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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 22, 1957)
SIXTEEN MEDrORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE Monday, -July 22. 1937 Lawyers Still Working To Settle Claims Arising From Andrea Doria Tragedy By FREDERICK M. WINSHIP United Press Correspondent New York OPi One year after the jinking of the Andrea Doria fix lawyers are working full time to settle claims arising from the tragedy, engineers and adventurers are pondering sal vage methods, and a movie pro ducer is preparing to film the wreck of the luxury liner. On July 26, 1956, the pride of the Uilian Line plunged 250 feet to the ocean floor a little less than 11 hours after she and the Swedish-American liner Stockholm collided with a loss of 50 lives. An additional Doria passenger died of injuries last April, and several are still unjer medical care. One of the 1,663 survivors recently drowned on an outing. Fifteen-year-oid Linda Mor iSh, the girl who was lifted from her Doria berth and borne to safety in the crumpled bow of the Stockholm, has recovered from her injuries and will be a sophomore at a Quaker school in Bucks county. Pa., next fali. "They've been calling me a 'miracle' survivor for a long time," said Linda in Snohomish, Wash., where she is visiting rela tives for the summer. "I guess that'i the only way to describe it. It was a miracle:" Safe Mode of Travel The loss of the 29,000-ton three-year-old Doria ironically pointed up the fact that North Atlantic liner travel is one of the safest modes of transporta tion. From 1918 to the time of the unprecedented Doria-Stock-holm collision, not one liner pas senger lost his life due to sink ing, shipwreck or accident on Atlantic and Mediterranean runs. The headline publicity, pro longed for months by dramatic pre-trial testimony by officers of both ships, had no ill effect on liner bookings, according to sta tistics provided by major pas senger lines. The Swedish-American Line reports this season's tourist volume is up 10 per cent over last year's, and the Italian Line has a slight increase in Europe-bound bookings. The Stockholm has capacity book ings through September. Capt. Gunnar Nordenson, 63-year-old master of the Stockholm at the time of the collision, now is in command of the new Swe d i s h-American flagship, the Gripsholm. Ernst Carstens-Jo-hannsen, officer in charge of the the bridge when the Stockholm's prow gouged a 70-foot hole in the Doria's side, still serves Nor denson as third mate. Capt. Piero Calamai of the Do ria, whose health was broken by the experience of losing his ship, was recently retired on pension by the Italian Line and is living in Genoa. He originally had been scheduled for retirement on his 60th birthday next December. His second and third mates, who were with him on the bridge at the collision hour, are still in service. Building New Hull In a Genoan shipyard, the hull of the 31,500-ton replacement for the Doria the Leonardi da Vinci is taking shape. The Da Vinci's keel was laid June 23 and the ship will be ready for launching in 1960. The Italian Line is building her with $19 million paid by Hull Insurance Underwriters toward the Dona's S30 million loss plus a multi million dollar grant from the Italian government. The Leonardo da Vinci will be equipped with one of the new types of "true motion" radar plotting screens perfected since the sinking of the Doria. Radar bliDs indicating the position. of ships used to fade out in three ! seconds. Now they can be re tained on the screen for as long as a half hour, giving a clear picture of the heading and rela tive speed of approaching vessels. Experts say new radar sys tems, such as the one in use on the Gripsholm, should virtually eliminate the chance-in-a-million accident like the Doria-Stock-holm collision, if deck officers are thoroughly trained to use the equipment intelligently. Another aid to safety at sea would be the development of a standard short range radio phone circuit so that ships of different countries could communicate by phone. The various AM and FM systems now in use are incom patible. Home Holdouts Progress in equipment stand ardization, agreement on sailing routes, and adoption of maxi mum safety standards in ship construction has been hampered by failure of the United Nations to obtain ratification of its In tergovernmental Maritime Con sulative Organization (INCO). Seventeen countries have rati fied it since it was organized on paper nine years ago .and the backing of only four more na tions is necessary. Norway, Swe den, Denmark and Russia are the major maritime holdouts. The legal aftermath of the Doria tragedy remains a head ache for two New York law firms who have three lawyers each and a score of assistants assigned exclusively to the out-of-court settlement of third party claims for injuries and loss of life, baggage and cargo. The Italian and Swedish-American lines agreed last January to end attempts to fix blame for the col lision on each other and estab lish instead a joint liability fund of S5 million to S6 million. The lawyers are trying to pare down 1.200 claims totaling more than S100 million to the size of this liability fund. Spokesmen estimate that '10 per cent of the total claims and 25 per cent of the passenger claims already have been settled, al though no money has yet been paid the claimants. Claims To Be Paid - All claims may well be paid oif in two or three years, or less than half the time originally estimated. The Italian Line is making no plans to salvage the Doria, which is fair game for anyone according to maritime law, and no serious consideration is being given the project by any of the big salvage firms here or abroad. Most shipping experts rule out lifting the liner or dismembering her with underwater cutting equipment due to the depths in volved and the storm hazards of open sea salvage. But an official of the nation's biggest salvage firm, Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp., said the project should not be pigeonholed as "impos sible," although it might not be economically feasible. U. S. Rubber Company scien tists have disclosed they are working on a method of salvag ing ships by the use of huge air inflated rubber tubes that would be atttached to the sides of sunken vessels like water wings. They say it may eventually pro vide a way to raise the Doria. An engineer, Robert K. Bedell, has offered the U.S. Maritime Administration a plan to float the Doria by filling its holds, staterooms and corridors with inflated bags. To Film Hull Since department store heir Peter Gimbel's daring skin-diving visit to the Doria's port side, some 160 feet below the surface, filming of the sunken sea queen has been a matter of speculation in movie circles. Next month, French diver Dmitri Rebikoff will try to get enough film foot age for an 85-minute color docu mentary by riding around the wreck on film torpedos equipped with 90,000 candlepower light ing and 16 mm. Beaulieu cam eras. Independent film producer Dick Flower of New York has raised 5100,000 from American and foreign interests for the project. None of the Doria .survivors interviewed by this correspond ent expressed a desire to see a film of the ship where they spent some of the most horrible hours of their lives and where 43 bodies still are trapped. Mrs. Marion Woyer of Greenwich, Conn., whose shipboard suite was sheered away by the Stock holm minutes before she had planned to go to bed, summed it up by saying: "It was like a bad dream the kind you don't want to dwell on. I am just so happy to have gotton out alive. There are too many new, wonderful ex periences ahead in life to look back now." S amovar VODKA Made from grain. 80 proof. J Schenley Dist. Co., N. Y. C. Quotes From the News By UNITED PRESS Cleveland, Ohio W. Kenneth Davis, director of the Atomic Energy Commission's Reactor Development division, on Russia's "grandiose" nuclear plans: "It would be silly indeed to let unsupported and irrational claims as to Soviet capabilities distort and warp sound U.S. poli cies and programs." Newark, N.J. Gov. Robert B. Meyner. pooh-poohing the pos sibility of running in 1960 as vice president on a Democratic presi dential ticket headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, a Republican: "My concern light now is to be reelected governor of New Jersey."' Long Beach Lovely, young Gladys Zender of Peru, reigning supreme as Miss Universe after nearly being disqualified on a technicality: j "I am very, very grateful for the understanding shown by the ! other contestants and my other friends in Long Beach." London The Rer. Canon H. G. Rorison. chaplain at Glamis : Castle, on why he refused to marry a cousin of Queen Elisabeth ; to a commoner: "I considered it unsuitable to marry them. I could not do It without the consent of the rest of the family." Peiping Radio Has Quiz Show Program Tokyo IW Communist China's Peiping radio has fallen victim to the capitalistic quiz show programs. The show started recently, with master of ceremonies, tricky questions and prizes none of them worth $64,000. Questions included such things as who was the famous Italian traveler who journeyed to China in the 13th century (Marco Polo), and name an important product used all over the world that was first invented in China (gunpowder). "Remember, the announcer said after posing this week's question, "Your correct answer must be posted within thiree days to qualify for a prize." He did not say what the prize would be. Pure silver is softer than pure copper. Oregon Archers Win Robin Hood Festival j Sherwood (IP) Oregon archers ! Saturday won the Robin Hood ', festival archery competition for j the second successive year over bowmen at Nottingham, Eng land. Total score for Oregon arch- ers Friday was 10,418. Results! of a similar archery shoot in . Nottingham were cabled to Sher- wood and showed a total score of j 9,721. Winning team each year is awarded a silver trophy. cash: en s 1 1 " vmm m mane mm LC3 iPArinr IHDUSTRIAl 16 S. 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