- TSMS Lakonia
The TSMS "Lakonia", originally named MS "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt", was a ship that burned on December 22, 1963 with high loss of life.
As "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt"
The "MS Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was built in
Amsterdam at the Nederlandse Scheepsbouw Maatschappij, dockyard 194. The ship was launched onAugust 3 ,1929 and construction was completed onMarch 13 ,1930 . She was powered by twopropeller s and twoSulzer diesel engine s and had a maximum speed of convert|19|kn|km/h. The ship was convert|609|ft|m long and weighed 19,040 tons. She was originally operated by the Netherland Line, and sailed between Amsterdam and theDutch East Indies for nine years.The "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" originally could accommodate 770 passengers: 366 in first class, 280 in second, 64 in third and 60 in fourth class. She could also carry as many as 360 crewmen. The ship had seven passenger decks and could carry 9,000 tons of additional
cargo .Along with her sister ship, the "Marnix van St. Aldegonde", the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was the largest Dutch ship at the time she was built. She was the eighty-ninth ship ever built for the Netherland Line.
The ship was built as a luxury liner. Famed artist Carel Adolph Lion Cachet and sculptor Lambertus Zijl designed the ship’s
teak andmarble interior, as well as her manystatue s,mosaic s, tapestries andchandelier s.At the outbreak of
World War II in 1939, the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was chartered by theHolland America Line and re-registered in Batavia,Indonesia . She was used as a cargo ship on the Batavia toNew York City route. OnJanuary 20 ,1941 , she was registered as an allied troop ship, and was converted for duty at the Harland and Wolff shipyard. Managed by the Orient Line, she could carry a maximum of 4,000 troops. Her port of registration was Willemstad,Curaçao . After servicingIndia ,Singapore andPenang , she finally returned to her home port of Amsterdam onFebruary 13 ,1946 .Her sister ship, the "Marnix van St. Aldegonde", also served as a troop ship. She was
torpedo ed and sunk by German aircraft off theAlgeria n coast, and all 3,000 troops and crew were saved by rescue ships.After a refitting, the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" returned to service on the Amsterdam – Batavia route in 1946. Indonesians were fighting for their independence from the
Netherlands at this time. The ship ferried Dutch troops returning home to Europe from Indonesia for several years.By 1950, the political climate in Indonesia had become so unstable that the ship was withdrawn from the East Indies service. She was switched to the Amsterdam –
Australia service and departed on her first voyage to Australia onSeptember 2 , 1950. She serviced Australia andNew Zealand for the next twelve and a half years, with occasional service toCanada and theUnited States .The Australia run was an instant success, and 1951, the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was put into dry-dock in Amsterdam for refitting. She was refurbished to carry 1,414 passengers in a one-class configuration. Her lounges were restored to their original state of luxury, and additional passenger facilities were installed. Eight lifeboats were added, bringing her total number of boats to 24.
On
January 23 ,1952 , the ship left for Australia and was forced to return to Amsterdam after four small fires were discovered on board. The fires were quickly extinguished.Arson was suspected, but no suspects were ever arrested.The "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was refitted again in 1958 at a cost of AU$800,000. The refitting was carried out by the Amsterdam Dry Dock Company and took three months to complete. Accommodation was reduced to 1,210 passengers. Three luxury suites were added, as well as a
nightclub , cinema, gift shop, promenade lounge and secondswimming pool . All public rooms were refinished and restored. The main mast was relocated to atop the bridge, and the decks were extended aft. Her funnels were heightened, given rounded tops and painted yellow and black. Her black hull was re-painted gray.The ship was assigned to her new port,
Southampton ,England , onApril 2 ,1959 . She offered round-the-world service, making stops in Australia, New Zealand,Bermuda and New York City. She was now marketed as acruise ship , instead of a passenger liner.The "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" left on her last round-the-world voyage for the Netherland Line on
June 30 ,1962 . She arrived in Sydney,Australia onFebruary 3 ,1963 and was decommissioned by the Netherland Line that day, ending a 33-year career for that shipping line. She then sailed forGenoa ,Italy , and arrived onMarch 7 , 1963.As "Lakonia"
On
March 8 , 1963, the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt" was sold to the General Steam Navigation Company. Her decks and public rooms were re-named and the aft swimming pool was enlarged. Twelve additional cabins were built, andair conditioning was installed throughout the ship. Her hull was painted white, and her weight grew to 20,314 tons. Most importantly, the ship's name was changed to "TSMS Lakonia".The ship was operated by the Ormos Shipping Company (also known as the Greek Line) and offered service from Southampton to the
Canary Islands . She departed Southampton on her first voyage as "Lakonia" onApril 24 , 1963. She proved immensely popular, and the Greek Line planned 27 cruises for 1964. FromDecember 9 toDecember 13 , 1963, she underwent another minor upgrade. A new pneumaticfuel injection system was installed. Cabins were redecorated, and thekitchen and pantry were completely remodeled.The "Lakonia" was outfitted with a number of safety features. She carried 24 lifeboats capable of holding 1,455 people. The ship had an automatic
fire alarm system and two fire stations with specialized firefighting equipment. There werelifejacket s for every person on board and an extra 400 stowed on deck.In addition to "Lakonia", the Greek Line also operated the larger "Arkadia" and "Olympia".
The fire
The "Lakonia" departed Southampton on
December 19 , 1963 for an 11-day "Christmas Cruise" of the Canary Islands. Her first scheduled stop was to be the island ofMadeira . There were 646 passengers and 376 crewmen on board: a total of 1,022 people. All but 21 of the passengers were British citizens, and the crew members were mostly Greek and German. The captain of the "Lakonia" was 53-year-old Mathios Zarbis.The crew had conducted a boat drill a week before, and the ship passed a safety inspection by the British Ministry of Transport 24 hours prior to sailing. The ship carried a Greek certificate of seaworthiness. Passengers participated in a boat drill on
December 20 .The first three days of the cruise were uneventful. Passengers played
shuffleboard and decktennis by day and enjoyed banquets and dances by night. The cruise brochure promised "absolute freedom from worry and responsibility."At around 11:00 p.m. on
December 22 , a steward noticed thick smoke seeping under the door of the ship's hairdressing salon. Upon opening the door, he found the room completely ablaze, and the fire rushed into the hallway toward the staterooms. He and another steward attempted to fight the flames withfire extinguisher s, but the fire was spreading too fast to be contained. One of the men ran to notify the ship'spurser , Antonio Bogetti.Fire alarms sounded, but too softly to be heard by most passengers. "The fire alarm bell was so weak that it sounded like someone calling the waiter to ask for tea," one survivor later told reporters. An alarm went off on the bridge, pinpointing the fire’s location. The ship was convert|180|mi|km north of Madeira and convert|550|mi|km northwest of
Casablanca ,Morocco .At the time the blaze was discovered, most of the passengers were in the ship's
ballroom , called the Lakonia Room, dancing at the "Tropical Tramps' Ball." Passengers began to notice the smell of smoke, but most dismissed it as strongcigar smoke. Captain Zarbis, who had been notified of the fire, attempted to make an announcement on the ship'sintercom system, but it had been disabled by the blaze. As smoke began to fill the ballroom at about 11:30, the band stopped playing and cruise director George Herbert ushered the frightened passengers to the boat deck. The upper deck was ablaze within 10 minutes.Many of the passengers who had been asleep in their cabins found themselves unable to escape the fire. Some passengers were told to go to the main
dining room to await instructions, but most ignored this order, since the dining room lay directly in the path of the fire.At 11:30 p.m., the ship's chief radio officer Antonios Kalogridis sent out the first distress call: "Fire spreading up. Prepare evacuation on ship." At midnight, a second distress call was sent out: "We are leaving the ship. Please immediately give us assistance. Please help us." Kalogridis sent out the last call at 12:22 a.m., just before the wireless room caught fire: "SOS from "Lakonia", last time. I cannot stay anymore in the wireless station. We are leaving the ship. Please immediate assistance. Please help."
A six-man fire crew attempted to fight the blaze, but the fire spread too quickly to be contained. The pressure
boiler s began to explode, filling the rooms and hallways with thick, black smoke, and the suffocating passengers were forced on deck. The ship's purser gave the order to abandon ship shortly before 1:00 a.m. Dazed passengers made their way to the lifeboats, some in their pajamas and others still wearing their jewels and eveningwear.A few crew members went below decks to try to save passengers from their burning cabins. The ship's swimming pool attendant and a steward lowered themselves over the side of the ship by rope to pull trapped people from portholes.
Evacuation of the ship was extremely difficult. Some lifeboats burned before they could be lowered. Two of the lifeboats were swamped, spilling their occupants into the sea; one when it was lowered only by one end, and the other when its davits broke off. Chains had rusted in many of the davits, making boats difficult or impossible to move. In the end, just over half of the lifeboats made it safely away from the "Lakonia", some of them less than half full. Several people who dove overboard struck the side of the ship on the way down, killing them before they hit the water.
Passengers were angered when the wireless operator left the ship in a launch with a
nurse and twomusician s. Kalogridis later testified that he had left to rescue people from the water. He did not return to the ship because the current pushed the launch away, he explained. Passengers also claimed that some of the crewmen took advantage of the chaos to loot staterooms.When all of the boats were away, there were still people adrift in the water and over 100 people left on board the burning ship. The "Lakonia" continued to burn fiercely and was rocked by violent
explosion s. Those who remained on board flocked to the glass-enclosed Agora Shopping Center at the stern of the ship. After several hours, the flames closed in on them, and they were forced to descend ropes and ropeladder s into the ocean. The port and starboard gangways were lowered as well, and people walked down the gangways single file into the sea.At 3:30 a.m., four hours after the first distress call, the convert|492|ft|m|sing=on Argentine passenger ship "Salta" arrived on the scene. The "Salta", under the command of Captain José Barrere, had been on its way from Genoa, Italy to
Buenos Aires . The convert|440|ft|m|sing=on British tanker "Montcalm" arrived half an hour later at 4:00 a.m. The majority of the survivors were saved by these two ships. The "Salta" rescued 475 people and took aboard most of "Lakonia"'s lifeboats.In the hours that followed, the Belgian ship "Charlesville", the
Brazil ianfreighter "Rio Grande", the British passenger ship "Stratheden" and thePanama nian freighter "Mehdi" all arrived to take part in the rescue. Each of the rescue vessels dispatched boats to pluck survivors from the water. Also, fourUnited States Air Force C-54 rescue planes were sent from the Lajes Air Base in theAzores . The planes dropped flares, lifejackets, life rafts and survival kits to people in the water.Rescue efforts were hindered by the fact that the "Lakonia" drifted for several miles during the evacuation. People in the water were dispersed over a 2 – convert|3|mi|km|sing=on area. Also, rescue ships were reluctant to get too near the "Lakonia"; there was a constant risk that the ship's 500 tons of fuel
oil would explode.A lifeboat was dispatched from the "Charlesville" shortly after daybreak to rescue Captain Zarbis, who was spotted pacing the decks of the still-burning ship. Zarbis was the last person to leave the "Lakonia" alive.
Most of the survivors were transported to Madeira, while others, including Captain Zarbis, were taken to Casablanca.
The aftermath
A total of 128 people died in the "Lakonia" disaster, of which 95 were passengers and 33 were crew members. Only 53 people were killed in the actual fire. The rest died from
exposure ,drowning and injuries sustained while diving overboard.Crewmen from the British aircraft carrier "HMS Centaur" were able to board the "Lakonia" on
December 24 , once the flames had died down. Most of the bodies were recovered by the crew of the "Centaur". By this time, the "Lakonia" was a charred, smoking hulk. Her superstructure had partially collapsed amidships, and the bridge and aft decks had caved in. There were holes blasted near the bow, and the ship was listing 10 degrees tostarboard .The Norwegian
tugboat "Herkules" attached a tow line to the "Lakonia" at 5:30 p.m. on December 24. The "Herkules", along with the Portuguese tugboat "Praia da Adraga" and two other tugs, set off for the British base atGibraltar with the "Lakonia" in tow. Her list grew more severe each day, and at about 2:00 p.m. onDecember 29 , the "Lakonia" rolled over onto her starboard side. She sank stern-first in only three minutes. The ship went down convert|230|mi|km southwest ofLisbon ,Portugal and convert|250|mi|km west of Gibraltar.The only color photographs ever taken of the Lakonia disaster ran in
LIFE Magazine on Jan. 3, 1964 [Marchbanks, David. "The Painted Ship: An Account of the Fire at Sea Aboard the Greek Liner Lakonia." London: Secker & Warburg, 1964.] . LIFE's photographic coverage of the event marked only the second time in history that a publication was able to offer hour-by-hour photographic coverage of a disaster at sea [Marchbanks, David. "The Painted Ship: An Account of the Fire at Sea Aboard the Greek Liner Lakonia." London: Secker & Warburg, 1964.] . The first such coverage appeared on Aug. 6, 1956, when LIFE ran a series of photos of theSS Andrea Doria sinking.The investigation
The Greek Merchant Marine Ministry launched a two-year investigation into the "Lakonia" disaster. The board of inquiry maintained that the "Lakonia" never should have passed safety inspections before sailing. Lifeboat davits were rusted and lockers containing lifesaving equipment failed to open. The
drain holes in many lifeboats were without stoppers, so that passengers had to constantly bail water.While a lifeboat drill had been conducted by the crew a week before the fateful voyage, only five of the boats had been lowered in the drill. All of the boats should have been tested, the board argued.
Charges of looting were dropped after extensive questioning. The crewmen maintained that they had only broken into cabins to search for extra lifejackets.
The board of inquiry issued a number of other charges. The order to abandon ship was given too late. Operations on deck were not supervised by responsible officers. The crew, despite a few cases of self-sacrifice, failed to rescue sleeping passengers from their cabins below decks.
Eight of the "Lakonia"'s officers were charged with
negligence . Captain Zarbis, his first officer and the ship’s security officer were charged with gross negligence. The other five men were charged with simple negligence.The cause of the fire was ultimately determined to be a
short circuit of faultyelectrical wiring .ee also
*List of ship and ferry disasters
References
External links
* [http://www.ssmaritime.com/jvoch1.htm History of the "Johan van Oldenbarnevelt"]
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