Ally

The evening of July 25th, 1956 found Andrea Doria on her 51st crossing, a nine-day trip from Genoa to New York. She was loaded to near capacity with 1,706 passengers and crew. Her captain, Piero Calamai, was a 39-year veteran of the sea and one of Italia's most respected skippers. Captain Calamai's service record was spotless. Despite this, as Andrea Doria steamed toward the Nantucket Lightship through heavy fog, Captain Calamai had reduced speed only marginally. He had been steaming through the fog since mid-afternoon and at times the ship's bow could not be seen from the bridge. The only precautions Calamai took were the placement of a lookout on the bow and the closing of the watertight doors.

Unknown to Captain Calamai and the Doria crew, another liner, the much smaller Swedish-American Stockholm, was on its way home to Scandinavia. At only 528 feet long and 12,165 tons, Stockholm was one of the smallest post-war liners built. The Swedish liner was well north of the suggested outbound route for leaving North America. Third officer Johan-Ernst Bogislaus Carstens-Johannsen, Carstens to his friends, was the bridge officer on duty. The night was clear with a bright moon. Carstens had no reason to slow down; he had yet to encounter the fog bank that Andrea Doria was steaming through. He did, however, have every reason to expect fog in the area of Nantucket Island, where the cold Labrador Currents from the north meet the warm Gulf Stream from the south.

At about 10:40PM, the radar on Andrea Doria picked up the smaller vessel at a distance of about seventeen nautical miles. It appeared to be about 4 degrees off the starboard bow, bearing to the right. Captain Calamai assumed it was a small coastal vessel that would turn north to Nantucket Island. Despite the fact that the radar showed the oncoming vessel to be straight ahead, there was ample distance to safely pass the vessel, as had been done a thousand times before. Again assuming it was a small coastal vessel that would head north for it's home port and seeing how it was already bearing to the right, Captain Calamai decided to pass the ship starboard-side-to-starboard-side. Even though standard procedure called for a port-to-port passing; it was more of a custom than a regulation. At 11:05PM, Calamai ordered a four-degree course change to port. The oncoming vessel was now three and a half miles away.

On the bridge of the Stockholm, the situation appeared quite differently. To third officer Carstens, the oncoming vessel on his radar screen appeared to be just a few degrees off to port on a parallel course. Stockholm's radar did not have the range of the larger Italian liner and had not picked up the approaching ship until it was twelve miles away. Swedish Line procedures required that the oncoming vessel's course be plotted. This required two radar fixes. By the time this had been done less than six miles separated the ships. He had not yet come into the fogbank, and Carstens planned for a port-to-port passing, making a course correction to starboard as soon as he could see the approaching ship.

Given the technology of radar at the time and common human error when "eyeballing" a ship's course on a radar screen, minor error can be greatly exaggerated. On the bridge of Andrea Doria, it looked as though the oncoming ship was just off the starboard bow. To the crew of Stockholm, it appeared as though the other ship was off the port bow. The intentions of the two commanders were to turn their vessels mistakenly in the same direction.

Just as Andrea Doria made her 11:05 course correction, the two ships made visual contact. Less than two miles separated them now; given their combined speed of over 40 knots, this was a very short distance indeed. Because they were converging at a slight angle; with the Doria crew seeing lights to its right and Stockhom's crew seeing lights to its left; the assumptions made off of the misread radar screens was reinforced. What happened next set the stage for disaster. As third officer Carstens on Stockholm's bridge decided to make his turn to starboard, he failed to signal his intention with the usual blasts from the ship's whistle. The ringing bridge phone diverted his attention. As the Swedish liner made its turn, Carstens still did not realize that he was turning into the course of the oncoming ship. On Doria's bridge, however, Captain Calamai realized what was happening as he saw the other ship's navigation lights cross from right to left across the bow of Andrea Doria. "Titto sinistra!" he shouted, "Full left!" As the larger Doria began to veer left, Carstens on Stockhom's bridge realized what was happening and ordered "Hard-a-starboard!"

Ally

Stockholm rammed Andrea Doria broadside, puncturing the starboard hull plates just aft of the bridge and ripping open seven of her eleven decks. For a moment the small Swedish liner was lodged into the opening, which reached almost all the way down to Doria's keel. The Italian liner was moving at full speed, however, and the force of rushing water soon tore the smaller ship away. Almost immediately, Andrea Doria began to list to starboard. The time was 11:10PM.

Everyone on board Andrea Doria felt the impact. In first-class Belvedere Room, the band was knocked off its podium and dancing couples to the floor. A panic ensued in the tourist-class dining room where a movie was being shown and the screen went dead, plunging the room into darkness. Immediately, people began rushing to their rooms to wake sleeping children and grab their life jackets. One passenger, Thure Peterson in cabin 56 on the starboard side, actually saw Stockholm's bow slide past him before he lost consciousness. His wife, unfortunately, was buried under wreckage and died from her injuries. Fourteen-year-old Linda Morgan was asleep in her bed and was catapulted out of her bed and onto the crushed bow of the Swedish ship. A crewman found her crying and calling for her mother. Her sister, asleep in the bed next to her, was killed instantly. All over the Andrea Doria, many passengers thought of a recent movie; Walter Lord's A Night To Remember, and thought of Titanic. It remained to be seen whether the fate of Andrea Doria would resemble the loss of that famous ocean liner. Within minutes of the collision, however, the list exceeded twenty-five degrees. Beyond fifteen degrees the watertight compartments would be compromised, allowing water to spill over the tops of the bulkheads fore and aft. Captain Calamai knew there and then that his ship was doomed. The only question was how long she would stay afloat. He ordered a distress call sent out.

It was clear from the outset that Andrea Doria would capsize before help could arrive so an evacuation was ordered immediately. The crew soon discovered however that the ship's list prevented the port-side boats from being launched. The starboard lifeboats, if fully loaded, could only carry about 1,000 of the 1,706 on board. It's perhaps this grim reminder of Titanic's fate that kept Captain Calamai from sounding the abandon-ship signal. It was over an hour before the first lifeboat was launched and it left Doria with more crew than passengers. Stockholm, it's bow crushed but in no immediate danger, soon dispatched its own boats to aid in the evacuation. But the evacuation of Andrea Doria was far from ordered. With so many of the crew abandoning ship, many passengers were left to fend for themselves. Many of the first and cabin-class passengers waited for three hours at their muster stations with no word from the ship's captain. In tourist class, passengers found themselves fighting their way through oily seawater to reach the upper decks.

At 2:00AM, the liner Ile de France, art-deco precursor to Normandie, arrived. The fog had lifted and Captain Baron Raoul de Beaudean had picked up Doria's distress call, he had turned his massive liner around and made full speed for her reported position. With the safe rescue of all Doria's passengers in mind, Captain Beaudean parked his ship 400 yards away from the stricken liner and began to take on survivors.

At first, Captain Calamai refused to leave his ship until all of the passengers and crew had left the ship. Still hoping that Andrea Doria could be saved, he remained on his ship even as the list exceeded forty degrees. He ordered the crew to abandon ship, but many refused to leave without him. He reluctantly stepped into a lifeboat as dawn broke about 5:30AM. By now several ships were on the scene as well as charted airplanes carrying reporters and photographers. As the disaster was recorded for posterity, Andrea Doria lay on her side, slowly tipping over as water rushed into her hull. At 10:09AM on the morning of July 26th, Andrea Doria finally capsized and sank. It had been eleven hours since the collision. For fifteen minutes after the sinking, a 700-foot-long swath of bubbles churned the sea as the remaining air escaped the sunken ship. She lay in just 250 feet of water.

All told, 46 people on Andrea Doria and 5 crewman on Stockholm lost their lives; all as a result of injuries sustained in the initial impact. The fact that it had taken so long for the ship to sink reinforced the notion about the improved safety of the new ships. Stockholm was able to make it back to port unassisted and after repairs was returned to Atlantic service. But the sinking of Andrea Doria came at the end of ocean travel's post-war boom.