Saturday, July 28, 1956 Inquirer and Mirror

“Nantucket Summer Residents on Andrea Doria”

Among the 1,134 homeward bound passengers on the Andrea Doria Wednesday night were Mr. and Mrs. Clarence H. Gifford Jr. and their four children, Donald ,17, Chad, 13, John, 15, and Priscilla, 9. The Giffords, whose home is in Providence, R.I., had been on a six weeks tour of Europe.

Knowing that the Giffords were on the ill-fated liner, we listened with more than normal interest Thursday night when the survivors of the crash were being interviewed as they came of the gangway of the Ile de France in New York. It was an extraordinary occurrence – an 1,134 to 1 chance – but the first person to be interviewed was Mr. Gifford! Unlike hundreds of others on the liner, the Gifford family were all transferred to one ship and thus were spared the many anxious hours of worry participated in by so many who were separated from their relatives in the course of the rescue.

We talked to Mr. Gifford Friday noon and he said that the whole family would be here in Nantucket this weekend to spend the rest of the summer at their family home on Hinckley Lane. They are all tired and are feeling the reaction of the strain under which they existed for some 18 hours between the time the accident occurred and when they set foot on the New York pier. However, showing that Mr. Gifford still has his usual sense of humor in spite of the ordeal, he said, “I was just trying to find a shortcut to Nantucket.”

Saturday, Aug. 4, 1956 Inquirer and Mirror

“Andrea Doria Looks ‘Alive’ On Ocean Bottom”

The Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria looks out of place and “completely alive” as she rests on the ocean bottom 45 miles southeast of Nantucket Island. This report was given early Saturday afternoon by Peter R. Gimbel, one of the two divers who went down to the sunken vessel.

In an interview with a representative of The Inquirer and Mirror, Mr. Gimbel gave a vivid description of the appearance of the Andrea Doria and of the difficulties experienced in reaching and returning from the area in which she sank. The $29,000,000 luxury liner, inbound to New York from Italy, was struck by the Swedish liner Stockholm ins a thick fog off Nantucket Wednesday night, July 25, sinking about 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

Mr. Gimbel and his party, which included his wife, Mary, his twin brother, David Gimbel, and a friend, Joseph M. Fox, arrived on Nantucket Thursday afternoon with the intention of making the dive down to the Andrea Doria. The Gimbels are residents of Bridgehampton, Long Island, while Mr. Fox is from Bedford, New York.

Mr. Gimbel chartered the 32-foot sports fishermen Waleth, owned by Allen W. Holdgate, and captained by Winthrop Ellis, of Nantucket. The Waleth left Island Service Wharf at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning, and reached the scene where the liner sank at 1:45 p.m. Mr. Gimbel’s party was accompanied on the trip by Robert McKeon, a reporter for the New Bedford Standard-Times.

Captain Ellis was complimented highly on his seamanship and navigation by Mr. Gimbel, who said: I have never seen such perfect navigation in my life. All during the trip out we had thick fog and head currents, but Capt. Ellis brought us right to the yellow buoy marking the wreck.”

He explained that the location of the Doria had been marked by a boy dropped by the Coast Guard shortly after the sinking. “When we went over the side about 2:07, we followed the buoy line down. The anchor had been dropped on to the middle of the wreck.”

Mr. Gimbel, who makes dives such as this as a “serious hobby,” was accompanied down to the Andrea Doria by Mr. Fox, who is also a free-diving enthusiast. Arrangements had been made with Life magazine for the publication of any photographs which the divers were able to obtain.

The “free divers” used aqualung equipment, each man having two large tanks of compressed air strapped onto his back. They wore heavy woolen underwear and special rubber suits for protection against the cold of the water at that depth. Their suits, oddly enough, were made in Genoa, Italy, homeport of the Andrea Doria.

Remarking upon the condition of the Doria, Mr. Gimbel shook his head and described it as a “stunning, unbelievable thing to see. It makes a tremendous impression on one as the Doria seems to be completely out of place, there on the bottom. She looks absolutely alive-as if nothing whatsoever is wrong with her.”

It was relatively easy to spot the location of the vessel from the surface, he said, as “the whole area is seething with bubbles. This makes the water look very blue, almost as light as the water around Bermuda,” Mr. Gimbel said. He added he expected the Andrea Doria would bubble for a long time, as there is a great deal of air trapped within the vessel. “I once went down to a wreck that was bubbling 25 years after it sank,” he added.

Mr. Gimbel said he knew nothing about salvage operations but it appeared to him it would be impossible to raise the sunken liner. The main reason is the strong currents prevalent in the area which, he felt, would hamper the movements of divers using regular deep-sea diving equipment. “Free Divers,” as he termed Mr. Fox and himself, would be of no use during salvage operations as they could not remain at that depth for long enough periods.

Regarding the return trip from the Andrea Doria’s resting place to Nantucket, Mr. Gimbel again paid high tribute to the seamanship of Captain Ellis. “We left the scene about 2:40 Friday afternoon, and shortly afterwards the fog closed in again. We had been bucking a head current all the way out to the Doria in the fog, and while it cleared off while we were at the scene, the flog closed in and the tide turned so we had a head current on the way back, also.

“It was impossible to estimate how much gas we had used and while we were hoping we’d make it back all right, we weren’t surprised when the port engine sputtered and stopped about 8:30 last night. Captain Ellis immediately cut the starboard engine and anchored. We were about 10 miles south of Nantucket at the time.”

Mr. Gimbel said they stayed at anchor in the heavy fog until 8:40 Saturday morning when the fog lifted. They pulled anchor and drifted for about two hours, the tide taking them closer to Nantucket.

“When we hit some rips, Captain Ellis started the starboard engine in order to make headway against the current. Shortly thereafter we sighted Nantucket. We certainly had a few anxious moments!” he said.

Earlier they had been met by the Coast Guard cutter Evergreen whom they hailed and asked for fuel. However, the cutter had no gasoline and was unable to assist them. The Coat Guard relayed the information to the shore stations regarding their location and difficulties, and all ships in the area were alerted to be on the lookout for the Waleth. “The Coast Guard also asked us a great many detailed questions about the wreck,” Mr. Gimbel added.

Still under power of the one remaining engine, the 32-foot vessel came along the shore of the east end of the island to a position off Siasconset, where Mr. Gimbel swam approximately one-half mile to shore. He reached the shore about 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning, landing on the beach near Codfish Park. He telephoned the authorities from a house nearby, giving specific information of the location of the vessel and the welfare of those on board.

Mr. Gimbel estimated the Waleth went about another half mile after dropping him off before the remaining gasoline was used up, and then anchored to the east of Sankaty Light. The Brant Point Coast Guard station sent a lifeboat to assist the Waleth at 11:37 a.m., but in the meantime another motor cruiser owned and operated by Mike Todd had picked her up and was towing her.

The Waleth, still under tow and accompanied by the Coast Guard lifeboat, returned to her berth at Island Service Wharf shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon, approximately 34 hours after her departure the previous morning.

David Gimbel left his companions as soon as the Waleth docked, carrying with him the underwater films and cameras used to photograph the Andrea Doria. He left Nantucket on the 4 p.m. steamer for Martha’s Vineyard, where arrangements had been made for a plane to fly him to New York. The others in the party flew to New York in an amphibian which landed at Nantucket Memorial Airport later the same afternoon.

August 4, 1956 Inquirer and Mirror

“Doria-Stockholm Collision Described to Rotarians”

Despite the thick fog through which the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria was racing on the night of Wednesday, July 25, her fog horn was not being sounded, and only the smaller of her two radar antennae was operating. This charge was made by Clarence H. Gifford Jr., as he spoke before the meeting of the Rotary Club of Nantucket this week.

Mr. Gifford was a passenger aboard the Andrea Doria, returning with his family to New York following a tour of Europe. A resident of Providence, R.I., he maintains a summer home here on Hinckley Lane.

In beginning his talk, Mr. Gifford stressed three points: These were that no passenger aboard the vessel saw everything that happened; he had no idea how the crew of the Doria behaved as a whole, and he would talk about only what he and his family saw, as he had no way of knowing what happened on the bridge of the ship or with regard to the rescue operations other than his personal experiences.

“It was the last night aboard,” he began. “We had picked up our baggage at 5 o’clock and had it ready for customs the next day. The Andrea Doria was a beautiful ship and extremely well kept up. This however, was a decided disadvantage to the survivors when the ship listed, following the collision, as the highly polished decks were too slippery to stand on, or even sit on without bracing yourself against something. You couldn’t maneuver on the decks without pulling yourself along by main force.”

Mr. Gifford said there had been no last night party where they were. He said they had been playing the horse racing game earlier in the evening and were preparing for bed when the crash occurred and had been up on the promenade deck earlier to look at the fog.

The children were rather slow about preparing for bed, Mr. Gifford smiled, and, as it happened, he and his wife had to put on clothes over their night clothes, never having completely undressed.

“About 11:20 there was an awful lurch and a loud crunching noise, and we were thrown off our feet,” Mr. Gifford said. He and Mrs. Gifford were in Cabin 98, and the children were in 96, on the side which was struck by the Stockholm’s bow.

“The corridor was filled with smoke, and the ship listed immediately. We hadn’t the remotest idea what had happened. I grabbed my wallet and passport and threw my wife’s coat and her ‘Nantucket bag’ at her . . . Then we got the life jackets out of the wardrobe.”

As to the actual rescue operations, Mr. Gifford remarked bitterly, “I don’t see how they could fill a lifeboat as slowly as those were being filled. They had ropes, nets and ladders going down the side and three or four lifeboats waiting around. I was in the boat for about 30 minutes while it was being filled, and my wife had the same experience.

“It turns my hair to think about it . . . You were sitting there with the great ship hanging over you. All you could think of was that the ship was going to tip over onto you.

“Sitting there in the boat was the first I knew of what had actually happened . . .You could run a freight train through that hole.”

Mr. Gifford vividly described the scene of the rescue as he waited in the lifeboat. The Stockholm was nearby and her boats were bus picking up survivors. Several freighters and other vessels were nearby, but the most impressive was the liner Ile de France. His attempts to be taken to the Stockholm were in vain, and upon going aboard the French liner was overjoyed to be greeted by his family on the promenade deck.

Going back to the scene of the rescue, Mr. Gifford said “everyone saw something different. It was just like Hollywood – a black night, with searchlights on the water – stuff floating, from furniture to grapefruit. Something that Hollywood would produce just the way it was.”

Displaying a large photograph of the stricken liner, Mr. Gifford pointed out where the Stockholm had struck the starboard side, and also the location of their cabins. The Doria was struck just aft of the bridge, he said, and their cabins were approximately under the funnel. “From the Ile de France it could be seen that the Stockholm had hit, then bounced and scraped down the side of the Doria,” he said.

They were not blowing the fog horn before the collision,” Mr. Gifford continued. “When it was blowing it could be heard in every part of the ship.” Later he said he and his wife had discussed the fog and the fact that the fog horn was not being sounded while having their dinner that evening. He said his wife had commented that probably it was not necessary to sound the foghorn on a ship equipped with radar.

Regarding the conduct of the officers and crew, the speaker said, following the collision and during the rescue, he did not see one officer, except the ship’s doctor.

“I am sure they were busy in some part of the ship, but I was not where they were. There was not too much organization in the rescue,” he said.

The last time he saw the Andrea Doria’s captain, he was in the lounge, autographing photographs for the children. “I don’t believe he was on the bridge when the accident occurred.”

Talking with passengers aboard the Ile de France, they said they had been driven almost crazy by the constant sounding of the French liner’s fog horn.

There had been only one lifeboat drill in the crossing, Mr. Gifford related. This was held on the first day out of Naples and consisted of putting on life jackets and going to the lounge on the promenade deck. “No lifeboat assignments were given, and no one even spoke to us during the drill . . .It was more of a muster than a drill.”

Mentioning the use of radar, on which Mr. Gifford said he is certainly no expert, he and one of his sons went to look at the fog at about 6:15. At this time the smaller radar screen could be seen going around, but the large one was pointing straight ahead. There was no apparent reduction of speed in the fog, and he added that the Doria, due to dock in New York the following morning, was about one hour behind schedule.

The weather was exceptionally calm before and during the rescue operations, and Mr. Gifford described the water as “having some action, but nothing like what it could have been. We were in an absolute pea soup fog when we were hit, but when we were up on deck the fog cleared and the stars came out. Then 10 minutes later it was foggy again, then it cleared. This gave us the first idea we might be close to Nantucket,” he smiled.

Mentioning rumors that the crew of the Andrea Doria were among the first to leave the ship, Mr. Gifford agreed this must have been the case, to a certain extent. In his lifeboat witting beside him was the second steward.

“While we were waiting on the deck, some of the tourist class were brought up from the lower decks. They were covered with oil, shaken, and some were screaming. This was the only disorder we saw among the passengers, but we knew what they must have gone through down below where they were,” he said.

One thing which impressed the speaker very much in a macabre way was that two nights before the accident there had been a “bingo” game in the first class lounge. Of the 200 persons there, four different people won the four games played, and all four people lost their lives.