July 25, 2005
The Andrea Doria - the greatest marine rescue ever
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
I love watching movies, and then going to Internet Movie Database and reading the Trivia section of the movie to see if there's anything interesting there.
After watching the movie Ghost Ship, I had to check out trivia for it.
As it turns out, one ship's backstory was modeled after a real incident with a ship called the Andrea Doria. In fact, in the movie, there is a photo of a ship listing on one side in the ocean. That was a real photo of the Andrea Doria.
My curiousity was piqued.
A quick Google search yielded AndreaDoria.org, a site created by one of the survivors himself, who was on the ship when he was three years old. But it's not just a little site about this ship, which sank off the coast of Nantucket in 1956 after colliding with another ship.
I clicked on a link titled, "The Events", and still really only expected to read a quick story about what happened that night. Boy, was I wrong.
The author of the site had put together a timeline and narrative based on the recollections of survivors, crew members, and watchers. He has included real photographs, and passenger lists, and diagrams placed in the story where it happened.
I have never been as enthralled reading anything before.
Please, visit the Events page to start reading. But be warned, leave a few hours so that you can read it from start to finish. You won't want to stop reading. The pictures, the events, you'll feel like you went through it just like the survivors did. You'll even go through it from the eyes of both captains on opposing ships... you'll know the two ships were doomed even before their captains did.
You'll read the actual messages the two ships sent to each other, and subsequent messages sent to other ships as the Andrea Doria realized it was listing so much, that lifeboats on the other side of the ship could not be used.
You'll read about the passengers that switched rooms at the last minute, or went upstairs to play a late game of cards or made some other decision of fate that involved the rooms that got destroyed.
You'll read about the other cruise ship that heard the S.O.S and had to make a split-second decision about the ramifications of bringing his 1500 passengers off-course to rescue the passengers of the Andrea Doria.
You'll read about families that were split up and placed in seperate lifeboats and subsequent rescue ships, only to have to find each other at a crazy port of call in New York.
I had discovered this site last summer after watching Ghost Ship, and wanted to blog about it then. I also had wanted to email the site owner and let him know how much I had enjoyed reading about it, and how moved I was. I just visited the site now to link to it, and noticed a scrolling ticker at the top that announced that Anthony, the webmaster and Andrea Doria passenger, had died just this past October. That's what I get for waiting. I'm really, really sad I never emailed him when I had the chance.
I read the 'About Us' page, and in the 'Thanks' section on the page, he wrote, 'My mother, Angela Grillo, who had the courage to drop me off the side of the ship to save me.' He also dedicated the site to the people that died during the collision.
And yes, the story is about a sinking ship, but remember - it's also about the greatest marine rescue ever.
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Comments
Dear Jess,
Have you seen the movie called Baltic Storm? The movie is not the candidate for the BEST MOVIE of the YEAR, but the story is good. And it is still a big big mystery, what really happened on the passenger vessel "Estonia".
Best regards,
Dan
Thanks Dan, for the recommendation! I'll add it to my Netflix queue. :-)
Hrm, not on Netflix. And going back to IMDB, it doesn't show as being available on DVD anywhere.
