Desperate Hours: The Epic Story of the Rescue of the Andrea Doria

305 Pages·2003·2.08 MB·English

by  Richard Goldstein

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Desperate Hours
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Desperate Hours
The Epic Rescue
of the Andrea Doria
Richard Goldstein
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright © 2001 by Richard Goldstein. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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For Nancy
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part I The Voyage
1 “Brace Yourself” 5
2 “A Floating Art Gallery” 8
3 “Take the Doria, You’ll Never Forget It” 16
4 “A Picture of Scandinavian Efficiency” 25
5 “The Times Square of the Atlantic” 29
6 “Each Shall Alter Her Course to Starboard” 35
Part II The Collision
7 “Why Doesn’t He Whistle?” 47
8 “I Think We Hit an Iceberg” 52
9 “Don’t Worry, There’s Nothing Wrong” 62
10 “Need Immediate Assistance” 74
Part III The Rescue
11 “This Is No Drill” 87
12 “How Many Lifeboats?” 94
13 “We Are Bending Too Much” 102
14 “Let’s Pray to St. Ann” 107
15 “We Won’t Leave You” 120
16 “Lady, You’re Lucky to Be Alive” 125
17 “Light Up Everything, Quickly” 131
18 “You Have to Have Courage” 140
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19 “Get Your Cameras” 147
20 “Bulletin . . . Bulletin . . . Bulletin” 154
21 “You May Go, I’m Staying” 162
22 “Seaworthiness Nil” 167
23 “That Thing’s Going Down in Five Minutes” 174
24 “It Is Incomprehensible” 179
25 “How Good God Is to Me” 184
26 “Oh, What a Climax” 189
27 “It’s My Baby” 195
28 “I Lost My Love for Italians” 200
29 “This Is a Jumbled Story” 212
Part IV The Questions
30 “The Passengers Were Highly Excitable” 219
31 “It Could Have Been a Patch of Fog” 224
32 “The Stability of the Ship Was Low” 236
33 “I Could Have Changed Course” 240
Part V The Memories
34 “Why Did I Get Spared?” 251
35 “The Poor Man Was Destroyed” 264
Part VI The Shipwreck
36 “It’s Got the Mystique” 273
Appendix 281
Sources 283
Index 287
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Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to the men and women—the rescued and their rescuers—
who shared their memories of an extraordinary summer’s night on the
North Atlantic.
For providing photographs or helping me obtain documents and
other materials, a special thank you to Commander David Corey, Nor-
man Cubberly, Richard Faber, Joe Griffith, Linda Morgan Hardberger,
Dr. William Homan, Carol and William Johnson, Captain Robert
Meurn, Leonardo and Giovanna Paladino, Lennard Rambusch, Jerome
Reinert, and Francesco Scotto. Don Bowden of AP/WideWorld Photos
and Tom Gilbert of TimePix smoothed my research in their photo
archives.
Lennart Angelmo, Robert Bierman, Lars Hemingstam, Mary Kir-
son, Henrik Ljundstrom, Captain Robert Williamson, and Dr. Preston
Winters helped me locate people whose lives were touched by the colli-
sion of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm. Henrik Nordstrom trans-
lated correspondence in Swedish.
George J. Billy, chief librarian at the U.S. Merchant Marine Acad-
emy, and Richard Corson, chief librarian at the State University of New
York Maritime College, provided pointers for my research there.
I benefited greatly from the support and guidance of Stephen S.
Power, senior editor at John Wiley & Sons, and Emily Loose, who first
saw the possibilities in this story at Wiley, and from the efforts and
enthusiasm of Jim Hornfischer at The Literary Group International.
My wife, Dr. Nancy Lubell, was there as always with love and
encouragement.
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