Quotes About Morro Castle

The verdicts in the criminal trial arising out of the Morro Castle disaster caused a new sensation. William Warms was sentenced to two years imprisonment; Eban Abbott received four years; Ward Line vice-president Henry E. Cabaud was fined five thousand dollars and given one year's suspended sentence.

But during the summer of 1934, a series of events had occurred which endangered not only the Morro Castle, but also her master. On July 29, a meal had been served that made Wilmott ill enough to suspect poisoning; on August 4 an attempted strike had threatened to wreck the liner's tight schedule; on August 27 a fire had started in a hold containing high explosives.

The Morro Castle was regularly engaged in a traffic in armaments. The shipments were used by the Cuban dictatorship of Gerardo Morales Machado to suppress a growing Communist influence on the island. There are strong indications that the shipments were organized by powerful U.S. business interests concerned about the threat Communist activities would pose to the handsome profits coming from Cuban tobacco and sugar.

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.