AWFUL SEA TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4487, 5 August 1930, Page 4

AWFUL SEA TRAGEDY.

THIRTY- SEVEN" LIVES LOST. EXPANSE OF BLAXTNG OIL. LONG BATTLE WITH FLAMES. At least 37 lives have been lost in most horrible circumstances ns the result of a collision at night, last month in Massachusetts Bay between the passenger steamer Fairfax and an oil tanker. Before the ships broke apart the tanker was in flames from stem to stern. Blazing oil poured from her on to the surface of the sea and enveloped the passenger steamer. Shortly after the collision thorn was an explosion in the tanker. This hurled quantities of burning oil on, to the Fairfax and set lire to the clothes of several passengers. They sprang into the sea in the hopo of extinguishing the dames,, only to find the very water ablaze. A number of negro seamen lost their lives in the same terrible way..

The Fairfax, a vessel o’f sfi4o tons, belongs to the Merchants' and Miners’ transportation 'Company, and was bound from Boston to Norfolk, Virginia, with a passenger list of 73. The name of the tanker was at first unknown, but it. has since transpired tha I she was the Pinthis (lilt tons), owned by the Lake Tankers Corporation. She was bound for Boston from Fall River with a cargo of 32,(100 barrels of petrol. •RESULT OF A DENSE FOG. Dense fog was responsible for the accident. The tanker, with a crew believed to number 30 men, sank within 20 minutes. Seven passengers, including four women, and 11 of the crew of the Fairfax are reported missing, and a dozen are injured. The collision occurred two hours after the Fairfax left her Boston liter. Three hours later the steamship Gloucester, also of the Merchants’ and Miners’ Company, received air 8.0.5. signal and crept through the fog to the rescue. The passengers of tbe wrecked ship

were transferred during the night to the Gloucester, and early next day were landed at Boston. One woman passenger died in hospital there.

The surviving describe tragic scenes during the four-hour battle against fire and deadly fumes. Tbe commander and crew of Ihe Fairfax were aided by six naval officers and five marines in restoring order and in transferring stretchers with Jjie burned and injured to the. Gloucester. Groups of women and children knelt in prayer on the hurricane deck as the flames, fed by oil from the doomed tanker, sprang up on all sides. One man, his wife, and their child plunged overboard together and perished in the flaming water.

BEHAVIOUR OF THE CREW. George Farrell, of the American Navy, a chief signalman, and Edward Cullen, a chief quartermaster, who arrived in Boston, denied statements issued by the owners of the Fairfax that the members of the crew had shown heroism and were calm. They declared that the crew were completely out of discipline when the collision and lire occurred. Cullen said he saw a group of ten negro stewards rush a boat and push women and children out of the way. They did not, however, launch the boat. The scene immediately following collision and explosion, wit li geysers of .blazing oil lliat ran like rod rivers across the fog-blanketed surface of Alnssnehnsofis Bay, was described by the naval witnesses as one of horror and panic.

Captain Brooks, of the Fairfax, slated that after the first halfhour (lie tire on the Fairfax was go 1 under control and the ship was no longer in danger. For (hat reason he did not wireless a general alarm call. The. Fairfax has a ,10ft. hole in her side. The steamer ai the time of Ihe accident was making lure first, trip of the season to Norfolk, a popular holiday resort.