CATASTROPHE: Inferno Afloat

At the entrance to Havana Harbor stands a grey 300-year-old fortress called Morro Castle. On the sandy beach at Asbury Park, N. J. last week lay the smoking, fire-gutted, heat-wracked cadaver of a liner named after the fortress. Between Morro Castle and Asbury Park the Morro Castle passed through a maritime horror unequalled since the Vestris went down off the Virginia Capes (TIME, Nov. 26, 1928).

Wednesday evening the twin-screw turbo-electric liner Morro Castle, 11,500 tons, lay at her Ward Line pier in Havana. In her hold was a cargo of 750 tons of perishable fruit. She was manned by a crew of 240. And up her gangway, in little groups chattering about their Cuban purchases, trooped 318 passengers. Most of them were U. S. vacationists on a week's southern cruise and few of them were distinguished persons. The Morro Castle was warped into the roadstead, stood out of the harbor, bound for New York, three days away.

The barometer began to fall off the Florida Keys. On the second day a heavy sea was running. By the next evening the Morro Castle was riding a gale off the Capes.

No Caribbean tramp was T. E. L. Morro Castle. The last word in mechanical modernity, her propulsion was of the most expensive sort: oil-burning boilers drove steam turbines to power the motors which turned her screws. She was built at Newport News, Va. in 1930 for $5,500.000. Against fire she was protected by one of the most elaborate systems ever installed afloat. In a special fire-control room was a switchboard, supposed to be manned day & night, with tubes which permitted the operator to pipe fire-extinguishing gas to any threatened part of the ship. An automatic alarm system was designed to indicate instantly the position of fire in any part of the vessel.

Though the Morro Castle was smaller than most transatlantic liners, her 21-knot speed and sumptuous appointments put her in the deluxe class on the New York-Havana run. Her master, Robert R. Willmott, 31 years in service, was Commodore of the Ward Line fleet.

Night of the farewell cruise dinner, Capt. Willmott was not there to play host. Day before, complaining of a stomach ache, he had retired to his cabin. In the dining saloon paper hats bobbed merrily, poppers crackled amid the small extravagances of last-night wine. But Capt. Willmott lay dead, half in, half out of his cabin bath tub, dead, said the ship's doctor, of "acute indigestion and heart attack."

Chief Officer William F. Warms wirelessed his owners in New York: "Willmott deceased 7:45 p. m." The Ward Line radioed back for confirmation, received it from the purser. The farewell dance was canceled. Heavyhearted. Chief Officer Warms, now acting captain, began pacing his bridge. A fog closed in.