The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1907-02-26
BRITISH STEAMER SINKS,
MANY LIVES LOST
Huge Seas Pound Berlin to Pieces
and Few Aboard Escape.
FATAL NORTH SEA DISASTER
Ship Struck OF the Hook Of Holland
in Terrific Storm, and Tugs
Could Not Reach Her to Bring
= Assistance-Over 100 Perish.


Could Not Reach Her to Bring
: Assistance-Over 100 Perish.
Hook Of Holland The mail steam
err Berlin, belonging to the Great
Eastern Railway Company, of Eng
land, from Harwich for the Hook of
Holland and Rotterdam, was wrecked
Off this place shortly before 6 o'clock
a. M, and, with the exception of four
teen persons. it is believed that all on
board were lost. The passengers and
crew numbered altogether 143 per-
sons
Among the drowned are Fraulein
Schoene, of the Mannheim Court
opera, who the week before sang the
Wagnerian parts of Elsa and Eliza
beth at Covent Garden, London; M.
Orelio, baritone, of Amsterdam, and
MN. Stellmach and Memmler, who all
sang minor parts, and F'raulein Co.
bel, OF the Court Theatre at Dresden,
who acted as leaders of the chorus
during the Coyent Garden season.
Arthur Herbert, one of the English
u.
No one knows the cause of the dis
aster. The vessel encountered a ter
rife gale all through her journey
from Harwich. Just as she was en-
tering the new waterway here she
was seen to turn around as though
her engines had stopped, and a mo-
ment later she was dashed against
the jetty. She had taken the channel
entrance correctly and was making
her way between the piers.
A short time after the vessel struck
she broke in two and her fore part
disappeared. Her afterpart did not
slip into deep water, as the persons
on shore at first believed, but seems
to be Embedded in the sand bank.
There were still few persons on
board clinging to the wreckage. Dur
ing the high water, at the height OF
tie storm, the waves shut off all view
of the wreck, which led to the belief
that no trace of the Berlin had been
left. The receding tide, however, re.
vealed the remains of her stern with
handful of survivors.
After over thirty hours incessant
effort the Dutch lifeboatmen reached
the wreck of the Berlin and took off
eleven of the fourteen survivors. Two
women and child refused to jump
and the lifeboatmen had to come
away without them.
The life-savers launched their boat
repeatedly, only to be hurled back by
mountainous seas. At last, with the
receding tide and some improvement
in the weather, they succeeded. 1t
was $50 p. m. when the rescue was
made.
The cold had been so intense
throughout the night that it was
deemed hardly possible that any liv-
ing thing so exposed could survive,
but when daylight broke small groups
could still be seen clinging to the
poop and deck houses, the only por-
lions of the vessel visible.
Captain Jensen says he was COM
PEELED to leave the two women and
the child on board the wreck because
they did not dare to make the descent
of the rope owing to their completely
exhausted condition. In fact they ap-
peared to be dying.
Captain Parkinson, of the Holt
Steamship Line, who was passenger
on the Berlin, said that the disaster
was due to the fact that the Berlin
reached to in the terrific sea as she
was entering the waterway, and was
dashed upon the pier head, immedi-
ately ''crunching up like concertina
and parting amidships."
Many of the bodies which already
have been washed W are battered be-
yond recognition and some are with
out heads and others without arms or
legs.
1t now appears certain that after
the catastrophe there were many more
than fifteen persons remaining on the
wreck and that most of them were
washed off by the waves. One wom-
an was carried away just before the
rescue was effected. The survivors
huddled together for warmth and the
members OF the crew who were still
alive shared their food with the 9th
ers. There was not enough to go
around, however, and for twenty-four
hours not a morsel of food passed the
lips of these unfortunates.