SS Morro Castle (1930)

''Morro Castle'' was an American ocean liner that caught fire and ran aground on the morning of September 8, 1934, en route from Havana, Cuba, to New York City, United States, with the loss of 137 passengers and crew.

On the previous evening, ''Morro Castle''s captain, Robert Willmott, had died suddenly, and his place was taken by Chief Officer William Warms as a strong northeast wind was developing under heavy cloud. At 2:50am, a fire was detected in a storage locker which burned through electrical cables, engulfed the ship in flames, and plunged it into darkness. Response by crew, Coast Guard, and rescue vessels was notably slow and inefficient, with empty capacity in the lifeboats. The decks were too hot to stand on, smoke made breathing difficult, and passengers were forced to leap into ocean swells where swimming was impossible. By mid-afternoon ''Morro Castle'' was abandoned and the survivors were landed on the shores of New Jersey by an assortment of craft.

The cause of the fire was never established, though an overheated funnel and certain points of cabin design and electrical circuitry were noted. A theory of arson by a crew member has attracted support over the years, albeit without any concrete evidence. The high casualties are chiefly blamed on the crew's incompetent handling of the emergency.

Building

On May 22, 1928, the United States Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1928, creating a $250 million construction fund to be lent to U.S. shipping companies to replace old and outdated ships with new ones. Each of these loans, which could subsidize as much as 75% of the cost of the ship, was to be paid back over 20 years at low interest rates.

One company that availed itself of this opportunity was the New York and Cuba Mail Steam Ship Company, better known as the Ward Line, which had been carrying passengers, cargo and mail to and from Cuba since the mid-19th century. Naval architects were hired by the line to design a pair of passenger liners to be named ''Morro Castle'', after the stone fortress and lighthouse in Havana, and '' Oriente'', after Oriente Province in Cuba.

At the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, work was begun on ''Morro Castle'' in January 1929. In March 1930 the ship was christened, followed in May by her sister ship ''Oriente''. Each ship was long, measured and had turbo-electric transmission, with General Electric twin turbo generators supplying current to propulsion motors on twin propeller shafts. Each ship was luxuriously finished to accommodate 489 passengers in first and tourist class and 240 officers and crew. In a growing age of passenger ships having cruiser sterns, ''Morro Castle'' and ''Oriente'' were built with classic counter sterns.

As built, ''Morro Castle'' was equipped with direction finding and submarine signalling equipment. Submarine signalling was becoming obsolete as a form of communication, so by 1934 it had been removed. By that year echo sounding equipment and a gyrocompass had been installed on the ship.

Career

''Morro Castle'' began her maiden voyage on August 23, 1930. She lived up to expectations by completing the maiden 1,100+ mile southbound trip in just under 59 hours, and the return trip took only 58 hours. Over the next four years, ''Morro Castle'' and ''Oriente'' were luxury ship workhorses, rarely out of service and, despite the worsening of the Great Depression, able to maintain a steady clientele. Their success was in part due to Prohibition, as such trips provided a relatively affordable and (more importantly) legal means of enjoying a non-stop drinking party. Their reasonable rates also attracted Cuban and American businessmen and older couples, making the ships a microcosm of America.

Final voyage

Impending nor'easter

The final voyage of ''Morro Castle'' began in Havana on September 5, 1934. On the afternoon of the 6th, as the ship paralleled the southeastern coast of the United States, it began to encounter increasing clouds and wind. By the morning of the 7th, the clouds had thickened and the winds had shifted to easterly, the first indication of a developing nor'easter. Throughout that day, the winds increased and intermittent rains began, causing many to retire early to their berths.

Captain's death

Early that evening, Captain Robert Rennison Willmott had his dinner delivered to his quarters. Shortly thereafter, he complained of stomach trouble and, not long after that, died of an apparent heart attack. Command of the ship passed to the Chief Officer, William Warms. During the overnight hours, the winds increased to over 30 miles per hour as the ''Morro Castle'' plodded its way up the eastern seaboard.

Fire

At around 2:50 a.m. on September 8, while the ship was sailing around eight nautical miles off Long Beach Island, a fire was detected in a storage locker within the First Class Writing Room on B Deck. Within the next 30 minutes, the ''Morro Castle'' became engulfed in flames. As the fire grew in intensity, Acting Captain Warms attempted to beach the ship, but the growing need to launch lifeboats and abandon ship forced him to give up his plan.

Within 20 minutes of the fire's discovery (at about 3:10), the fire had burned through the ship's main electrical cables, plunging the ''Morro Castle'' into darkness. As all power was lost, the radio stopped working, so only a single SOS signal was sent. At about the same time, the wheelhouse lost the ability to steer the ship, as those hydraulic lines were severed by the fire as well.

Cut off by the fire amidships, passengers tended to move toward the stern. Most crew members, on the other hand, moved to the forecastle. In many places, the deck boards were hot to the touch, and breathing was difficult in the thick smoke. As conditions grew steadily worse, the decision became either "jump or burn" for many passengers. However, jumping into the water was problematic, as high winds churned up great waves that made swimming extremely difficult.

On the decks of the burning ship, the crew and passengers exhibited the full range of reactions to the disaster at hand. Some crew members were incredibly brave as they tried to fight the fire. Others tossed deck chairs and life rings overboard to provide persons in the water with makeshift flotation devices.

Only six of the ship's twelve lifeboats were launched: boats 1, 3, 5, 9, and 11 on the starboard side, and boat 10 on the port side. Although the combined capacity of these boats was 408, they carried only 85 people, most of them crew members. Many passengers died for lack of knowledge of how to use the life preservers. As they hit the water, life preservers knocked many persons unconscious, leading to subsequent death by drowning, or broke victims' necks from the impact, killing them instantly.

Rescue efforts at sea

The rescuers were slow to react. The first rescue ship to arrive on the scene was ''Andrea F. Luckenbach''. Two other ships—'' Monarch of Bermuda'' and ''City of Savannah''—were slow in taking action after receiving the SOS but eventually did arrive on the scene. The fourth ship to participate in the rescue operations was , which launched a motor boat that made a cursory circuit around the ''Morro Castle'' and, upon seeing nobody in the water along her route, retrieved her motor boat and left the scene.

The Coast Guard vessels and positioned themselves too far away to see the victims in the water and rendered little assistance. The Coast Guard's aerial station at Cape May, New Jersey, failed to send their float planes until local radio stations started reporting that dead bodies were washing ashore on the New Jersey beaches, from Point Pleasant Beach