On Sept. 7, 1934 Captain Robert Willmott of the Ward Liner Morro Castle suddenly died. Chief Officer William Ferdinand Warms took command. That night, a few miles off Asbury Park, N. J., the Morro Castle burned, with a loss of 134 lives, in one of the greatest U. S. marine disasters (TIME, Sept. 17, 1934). Though Acting Captain Warms was the last man to leave his ship, a court presently convicted him of criminal negligence, sentenced him to two years in jail. Chief Engineer Eben Starr Abbott, who abandoned ship in the...
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