Inferno at Sea: Stories of Death and Survival Aboard the Morro Castle explores the mysteries surrounding the Morro Castle fire with personal stories and never-before-seen photos. The book, written by Deborah Whitcraft, founder and president of the New Jersey Maritime Museum in Beach Haven (which boasts the largest Morro Castle exhibit in the world), and Gretchen Coyle, a museum docent, was published in 2012 by Down The Shore Publishing. Nearly two years after the launch of the book, the authors have learned even more about the people who experienced the disaster.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds Sitting in the Morro Castle Exhibit, the authors discuss the new findings. |
“The more we speak, the more we talk about this, people are opening up like you wouldn’t believe. They’re really talking to us about this ship,” said Coyle.
The public was both horrified and intrigued when the SS Morro Castle caught fire and ran aground on the beach of Asbury Park 80 years ago. The luxury ocean liner, which transported passengers to and from New York and Cuba during the Great Depression in the 1930s, became engulfed in flames 8 nautical miles off Long Beach Island on Sept. 8, 1934. The incident resulted in the death of 137 passengers and crew members and left a lot of people with many unanswered questions.
Now more than ever, relatives of passengers, crew members and rescue workers are coming forward to speak about the disaster. Most of the new stories have been told to Whitcraft and Coyle following book readings and signings.
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| Photo via New Jersey Maritime Museum A Second printing of the book will be available starting in June. |
“There’s no question that Deb and I know more about the human side of this tragedy than anyone else. We’re just fascinated by the people,” said Coyle.
The authors spent part of the winter speaking with Wayne Warms, the grandson of Capt. William Warms, who had taken command of the burning ship seven hours after Capt. Robert Willmott unexpectedly died. Following the incident, the public derided Capt. Warms for his indecisiveness while passively staying on the bridge of the Morro Castle during the fire. Many people accused him of failure to act, but Wayne explained to the authors, his grandfather was required to stay at the bridge of the ship, according to Admiralty Law.
“That’s not how we saw it at all,” said Coyle. “We always thought he was in shock and let this all happen around him. There have been some very interesting things that have come out of this.”
Two years ago, JoAnne Bregstein Levine approached Whitcraft and Coyle to tell them about her brother, Mervyn Bregstein, who had died as a result of the fire. She said she had found a picture of Mervyn in a family photo album, when she was 8 years old. At the time, neither she nor her other brother had heard of him.
“She was a little reluctant to talk about it. Over the winter, we had many conversations, email and phone, and it all came out,” said Coyle.
The authors learned that Mervyn was only 8 when he and his father, Joseph Bregstein, a well-respected faculty member of the New York College of Dentistry, ventured onto the Morro Castle cruise for a father-son bonding experience. The two were separated when the fire engulfed the ship. Mervyn is said to have jumped ship with a young woman named Ethel Knight, who thought she could help him swim to safety. Thinking his son was safe, Joseph stayed on the ship until 7 a.m. and was rescued by a Monarch Bermuda lifeboat. Mervyn’s body was never recovered.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds The authors look over a copy of The Dying Hour of a Ship and a picture of casualty Mervyn Bregstein. |
“There had never been any life vest training, so this little boy ended up on the deck without a life preserver,” said Coyle. “Can you imagine the terror? It really breaks your heart.”
Relatives of Roy Julian, a wiper on the boat who was deep in the bowels of the ship and miraculously survived when it erupted into flames, recently told the authors that he never uttered a word about the incident. His sister, Barbara, told the authors that he just wanted to forget the tragedy had ever occurred. Family members said he lost most of his hair, which never grew back. He died at the age of 76, leaving no records or artifacts about the Morro Castle behind.
“Back in the ’30s, people didn’t talk about things. They didn’t know what post-traumatic stress was,” said Whitcraft.
Other people have also recounted childhood memories of watching the ship as it lay stranded in Asbury Park. They have only vague memories of the sights and conversations surrounding the incident. Some remember seeing body bags piled up near the Point Pleasant Bridge, and hearing about the Ward Line operation, which is thought to have possibly sabotaged the Morro Castle.
The authors have attributed the recent outpouring of stories to a deeper interest in genealogy.
“As these people have died since the tragedy happened, their families are learning about things that their loved ones never talked about,” said Whitcraft. “They want to know about it because when they were growing up, their parents didn’t tell them about this. They didn’t discuss it. They buried it.”
“It’s important to us, and it’s important to the people we talk to,” Coyle added. “The more they find, the more we can help them, and the more they can help us. They come to us with questions, and in turn we have questions for them. It’s very much a two-way street. We work together.”
A second printing of Inferno at Sea is due out the first week of June.
The authors are also writing chapters for a possible sequel book, which would include information about these and many more new stories.
Irene Schaperdoth of Ship Bottom is helping the authors translate Morro Castle: Die Sterbestunde eines Schiffes (The Dying Hour of a Ship) for further research. Printed in Germany, the book was written three months after the disaster by Rudolf van Wehrt, who attended many of the passengers’ and crew members’ hearings, the authors said.
In the meantime, Whitcraft and Coyle hope to have Inferno at Sea accepted into the 2015 Havana International Book Fair in Cuba, in February. Of course, getting the books to Cuba would be a logistical nightmare due to the current embargo, they said. Each case of 16 books weighs 40 pounds and would have to be hand-carried.
Five of the books were recently delivered to some of the authors’ friends in Cuba, including Ciro Bianchi Ross, Cuba’s official historian. The books were transported by relatives who carried them on the plane.
Whitcraft and Coyle will hold a number of local presentations this summer about Inferno at Sea and the Morro Castle fire, including information about their new findings. A talk will be held at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, located in Loveladies, on Thursday, June 10, at 7 p.m., as well as at the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club in Beach Haven on Sunday, July 20, at 6 p.m. The authors will also speak at the New Jersey Maritime Museum on Friday, Sept. 5, at 7 p.m., and another presentation will be held at the Little Egg Harbor branch of the Ocean County Library on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m.
For more information about upcoming author events, visit down-the-shore.com.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The Beachcomber.
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