Andrea Doria July 26th 1956

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Andrea Doria Live: July 26th, 1956, 9:00 AM - After waiting more than three and a half hours, the officers and last volunteer crew who evacuated Andrea Doria shortly after sunrise in Lifeboats No. 5, No. 7, and No. 11 at last spot the first of the long-awaited tugs. Equipped with heavy towing cables and winching gear, the small Coast Guard cutter USCGC Hornbeam had departed Woods Hole, Massachusetts, around 2:00 AM, and remained hidden from the men until the very last moment, emerging from behind the liner’s sharply listing bow after a voyage of just under one hundred miles that has taken seven hours.

In Lifeboat No. 11, a silent and dejected Captain Calamai brightens slightly upon spotting Hornbeam, which slows its engines to a crawl and pulls up alongside the lifeboats just before 9:00 AM. By this point, most of Andrea Doria’s officers have been awake continuously for more than twenty-seven hours, with a night of unimaginable tension and exertion in between, and all are visibly grateful as they climb aboard for hot coffee and simple broth prepared by the cutter’s small galley crew. Lifeboats No. 5 and No. 11 tie up directly alongside Hornbeam, where No. 5 will remain until its eventual recovery. Lifeboat No. 7, meanwhile, rows a short distance away to the awaiting destroyer escort USS Edward H. Allen with thirty-one members of the crew aboard.

Calamai had declined an offer to board Edward H. Allen upon its arrival a half hour earlier, saying that he preferred to wait for the approaching tugs from his place aboard Lifeboat No. 11. Now, he climbs to the bridge of Hornbeam to begin discussing the logistics of a tow with the cutter’s captain, Lieutenant Roger F. Erdman, who subsequently radios the nearby cutter USCGC Evergreen with a message to be relayed to Coast Guard headquarters in Boston. Evergreen then transmits the following message at 9:20 AM: “HORNBEAM STANDING BY SS ANDREA DORIA. PICKING UP 45 CREW MEMBERS FROM LIFEBOATS, INCLUDING MASTER. WILL ADVISE POSSIBILITIES TOWING VESSEL.”

A reply comes back almost immediately from headquarters in Boston:

“HORNBEAM SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT TOW. ITALIAN LINE CONTACTING MERRITT, CHAPMAN AND SCOTT AND MORAN TOWING AND ASSISTANCE FROM EITHER OR BOTH BELIEVED FORTHCOMING.”

Listening to the exchange from Lt. Erdman’s nearby quarters, Captain Piero Calamai peers out the window at the listing form of his beloved ship, now heeled over at an angle of more than fifty degrees, and at last concedes that she is lost. His men remain silent in his presence, later remarking that the captain appeared to have aged ten years overnight. In forty years at sea, Calamai has witnessed every manner of danger and loss, including years spent amid the perils of war. Yet it is the loss of Andrea Doria, and of the more than fifty souls who would ultimately perish with her, that robs him forever of his love of the sea.

Flashback in maritime history: Andrea Doria/Stockholm collision - 25 July 1956 (video)

My friend the late R/O Ray Maurstad, W3HUV who was R/O on SS Robert E. Hopkins who heard the SOS from Italian Liner Andrea Doria was the first to respond. Ray's ship was delayed in reaching the liner because of fishing vessels in the way and was the 4th to reach the scene, but according to Ray, "We picked up the last passenger off the ship. He was hangin on the stern, stark naked, hollering for help." I'm sure naked or not, he was happy to be alive.

https://maritimecyprus. com/2024/07/26/flashback-in-maritime- history-andrea-doria-stockholm-collision-25- july-1956-video-7/

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Photo from the archives of the United States Coast Guard