Quotes from Gordon Thomas

How this extraordinary situation could possibly have gone undetected can be explained in part by the fact that the required annual inspection of the ship had been carried out by government inspectors on May 16, 1934, a month before Captain Wilmott issued his order. The inspectors concluded that the Morro Castle still had the right to "the highest classification" of the American Bureau of Shipping.

Dr. Cochrane and his sister were alone on the sun deck watching the last hold being filled with a cargo of salted hides. The stench was awful.

He had been instructed that once the hold with the cargo of skins was sealed, the ship's smoke-detecting system was to be turned off and was to remain switched off until the last passenger had disembarked in New York.

At 5:15 P.M. he shut the valves in the cabinet tubes. At about that moment Chief Radio Officer George Rogers lumbered ashore. No one would ever know exactly where he went or whom he met, but when he returned he carried two small bottles. One contained sulphuric acid; the other nitric acid.