Wreck of the Prins Willem V
Milwaukee Sentinel - October 15, 1954
Milwaukee Sentinel - October 15, 1954
The Dutch freighter Prins Willem V sank Thursday night in Lake Michigan, three miles off Milwaukee harbor, after colliding with a towed oil barge. All thirty persons aboard the vessel were brought to shore safely.
The collision took place at 7:15 p.m. All crew members of the Prins Willem, with the exception of Capt. Pierre Huilmand, 56, and the ship’s radio operator, were safely aboard the vessel’s two lifeboats within 10 minutes after the crash. The captain and radio operator were removed by a coast guard life-saving boat. Crew members of the Dutch vessel said the ship collided twice with the barge. The first collision was a glancing blow just to the starboard side of the bow. The second was nearly amidship and tore out a 12 by 8 foot section of plate from the vessel’s side. Icy water flooded the ship’s engine room and knocked out its electrical and communications systems within seconds after the crash. The crew members said there was no panic, and the lowering of the ship’s lifeboats was orderly. The coast-guard tender Hollyhock and two boats from the life-saving station at McKinley Beach battled six-foot swells for two and a half hours, to bring the Dutch ship’s crew to safety. Skies were heavily overcast, and all that could be seen from shore was the myriad lights of the rescue vessels. Northwest winds of 23 miles an hour made the lake’s surface choppy. 'Didn't Even Get Wet' "We didn't even get wet," was the way one survivor described the calm, orderly evacuation of the ship Thursday night. “Everybody tried to get into the lifeboats as fast as possible, but there was no confusion,” said Jozeph Menheere, 26, the ship’s electrician. Menheere was in his cabin getting ready to go to bed when he heard the crash. He said he went up on deck first, and then went to the engine room to see if he could help. “The ship was sinking quickly,” he said, “so I went back up on deck to get into a lifeboat.” The ship listed heavily to starboard, and sank within half an hour after the collision, crew members said. Dirk Notenboom, 49, a greaser, and Cornelis Parmentier, 30, the third engineer, were on duty in the engine room amidships. “The accident tore a hole in the starboard side of about six meters (about 19 feet), and a wave of water came through,” Notenboom said. “We immediately started the pumps going. The lights had gone out in that part of the ship.” Eight police ambulances and a fire department ambulance were rushed to McKinley Beach, and traffic was rerouted from Lincoln Memorial Drive, as police sought to keep spectators away, so crew members could be rushed to hospitals if necessary. The six coast-guard men who went out in two life-saving boats were commanded by Boatswain’s Mate Bruce Witte, 24. He said there were no lights on the barge when he reached the crash scene. “We could see the captain and one of his men still on the Prins Willem, which was sinking fast,” Witte said. “The other men were safely in lifeboats. We ran our crash boat up on the listing side of the Prins Willem. The captain and his man were able to climb in. The freighter sank about 20 minutes afterwards.” It was difficult, Witte said, to maneuver the boats, because of the six-foot swells. None of the crew members required hospitalization. The only person injured was a coast-guard man, William Woodruff, 19, of Winnetka, Ill., who caught his hand between the gunwales of the crash boat and one of the freighter’s lifeboats, when the two pulled alongside. There was a heavy overcast and a strong wind when the collision occurred, but coast-guard men said the visibility was “not bad.” However, Jakob Reijngoud, 32, a crew member, said it was "very dark." He said he did not see the barge before the crash. Capt. R. H. Knight, Milwaukee harbor master, said that tugs are required to carry red and green running lights, two headlights and a pilot light, and that barges must carry running lights. The Sinclair Company office at Chicago said it was not known whether the barge had lights on it. The oil barge is owned by Sinclair Refining Co., and is known as the Sinclair XII. At the time of the collision it was being towed by a company tug, the Chicago, with a crew of 16 men. The front end of the barge was torn, and the barge was partly submerged, but the tug, with the assistance of the Hollyhock, succeeded in bringing it safely to dock at Jones Island. The barge was carrying 10,000 barrels of fuel oil from East Chicago, Ind., to Milwaukee. The tug was not damaged. H. G. Bethune, agent for the Orange Line, said that he and Capt. Huilmand would say nothing about the crash until after an official inquiry is completed. Agent Bethune said Friday that the coast guard placed a buoy over the sunken ship, as a menace to navigation. The Prins Willem V had just left Milwaukee Thursday after picking up hides, gas engines, aluminum kitchen ware, horse hair, motor compound, automobile and machine parts, and leather, all amounting to 100 tons. It previously had taken on 600 tons of cargo at Chicago. The 258-foot freighter was valued at $1,250,000. Her cargo was valued at $750,000. The possibility of raising the sunken ship will be considered by Guy Noonan of Chicago, marine surveyor for Lloyds of London, the line’s insurance carrier. This was the freighter’s fourth visit to Milwaukee this year, and her 25th since she was commissioned. She has been sailing between Europe and the United States for the Orange Line since 1949. The Prins Willem V has been sunk once before, while under construction during World War II. The Germans scuttled her to block the entrance to Rotterdam harbor, as they retreated from Holland. |
Shoeless at the Pfister
Milwaukee Sentinel - October 16, 1954
Milwaukee Sentinel - October 16, 1954
The Pfister Hotel, known through the years for its quiet dignity, relinquished a bit of tradition Friday for the benefit of 28 desolate sailors plucked from their sinking Dutch freighter. Crewmen in scant clothing lounged in the hotel with newspapers, reading of the disaster and looking for their pictures. All the sailors are from Holland.
Johannes Westerduin, 42, had no shoes, so he wore knee-high sea boots. Doeke Jakob Bieker, 26, walked in his stocking feet. Most wore overalls. All needed a shave, some a haircut, and many were without underclothes. The hotel barbershop was swamped for an hour in the morning, and when the crewmen walked out, the bill was $47. One of the crew said that for $1.25 you could buy five haircuts in Holland, and for this reason, he said, sailors do not purchase many articles in America. Mrs. Rosemary Karcz, cigar-stand clerk, gave the men all the newspapers they wanted, and paper and stamps to write home. Breakfast and dinner were served in the coffee shop, as hotel guests gazed in wonderment at the appetites of the hearty seamen. The bill has not yet been calculated. When Tom Pfeil of the General Steamship Co., agents for the Orange Line, saw that beer had been added to a few of the food bills, he said, “Food we can furnish - but not beer.” “Beer? Beer?” questioned smiling third mate Cornelis Scheepmaker, 22. “Who bought beer?” “You did,” laughed Pfeil. Somebody in the hotel lobby commented that this was the first time a police wagon ever brought anybody to the Pfister. |