NEWS

By PAUL BOOTH
The Coaster

ASBURY PARK, Sept. 10, 2009 -- Seventy-five years later, the Morro Castle is still drawing crowds to Asbury Park.

On the anniversary of the 1934 maritime disaster Tuesday, the Asbury Park Historical Society hosted a dedication ceremony in honor of the 137 lives lost on that now famously ill-fated voyage that ended up a smouldering heap beached just off the city's coast.

Thousands of Shore residents crowded into the area at the time, not just to witness a historic event but also to lend assistance. The memorial unveiled Tuesday before a crowd of approximately 250, recognizes the efforts of those volunteers as well.

The memorial, a large slab of polished granite with hand carved lettering, is located on the southern side of Convention Hall, not far from where the smoking embers of the ship sat as a spectacle of intrigue for days. It was months before the ship was finally tugged to New York harbor.

On that September night 75 years ago, the doomed ship was headed north on its way from Cuba to New York, a trip the upscale ocean passenger liner made often. Trips between New York and Havana, a city considered somewhat wild and taboo, were popular at the time. The S.S. Morro Castle was named after a fortress that guards the entrance to Havana Bay.

On Tuesday morning, Marc Mappen, director of the New Jersey State Historical Commission, detailed the unfortunate and disturbing events that befell the Morro Castle, its passengers and crew. Under overcast skies and for a gathering crowd, Mappen painted a picture of ignorance, poor leadership, cowa dice and worse. Most seems pulled from a Hollywood script.

The ship's captain, Robert Willmott, died suddenly the evening of Sept. 7, complaining of stomach problems after eating dinner.

William Warms, the first mate. then took control of the ship and steered it headlong into a disaster, Mappen said. A fire was detected in one of the ship's writing rooms at about 3 a.m. the morning of the 8th. Rather than stop the ship and fight the fire, Warms, trying to get to shore, picked up speed against a 30 mph wind. The resulting heavy winds fanned the flames of the fire and exacerbated the situation. The ship, now several miles off the coast of Manasquan, was in major distress, as were its passengers and crew.

The crew did not properly man fire stations; they did not direct passengers toward exits. In the chaos and confusion, only a handful of the ship's dozen lifeboats were deployed. They could have carried more than 400 passengers, but they carried only 85, most of whom were crewmembers, Mappen said.

With a deck hot to the touch and thickening smoke, a decision for many of the passengers became burn, choke or jump. But jumping was no easy task. A rough sea and long fall meant possible death.

"Bodies washed ashore at Sea Girt and Manasquan," Mappen said.

The Morro Castle story is a neatly shrouded mystery in the "whodunnit" style.

Seventy five years later, the fire's cause is still unknown.

The initial hero, Chief Radio Operator George Rogers, who had transmitted the first distress signals, was later convicted of attempting to kill his boss with a letter bomb, and in 1954 he was convicted of a double homicide. He died in prison.

Desprate to be a hero, some say it was Rogers who started the fire.

Regardless, the lessons of the Morro Castle were important because they led to increased safety measures on passenger cruise ships. The implementation of mandatory safety drills, emergency systems, fire retardant materials and automatic fire doors are just some of the lessons learned from the unfortunate event.

Many passengers died simply from lack of knowledge. For those who jumped overboard, as they hit the water their life preservers knocked many unconscious, leading to death by drowning or a broken neck. killing them instantly.

Countless people from up and down the shore risked their own lives diving into a rough Atlantic to pull victims from the water. The bodies of those who didn't make it were also recovered and tended to. Some of them are buried in Mount Prospect Cemetery in Neptune.

The Morro Castle remains one of the most signficant maritime disasters in modern history and Asbury Park is the the first to officially dedicate the event with a memorial.