Whirlpool of Grief

The sea was calm under the harsh Riviera sun. Eighty-two children crowded the small 30-ft. motor launch Annamaria as it pulled out from the little seashore town of Loana. With shrill chatter and singing, the children (aged ten to twelve) set forth with six women guardians and three crewmen for the isle of Gallinaria, six miles away.

Suddenly one of the crew shouted something to the helmsman, but his warning was drowned by the children's singing. The launch plowed into a rusty underwater steel pylon, placed there by the Germans as an anti-submarine obstacle. For a moment the launch's prow hung in the air, then the stern slid swiftly under water. Without a punctuating pause, the children's songs became screams.

Eventually fishermen, vacationers, carabinieri from the village of Albenga and the three crewmen brought in 44 small corpses and three of the women. On a long, banquet-sized table covered with a white cloth in the White Cross aid station, the 44 children were laid in a neat row, side by side. Each child's hands were carefully clasped on his breast, each tiny fist held a flower. When the parents and relatives arrived from Milan, one Italian reporter wrote, the grisly hall became "a wild whirlpool of grief and insanity."

Two thousand miles away, in Bombay harbor, the 400-ton coastal vessel Ramdas, its decks crowded with more than 700 people, headed out for the one-hour run to Rewaz. A wall of water swept in from the open sea, struck the Ramdas a reeling blow. A second huge wave crashed down on the decks, sweeping the screaming passengers into the sea. No lifeboats were launched, no radio messages sent. Clinging to the floating wreckage were 179 survivors. In exactly two minutes, 563 people were lost.

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