A CIGARETTE TRAGEDY.

Shannon News, 4 August 1925, Page 3

A CIGARETTE TRAGEDY.

ON A PLEASURE YACHT. FIRE AND EXPLOSION. FIVE MILES AT SEA. SAN FRANCISCO, June 29. LaXest details show that one woman was dead and four persons were missing as well as 20 in hospital as a Jesuit cf a fire and explosion v/lucli caused the pleasure yacht Crystal to sink shortly before midnight, five miles off Chelsea, on the Atlantic Const off New Jersey. The tragedy occurred while 36 young men and women were enjoying a moonlight sail and dance aboard the Crystal. Panic, broke out among the passengers, following a terrific blast that came after one guest had tossed a cigarette into the forward hatch, where the gasoline supply was stored.

The young woman who was drowned was Deborah Knight, of Pleasantville. Her body was picked up by Longport coastguardsmen, who rushed to the rescue after the explosion had served as an “5.0.5.”

Captain William Young, skipper of the Crystal, who was burned in the fire that followed the blast, was recued by coastguardsmen. He was released under 2000-dollar bonds pending investigation of the tragedy. The Crystal left Absecon Inlet at nine o’clock at night,, and the 100foot launch was large ' enough to enable IS coupes to dance on the lowerdeck. Suddenly the fox trot music that emanated from a phonograph was drowned out by the explosion, which rocked tire boat to an extent that it was at first feared that it might capsize. Almost immediately the forward deck burst into flames/ Harry Lehmann, of Atlantic City, was at the wheel, and with him was his wife, Barbara.

“Everything was going along quietly,” Lehmann told newspaper men, “with the sea as calm as a mill-pond. A! of a sudden-thc. forward deck heaved up under a loud explosion that blew- me away from the wheel. Women began to scream and rush around. Flames shot up from the deck almost simultaneously with the explosion. I shouted to those women and young men aboard to tear up the planking deck and started to do so myself. Some started to do wliat they were told, but the flames drove them all over to the starboard side and gave the ship a heavy list that carried away some of the lifeboats.

"Captain Yrung kept moving around, trying to keep order, telling them to' be cool and everything would be all right, but they didn’t listen to him, and when the list on the starboard side occurred the captain ordered them to the port side so he could get them into lifeboats. ‘‘They all rushed over at once and (here was a counter list that submerged all the lifeboats on that side. The women seemed to have gone crazy and some of theNmcn too. We had the hardest time; with, it getting hotter every minute, to get them to put on lifebelts. As scon as they got them on they jumped into the water, and veu could see mem in the light of the roaring flames bobbing around, screaming, their faces as white as death.

"I guess it was an hour before the Longport Coastguards with Captain Charlie Turner reached us. By that lime everyone was in the water and the ship was. burned down to the water line. Captain Young was the last to leave the Crystal." Some of those rescued were permitted to return home after receiving medical treatment, but most of th'fem remained at the hospital, many in a dying condition from their severe burns.

The coastguard crew out of Longport was the first to reach the scene. They were soon joined by the Absecon crew and several members of the “Dry 1 Navy” on patrol in the vicinity. They nicked up the passengers who were floating around in lifebelts and rushed ■them to Atlantic City. Mildred Mack, one of the girls who was rescued, said Warren Bilk's, who was reported missing, was drowned. “I saw him go down,” she said. , “His face was near mine, and it was white and his eyes wore closed.” So spectacular was the fire that brought tragedy to the Crystal dancing party that thousands of guests at hotels in Allantic; City, far away could sec the flames, the sky was illuminated for miles around, and hundreds of people climbed to th£ roof to watch the fire. /