SS ANDREA DORIA

Andrea Doria listing to starboard

Cutter Hornbeam, a buoy tender, takes on survivors of Andrea Doria

A Coast Guard helicopter delivers the injured to shore

 Hornbeam was commissioned in 1944 and served for 55 years

Stockholm

By Vinny Del Giudice

The SOS arrived at the U.S. Coast Guard radio station on Long Island on the night of July 25, 1956: ANDREA DORIA AND STOCKHOLM COLLIDED 11:22 LOCAL TIME LAT. 40-30 N. 69-53 W.

The Italian luxury liner SS Andrea Doria was listing to starboard off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, after the liner MS Stockholm speared its side in fog. The eastbound Stockholm, its bow now crushed, had been  steaming in the Atlantic's westbound lanes. It remained afloat though to one sailor "she looked like an accordion." 

Forty-six of 1,706 passengers and crew aboard the Andrea Doria died. Five members of the Stockholm's crew perished. Andrea Doria, which sailed on its maiden voyage just three years earlier, listed so badly that the crew was unable to lower the portside lifeboats.

The Coast Guard dispatched an armada of cutters to the scene, including the buoy tender Hornbeam (W394), which took aboard some survivors. Evergreen (WLB295), first of the Coast Guard cutters to arrive, served as the search-and-rescue command post. Coast Guard helicopters lifted the injured in baskets.

Commercial vessels and a Navy transport provided refuge for survivors. Stockholm also took on survivors. The one-time pride of the French fleet, the passenger liner Ile de France, was on the scene and assisting, too. It took aboard 750 souls. In an odd twist, a girl asleep in an Andrea Doria starboard cabin landed alive on Stockholm's b0w.

Andrea Doria foundered at 10:09 a.m. on July 26 in one of the greatest disasters in U.S. maritime history. "Nobody felt anything but an awful helplessness," CBS News correspondent Douglas Edwards reported from a circling aircraft.

Andrea Doria Captain Piero Calamai watched his ship go under from cutter Hornbeam's bridge. Calamai had refused to abandon the Andrea Dora once the evacuation was complete. It was only after his deck officers declined to leave their captain behind that he agreed to board a lifeboat. It is said that when he passed away in 1972 Calamai's dying words were  "Are the passengers safe? Are the passengers off?"