SS MORRO CASTLE

Cutter Tampa alongside Morro Castle

By Vinny Del Giudice

It burned from bow to stern and ignited pubic outrage. The SS Morro Castle inferno of the 1930s led to the creation of Public Law 622, a federal mandate setting standards for fire safety at sea and requiring government approval of ship construction design.

Today, such rules are enforced by the U.S Coast Guard, while inland the Coast Guard Auxiliary provides vessel examinations for recreational boaters.

Though the cause of the Morro Castle fire was never determined - some suspected electrical, others suspected arson - the Ward Line ship's design and flammable art deco interior allowed for rapid spread. The disaster just off the coast of southern New Jersey on Sept. 8, 1934 claimed 135 of 549 passengers and crew on a prohibition-era "booze cruise" returning to New York from Cuba.

Aggravating matters, Morro Castle's officers and crew proved ill-prepared and ill-trained for firefighting and life saving. There had been no boat drills. Negligence and insubordination reigned, with crew members abandoning ship prematurely, and officers failing to issue orders. Only half the lifeboats were lowered while the others burned and buckled. The SOS radio call was delayed. The officer on the bridge set course into the wind. 

A newsreel narrator correctly called it a "hell ship." A bizarre twist, the sudden death of the ship's master hours earlier in the voyage, contributed to the seagoing anarchy.

"I shouted orders to get the passengers in the life boats," William Warms, chief officer, told a board of inquiry, "but the passengers were shouting and there was great confusion. Many of them wouldn't get in the lifeboats." His testimony was reported by the Associated Press. 

A brief radio call for help, sightings at sea and telephone calls from the Jersey shore triggered a response from a commercial flotilla, including the fishing boat Paramount, the liner Monarch of Bermuda and the cargo ship Andrea F. Luckenbach.

The Coast Guard sent patrol boats, the Cutter Tampa (WPG-48) and the Cutter Cahoone (WSC-131). Craft from Coast Guard stations Shark River, Squan Beach and Sandy Hook were among the first to arrive, according to the National Coast Guard Museum Association.

Aircraft from the Coast Guard Station at Cape May circled, searching for survivors adrift, the heat and flames having forced passengers and crew to leap overboard. Coast Guard beach patrols helped pull survivors from the Atlantic surf. Local first aid squads cared of the casualties. The dead bobbed in rough seas.

Some people criticized the pace of the response to the disaster but individual Coast Guardsmen performed valiantly. The smoldering, blistered hull eventually beached at the resort of Asbury Park after a towline from cutter Tampa snapped - a ghastly scene that drew thousands of spectators to the boardwalk.

The Morro Castle disaster led to a public backlash and a criminal trial. In 1936, Chief Officer Warms was sentenced to prison for his role in the fire but the conviction was overturned on appeal. The ship's chief engineer and a Ward Line official were also convicted.

The chief radio officer, George Rogers, was suspected of arson but there was no solid evidence to charge him. It could have been him. Rogers amassed a violent criminal record in the years following the disaster, culminating in a 1954 double-murder conviction. "Sparks," as he was once called, died in prison of a heart attack.