Let Us Remember The Andrea Doria

[CGTNORMANDIE]

FIFTY YEAR AGO TODAY: The pride of the Italian fleet, the ANDREA DORIA sank off of Nantucket on her way into New York. More than 56 people lost their lives and the memories are still painful for many of the passengers onboard and loved ones who waited in New York. The story of the sinking was a dramatic one as the Swedish liner, STOCKHOLM, had collided with the DORIA and the famous French liner, ILE DE FRANCE, came to the rescue of hundreds of passengers. This event was one of the first disasters to be fully covered by television news crews.

 

How many of you remember the event? I was an impressionable 7 year old who was mesmerized by the unfolding story. In many ways...this event was the begining of my fascination with ocean liners. Now that I look back...the ANDREA DORIA, in many ways, was the style of ship that Celebrity Cruises aspires to be.

 

ROSS

[CruisingChick]

I wasn't born yet, so I have no memory of the actual event. I did see a History Channel Special on the Andrea Doria that they aired yesterday. I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been.

[Saga Ruby]

As a ship's historian, I wondered if you can confirm or deny this story about the incident - a child was asleep in her bunk on the Andrea Doria, the Stockholm's reinforced bow sliced into the Andrea Doria, the child disappeared. Later she was found on what remained of the Stockholm's bow. I always wondered if this story was true or apocryphal.

 

Thanks for your tip of the hat to a glorious ocean liner. Those were the days.

 

Ruby

[dkjretired]

about how the wreck is a danger to divers.

 

Ruby:; Your story is mentioned in the article.

 

 

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/long-sunken-ship-still-claims-lives/20060724035609990002?cid=2194

[Saga Ruby]

I always wondered about that story - amazing how close to the truth my memory is after all these years. I was 13 when the Andrea Doria sank so that story probably stuck in my brain due to the age similarities. Didn't even think about it until this sad anniversary of the Andrea Doria.

 

Ruby

[WatchHill]

For an accounting of the fatal voyage and the investigation, read Saved! by William Hoffer. Fascinating.

 

Darcy

[CGTNORMANDIE]

THE CHILD...was Linda Morgan...I think...and she was the daughter of a well known news commentator...his name escapes me at this moment. The drama of the missing girl unfolded when the crew of the Stockholm could not account for this passenger they had onboard. Happily, her father was able to dramatically report that the unknown girl onboard the Stockholm was, indeed, his own daughter. I will look up the facts and get them to you...or perhaps, we will hear from others on this thread.

 

ROSS

[BindarDundat]

One thing that bugs me about the way the story of the Andrea Doria is told is this: I believe the ship was named for an Italian admiral, a man, and the correct pronunciation of his first name would be An-dray'-yuh (emphasis on the second syllable), but almost everybody now gives it the female pronunciation, An'-dree-yuh (emphasis on the first syllable).

[WatchHill]

Edward P. Morgan, ABC radio news reporter covered the story. At first he was told that his daughter, Linda, and her sister Joan, perished when the Stockholm made a direct hit into their cabin. Morgan's x-wife, Jane Cianfarra, wife of NY Times Madrid correstpondent, Camille Cianfarra, was badly injured, while her husband died.

[CGTNORMANDIE]

THANK YOU WATCH HILL.

 

I believe that the sister also died???

 

YOU ARE RIGHT BINDARDUNDAT!!! A lot of folks do not know their Italian.

 

The other dramatic story was of the construction worker who had seriously injured his back. He was being sent home and they put him on the ship in Italiy and kept him in the ship's hospital. He was drugged for his pain and when the collision occured the medical staff did not remove him from the ships hospital. He woke up on the morning of the 26th and noticed the ship was listing hard and water was rapidly filling up on his deck. He somehow made his way to the outside deck at the stern and held on to the pool netting until he could get into the water and was rescued shortly after. I think he was the last passenger to leave the Andrea Doria.

 

ROSS

[Cruise Arizona]

A lady I worked with when I was in the semiconductor buisiness was actually on the Andrea Doria imigrating from Italy to the US when it sunk. I think she was about 5 years old when it happened. She said it was very scary because she was seperated from her mother and she spoke no English at the time.

 

She was reunited a few days later, but how terrrifying.

 

She never did go to see the movie Titanic, saying "I don't have to go see it, I lived it."

[Sky Sweet]

FIFTY YEAR AGO TODAY: The pride of the Italian fleet, the ANDREA DORIA sank off of Nantucket on her way into New York. More than 56 people lost their lives and the memories are still painful for many of the passengers onboard and loved ones who waited in New York. The story of the sinking was a dramatic one as the Swedish liner, STOCKHOLM, had collided with the DORIA and the famous French liner, ILE DE FRANCE, came to the rescue of hundreds of passengers. This event was one of the first disasters to be fully covered by television news crews.

 

How many of you remember the event? I was an impressionable 7 year old who was mesmerized by the unfolding story. In many ways...this event was the begining of my fascination with ocean liners. Now that I look back...the ANDREA DORIA, in many ways, was the style of ship that Celebrity Cruises aspires to be.

 

ROSS

 

I was only in third grade at the time but remember it very well. Then nineteen years later I booked my first cruise on the ship that Itallian Lines subsequently built to replace the Andrea Doria.

[cruisercon]

I was seven years old when she sank. My father had a great fascination for ocean liners and as we lived in New York, he would take me to see all the great liners that docked in New York harbor. Before security was a concern, you could tour the ships while they were docked and I managed to see most of the liners of the period. We watched the sinking on the news and that weekend my father drove us out to Montauk on the tip of Long Island, where he thought the jet stream would carry debris past the beach. I remember walking the beach and we did notice debris washing up the beach. My father was able to view the Stockholm tied up when she returned to New York with her crumpled bow. I think he might have seen the Ile de France come in with the survivors.

[greeneg]

I remember watching live Television Coverage on the Today show......

[Bucky3]

I'm sorry I missed the History Channel program - and we watch that channel a lot! I have wonderful memories of the Andrea Doria as I cruised on her with a student tour group We were bound for Europe, and she was our transportation to Europe in the summer of 1953. I remember how I cried when that terrible accident happened. As I remember, I roomed with two or three other girls in a tiny cabin, and there was a sink there, but the bathroom was down the hall!! Whenever I read comments about children on cruise ships, I always think of what the boys on our tour did on that ship - during the night they went around and delighted in rearranging everyone's shoes that had been put out in front of their cabin doors to be shined! It was a beautiful ship, and I have wonderful memories of my time aboard her.

[BrooklynGirl2]

I just watched a very nice tribute to the Andrea Doria on RAI International (the Italian channel). It was such a beautiful ship and such a tragedy. I was way too young to remember the actual event but have heard the story told many times by my parents. My father in particular was very captivated by that ship for some reason and my parents ended up naming my sister Andrea :D which is funny because in Italy Andrea is a male name.

[afghancrazy]

You may be interested to know that the Stockholm is still sailing. She is now called Athena owned by Arcalia.

[zebra36]

The local PBS station ran a documentary on this last night and some of the final sequences were about exploring the wreckage, at the close of the show they ran a script saying that the diver responsible for those scenes had died shortly after comeing up from a dive to the Andrea Doria on July 6, 2006.

[dmarch@islc.net]

the famous French liner, ILE DE FRANCE, came to the rescue of hundreds of passengers.

 

ROSS

Did Norway used to be Ile De France? Amazing pictures. I was still eight years out from being born.

[dmarch@islc.net]

You may be interested to know that the Stockholm is still sailing. She is now called Athena owned by Arcalia.

And here she is: http://www.cruisematch.com.au/cruising/cruisematch/cruiselines/shipinfo.asp?shipid=196

What a piece of floating history. She kind of has the same lines as X's old Meridian.

[rubrrick]

I was 12 years old when the news story broke of the Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided. I, too was fascinated by the story.

 

Many years later, while sailing on the MSC Melody, our cabin attendant gave me an oil painting that he had painted of the Andrea Doria. She was a beautiful ship.

 

Rick

[CGTNORMANDIE]

I watched the PBS special last night...brought back a lot of memories. The diver who was a big part of the documentary died on July 8th after coming up from the wreck of the ANDREA DORIA...another victim of the wreck...sad.

 

Thanks dmarch...for the update on the STOCKHOLM. The NORWAY was the former SS FRANCE. The SS FRANCE replaced the aging SS LIBERTE and the SS ILE DE FRANCE...in 1960. The ILE DE FRANCE was a classic transatlantic liner that was built in 1927 and survived WW II. She was sailing out of New York when she answered the distress call. Captain Raol DeBaudoin commanded the rescue effort and saved the majority of passengers. The ANDREA DORIA was drifting in the fog and the passengers were lining her tilted decks at 2:00 AM when out of the fog came this huge ship with all her lights turned on and the red letters blazing...ILE DE FRANCE. The passengers onboard the ANDREA DORIA cheered wildly when they saw this beautiful sight.

The ILE DE FRANCE went on to the breakers in Japan. She starred in a film, "The Last Voyage" with Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack and Woody Guthrie???, just before she was broken up. The ILE DE FRANCE was actually sunk for this film...an ignomious ending for a great liner.

 

ROSS

[DCT61]

Woody Strode.

[Sky Sweet]

A few weeks after the Andrea Doria sank, Italian Line summoned their naval architects to design a new ocean liner that would be equally as splendid and noteworthy. What was the name of that new national flagship which was completed in June 1960?

[DCT61]

Leonardo da Vinci