Andrea Doria, the rescue

The war had cost Italy half its merchant fleet, Rex and Conte di Savoia among them. Andrea Doria was the answer: built by Ansaldo at Sestri Ponente, launched on 16 June 1951, and named after the sixteenth-century Genoese admiral. She was neither the largest nor the fastest liner of her day. She was built to be beautiful.

Her maiden voyage, Genoa to New York, began on 14 January 1953. On 17 July 1956 she left Genoa again, calling at Cannes on the way out, on what would be her fifty-first westbound crossing.

On the night of 25 July, nearing Nantucket in thick fog, she met the Swedish liner Stockholm, eastbound. Shortly after eleven the Stockholm struck her on the starboard side. Andrea Doria listed at once, so far that the lifeboats on one side could not be lowered.

She did not sink at once, and the night became a rescue. The French liner Île de France, already forty-four nautical miles away on her way home to Le Havre, turned back; as she came in she lit every light on her decks. With the other ships that answered, she took off passengers and crew. Of the 1,706 people aboard, 1,660 were saved.

Andrea Doria rolled over and sank on the morning of 26 July. Her captain, Piero Calamai, never took another command. Two bronze medallions made for the survivors are in New York, at the South Street Seaport Museum, and in Genoa, at the Museo del Mare.