The Sinking of the Andrea Doria

Fifty years ago today, on July 25, 1956, two large passenger liners off Massachusetts were steaming toward each other through the night at a combined speed of 40 knots. In spite of ample room to maneuver, in spite of the radar that let them spot each other from a distance, and in spite of clear rules intended to avoid collisions, the Stockholm crashed into the Andrea Doria and ripped the luxurious ship open amidships. It was to be the last great drama of the age of transatlantic passenger liners.

The reason for the accident 50 miles south of Nantucket would be debated down the years. For the time being, a much more pressing issue loomed. The Andrea Doria was listing alarmingly to starboard, and seawater was pouring in. The enormous ship was in danger of sinking. Its 1,660 passengers and crew were in imminent peril.

The Andrea Doria had put to sea in 1951 from Genoa to accommodate the booming postwar demand for ocean travel. Almost 700 feet long, she ship could cruise at a brisk 23 knots and was noted for her luxurious appointments. The Italian Line had spent a million dollars on art and decoration, the food and service were superb, and even third-class passengers enjoyed an on-deck swimming pool. Many observers considered the Doria the most beautiful ocean liner ever launched.

The Stockholm, which had left New York that afternoon, was a more modest ship, 525 feet long and capable of carrying 570 passengers. She was fitted with a reinforced icebreaker prow to handle northern winter waters.

Several factors contributed to the collision. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea stipulated that ships in fog “go at a moderate speed.” The Andrea Doria’s captain, Piero Calamai, was steaming ahead at nearly 22 knots through dense fog in order to keep to his schedule. At that speed, it would take the vessel three miles to stop. Those same rules dictated that when ships were meeting nearly head-on “each shall alter her course to starboard” to avoid a collision—keep to the right. But the rule did not apply to ships that were likely to “pass clear of each other.”

Assuming the ships had plenty of room to pass on the left, Calamai veered slightly to port to allow more clearance. Johan-Ernst Carstens, the Stockholm third mate who was commanding the bridge, turned his ship to the right for the same reason, putting the two vessels on a collision course. When the Andrea Doria emerged from the fog, the crew saw the oncoming lights of the Stockholm. Carstens ordered a turn 20 degrees farther to the right, but failed to signal the maneuver with his ship’s whistle.

Aboard the Doria, Captain Calamai had seconds to make a decision. He chose wrong, sending his ship into a hard left turn. The 29,000-ton vessel skidded across the path of the Stockholm and received her ice-cutter bow at almost a 90-degree angle.

The ships rammed together just after 11:00 p.m. to the sound of sirens and bending steel. The Stockholm’s prow crashed 40 feet into the side of the Andrea Doria, through cabins filled with sleeping passengers. Forty-six of them were killed in the collision, along with five Swedish crewmen who slept in cabins in the bow of the Stockholm.

The ships hung together for a few seconds, then parted. Though her bow had been sheared off, the Stockholm was in no danger of sinking. But the Andrea Doria, with 500 tons of seawater rushing into her empty starboard fuel tanks, listed 20 degrees. Because she was leaning over so badly, her crew could not lower the port lifeboats. The Doria, like the Titanic 44 years earlier, now had lifeboats for only half its passengers.

Crewmen from the Stockholm began to ferry passengers from the stricken ship in their own motorized lifeboats. It was a slow process; Andrea Doria passengers were forced to negotiate steeply sloping decks and clamber down ropes or netting to reach the floating lifeboats. Some panicked and jumped. One man tossed his young daughter into a boat, fracturing her skull. She later died.

On board the Stockholm, a sailor discovered 14-year-old Linda Morgan entangled in the wreckage near the bow. He could not find her name on the ship’s passenger list. He was startled when she revealed that she was a passenger on the Andrea Doria. Linda, who became known at the “miracle girl,” had been thrown from her bed onto the other ship during the collision, which had killed her half-sister and stepfather.

A distress signal announcing “need of immediate assistance” quickly brought help, including the freighter Cape Ann and a Navy transport vessel. But by two o’clock almost a thousand people were still awaiting rescue on the Andrea Doria, which was listing even more steeply. At that point the passenger liner Ile de France arrived, having turned back from its own crossing to Europe. Its blazing lights produced “incredible joy” among those on the Andrea Doria and created a surreal scene reminiscent of a movie set.

By dawn all of the passengers and crew had abandoned the Andrea Doria. Captain Calamai had held out hope she could be towed to shallow water and saved, but he now knew that was impossible.

“There were exclamations of surprise and awe,” one survivor remembered, “as the Andrea Doria trembled and lurched to one side.” The great vessel rolled over and went down in 225 feet of water. Her captain telegraphed a terse message to his employers: “Doria sank 10:09—Calamai.”

A $30-million ship had been lost and 51 persons had died, but seamen had also pulled off the greatest peacetime rescue in history, saving more than 1,600 lives.

No final adjudication was ever made of who was to blame for the accident; the numerous lawsuits were settled out of court. New rules were put into place afterward, dictating certification of radar operators and requiring approaching ships to establish radio contact.

The Andrea Doria still rests on the sea floor. Because the ship lies well below the maximum safe scuba-diving depth, she has taken on the role of the Everest of diving. Hundreds of souvenir hunters have explored her wreck; a dozen have died trying.

The sinking of the Andrea Doria did not mark the end of the ocean liner. It simply sounded a melancholy note in the dirge of an industry already doomed. In 1958, two years after the collision, airlines began offering nonstop jet travel between the United States and Europe. The leisurely five-day crossing on a well-appointed passenger ship became a relic of a bygone era.

—Jack Kelly writes often for American Heritage magazine and is the author of Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics—A History of the Explosive That Changed the World (Basic Books).