The Penn's Grove record., 1913-10-17
.BRAVED DEATH
TO Save THOSE
ON BLAZING ship
?armania Passengers Describe
the Thrilling Fight to Reach
the voiturnO
SAVED BY OIL ON THE SEA
Frightened Passengers Leaped From
Burning Vessel to Small Craft Be-
loW-Eighty Drowned-Many In
jured-Carmania at Fishguard.

F~ishguard, England.-From the Car
mania, first to reach the burning Vol
turno and first to spread the dread
tidings of her destruction and the
death of 1876 of the passengers and
crew, come the first details of the
tragedy, piecing out a story that is
dark and heart-rending, save for the
bright light of heroism shining
through it all.
The passengers of the Carmania say
that there were two heroes whose
courage and intelligence stand out in
the story of the disaster-Captain
Inch, who subdued a mutiny and kept
hundreds from virtual suicide n small
boats, and Captain Barr, whose re-
s~ourcefulness smoothed the difficult
problems of the rescue work.
In the main, each ship heard from
by wireless told a similar story as to
the main features of the disaster, al
though every vessel added some new
and interesting detail. 1t is now
known certainly that a great explo-
sion in one of the forward holes Of
the Volturno killed between 40 and
SO of the crew and steerage pas
sengers and set fire to the ship.
1t was not Capt. Francis Inch's in
tention to lower lifeboats because he
knew that the sea was too high to
make a departure in small boats pos
sible. But while he was directing
the fighting of the fire, the crew and
the passengers broke from the con-
troll of the officers. There was a
general cry for the boats to be low
cred. Sailors and men passengers
made a rush for these boats, damned
tackle, worked helter-skelter and
crafty. The result was that at least
four of the boats that were lowered
were smashed against the ships side
or we're capsized. In this way at least
80 persons, including many of the
crew, were drowned.
There seems no reason to doubt
that if the passengers and crew had
kept cool and preserved some vestige
Of courage and discipline there would
have been no great loss of life by
drowning. When Captain Inch finally
left the bridge and heroically fought
back stokers and sailors who were
showing women and children to one
side and drove them below, he ended
the panic, but it was too late to save
the victims of their own ~unreasoning
fear. The captain separated the men
from the women, placing the men on
n side of the ship and the women
on the other. He cut the tackle that
held the remaining life boats in place.
Within a few hours twelve ships
had come to the rescue of her COM
pany, for the Volturno herself was
beyond help, the certain prey of the
flames that steadily forced back those
cause of the violence of the sea that
repulsed all attempts at succor.
But the abatement of the storm and
the pouring of oil upon the waters
from a tank ship hat numbered to the
scene with a will to hurry that was
in excess of her ability, enabled all Of
the Volturno's complement of 657 to
escape with the exception of the 1876.
These had lost their lives either by
falling into the flaming crater that
the ships forward hold became or by
the smashing of the l~ife-boats the
stricken vessel tried to launch.
At dawn the splendid work of the
oil tanks in spraying the seas with
vast quantities of oil m~de it possible
for scores of life boats to approach
the stern of the Volturno. Ladders
could not be used but the passengers
we're lowered into the ~rescuing boats
by means of lines. Some, unable to
wait their turn, jumped from the deck
of the Volturno into the life boats
and were injured. Several suffered
broken arms or legs. Many jumped
into the sea and were drawn into the
boats. The last to leave the Vol
turno was Captain Inch.
All reports received so far indicate
that only about a third of the crew
were saved, about thirty out of nine
ty-three.
There seems to be a grim retribu-
ton in the fact that the boats that
collapsed against the Volturno's sides
and spilled their freight into the
mountainous seas were, for the most
part, loaded with men, many of them
sailors, who had rushed for safety,
thrusting aside the women and chill
dren.
~EAAN-IIN ~-A~