There are few things more terrifying than being on a sinking ship at sea, but one event that probably rises up to the same level of a sinking would be finding yourself on a ship that was on fire out on the open ocean. The Lusitania, the Titanic, the Britannic and the Wilhelm Gustloff were all famous ships that sunk at sea. But how many people could name a ship that turned into nothing short of a flaming, red-hot, smoke-belching fire floating out in the middle of nowhere?
Probably not many. And yet, the disaster that befell the S.S. Morro Castle was one of the most famous ship-fires in history.
Morro Castle the Coast-Hugger
The S.S. Morro Castle was built in January, 1929, with construction finishing about eighteen months later. She was christened in March of 1930 and was finally completed in August of that year, by which time, the Great Depression had taken a firm grip on the United States of America. The S.S. Morro Castle was a direct result of the Merchant Marine Act of 1928, which allowed American ship-companies to construct new ships to replace their aging steamers, with the government subsidising as much as three-quarters of the cost of the construction of each ship.
The Morro Castle, the second ship of that name constructed by the Ward Line; a steam passenger-and-mail ship company that transported people and mail between New York and Cuba, operating routes up and down the Eastern U.S. seaboard. The Morro Castle’s route was between New York City in the United States and Havanna, Cuba.
A postcard of the S.S. Morro Castle
The Morro Castle was designed as a relaxing and luxurious cruise-ship. sailing up and down the U.S. eastern coastline, something that she managed to do, despite the crippling effects of the Great Depression, which robbed her of many of her most promising and high-paying passengers. For four years, the Morro Castle sailed thousands of miles up and down the U.S. coastline, a trip from New York to Havanna taking just 59 hours. Part of the reason why the Morro Castle was able to keep such a steady cliente was because she was allowed to stock, transport and serve alcoholic beverages (which were illegal in the United States from 1920-1933). As a result of this, most of the passengers onboard the Morro Castle often boarded her with the desire to take part in a week-long, totally legal booze-cruise, up and down America’s Atlantic coastline. The low ticket-prices (due to the Depression) meant that a wider range of passengers could be found onboard the Morro Castle. The Depression did have the positive effect in that more people were able to afford a relaxing cruise now, due to the drop in prices. Anyone from honeymoon couples, families, socialites, wealthy businessmen and married couples wanting a romantic, anniversary cruise.
Where there’s Smoke, there’s Fire
For four years, the Morro Castle was a successful, popular cruise-ship, transporting a wide variety of people from lovers to couples to wealthy businessmen and families, to socialites and millionaires up and down the west side of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the Depression, business was going well and there didn’t seem to be anything in the world that could stop the Morro Castle’s wonderful career.
That all changed in early September of 1934.
It was the height of the Depression in 1933-1934; more people were out of work and unemployment in the USA had reached the dizzying level of 25%! The broadway musical, “Anything Goes” was weeks from its premier. If not for the disaster of the Morro Castle, the musical would’ve been known as “Hard to Get”, a comedy set onboard a transatlantic ocean-liner steaming from England to New York City. The recent tragedy at sea, however, caused the show’s writers to change the title and the majority of the script in light of these terrible, recent events.
So one of the most famous songs in history, “Anything Goes”, was born. And on the S.S. Morro Castle, literally anything did go…terribly wrong.
The Morro Castle steamed out of Havanna Bay, past Morro Castle, the coastal fort that gave it its name, on the 5th of September, 1934. Things were going well. People were happy, the weather was fine and there wasn’t a whiff of danger anywhere in the air. Over the next two days, however, conditions at sea and onboard the ship, worsened dramatically. The weather began to steadily deteriorate, with increasing cloud, stronger winds and occasional rain making this voyage more treacherous than previous ones. Many passengers spent their time indoors due to the rough weather. On the evening of the 7th of September, the Morro Castle’s captain, Robert Willmott, had his dinner served to him in his own quarters. Shortly thereafter, he complained of stomach-troubles and died a few hours later of a heart-attack. Many of the Morro Castle’s regular passengers must’ve felt immense sadness at this event, for Capt. Willmott was a popular man with his passengers and crew and was fond of socialising with the people onboard his ship. William Warms, Chief Officer onboard the Morro Castle, took over command of the vessel as Capt. Willmott’s immediate subordinate. Some people questioned whether Capt. Willmott had died a natural death; passengers and crew began to suspect murder and a future sabotage of the ship by communist agents, who might have boarded the Morro Castle before it left Cuba. The ship’s physician, as well as three other doctors travelling onboard as guests, examined Capt. Willmott’s body and agreed that he had died of a heart-attack.
But Acting Captain Warms had no time to think of conspiracies and plots. Weather did not improve; the winds and the sea grew progressively rougher, making the voyage even more tricky than it already was. Warms had to concentrate on keeping the ship safe and on-course.
At about 2:50am on the morning of the 8th of September, disaster struck. A fire had started in the First Class Writing Room on B Deck. Within minutes of its discovery, the fire, which had previously been confined to a small locker, spread rapidly. With the Morro Castle sailing so close to the U.S. coastline, Warms’ original decision was to steer the ship hard a’port so that he could beach the vessel on the coast, giving panicking passengers a chance to escape the flaming ship with their lives. The seriousness of the fire, however, meant that he had to postpone this action until much later in the emergency.
The death of Capt. Willmott had severely scrambled up the chain of command onboard the Morro Castle. Since Warms was now captain, the First Officer became Chief, Second became First, Third became Second, and so-on down the line. While this doesn’t sound very serious, it should be noted that each officer had very specific duties to attend to. The sudden reshuffling of officers meant that the men had to suddenly carry out duties which they had not yet been trained to do.
Upon the discovery of the fire, the crew did not tackle it immediately with fire-extinguishers as they should have done, but instead returned to the bridge to report the incident to the acting captain. This wasted precious seconds, during which the fire might have been controlled. This and their further failure to close fire and smoke-doors allowed the blaze to spread from its confined space in the cupboard of the Writing Room, to all over the ship in a matter of minutes. Within half an hour, the Morro Castle was a floating fireball. Crew untrained in fire-drills hooked up fire-hoses to the various fire-hydrants around the ship and turned them on in an attempt to fight the flames. However, the design of the Morro Castle’s plumbing meant that only six hydrants could be operated at any one time. In their frenzied attempts to control the fire, the crew forgot this and turned on more than the maximum number of hydrants. This caused a severe drop in water-pressure which rendered the hoses completely useless for the task that they were installed for!
Passengers, either roused by the crew or awakened by the smoke and flames, tried to make their way to the lifeboats, however the flames and smoke made navigation of the ship very difficult. Many people found themselves trapped near the stern of the Morro Castle as they tried to escape the fire which was burning amidships. More unfortunate was the fact that this was where many of the lifeboats were located.
Calling for Help
George Alanga and George W. Rogers were the Morro Castle’s two radio-operators. Alanga, already awake, roused his colleague who took control of the ship’s wireless set and sent Alanga to the bridge to ask if the captain wished to send out a distress-call. The bridge was absolute chaos. The fire had disabled the Morro Castle’s steering, which had forced Capt. Warms to abandon his plan to beach the vessel. Alanga heard Warms shouting to Chief Engineer Abbott to keep the boilers fired up so that the crew would have enough water-pressure to fight the flames. Abbott was heard to say to the acting captain that it was “too late now!”
Unable to get Warms’ attention in the confusion, Alanga ran back to the wireless-room, telling Rogers that “They’re all crazy up there!” Rogers insisted that Alanga get Capt. Warms’ permission before he sent off a distress-call and sent his colleague back to the bridge. On his second trip there, Alanga finally got the acting captain’s attention, who asked him to send out an SOS distress-call.
Flames were approaching the radio-room now and the fire had been burning for twenty-five minutes before Rogers finally sent out the fist distress call about 3:20am. Other ships in the area had noticed the smoke and flames and had radioed the nearby coastguard post to ask if a ship was in danger. At 3:10am, the main electrical systems on the ship began to fail. While the radio remained functional, the lights onboard the Morro Castle went out.
The heat of the flames started playing with Rogers’ radio-set. The batteries on the radio-reciever exploded, spraying acid all over the place. Rogers was unhurt and was relieved when he discovered that his transmitter was still functional. While he would not be able to recieve messages, he could still send them, and quickly sent out several distress-calls for help.
By now, the fire had fully taken hold of the Morro Castle and Warms realised that any attempts to put out the inferno were in vain. He initially ordered that the ship be steered by using the engines; cutting off power to one engine and transferring it to another so that the ship could be steered by its propellers alone. Unfortunately, the fire had advanced so greatly that by this stage that engine-room crews were unable to man their posts without risking serious injuries. Warms ordered the anchors dropped so that lifeboats could be safely loaded and lowered. By now, the ship was about five miles off the coast of New Jersey.
An aerial photograph of the S.S. Morro Castle, taken during the early morning
Impatient or terrified passengers could no-longer wait for the officers to do anything. In desperation to escape the floating inferno, many jumped from the ship into the water. Crewmembers who were supposed to be manning pumps and fire-hoses abandoned their posts, stole life-jackets, lowered boats and rowed away. Other crewmembers, less cowardly than their colleagues, aided passengers into lifeboats or found them lifejackets. The Morro Castle had a total of twelve lifeboats, with a capacity of 816 people. However, in the panic and confusion, only six of these boats, starboard boats #1, 3, 5, 9 and 11, and port lifeboat #10, could be lowered safely. Between them, they could carry 408 passengers, but rowed away with only a total of 85 people onboard; mostly crewmembers.
With the other lifeboats inaccessible, other crewmembers started throwing deckchairs and life-rings over the side of the ship. Passengers in the water could hold onto them and use them as flotation-devices. As with the Titanic, passengers who jumped into the water from the stern wearing their lifebelts risked breaking their necks when they hit the water. This was caused by the boyancy of the lifebelts, which sprung up when they hit the water, while the wearer’s bodyeight went downwards. This caused the belts to hit the wearers on their chins, giving them whiplash or even breaking their necks and killing them instantly.
Cruise Director Smith, along with radio-operators Alanga and Rogers, was one of the heroes of that fateful day. Calm and collected in the midst of chaos, he rallied the passengers together on the stern of the flaming ship and explained to them as best as he could, the safest way to deal with the situation at hand. He implored passengers not to jump into the water. They should dive if they entered the water at all. And even then only after the ship had stopped moving, for the suction from the propellers might cause them to drown or even worse, be sliced up like mincemeat!
Chief Engineer Abbott, however, personnified cowardice during the disaster. Instead of reporting back to the engine-rooms after seeing the captain, as he was meant to do, Abbott, along with twenty-six other crewmembers, commandeered a lifeboat with a capacity for sixty-three and, with three passengers onboard, lowered away and rowed directly for land, five miles away, not even bothering to stop and pick up passengeres in the water. “It was a moment of shame for all those who believe in the tradition of the sea”, Capt. Warms said later.
Eventually, Warms gave the order to abandon ship. By now, many of the passengers had already done so. Along with radio-operators Alanga and Rogers and ten others, Warms stayed onboard ship until the end.
A total of six vessels responded to wireless-operator Rogers’ calls for help; one freight-ship, three ocean-liners and two coastguard vessels. They were, in order of response:
S.S. Andrea F. Luckenbach.
S.S. Monarch of Bermuda.
S.S. City of Savannah.
S.S. President Cleveland.
These four were later joined by U.S. Coastguard vessels Tampa and Cahoone.
Despite the overwhelming response from nearby vessels, rescuing passengers in the water was not easy. The rough conditions at sea made it hard for lifeboat-crews to spot the heads of panicking Morro Castle passengers, bobbing in the waves. The Luckenbach had only two lifeboats to rescue passengers with. The Monarch of Bermuda and the City of Savannah, both proper-sized ocean-iners, were able to lower more lifeboats to aid in the rescue of struggling swimmers. The S.S. President Cleveland was unable to find any survivors and soon steamed off.
Eventually, local radio-stations heard of the unfolding disaster and telegraph-wires buzzed hot with the news. Telephones rang and the word spread up and down the New Jersey coast that the S.S. Morro Castle was in danger. New Jersey Governor, Harry Moore took to the skies. Using an airplane, he flew around the ship, taking photographs, but also dropping floating markers into the water so that lifeboat-crews at sea-level could more easily identify struggling swimmers. Eventually, passengers from the stricken liner, both dead and alive, began washing up on the New Jersey coastline. People from the nearby towns ran forward to aid the survivors ashore and to help treat their injuries. Private fishing-boats and pleasure-yachts were either skippered by their owners or commandeered in the emergency, and were sailed out into the surf in an attempt to rescue more people.
Townsfolk set up field-hospitals and relief-stations, treating and nursing the injured and recording the names of survivors. They helped passengers find friends and family whom they’d become seperated from in the chaos and helped to retrieve dead bodies from the surf. Of the 549 passengers and crew onboard the S.S. Morro Castle, 135 of them either burned to death or drowned, trying to escape.
The fire onboard the S.S. Morro Castle remains one of the biggest maritime disasters in the world. In the days after the disaster, the Morro Castle drifted ashore and beached itself near Asbury Park, New Jersey. The fire burned for another two days; it was decided that the ship was a total loss, anyway, so no great efforts were taken to try and put the fire out any faster than nature intended to. From September, 1934 until March, 1935, the ship remained beached near Asbury Park. Due to its closeness to shore, for the next few months, the ship became something of a tourist attraction. People came from all over the nearby states to view the charred wreck…and even to touch it! When the tide went out, it was possible to wade out to the Morro Castle and feel it with your hands!
The smouldering hulk of the S.S. Morro Castle, beached off the coast of New Jersey; 1934. You can still see four, unlaunched lifeboats onboard; three on the port side, and lifeboat #7 hanging lopsidedly on the starboard side (to the right of the second smokestack)
Eventually, in mid-March of 1935, the Morro Castle was towed away for scrap.
An investigation into the disaster revealed many things about the deficiencies in the ship’s design, as well as the conduct of the crew. With a few notable exceptions, such as Cruise Director Smith, many crew and officers abandoned their posts and fled from the ship in lifeboats. Those that remained manned their posts poorly, allowing the fire to spread. Those already in the lifeboats made no effort to save passengers already in the water, instead rowing directly for land. Despite trying his best, even Capt. Williarm Warms came under fire from the inquiries. It was established that he never left the bridge to examine for himself, the full extent of the fire and never engaged the ship’s emergency steering or electrical systems, when the main ones had failed.
Acting captain William Warms, Chief Engineer Eban Abbott and Henry Cabaud, Vice-President of the Ward Line, were all sentenced to prison-terms, charged and convicted of willful negligence. Capt. Warms and Engineer Abbott appealed their convictions, which were later overturned. Warms had been thrust into the position of captain when Capt. Willmott died and was in no position to effectively command the crew in the event of an emergency. Abbott abandoned ship because he was unable to do his duties properly due to the spreading of the fire.
Chief wireless operator, George White Rogers was praised as a hero in the disaster, for sending out distress-signals when no official word from the bridge had come that he should do so. His fame was short-lived, however. He was convicted of trying to murder a policeman, Vincent Doyle, later in his life. Doyle tried to prove that Rogers had also set the Morro Castle on fire, but this was never proved. Eventually, Rogers was arrested for murdering a neighbouring couple of his for their money. He was convicted and died in jail in 1957.
The Morro Castle disaster is famous for advancing fire-safety at sea. Thanks to the Morro Castle, ships were renovated or built with automatic fire-doors, better fire-alarm systems and fireproof materials were used to build walls and ceilings in cabins. Mandatory firefighting training on all ships, which is a law today, was a direct result of the wholly inefficient way which the fire was fought onboard the Morro Castle, over 70 years ago.
There are a few strange facts about the Morro Castle disaster: Unlike the Titanic, the Hindenburg, the Lusitania and even 9/11, it has never had a feature-film or even a television-movie produced about it. And the ship’s radio callsign (KGOV) is still registered to the ship by the FCC, and is therefore unavailable for use by radio-stations. On September 8th, 2009, the first-ever memorial service to the Morro Castle disaster was held in Asbury Park, New Jersey, on the 75th anniversary of the disaster, and on the very spot where the ship came aground, so many decades ago.