We went out looking yesterday morning for the Andrea Doria, heaving pitilessly in the Atlantic about sixty-five miles southeast of the Vineyard. But we missed her by barely a quarter of an hour, for she had already turned over and disappeared into the depths.
The first phone call had come about 4:30 a.m. We were asked if word had got around of the great collision off Nantucket between the Italian luxury vessel, carrying upwards of 1700 persons, both crew and passengers, and the Swedish liner, Stockholm, with a complement of more than 700, during immersement in a fog bank.
Indeed, word had got around at that hour only to the most intrepid insomniacs—for the others, sleep was still the only immersement, and calamities were no more than visionary.
Sensational Rescue
Already a sensational sea rescue had taken place, for almost everyone aboard the Andrea Doria had been taken off. This was the more remarkable because a precarious list from the time of impact—the Italian liner, inbound from Europe, had been rammed at midships by the smaller Stockholm, outbound from New York—made it impossible to launch lifeboats in the usual fashion. Instead, crew and passengers descended over the side as the great ship foundered, using nets and ladders, and were picked up by vessels in nearby waters hastily summoned to the scene, including her Imperious Highness, the Ile de France.
The Stockholm also was badly damaged, her bow, according to eye-witnesses, looking like a well-played accordion. Nevertheless, she stood by during the rescue operation and then lumbered on back to New York, her bow hanging in apparent shame. (Washington officials were inclined yesterday to attribute the tragedy to the Stockholm’s straying from her prescribed course, though the final verdict was yet to come in.)
But it was the Andrea Doria which, from the start, appeared mortally wounded and almost certain of capsizing and going down—the pride of the Italian passenger service, regarded as one of the most beautiful ships afloat, going to a watery, premature and incomprehensible death. For was not this the age of air tragedies, automobile accidents, and occasional train crashes, with ocean-going ships especially invulnerable to coming to a bad end?
Or perhaps this was merely further evidence that the twentieth century refuses to accommodate sure things.
At any rate, there was no debating the reports that came in both by phone and radio; those are two instruments that can always be relied on, barring (exceptions must always be made) kidnap hoaxes and Orson Welles. Details multiplied, and as the extent of the calamity became increasingly apparent, the wonder grew at the small loss of life thus far recorded.
Relatively close though the crash site was to the Vineyard, few Island captains were willing to risk their boats in reaching it, and airplanes were at a premium even on the plea of professional interest. But finally Steve Gentle came forward, a bit hesitantly, to say he was taking some passengers to Nantucket around 9:30 and would have an extra seat available for the flight.
Steve’s interest, of course, was professional as anyone’s, for he is not only a proficient pilot and manager of the Edgartown Airport, but also a skillful aerial photographer who knew a good possibility when he saw one. But Steve was also circumspect. He preferred not to fly out that far over the Atlantic in a single-engine plane without giving the matter serious consideration.
The flight to Nantucket was uneventful, and everyone commented on what a beautiful day it was, warm and dry and golden. But you could see, looking beyond Nantucket, the haze thickening over the ocean—remnant of the night’s diabolical fog.
Nantucket was a bee-hive. The Coast Guard was all over the airport; already the first injured survivors, removed from the Stockholm, had been flown in by helicopter and were being treated at the Nantucket hospital.
Buzzing Like Horseflies
On the airfield, cameramen and flies, pencils and cameras poised for the kill, and a large Coast Guard plane stood by for further rescue service. It was said the road to the hospital was being kept clear by police road-blocks to assure the fastest possible transportation for the injured.
Steve said he would make inquiries about flying to the site. The plane had to be fueled up, of course, and a formal request made to fly into the disaster zone, long since crowded with an airborne army of the press. Even if his request was granted, however, he would still have to think about it. Lindbergh had flown over the whole length of the Atlantic in a single-engine plane, but surely not every man is cast in the heroic mold.
Nevertheless, Steve’s mold is good enough. He said we might as well make a stab at it. After all, the whole Atlantic wasn’t to be flown over, but merely a fifty mile stretch, over and back. Greater risks have been taken in smaller causes.
Meanwhile the gravity of the accident was brought home when the four injured survivors—a fifth had just died in Nantucket—were returned to the airfield for transferral to Boston. As the stretchers were gently lifted from the ambulance, the pain and shock showed on the victims’ faces, and over their sheeted bodies. They were crewmen from the Swedish vessel who were apparently wounded by the severity of the impact. Their names had an unmistakenly Swedish sound as pinned to their blankets, and so did their tanned Nordic faces. One of them was said to have been muttering about seeing Sweden again—a sob-sisterish sort of report that told by a hard-bitten photographer who had been on hand for their arrival by helicopter an hour or so earlier.
A reporter attempted to draw close to one of the stretchers and obtain an exclusive interview with one of the survivors, his face still blood-spattered and his eyes closed. But one of the ambulance attendants pulled him back, explaining none of the men was talking—or could talk.
Grim Mental Picture
The scene provided a grim mental picture as Steve taxied his plane down the runway, and then flew off over the broad Nantucket dunes. He had his flight plan carefully plotted, and forecast an outbound trip of approximately twenty-five minutes.
Below, the sea looked peaceful, as though denying tragedy. It was deeply blue, and despite an increasing wind, looked as calm as Sunday. But in the distance the haze was thickening—it was not going to be so easy to locate the Andrea Doria, already lurching drunkenly, her decks awash, through this moist curtain.
Half way to the site, Steve heard through his earphones that the Andrea Doria had given up the ghost. It was she we had come to mourn, not the pug-nosed Stockholm, and our mission was now doomed. Not all interested parties are admitted to a funeral.
Nevertheless, Steve kept going. Having come this far, we might as well seek out the Stockholm and give her a piece of our minds. Although we spotted many planes in the air and ships on the surface, the Stockholm managed to elude us. No doubt we could have kept circling for hours. But one doesn’t spend the whole day scouring the ocean in a single-engine plane.
On the way back, Steve thought he might as well bypass Nantucket and return directly to the Vineyard. As he made a smooth landing on his own airfield, it was difficult for us to believe, back on solid ground in the late July sunshine, that close to 3,000 persons had spent the previous night at hell’s threshold, itself located for the occasion but a stone’s throw (or at least a short plane’s hop) from the Vineyard. As well as the next man’s, lightning strikes also one’s own back yard.