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Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 10634
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 - 6:07 am: |       |
>>I haven't even gone through the Morro Castle material properly yet,<<
I've been through some of it and it's an impressive work. Lots of insights to be had on the intrigues that surrounded the Ward Line, some of which were quite nasty. If the Morro Castle wasn't deliberately torched, then I would have to say that some freaky accident beat somebody to the punch, and there were a lot of parties who had a reason to do it.
I'll have to devote more time to it later on.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon |
Tarn Stephanos
Member
Username: titanictarn
Post Number: 1773
Registered: 1-2002
| | Posted on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 1:29 am: | |
She was torched- the radio man poisoned the captian, then set the ship ablaze to cover his tracks... |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 11335
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 3:51 am: | |
>>the radio man poisoned the captian<<
I'm not so sure about that part. I know of no evidence that the Captain was poisoned, and everything I have seen points to a heart attack being the most likely culprit. If such be the case, then his death was a freaky co-incidence. Unfortunately, since there was no body to autopsy after this, there's no way to really know this as a fact.
The radioman may have been a real piece of work, but my own read on it is that it would have been rather difficult for him to try something like that without attracting some unwelcome attention. Be that as it may, the Morro Castle was at the centre of a lot of intrigue so it's not really a stretch to see that there would be several possible candidates aboard who would be out to do the ship dirty under the guise of "Payback."
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon |
Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2741
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 10:57 am: | |
Continuing with the thought- although there is much evidence that Rogers was a sociopath, and that he blew up a police station; poisoned a water cooler in a factory; beat an elderly family to death, and stalked and threatened a female co-worker with death, that all took place AFTER the fire, commencing in 1938. One could go pop-psych and comment that the 1938 bombing and the mass poisoning could well have been the result of his Morro experiences, and that the disaster 'created' George White Rogers, monster, and not vice-versa. He DOES seem to have been unpleasant before the disaster- to say the least- and had a record of offenses that included homosexual rape at knifepoint as a teenager (as the aggressor) and murdering his wife's dog (she attended a funeral he ordered her not to, so he poisoned the dog to be spiteful) but the evidence just isn't there to support Rogers as the arsonist- and it WAS arson- on Sept. 8th 1934.
But- food for thought- the Morro Castle was heavily booked on that voyage, yet the entire block of eight suites forward of the Writing Room on B Deck was empty. So, whomever DID set the fire had the advantage of being able to enter and exit through the one portion of the ship where there were no passengers and only one potential witness- Harold Foersch, watchman- whose badly charred body was recovered from the B Deck starboard promenade deck, forward. Mr. Foersch was on the bridge with Warms early on in thre disaster, and was in fact the person who notified the captain of the mounting smoke, so 'he was murdered after he interrupted the arsonist and left on the promenade deck to burn' can be ruled out. Just a gruesome FYI- the only unburned decking remaining on the ship was found under Mr. Foersch- which indicates that he was felled by the smoke and not trapped by the fire. But, with the only person likely to look back and say 'wait a minute, I noticed so-and-so exiting that room' dead ( a happy accident for the arsonist) a first-person solution of the crime was not possible.
As I speculated in the Gare Maritime article- the week of Sept, 8, 1934, marked the first anniversary of a series of events in which the Morro Castle was met by angry mobs coming and going, visited by the bomb squad and the strong arm squad of the NYPD, the location for a thwarted 'Revolutionary' murder, and the center of an incident in which an official of United Fruit, who was suspected of arranging the murder of a Union organizer had to be brought aboard the ship in Havana under U.S. military protection to prevent his being dismembered by an enraged mob. All of which fell between the last week of August and Sept 10, 1933. I can't help but suspect that the torching of the ship might have been a symbolic act of terrorism. That is what was suspected in 1934- air service between the US and Havana was immediately suspended on the day of the fire, BTW, for fear of further terrorist acts.
Just as a historical aside- the day the ship burned, the US was in the middle of a 'citizen's uprising' in Rhode Island so severe that President Roosevelt was sending in the troops to quell it (check out the photos online- Woonsocket, 1934 will get you there- it looked like a war zone) and, again, I strongly suspect that fear of publicizing an successful act of Revolutionary Terrorism when it seemed that portions of the U.S. Northeast were on the brink of outright revolt, was why after the first few days a veil of silence fell over the M.C. terrorism angle.
Better to go into the night fighting than to request to be called "Pollyanna." |
Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2742
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, December 8, 2006 - 11:37 am: | |
> everything I have seen points to a heart attack being the most likely culprit. If such be the case, then his death was a freaky co-incidence. Unfortunately, since there was no body to autopsy after this, there's no way to really know this as a fact.
I'm trying to learn if, in fact, there was a partial autopsy conducted on the pelvis and bone fragments recovered from Wilmott's mattress. He was constipated- his last words were a request for an enema- and he was found dead in a position that strongly suggested that he toppled off his toilet in mid-bowel movement. All of which reenforces the diagnosis of Heart Attack rendered by the doctors who examined his body.
I think that whomever torched the ship seized the opportunity to operate in the not-entirely-orderly environment that Wilmott's death created. My guess, then, is that it WAS a crew member.
Better to go into the night fighting than to request to be called "Pollyanna." |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 11356
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Saturday, December 9, 2006 - 5:25 am: | |
>>I'm trying to learn if, in fact, there was a partial autopsy conducted on the pelvis and bone fragments recovered from Wilmott's mattress.<<
It would be a neat trick if they could have obtained anything useful from that if it ever happened. Medical forensics technology wasn't anywhere near as advanced as it is today. Assuming that poisoning was considered as a possibility, do you know of any testing protocols in use in the 1930's that would have detected it? (And what could they detect?)
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon |
Charles V. Norris
Member
Username: cnorris1
Post Number: 1
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 10:33 pm: | |
I find the Gare Maritime site very interesting,especially the Morro Castle disaster.
My father and uncle participated in the rescuing of survivors at Spring Lake N.J.
I have many photos and correspondence from family's of victims of that disaster,passed on to me from my uncle.
My father on the right carrying a survivor.
Unknown man helping on the left.
 |
Jim Kalafus
Member
Username: jak
Post Number: 2787
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 11:19 pm: | |
Mr. Lou Norris!
We have a second Morro Castle article coming up, of about 100 pages, that I think you may find interesting.
If you wish, please contact me at jakwesternswing@earthlink.net
I'd like to speak with you, at length, about this!
Better to go into the night fighting than to request to be called "Pollyanna." |
US $250.00 
