SS La Bourgogne — BrandWiki

SS La Bourgogne

Overview

La Bourgogne

country	France
namesake	Burgundy
owner	Cie Gle Transatlantique
registry	Le Havre
route	Le Havre – New York
builder	F&C de la Méditerranée, La Seyne
original cost	FF 7,300,000
launched	8 October 1885
completed	May 1886
maiden voyage	19 June 1886
refit	1897
identification	Code letters HNLM
fate	Sunk by collision, 1898

SS La Bourgogne was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) ocean liner and mail ship that was launched in France in 1886 and sank in the North Atlantic in 1898, killing 562 of the 725 people aboard. When new, she set a record for the fastest westbound transatlantic crossing from Le Havre to New York.

La Bourgogne was sunk by collision with the sailing ship Cromartyshire. The two ships were in thick fog off Newfoundland, and Cromartyshire had reduced speed, but La Bourgogne was steaming at high speed. It was alleged that after the collision, some of the steamship's officers failed to do their duty to minimise loss of life, and members of either her own crew or a group of seamen who were steerage passengers fought to save themselves to the exclusion of other passengers.

Only 13 percent of her passengers survived, compared with 48 percent of her crew. 200 of her passengers were women, but only one survived. Passengers included numerous children, none of whom survived.

Cromartyshire's owners, and the relatives of dozens of the victims of the sinking, sued CGT for damages. The sailing ship's owners won, but CGT won limitation of liability against the other claimants. Some claimants won only a fraction of the amount they claimed, and others lost their cases altogether. Claims continued until 1908, when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that although La Bourgogne's excessive speed caused the collision, CGT was not at fault.

Building

Collisions with Tigre and Alisa

On an eastbound crossing on 10 February 1896 La Bourgogne collided with the French steamship Tigre in Havre Roads in heavy fog. Neither ship was seriously damaged.[10]

On 29 February 1896 there were four shipping incidents in fog in and around New York. The tugboat E. S. Atwood was damaged in collision with the ferry Arizona. The Clyde Steamship Company's George W. Clyde was beached at Fort Hamilton to prevent it from sinking after collision with Dominion Line's Guyandotte. American Line's New York grounded in Lower New York Bay. And Atlas Line's steamship Alisa sank after La Bourgogne collided with her in The Narrows.[11]

Alisa had left her pier in the North River at noon, but ran into fog, so at about 13:00 hrs she anchored off Fort Wadsworth to wait for it to clear. At about 14:10 or 14:20 hrs La Bourgogne struck Alisa about 8 ft aft of the latter's bow, severing the latter's collision bulkhead. Each ship was under the command of a New York pilot at the time. Alisa swiftly developed a list. A dozen of her crew launched one of her lifeboats. Her passengers and some of her crew climbed her rigging. Alisa started to raise her anchor by its steam winch, and at the same time made for the shore of Long Island, but sank in shallow water, with only her masts and the top of her funnel above water. No lives were lost. The tugboat Harold rescued all of Alisa's passengers and crew, and landed them at Battery Park.[12][13]

One plate of La Bourgogne's starboard bow was damaged, about 15 ft above the waterline.[12] After the collision she drifted into Gravesend Bay and anchored for the night. A boat transferred her mail to the Cunard Liner RMS Campania, and three of passengers chose to transfer to the Cunarder as well. La Bourgogne returned to port the next morning, where a plate about 4 by was riveted to her bow as a temporary repair.[14]

On 4 March the Atlas Line filed a lawsuit for $400,000 against La Bourgogne for sinking Alisa.[15] On 21 August a commercial maritime court at Cherbourg, France exonerated La Bourgogne's Master, finding that the collision was a "peril of the sea".[16]

Sinking

Most of the passengers were in bed and asleep until the two ships collided. La Bourgogne's starboard lifeboats and some liferafts were launched, but survivors alleged that the liner's officers were ineffective, and the ratings sought to save themselves rather than the passengers.[26][27] Some passengers resorted to trying to launch boats and rafts themselves, and alleged afterward that some members of the crew "chased them away" and took the boats and rafts for themselves.[28] One passenger alleged that a crewman on deck used an oar to beat a passenger to prevent him from reaching a liferaft. He and other passengers alleged that occupants of lifeboats used boat hooks and oars to stop passengers in the water from boarding their boat. One passenger alleged that he and his elderly mother were thrown out of a lifeboat into the sea. One survivor alleged that some passengers were threatened with knives. Survivors said that the only member of La Bourgogne's crew who made a professional effort to launch lifeboats was the Second Officer, Delinge.[23]

Captain Deloncle, all of the deck officers, and most of the engineer officers died in the sinking. The Purser and the Fourth Engineer were the only officers who survived.[29]

Captain Henderson ordered Cromartyshire's crew to prepare her boats to be lowered, and went forward to inspect her bow. He found extensive damage, but the sailing ship was not in immediate danger of sinking. The two ships lost each other in the fog, but Henderson saw the rocket and flare that La Bourgogne fired, and he had several distress rockets and flares fired from Cromartyshire. At about 05:30 hrs the fog thinned enough for Henderson to see two of La Bourgogne's lifeboats being rowed toward his ship. This was the first he knew that the steamship had sunk.[23]

Cromartyshire rescued the occupants of the two boats, stood to, and launched its own three boats to rescue other survivors, many of them on life rafts or clinging to wreckage. At about 15:00 hrs she sighted a westbound steamship, Allan Line's Grecian, and signalled to her. Survivors were transferred to Grecian, which towed the sailing ship to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they arrived on 6 July.[23]

Only 163 people survived.[23] La Bourgogne's passengers included about 200 women, but only one was saved.[26] The survivors included 104 of 222 crew, but only 61 of 503 passengers. Most of the first class passengers were also killed.[23]

CGT was quick to deny the allegations against its officers and ratings. It claimed they had acted correctly, and that the seamen who assaulted passengers had been travelling in steerage, and were not members of the ship's crew. CGT claimed that the Chief Officer commanded starboard boat number 7, which was full of women and children, and was successfully launched, but was then crushed by one of the ship's two funnels falling upon it.[20][25] The French Consul-General in New York, Edmond Bruwaert, reported that starboard boat number 9 had conveyed 53 survivors to Cromartyshire, and its crew had then done all they could to rescue other survivors.[21]

CGT said that ten or a dozen sailors from among the steerage passengers commandeered starboard boat number 11, refused to come to the aid of anyone else, and fought off anyone else who tried to board their boat.[25] One passenger said that the sailors in the boat were "Austrian".[30] It was later clarified that they were from Dalmatia and Croatia, which then were provinces of Austria-Hungary.[21]

Survivors of La Bourgogne's crew were returned to New York, where Bruwaert questioned them. On 9 July the crew, along with about a dozen of the surviving steerage passengers, were sent to France aboard the CGT liner SS La Touraine. On arrival in France they were to be surrendered to the French Admiralty for further questioning.[21] They reached Le Havre aboard La Touraine on 17 July.[31]

Survivors described the conduct of Deloncle and his officers. One of Le Bourgogne's stokers claimed that they all acted correctly, but were impeded by some of the passengers. However, Charles Liebra, from Philadelphia, said that Deloncle told the "saloon passengers" (i.e. first class) that there was no danger.[30] An Austro-Hungarian passenger, Matteo Turich, was on deck and saw the collision as it happened. He alleged "No commands were being given and no system prevailed".[28] A Swiss passenger, Fred Nyffeler, also alleged that just after the collision, an officer told him "nothing" was wrong. Nyffeler alleged that as the ship listed, and passengers and crew made for the lifeboats, Deloncle "had evidently lost his head, and was walking up and down the bridge screaming and swearing".[30]

Aftermath

On 17 July 1898 the Master of the ship E. J. Spicer recovered one of La Bourgogne's liferafts at position 42.08333°N, -57.2°W. On it were three or four life preservers and a number of oars.<r[33]

Before the end of July a funeral for the victims of the sinking was held at La Madeleine, Paris. The congregation included the French foreign minister, minister of commerce, numerous senators and deputies, and Admiral Jules de Cuverville, who had been Deloncle's commanding officer when he was in the French Navy.<r[34]

Days before the funeral, Rowland Strong, The New York Times correspondent in Paris, attacked the whole Deloncle family. He called them "a hysterical, half-witted set, and personally I should never have cared to trust my life or property to any one of them. Louis Deloncle... used to boast of his skill in manoeuvring a ship, which, to judge from the accounts of his own friends and his surviving brother, principally consisted in threatening to run down any vessel that came in his way. "Je pass ou je tire dessus". In other words, "I mean to pass or I will fire," was the remark he made when navigating the Normandie through the crush of vessels at the great naval review held last year at Portsmouth in honor of the Queen's jubilee. Only a madman could have given expression to such an intention."<r[19]

Seafarers reported seeing bodies, apparently from La Bourgogne, floating in the area up to two months after the sinking. On 6 August the Master of the schooner Florence reported finding the body of a man floating at position 43.46667°N, -59.91667°W. In his clothing was the passport of one of La Bourgogne's cabin passengers, Dr Candido Diaz, and a draft for FF 215,000.<r[35] On 22 August the Master of the Hamburg America Line steamship Christiania reported passing two bloated bodies floating face down at position 43°N, -60°W. One was a man wearing a life belt, and the other was apparently a woman.<r[36] On 2 September the Master of the fishing schooner William H. Cross reported that he and his crew picked up the body of a man. They recovered money, drafts, and other papers of value from the body, and then weighted it and buried it at sea.<r[37]