plane crash. She and her son were separated from each other during the collision and evacuation. Rescued, Roman had to wait to learn her child's fate, which resulted in a media frenzy for photos as she waited at the pier in New York City for her child's safe arrival aboard one of the rescue ships. Actress
Betsy Drake, who was married to movie star
Cary Grant at the time, also escaped from the sinking liner, as did Philadelphia mayor
Richardson Dilworth and songwriter Mike Stoller (of the team
Leiber and Stoller). Assisted by the
American Red Cross and news photographers, the frantic parents of four-year-old Norma Di Sandro learned that their injured daughter had been airlifted from
Stockholm to a hospital in Boston, where the previously unidentified little girl had undergone surgery for a fractured skull. They drove all night from New York to Boston, with police escorts provided to their convoy in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. When they arrived, the child was still unconscious and the doctors said all that could be done was wait to see if she woke up. The little girl never regained consciousness, and succumbed to her injuries. Other families also had their hopes of seeing loved ones again dashed, especially those who were meeting members of several young families immigrating to the United States in hope of new lives. The pier in New York where
Stockholm was heading was packed with newsreel photographers and television crews. All the major department stores and shoe stores had booths set up to give the arriving survivors clothing and shoes. Not many of the newspeople spoke Italian, so confusion occurred when the survivors were asked to take off the clothing they were just given, to be photographed putting the clothes on. But after just a few minutes, everyone was clothed and had shoes to wear. The sinking produced a
footnote in automotive history, as it resulted in the loss of the
Chrysler Norseman, an advanced "one-off" prototype car that had been built for
Chrysler by
Ghia in Italy. The Norseman had been announced as a major attraction of the 1957 auto show circuit. However, it had not been shown to the public prior to the disaster, and was lost, along with other cars in
Andrea Dorias 50-car garage.
Casualties A total of 51 lives were lost in the collision and sinking, consisting of 46 passengers from the
Andrea Doria and five members of the crew of
Stockholm. Of the 46 passengers lost aboard
Andrea Doria, 43 died as a result of the collision. No remains were ever recovered of these casualties, and they are believed to remain entombed within the wreck. The area of
Andrea Dorias hull where
Stockholms bow penetrated encompassed five passenger decks. On the uppermost of these decks, the Upper Deck, at least eight first-class cabins were destroyed. In all, six first-class passengers lost their lives. In cabin 46, Colonel Walter Carlin had been in the bathroom brushing his teeth at the time of the collision and miraculously survived, while his wife Jeanette was killed. Later aboard
Stockholm, crewmen searching the wreckage of the mangled bow sighted the remains of a woman matching Mrs. Carlin's description lodged in the wreckage, but before they could recover it, debris became dislodged and the body fell into the sea. In direct line of
Stockholms bow on the upper deck were cabins 52 and 54, which were occupied by Camille Cianfarra, a longtime foreign correspondent for
The New York Times, his wife Jane, their 8-year-old daughter Joan and 14-year-old
Linda Morgan, Jane's daughter from her previous marriage to American journalist
Edward P. Morgan. Joan was killed instantly, while Camille died from severe injuries moments after the collision. Jane was seriously injured, but was rescued by some other passengers, among them Dr. Thure Peterson, who had been next door in cabin 56. He sustained only minor injuries, while his wife Martha was gravely wounded and was trapped along with Jane Cianfarra. After a long struggle to free her, largely on the part of her husband, Martha succumbed to her injuries a few hours after the collision. One deck below on the Foyer Deck, near the first-class entrance, Ferdinand Melly Thieriot, circulation director of
The San Francisco Chronicle, along with his wife Frances (whose grandson is the actor
Max Thieriot) were killed, as their suite was in direct line of
Stockholms bow. Their 13-year-old son Peter, who occupied a cabin further down the corridor, survived. On the decks below, titled A, B and C Decks, the loss of life was greater, as it was the location of several sections of tourist-class cabins. On A Deck, eleven passengers, consisting of ten women and one elderly clergyman, were all killed. In Cabin 230, three women, Margaret Carola, Christina Covino and Amelia Iazzetta, were killed instantly. Carola had been on board with her elderly mother Rosa Carola, who had also been assigned a berth in the cabin but because she suffered from a variety of health problems, she had been in the ship's infirmary at the time of the collision and survived. Covino and Iazzetta were both sisters from New York who were returning from a visit to Italy. They were accompanied by Iazzetta's husband Benvenuto, who had been berthed in another cabin and survived. In the next cabin forward, Cabin 228, four more women lost their lives. Among them was Laura Bremermann, a young mother of two who was returning home to Fort Worth, Texas after visiting her native Italy. Two days before the disaster Bremermann sent a telegram to her husband Floyd asking him to meet her in New York. When he arrived to find her missing he inquired with the Italian line, who initially reported she was not on the passenger list, which Bremermann refuted using the telegram from his wife as proof. On B Deck,
Andrea Dorias 50-car garage was staved in by the bow of
Stockholm, but on C Deck, the worst loss of life occurred. A total of 26 people were killed in the collision section there, mostly Italian immigrant families. Among those killed in the collision on C Deck was opera singer Agnes Baratta, who at the time was a leading soprano of Milan's
La Scala Opera House. She and her elderly mother Margherita Baratta had been en route to Redwood City, California, to visit her sister, after which Agnes had intended to audition for the
San Francisco Opera House. Maria Theresina Imberlone, like the Barattas, was also bound for the San Francisco Bay Area, and was also killed in the collision. Imberlone's husband Giacomo and their 13-year-old son Giovanni, who shared another cabin, both survived. Among the losses was that of Maria Sergio and her four children, 13-year-old Giuseppe, 10-year-old Anna Maria, 7-year-old Domenica, and 4-year-old Rocco, who occupied a cabin on the starboard side of C Deck that was in direct line of the collision. She was traveling aboard
Andrea Doria with her children on her way to
South Bend, Indiana, where her husband, Ross Sergio, and their 17-year-old son Anthony, were waiting for them. Anthony Sergio had in fact sailed to the United States from Italy aboard
Andrea Doria the previous April. Also traveling with them were Maria's sister Margaret and her husband Paul Sergio, who also happened to be Ross Sergio's brother. Paul and Margaret had emigrated to the U.S. prior to the voyage and had returned to Italy for a visit and to accompany Maria and the children back to Indiana. Both Paul and Margaret survived the sinking, and for years after the disaster, Paul was haunted by the memory of his four-year-old nephew Rocco, the youngest of his brother's children, who just hours prior to the collision had asked if he could spend the night with his uncle. Also lost in the collision section of C deck were Angelina Diana and her two youngest children, eight-year-old Biaggio and six-year-old Victoria. They had been en route to Hartford, Connecticut, where Angelina's husband Antonio and three of their older children were waiting. In a 2003 episode of the History Channel series
Deep Sea Detectives featuring the story of
Andrea Doria, show host and wreck diver John Chatterton met with Angelina Diana's son Gennaro and his daughter, whom he'd named Angelina, after her grandmother, and heard the story of how the disaster came to impact their family so profoundly. In speaking with Chatterton, Gennaro recalled excitedly waking up that morning and driving to New York with his father and two older sisters to meet the rest of their family, but as the survivors from
Andrea Doria came ashore, they waited for five or six days until it was confirmed that Angelina, Biaggio and Victoria were among the 51 people who lost their lives in the disaster. Meanwhile, the younger Angelina explained how she grew up with a sense of great pride having been named after her grandmother, which was in turn mirrored with sadness in never having gotten to know her, or her aunt and uncle. She then gives Chatterton a green bottle containing a family jewel, asking him to place it on the wreck to honor their loved ones' memory, which Chatterton does later in the episode during a dive to the wrecksite. In addition to the lives lost in the collision, three more of
Andrea Dorias passengers died from injuries and ailments that occurred during and after the evacuation. Norma Di Sandro, a four-year-old Italian girl traveling in tourist class with her parents, Tullio and Filomena Di Sandro, was dropped on her head into a lifeboat by her panicked father. She was taken to
Stockholm and subsequently airlifted to Brighton Marine Hospital in Boston, where she died from a fractured cranium without ever regaining consciousness. Carl Watres, a businessman from Manasquan, New Jersey, who was traveling in cabin class aboard
Andrea Doria with his wife Lillian, died from a sudden heart attack while en route to New York aboard
Stockholm. Angelina Grego, a 48-year-old, broke her back after falling into one of
Ile de France lifeboats. She was taken to St. Claire's Hospital in New York City, where she lingered in intense pain until her death six months later. After the ships had separated,
Stockholm crew members began to survey the damage. On the top deck of
Stockholm, one of the crew came across Linda Morgan, who had been thrown from her bed on
Andrea Doria as the two ships collided, and landed on
Stockholms deck, suffering moderate but not life-threatening injuries. Others were not as fortunate, as five of
Stockholms crew perished in the collision. ==Aftermath==