SS Elbe
Encyclopedia
SS Elbe was built in the Govan
Shipyard of John Elder & Company, Ltd, Glasgow
, in 1881 for the Norddeutscher Lloyd
of Bremen
. The Elbe had double-expansion engines which provided power to her single-screw propeller. She was a fast ship for her time, being able to reach the speed of 16 knots, but small cargo capacity, along with her high consumption of coal
, would soon make her uneconomical. She had a straight bow, two funnels and four masts. She was launched on 2 April 1881. After sea trials she made her maiden voyage on 26 June 1881, leaving Bremen for New York
via Southampton
. The Elbe had accommodation for 179 first-class passengers, 142 in second class, and 796 in steerage
. She was a very popular ship with immigrants from Europe to the United States
and was virtually always sold out in steerage. The Elbe spent most of the next ten years working the North Atlantic service, but she also made three voyages to Adelaide
in Australia
, two of which were in December 1889 and 1890.
, conditions were freezing and there were huge seas. SS Elbe had left Bremerhaven
for New York earlier in the day with 354 passengers aboard. Also at sea on this rough night was the steamship Crathie, sailing from Aberdeen
in Scotland
, heading for Rotterdam
. As conditions grew worse, the Elbe discharged warning rockets to alert other ships to her presence. The Crathie either did not see the warning rockets or chose to ignore them. She did not alter her course, with such disastrous consequences, that she struck the liner on her port side with such force that whole compartments of the Elbe were immediately flooded. The collision happened at 5.30 am and most of the passengers were still asleep.
The Elbe began to sink immediately and the captain, von Gossel, gave the order to abandon ship. Amid great scenes of panic the crew managed to lower two of the Elbe's lifeboat
s. One of the lifeboats capsized as too many passengers tried in vain to squeeze into the boat. Twenty people scrambled into the second lifeboat, of whom 15 were members of the crew. The others were four male second-class passengers and a young lady’s maid
by the name of Anna Boecker, who had been lucky enough to be pulled from the raging sea after the first boat had capsized. Meanwhile on the other side of the Elbe, Captain von Gossel had ordered all the women and children to assemble there but no other lifeboats were launched because the ropes on the derrick
s were all frozen up, and so they perished along with the captain. Within 20 minutes of the collision, the Elbe had sunk and the only survivors were the 20 people in the one surviving lifeboat. These people now had to endure mountainous seas and below-zero temperatures and they were 50 miles from land. Things looked bleak; the Elbe's distress rockets had not been seen by any passing vessels and so no one knew of their predicament. After five hours in the raging storm, their luck changed. A fishing smack
from Lowestoft
called the Wildflower found them. In desperate conditions the crew of the Wildflower struggled to pull the 20 survivors from the lifeboat, which had begun to break up. The skipper, William Wright, said later that the survivors would not have lasted another hour in those conditions, and believed that the only reason they had stayed alive for five hours was the expertise of the Elbe's crewmen aboard the lifeboat.
. In the panic and confusion of the collision she had been unable to save her employer. She joined the terrified crush of passengers lowered into the first lifeboat. When it capsized under the sheer weight of numbers, Anna ended up in the ocean. All the others from her lifeboat clambered back onto the sinking ship. Anna was alone in the treacherous sea until the survivors in the second lifeboat spotted her floundering in the water and pulled her up to safety.
public. The crew of the fishing smack Wildflower each were given, by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a silver and gold watch bearing his monogram and £5 as a gesture of thanks for saving the lives of the twenty German citizens. They also received other medals and gifts in the following years.
Passenger Carl A. Hofmann from Grand Island
Passenger Eugen Schlegel from Fuerth
Passenger Jan Vevera from Bohemia
Steerage passenger Wientje Bothen from Klinge
English pilot William Greenham from the Isle of Wight
Weser pilot H. A. de Harde from Lehe
Third officer Theodor Stollberg from Oldenburg
Chief engineer Albert Neussel from Bremerhaven
Purser Wilhelm Weser from Bremerhaven
Assistant purser Paul Schlutius from Berlin
Assistant engineer Ernst Linkmeyer from Hamburg
Assistant engineer Friedrich Sittig from Witten
Chief fireman Hermann Fuerst from Lehe
Seaman Gustav Wennig from Berlin
Seaman Paul Siebert from Jasenitz
Seaman Carl Finger from Geestemuende
Ordinary seaman William Dresow from Stemnitz
Ordinary seaman Anton Battke from Mechilinken
Steward Emil Kobe from Bremen
amateur divers
searched and located the wreck of the Elbe on the sea bed. They managed to salvage a large quantity of the glasswork and tea sets from the wreck site.
Govan
Govan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
Shipyard of John Elder & Company, Ltd, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, in 1881 for the Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutsche Lloyd was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on February 20, 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic...
of Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
. The Elbe had double-expansion engines which provided power to her single-screw propeller. She was a fast ship for her time, being able to reach the speed of 16 knots, but small cargo capacity, along with her high consumption of coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
, would soon make her uneconomical. She had a straight bow, two funnels and four masts. She was launched on 2 April 1881. After sea trials she made her maiden voyage on 26 June 1881, leaving Bremen for New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
via Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
. The Elbe had accommodation for 179 first-class passengers, 142 in second class, and 796 in steerage
Steerage
Steerage is the act of steering a ship. "Steerage" also refers to the lowest decks of a ship.-Steerage and steerage way:The rudder of a vessel can only steer the ship when water is passing over it...
. She was a very popular ship with immigrants from Europe to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and was virtually always sold out in steerage. The Elbe spent most of the next ten years working the North Atlantic service, but she also made three voyages to Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, two of which were in December 1889 and 1890.
Disaster in the North Sea
The night of 30 January 1895 was stormy. In the North SeaNorth Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, conditions were freezing and there were huge seas. SS Elbe had left Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...
for New York earlier in the day with 354 passengers aboard. Also at sea on this rough night was the steamship Crathie, sailing from Aberdeen
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, heading for Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
. As conditions grew worse, the Elbe discharged warning rockets to alert other ships to her presence. The Crathie either did not see the warning rockets or chose to ignore them. She did not alter her course, with such disastrous consequences, that she struck the liner on her port side with such force that whole compartments of the Elbe were immediately flooded. The collision happened at 5.30 am and most of the passengers were still asleep.
Lifeboat (shipboard)
A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...
s. One of the lifeboats capsized as too many passengers tried in vain to squeeze into the boat. Twenty people scrambled into the second lifeboat, of whom 15 were members of the crew. The others were four male second-class passengers and a young lady’s maid
Maid
A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...
by the name of Anna Boecker, who had been lucky enough to be pulled from the raging sea after the first boat had capsized. Meanwhile on the other side of the Elbe, Captain von Gossel had ordered all the women and children to assemble there but no other lifeboats were launched because the ropes on the derrick
Derrick
A derrick is a lifting device composed of one tower, or guyed mast such as a pole which is hinged freely at the bottom. It is controlled by lines powered by some means such as man-hauling or motors, so that the pole can move in all four directions. A line runs up it and over its top with a hook on...
s were all frozen up, and so they perished along with the captain. Within 20 minutes of the collision, the Elbe had sunk and the only survivors were the 20 people in the one surviving lifeboat. These people now had to endure mountainous seas and below-zero temperatures and they were 50 miles from land. Things looked bleak; the Elbe
Smack (ship)
A smack was a traditional fishing boat used off the coast of England and the Atlantic coast of America for most of the 19th century, and even in small numbers up to the Second World War. It was originally a cutter rigged sailing boat until about 1865, when the smacks became so large that cutter...
from Lowestoft
Lowestoft
Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...
called the Wildflower found them. In desperate conditions the crew of the Wildflower struggled to pull the 20 survivors from the lifeboat, which had begun to break up. The skipper, William Wright, said later that the survivors would not have lasted another hour in those conditions, and believed that the only reason they had stayed alive for five hours was the expertise of the Elbe
Steamship Crathie
The Crathie had also been badly damaged in the collision but, astonishingly, and to the great shame of the captain and its crew, she carried on with her voyage to Rotterdam. When later asked why they had not stayed on to help the Elbe and her passengers, the captain said that he feared that his ship would sink, and in any case he did not hear any cries for help coming from the liner. It appeared to him that the Elbe was steaming away from his position.Miss Anna Boecker
Of the twenty who survived the sinking, only one was a female. Anna Boecker was a shy, quiet maid in the employment of an elderly lady, travelling with her employer to SouthamptonSouthampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
. In the panic and confusion of the collision she had been unable to save her employer. She joined the terrified crush of passengers lowered into the first lifeboat. When it capsized under the sheer weight of numbers, Anna ended up in the ocean. All the others from her lifeboat clambered back onto the sinking ship. Anna was alone in the treacherous sea until the survivors in the second lifeboat spotted her floundering in the water and pulled her up to safety.
Repercussions
The SS Elbe incident resulted in a court case which took place in Rotterdam in November 1895. The court found that the steamship Crathie was alone at fault for the collision. Amazingly the captain was merely censured for leaving the disaster, a verdict that astounded the maritime world at the time. The blame was put squarely on the first mate, who had left his post at the bridge at the critical time to chat in the galley with other crew members, and therefore had failed in his job of operating the ship's warning lights. The captain, officers and sailors of the SS Elbe received no rebuke from the court either, which caused some concern amongst the GermanGermans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
public. The crew of the fishing smack Wildflower each were given, by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a silver and gold watch bearing his monogram and £5 as a gesture of thanks for saving the lives of the twenty German citizens. They also received other medals and gifts in the following years.
List of rescued passengers and crew members
Passenger Anna Boecker from BremenPassenger Carl A. Hofmann from Grand Island
Passenger Eugen Schlegel from Fuerth
Passenger Jan Vevera from Bohemia
Steerage passenger Wientje Bothen from Klinge
English pilot William Greenham from the Isle of Wight
Weser pilot H. A. de Harde from Lehe
Third officer Theodor Stollberg from Oldenburg
Chief engineer Albert Neussel from Bremerhaven
Purser Wilhelm Weser from Bremerhaven
Assistant purser Paul Schlutius from Berlin
Assistant engineer Ernst Linkmeyer from Hamburg
Assistant engineer Friedrich Sittig from Witten
Chief fireman Hermann Fuerst from Lehe
Seaman Gustav Wennig from Berlin
Seaman Paul Siebert from Jasenitz
Seaman Carl Finger from Geestemuende
Ordinary seaman William Dresow from Stemnitz
Ordinary seaman Anton Battke from Mechilinken
Steward Emil Kobe from Bremen
1993
In the early part of 1993, a group of DutchDutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
amateur divers
Underwater diving
Underwater diving is the practice of going underwater, either with breathing apparatus or by breath-holding .Recreational diving is a popular activity...
searched and located the wreck of the Elbe on the sea bed. They managed to salvage a large quantity of the glasswork and tea sets from the wreck site.