9/8/1934 - While returning to New York City from its weekly run to Havana, Cuba, the Ward Line ocean liner, SS Morro Castle (named for a stone fortress and lighthouse in Havana), catches fire under mysterious circumstances, and in the holocaust that ensues, 135 passengers and members of the crew perish (out of 549 souls aboard the vessel when the conflagration begins) before the vessel grinds ashore near the Asbury Park Convention Hall pier in New Jersey..
SS Morro Castle On Fire
Built in response to the United States Congress passing the Merchant Marine Act of 1928, in which U.S. shipping companies can borrow up to 75% of the build costs to replace old and outdated ships in their fleets with new vessels and pay the borrowed money back over 20 years at low interest rates, the SS Morro Castle (and her sister ship, the Oriente, named for a province in Cuba) is designed by Theodore E. Ferris as a passenger liner meant to carry cargo, mail, and passengers along the Atlantic Coast of America for the Ward Line (the line is officially the New York and Cuba Steam Ship Company). Work begun in January of 1929 at the Newport News shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Virginia, the ship is christened in March of 1930, and at its launching is 508 feet long, has a beam of 70 feet and 9 inches, a tonnage of 11,250, is powered by twin General Electric turbo generators that can power the ship at 22 knots through the sea (for protection, the ship is built with nine water-tight bulkhead. Accommodations aboard include living spaces for a crew of 240 and rooms for 489 first class and tourist class passengers (16 suites and 142 cabins), and there lifeboats on both sides of the ship that can accommodate up to 800 individuals. Captained by a 31-year veteran of the Ward Line, 52-year-old Robert Rennison Willmott, at a construction cost of a cool five million dollars (the ship's cutting-edge equipment and accommodations includes telephones, elevators, new heating and ventilation systems, a gym, a day-care center for children, a library, several bars, and a pastel colored dining room that stretches over two decks, and a First-Class lounge of wood panels, mother-of-pearl inlays, Corinthian columns, and piano in front of a fireplace), the SS Morro Castle is ready to begin plying the Atlantic on August 23, 1930.
SS Morro Castle
Inside
Captain Willmott
On her maiden voyage, the SS Morro Castle makes the run down to Havana in 59 hours (1,100+ miles), and she is even quicker returning to New York City, a cruise she completes in 58 hours. Offering relatively affordable luxury (round-trip cruises lasting a week cost between $65 and $160) and a legal means of drinking and gambling during the worst of the Great Depression, for four years the ship and its sister vessel make the runs safely and develop a regular clientele that includes partiers, American and Cuban businessmen (there are rumors that the ship also carries munitions for the freedom fighters of Colonel Fulgencio Batista), and old couples. Seemingly no safety issues for the SS Morro Castle, in a witch's brew of wrong, all of the ship's hidden problems will surface when the ship's return run from Havana begins on September 5, 1934.
Ward Line Ad
SS Morro Castle
First Class
Fun In The Sun
The strange of the SS Morro Castle's final cruise begins when the captain takes his place aboard and begins babbling to the officers of his crew that he has a feeling something is going to happen on the evening of September 7, and that there is a plot to kill him and destroy the ship, a plot driven by a member of the crew he describes as "a dangerous radical," assistant radio engineer George Alanga (unhappy with working conditions aboard the ship, the radio operator has tried to get the members of the crew to sign a petition, but fails to get enough signatures and tears up the document, but not before Captain Willmott finds out). With much on his mind, Willmott decides to eat his dinner in his quarters, complains that he has a "nervous stomach," and a few hours later is discovered in the bathroom of his cabin, dead from an apparent heart attack brought on by food poisoning (the body is found slumped over the bath tub at about 7:45 in the evening). Informed of the captain's death, Chief Officer William Warms takes over command of the ship (the actual pecking order of command though is that Chief Engineer Eban Abbot take command, but it is just as well he didn't, later, with the ship aflame, Abbott will be found curled up on the floor of the wheelhouse, crying "What are we going to do?" and in a lifeboat, he is one of the first crew members to make it to shore), keeping the SS Morro Castle on its northward run, parallel to eastern coast of the United States, and straight into a storm which roils the sea and eventually sends gale force winds into the ship. At around 2:50 in the morning, a passenger approaches one of the stewards on duty, David Campbell, and says he can smell smoke coming from somewhere, and so the steward makes a quick search and finds a fire has started in a locked cupboard of the first-class writing room on Deck B. Providing a clue as to what might have happened, when the cupboard is opened (its placement in the room is disguised to all but crew members) the flames that explode outward are not the typical orange color of a wood/paper conflagration, but are blue in color, hinting at chemicals being the culprit. Before anything can be done, the fire suddenly spreads to the carpets in the room, then attacks the wood paneling and door frames (fire walls and doors will prove pointless when flames simply burn around the obstructions using all the wood walls and veneers they are attached to to continue on unabated), moves out of the room into the hallway, and in a matter of minutes is out of control, feed by all the ornate woods in first-class, the volatile layers of paint that go up (the dead captain had had a penchant for having his crew paint when the ship was not operating, so much so that some lifeboats can not be freed from where they have been painted on to the vessel), and the SS Morro Castle's unhinged newest captain (additionally, there have been hoses moved and closed off because of a $25,000 lawsuit involving a passenger tripping over a hose, and the system itself is turned off because the air movement that is part of its function is bring the stench of salted cowhides to the guest areas of the ship). Trying to beach the ship, Warms wastes valuable time trying to beach the vessel in the storm, turns the ship so that the wind races down its length, from bow to stern, feeding air into the raging fire, fails to order an S.O.S. call be sent out, fails to advise passengers on what to do, and fails to control his crew, many of which flee in the six lifeboats that manage to be lowered (the launched boats are 1, 3, 5, 9, 11 from the starboard side, and boat 10 from the port side ... capable of carrying over 400 people to safety, the small fleet is launched with only 85 people aboard).
Windows exploding from the heat, the ship becomes a torch in minutes ... so quickly that many of the passengers die from the smoke and fire without ever waking up (it is estimated that parts of the fire will burn at over 1,500 degrees). Others awake, but without any direction from the crew, try to save themselves as best they can, with exceedingly poor results. Cut off from the forward portion of the ship by the flames amidships (water hydrants available in 42 locations aboard, the crew and passengers make the horrible discover that when more than a couple are put into use at the same time, the demand kills the water pressure in all the hoses about the vessel), most of the passengers that manage to make it out of their cabins congregate at the stern of the ship (they briefly sing, "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here") where the storm winds push the smoke and flames over the crowded area (and impairing rescue, the Lyle gun that allows the ship to fire a line to another vessel is stored over the writing room where the fire has exploded ... the gun blows up at about 3:00 in the morning along with 25 pounds of gunpowder), making the fire burn even hotter. Seemingly a hero, radio operator George Rogers stays at his post, trying to contact other ships that might be in the area until he is overcome by the smoke and heat and has to be drug forward to safety (though he never gets an order from Warms to send out an S.O.S., Rogers sends one out on his own just before the loss of electricity makes further communications impossible). And making the situation worse and even more nightmarish, after about twenty minutes, the flames burn through most of the ship's main electrical cable, sending the ship into darkness and cutting the power to most of the systems that keep alive (the engines shut down and the steering goes out as the ship drifts north, closing on landfall from six to ten miles off shore). Jump or burn (it is about a thirty foot drop from the ship to the water), most of the passengers chose to go over the side and into the sea, but given no instruction in how to use the personal life preservers, many passengers put their floatation devices on and then jump into the Atlantic with disastrous results. For some, the incorrectly worn life preservers knock the jumpers unconscious when they hit the water (and they subsequently drown, while others have their necks instantly snapped. And making it into the water with no bodily injuries is barely a solution for most ... in the water a survivor must battle the huge waves the storm has bred, and the effects of hypothermia and exhaustion.
Also complicating rescue from the ship are the gale conditions of September, 8th. Reacting to the one S.O.S. that goes out (the first place to realize a tragedy is taking place will be radio station WCS in Tuckerton, New Jersey), the first ship to render aid to the burning vessel is the Andrea F. Luckenbach, followed shortly by Monarch of Bermuda, City of Savannah, and the President Cleveland (she sends forth a motor launch that circles the burning hulk, and seeing nothing aboard or in the water, returns to the President Cleveland, which then leaves the area). Coast Guard also alerted, the Tampa and Cahoone arrive on the scene, but position themselves too far away from the wreck to be of much assistance, while additionally, the Coast Guard's aerial station at Cape May, New Jersey fails to send its scout planes to the area until local New Jersey radio stations start reporting corpses washing ashore from Point Pleasant to Spring Lake. Of much more help once dawn arrives, upon receiving word of the disaster, the Governor of New Jersey and Commander of the New Jersey Guard, Harry Moore, pilots a plane over the seas around the SS Morro Castle, dipping his wings and dropping markers whenever he identifies bodies or swimmers in the water. His state also steps up without being requested too ... seeing the liner ablaze just off the coast, locals launch a steady stream of small boats into the area to rescue survivors. Only a small group of survivors are left aboard the bow of the ship by the time the sun rises the next day (13 in all, among them are Warms, Rogers, and Alagna), when the Tampa arrives on the scene she tries to take the SS Morro Castle under tow, but the fire killing electric connections aboard, the anchor Warms has dropped can not be raised, so for hours men work away on the anchor chain until it is finally parted near noon. Last survivors taken off, the SS Morro Castle is slowly towed away by the Tampa, but the towline breaks shortly after 6:00 in the evening and the vessel drifts to the northwest, eventually grinding ashore in the sands of Asbury Park (where it will burn for two more days in front of the city's large Convention Hall), the official death toll for the tragedy is set at 137 individuals (88 passengers and 49 members of the crew), but a true number will never be known, with political unrest sweeping Cuba at the time, many parents have stowed away children hoping to go north to a better life.
Victims
Ship aground, the finger pointing and inquiries into what happened begin almost immediately ... and yet despite lawyers and reporters delving into the tragedy and investigations by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and the Ward Line, no definitive cause for the disaster is ever determined. Meanwhile, the wreck wallows in the surf of Asbury Park and becomes a tourist destination for six months (100,000 people will be drawn to the site on the first day the SS Morro Castle comes ashore), with local businesses extending their summer seasons (the city actually offers to buy the wreck, but the proposal is shot down by the Ward Line). On March 14, 1935, the beach is finally cleared and the SS Morro Castle is towed to Gravesend Bay and then on to Baltimore where it becomes a giant pile of scrapped metal. On March 27, 1937, Federal Judge John C. Knox affixes a liability for the tragedy to the Ward Line for $890,000, which works out to $2,225 for each victim of the tragedy. Brought to trial for "willful negligence" in the matter, Warms, Abbott, and Ward Line vice-president Henry Cabaud are all found guilty and sentenced to jail time, but on appeal, Warms and Abbott are set free when it is determined that dead Captain Willmott was responsible for much of their maleficence.
In the initial reporting on the tragedy, the liner's radioman, six-foot-two inch, 250-pound George W. Rogers is hailed as a hero for staying at his post, but slowly a different story starts to emerge about his conduct of the SS Morro Castle's last voyage and his actions are seen in a grimmer light. According to the tale Rogers tells, after the captain tells him to watch his fellow radio crewmate Alagna, Rogers finds two bottles of sulfuric acid which he immediately pitches overboard (earlier in the day he tells Warms that he must talk to the captain about an important matter, but won't tell the officer what the matter is, and there is an incident in which he wakes Alagna and confronts him with two bottles that the radio operative claims to have never seen before). Shift over, Rogers goes to his bunk, but not before going for a walk about the shift. Woken by screaming outside his berth, Alagna tries to wake Rogers, but the radioman doesn't stir until a 3rd radio man tells him to get up as the ship is on fire. Taking over the radio room, Rogers orders Alagna to see Watrms on the bridge for orders. Three times Alagna tries to get a response from Warms and fails, and when he asks Rodgers to send off an S.O.S. is refused by the radio operator with words about following procedure (still holding to his principles, Rodgers tells Alagna about listening to other ships in the area discussing whether a ship is on fire, and yet never cuts in to relate what is taking place aboard the SS Morro Castle). Floor so hot his shoes begin to melt, Rodgers sends off an S.O.S. just before the electricity on board fails. Heads wrapped in wet towels, Alagna drags a semi-conscious Rodgers to the bridge, now abandoned, and on to the forecastle, where with a flashlight Warms has given him, Rodgers signals the Andrea S. Luckenbach that the ship needs help. Bragging about what he has done, Rodgers proclaims, "We'll all be safe soon, I got off the S.O.S." Rescue underway, Rodgers babbles about his heroism, asks pointed questions about the fire, and states how God has singled out the crew for glory. Transferred to the Tampa, Rodgers strange ways are again on display when he takes to a bed and thrashes about about babbling nonsense, even though only moments before he had been fine while rescue efforts were still ongoing, and then taken to shore on a stretcher, he will sit up and smilingly wave at reporters shouting questions his way.
Designated a hero at first, Rodgers is the flavor of the month in the United States, and even is put into a Broadway show to tell his tale to the public (where he earns $1,000 a week). But the public quickly moves on to other diversions, while Rodgers remains a monster awaiting his unmasking. Too late to prosecute for the deaths aboard the SS Morro Castle, it is discovered that the radioman has had personality problems since his childhood. In trouble and booted from school after school, Rodgers is permanently expelled from further schooling at the age of fifteen for raping a younger boy. In 1919 he enlists in the Navy as a radio operator, and surprise-surprise, he becomes involved in a small chemical fire for which he takes credit for defeating before it became a full force blaze, while also damaging his eyes saving a fellow sailor (taken to a naval hospital, Rodgers will feign unconsciousness and delirium caused by pain and his discharge from the service will be for a diming of his eyesight having nothing to do with chemicals, explosions, or fires. Working in a number of New York City electronic stores over the next nine years (he also marries during this period), Rodgers seems to be a magnet for multiple thefts and mysterious fires at his various places of employment (and when his wife, Inez, goes against his wishes and attends the wedding of a relative, Rodgers poisons his wife's dog as revenge) ... then he goes to work for the Ward Line. After his Broadway show peters out, Rodgers uses the money from his public bragging to fund an electronics store of his own, which soon goes bankrupt and then burns to the ground, but the radioman has already moved on, taking a job with the city police department of Bayonne, New Jersey. Befriended there Lt. Vincent Doyle (the pair are working on the departments two-way radio service), Rodgers talks incessantly about the SS Morro Castle fire, relating details only the arsonist responsible would know (and he theorizes that the fire was started by a fountain pen full of acid). Confronted by Doyle over whether he was involved in setting the ship fire, the radioman says it was all just Sherlock Holmes conjecture and decides to do away with Doyle, crafting a small bomb out of materials he steals from the police department. Package routed to Doyle stating it is a fish tank heater in need of repair, the bomb explodes when the package is opened with Doyle holding it, taking off three fingers from the detective's left hand and breaking his leg leg. Culprit quickly identified, Rodgers is arrested, put on trial (the trial takes place without a jury in front of Common Pleas Judge Thomas H. Brown and the details of the SS Morro Castle fire never come up), and sent off the spend 12 to 20 years behind bars.
Under Arrest Again!
If any kind of silver lining comes out of the tragic burning of the SS Morro Castle, beyond firproofing tweaks, it is what happens to the Broadway musical being produced by Vinton Freedley. Dealing with life aboard an ocean liner, and having plot points that involve a bomb scare, a shipwreck, and human trafficking on a desert island, points the producer calls "a hopeless mess." the musical is delayed in light of the SS Morro Castle disaster. Given time for rewrites and changes, the musical, once known as "Crazy Week" and then "Hard to Get," eventually opens at the Alvin Theatre as "Anything Goes." A classic musical comedy starring Ethel Merman as nightclub singer, Reno Sweeney, singing the words and music of Cole Porter, the production introduces the Porter classics, "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You'd Be So Easy to Love," "You're the Top," "It's De-Lovely," and "Anything Goes," has the fourth longest run of 1930s' musicals (420 performances), will be revived in 1935, 1987, 1989, 2003, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2021, and will be filmed by Paramount Studios twice, in 1936 starring Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman, and in 1956 starring Bing Crosby and Mitzi Gaynor, and not to be left out, there will be a television version in 1954 featuring Ethel Merman and Frank Sinatra.
First Class Writing Room
Warms
Windows exploding from the heat, the ship becomes a torch in minutes ... so quickly that many of the passengers die from the smoke and fire without ever waking up (it is estimated that parts of the fire will burn at over 1,500 degrees). Others awake, but without any direction from the crew, try to save themselves as best they can, with exceedingly poor results. Cut off from the forward portion of the ship by the flames amidships (water hydrants available in 42 locations aboard, the crew and passengers make the horrible discover that when more than a couple are put into use at the same time, the demand kills the water pressure in all the hoses about the vessel), most of the passengers that manage to make it out of their cabins congregate at the stern of the ship (they briefly sing, "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here") where the storm winds push the smoke and flames over the crowded area (and impairing rescue, the Lyle gun that allows the ship to fire a line to another vessel is stored over the writing room where the fire has exploded ... the gun blows up at about 3:00 in the morning along with 25 pounds of gunpowder), making the fire burn even hotter. Seemingly a hero, radio operator George Rogers stays at his post, trying to contact other ships that might be in the area until he is overcome by the smoke and heat and has to be drug forward to safety (though he never gets an order from Warms to send out an S.O.S., Rogers sends one out on his own just before the loss of electricity makes further communications impossible). And making the situation worse and even more nightmarish, after about twenty minutes, the flames burn through most of the ship's main electrical cable, sending the ship into darkness and cutting the power to most of the systems that keep alive (the engines shut down and the steering goes out as the ship drifts north, closing on landfall from six to ten miles off shore). Jump or burn (it is about a thirty foot drop from the ship to the water), most of the passengers chose to go over the side and into the sea, but given no instruction in how to use the personal life preservers, many passengers put their floatation devices on and then jump into the Atlantic with disastrous results. For some, the incorrectly worn life preservers knock the jumpers unconscious when they hit the water (and they subsequently drown, while others have their necks instantly snapped. And making it into the water with no bodily injuries is barely a solution for most ... in the water a survivor must battle the huge waves the storm has bred, and the effects of hypothermia and exhaustion.
SS Morro Castle Life Jacket
After
After
Dragging A Survivor Ashore
Also complicating rescue from the ship are the gale conditions of September, 8th. Reacting to the one S.O.S. that goes out (the first place to realize a tragedy is taking place will be radio station WCS in Tuckerton, New Jersey), the first ship to render aid to the burning vessel is the Andrea F. Luckenbach, followed shortly by Monarch of Bermuda, City of Savannah, and the President Cleveland (she sends forth a motor launch that circles the burning hulk, and seeing nothing aboard or in the water, returns to the President Cleveland, which then leaves the area). Coast Guard also alerted, the Tampa and Cahoone arrive on the scene, but position themselves too far away from the wreck to be of much assistance, while additionally, the Coast Guard's aerial station at Cape May, New Jersey fails to send its scout planes to the area until local New Jersey radio stations start reporting corpses washing ashore from Point Pleasant to Spring Lake. Of much more help once dawn arrives, upon receiving word of the disaster, the Governor of New Jersey and Commander of the New Jersey Guard, Harry Moore, pilots a plane over the seas around the SS Morro Castle, dipping his wings and dropping markers whenever he identifies bodies or swimmers in the water. His state also steps up without being requested too ... seeing the liner ablaze just off the coast, locals launch a steady stream of small boats into the area to rescue survivors. Only a small group of survivors are left aboard the bow of the ship by the time the sun rises the next day (13 in all, among them are Warms, Rogers, and Alagna), when the Tampa arrives on the scene she tries to take the SS Morro Castle under tow, but the fire killing electric connections aboard, the anchor Warms has dropped can not be raised, so for hours men work away on the anchor chain until it is finally parted near noon. Last survivors taken off, the SS Morro Castle is slowly towed away by the Tampa, but the towline breaks shortly after 6:00 in the evening and the vessel drifts to the northwest, eventually grinding ashore in the sands of Asbury Park (where it will burn for two more days in front of the city's large Convention Hall), the official death toll for the tragedy is set at 137 individuals (88 passengers and 49 members of the crew), but a true number will never be known, with political unrest sweeping Cuba at the time, many parents have stowed away children hoping to go north to a better life.
Asbury
Aground And Aflame
Victims
Ship aground, the finger pointing and inquiries into what happened begin almost immediately ... and yet despite lawyers and reporters delving into the tragedy and investigations by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and the Ward Line, no definitive cause for the disaster is ever determined. Meanwhile, the wreck wallows in the surf of Asbury Park and becomes a tourist destination for six months (100,000 people will be drawn to the site on the first day the SS Morro Castle comes ashore), with local businesses extending their summer seasons (the city actually offers to buy the wreck, but the proposal is shot down by the Ward Line). On March 14, 1935, the beach is finally cleared and the SS Morro Castle is towed to Gravesend Bay and then on to Baltimore where it becomes a giant pile of scrapped metal. On March 27, 1937, Federal Judge John C. Knox affixes a liability for the tragedy to the Ward Line for $890,000, which works out to $2,225 for each victim of the tragedy. Brought to trial for "willful negligence" in the matter, Warms, Abbott, and Ward Line vice-president Henry Cabaud are all found guilty and sentenced to jail time, but on appeal, Warms and Abbott are set free when it is determined that dead Captain Willmott was responsible for much of their maleficence.
Still On Fire
Burning
Pressed Penny Souvenir
Crowds
What Fun?
From Above
In the initial reporting on the tragedy, the liner's radioman, six-foot-two inch, 250-pound George W. Rogers is hailed as a hero for staying at his post, but slowly a different story starts to emerge about his conduct of the SS Morro Castle's last voyage and his actions are seen in a grimmer light. According to the tale Rogers tells, after the captain tells him to watch his fellow radio crewmate Alagna, Rogers finds two bottles of sulfuric acid which he immediately pitches overboard (earlier in the day he tells Warms that he must talk to the captain about an important matter, but won't tell the officer what the matter is, and there is an incident in which he wakes Alagna and confronts him with two bottles that the radio operative claims to have never seen before). Shift over, Rogers goes to his bunk, but not before going for a walk about the shift. Woken by screaming outside his berth, Alagna tries to wake Rogers, but the radioman doesn't stir until a 3rd radio man tells him to get up as the ship is on fire. Taking over the radio room, Rogers orders Alagna to see Watrms on the bridge for orders. Three times Alagna tries to get a response from Warms and fails, and when he asks Rodgers to send off an S.O.S. is refused by the radio operator with words about following procedure (still holding to his principles, Rodgers tells Alagna about listening to other ships in the area discussing whether a ship is on fire, and yet never cuts in to relate what is taking place aboard the SS Morro Castle). Floor so hot his shoes begin to melt, Rodgers sends off an S.O.S. just before the electricity on board fails. Heads wrapped in wet towels, Alagna drags a semi-conscious Rodgers to the bridge, now abandoned, and on to the forecastle, where with a flashlight Warms has given him, Rodgers signals the Andrea S. Luckenbach that the ship needs help. Bragging about what he has done, Rodgers proclaims, "We'll all be safe soon, I got off the S.O.S." Rescue underway, Rodgers babbles about his heroism, asks pointed questions about the fire, and states how God has singled out the crew for glory. Transferred to the Tampa, Rodgers strange ways are again on display when he takes to a bed and thrashes about about babbling nonsense, even though only moments before he had been fine while rescue efforts were still ongoing, and then taken to shore on a stretcher, he will sit up and smilingly wave at reporters shouting questions his way.
Rodgers
Alagna Under Arrest
Abbott
Designated a hero at first, Rodgers is the flavor of the month in the United States, and even is put into a Broadway show to tell his tale to the public (where he earns $1,000 a week). But the public quickly moves on to other diversions, while Rodgers remains a monster awaiting his unmasking. Too late to prosecute for the deaths aboard the SS Morro Castle, it is discovered that the radioman has had personality problems since his childhood. In trouble and booted from school after school, Rodgers is permanently expelled from further schooling at the age of fifteen for raping a younger boy. In 1919 he enlists in the Navy as a radio operator, and surprise-surprise, he becomes involved in a small chemical fire for which he takes credit for defeating before it became a full force blaze, while also damaging his eyes saving a fellow sailor (taken to a naval hospital, Rodgers will feign unconsciousness and delirium caused by pain and his discharge from the service will be for a diming of his eyesight having nothing to do with chemicals, explosions, or fires. Working in a number of New York City electronic stores over the next nine years (he also marries during this period), Rodgers seems to be a magnet for multiple thefts and mysterious fires at his various places of employment (and when his wife, Inez, goes against his wishes and attends the wedding of a relative, Rodgers poisons his wife's dog as revenge) ... then he goes to work for the Ward Line. After his Broadway show peters out, Rodgers uses the money from his public bragging to fund an electronics store of his own, which soon goes bankrupt and then burns to the ground, but the radioman has already moved on, taking a job with the city police department of Bayonne, New Jersey. Befriended there Lt. Vincent Doyle (the pair are working on the departments two-way radio service), Rodgers talks incessantly about the SS Morro Castle fire, relating details only the arsonist responsible would know (and he theorizes that the fire was started by a fountain pen full of acid). Confronted by Doyle over whether he was involved in setting the ship fire, the radioman says it was all just Sherlock Holmes conjecture and decides to do away with Doyle, crafting a small bomb out of materials he steals from the police department. Package routed to Doyle stating it is a fish tank heater in need of repair, the bomb explodes when the package is opened with Doyle holding it, taking off three fingers from the detective's left hand and breaking his leg leg. Culprit quickly identified, Rodgers is arrested, put on trial (the trial takes place without a jury in front of Common Pleas Judge Thomas H. Brown and the details of the SS Morro Castle fire never come up), and sent off the spend 12 to 20 years behind bars.
Backstage Boozing!
Doyle
Sent off to prison in 1939, Rodgers surprises his keepers by getting out four years later, thanks to joining a program that allows convicts out of jail so they might serve in the service of the armed forces of the United States of America fighting in WWII. Released, the service has no interest in Rodgers, and the radio operator is soon sent back to his wife in New Jersey. Eventually, Rodgers finds a job at a local factory producing static dischargers for the Army Air Force. A whiz at electronics and getting along with his superiors, Rodgers is promoted to foreman of the manufacturing floor, and then, over 80 female employees, made the factories supervisor. Misusing his authority, though already married, Rodgers pursues a relationship with one of the ladies working on the assembly line (to get away from Rodgers she will quit her job over the phone), and in another strange incident, while giving a tour of the facility to company president, Nathan Leonard, stops the executive from drinking water out of a water cooler, claiming the wet is poison (and it is, in the form of a high concentration of the toxic chemical potassium thiocyanate ... an FBI investigation never solves the case). Very strange! After the war, the plant closes down and Rodgers buys a panel truck in which he drives about Bayonne, New Jersey doing odd electronic jobs about town. In 1953, the monster Rodgers keeps inside once again slips out. Friends to victims, when the radio operator refuses to pay back loans of $17,000 from William Hummel (he is leaving New Jersey to retire to Florida) that was to be used to finance a business reselling surplus war equipment, and instead, walks down the street and kills Hummel and his spinster daughter, Edith, with a sledge hammer. The last person known to have seen Mr. Hummel alive (Rodgers drives Hummel to the bank when the old man closes his account prior to his move to Florida), suspect identified when police discover pants at Rodgers' home bearing the blood of the Hummels (the murder weapon will be found hidden beneath a staircase in the Hummel home), the radio man is arrested and placed on trial once more. Going with a jury trial for the Hummel murders, the prosecution calls 55 witnesses that lay out a strong case against Rodgers, who counters with his defense lawyer calling no one at all. Not surprisingly, after only three hours of deliberations, the jury comes back with guilty verdicts in both of the Hummel's murder deaths and sentences Rodgers to life at the New Jersey State penitentiary. In prison, Rodgers maintains his innocence and helps put together the prison's communication system. Going to the grave with the part he played in the SS Morro Castle's burning, Rodgers passes away in the prison hospital on January 10, 1958 as a result of a sudden heart attack brought on by diabetes at the age of 62.
Back In The News
If any kind of silver lining comes out of the tragic burning of the SS Morro Castle, beyond firproofing tweaks, it is what happens to the Broadway musical being produced by Vinton Freedley. Dealing with life aboard an ocean liner, and having plot points that involve a bomb scare, a shipwreck, and human trafficking on a desert island, points the producer calls "a hopeless mess." the musical is delayed in light of the SS Morro Castle disaster. Given time for rewrites and changes, the musical, once known as "Crazy Week" and then "Hard to Get," eventually opens at the Alvin Theatre as "Anything Goes." A classic musical comedy starring Ethel Merman as nightclub singer, Reno Sweeney, singing the words and music of Cole Porter, the production introduces the Porter classics, "I Get a Kick Out of You," "You'd Be So Easy to Love," "You're the Top," "It's De-Lovely," and "Anything Goes," has the fourth longest run of 1930s' musicals (420 performances), will be revived in 1935, 1987, 1989, 2003, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2021, and will be filmed by Paramount Studios twice, in 1936 starring Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman, and in 1956 starring Bing Crosby and Mitzi Gaynor, and not to be left out, there will be a television version in 1954 featuring Ethel Merman and Frank Sinatra.
Merman
9/8/1934 - Bonfire on the seas, with the Atlantic flexing its muscles, the Ward Line ocean liner, SS Morro Castle is turned into toasted steel, taking the lives of 138 passengers and crew.
SS Morro Castle
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