News Clippings

DAILY MIRROR, Monday, April 29, 1929

Ten Men Adrift in Lifeboat Rescued

Thrilling

rescue 250 miles north of Bermuda was made by the yacht Amida (above) which arrived here yesterday with ten of the crew of the James Coburn that foundered during a hurricane. One was rushed to the hospital from Quaratine. The remaining nine are shown at right. They had gone without food four days when picked up.

Rescued

and rescuer! Capt. Sidney McLoughlin (left above) of the yacht Amida being thanked bbt Capt. Joseph Periera of the Foundered ship.

DAILY NEWS, New York, Monday, April 29, 1929

The NEWS in Tabloid

NEW YORK AND VICINITY

The story of ten men adrift eight days as a hurricane battered their open boat was told when the men rescued by the yacht Amidi were landed.

Safe After Days of peril

PERIL-WORN, 10 HURRICANE HEROES LAND

Twice saved from ferocious seas waiting to engulf them as sacrifices to a hurricane, ten survivors of the foundered four - masted coal schooner James E. Coburn were landed yesterday at Tebo basin, Brooklyn, from the shining decks of the $1,000,000 yacht Amidi.
Gaunt and bruised and swollen from eight days on tempestuous seas in an open boat, the survivors of the Coburn had to be lifted from the palatial yacht.
One Cook William Sargent, who dieo in the boat while seas buffeted them, had been buried at sea.
of the living ten, Engineer William Milliken, carried from the Amidi to Marine hospital, at Clif-ton, S. I., where he is in a serious condition from exposure.

Leak, The Hurricane

apt. Jose Pereira, the suffering engineer and Jose Madeors, owner, were the three white men aboard the coal schooner.
The skipper told a graphic tale of the terrible ordeal before and after the sinking of the Coburn.
The schooner began shipping water as soon as Cape Henry, Va., was passed in the voyage from Baltimore to Bermuda with coal.
There came one of the worst hurricanes Pereira, who has sailed from New Bedford for thirty years, ever saw.
The heavily laden schooner was swamped beyond hope of pumping.
Both captain and owner ordered the men to the single yawl used as lifeboat.
With a jury-rig set, the eleven men in the boat thought they had saved themselves just in time, for the prow of the Coburn reared and the vessel settled before they were 500 yards away.
With a keg of biscuit and a keg of water, the eleven began their suffering.
Once they drifted within sight of the shores of Bermuda, only to be blown back.
On April 26, without water for two days and food for four, the ten men—Cook Sargent having died—sighted the Amidi, yacht built at Kiel, Germany, and making its maiden voyage here for delivery to Ernest R. Behrend. Capt. Sidney S. MacLaughlin from the decks of the Amidi, saw the crude distress signal from the small boat—an American flag flown upside down from an oar.
The rescued men were so weak they could not lift their heads as rescuers approached.
Twenty members of the yacht crew were forced to cut the salt-coated clothes and sea boots from the swollen limbs of the rescued.
None could speak for hours.
Behrend, owner of the yacht, with his wife, Mrs. Mary Brownell Behrend, and daughter, Harriett Natalie Mae as the craft steamed into quarantine yesterday.
Both rescued and rescuers reported that the men were adrift in their leaky boat during one of the worst hurricanes the Atlantic has seen in years.

The news segment Leak, The Hurrican was published in the photo 10 Hurrican Heroes Land.

Yacht Delivered to Owner

Behrend, owner of the yacht, with his wife, Mrs. Mary Brownell Behrend, and daughter, Harriet, boarded the Amidí from the yacht Natalie Mae as the craft steamed into quarantine yesterday.
Both rescued and rescuers reported that the men were adrift in their leaky boat during one of the worst hurricanes the Atlantic has seen in years.
Captain MacLaughlin said, “Only a half hour after we took the men from the filling dory, a great wave engulfed the lifeboat and took her to the bottom. An hour later and we could not have saved any men of the James E. Coburn.”

THE ERIE DAILY TIMES, Thursday, April 25, 1929

ERIE CAPTAIN TELLS OF SEA RESCUE

CREW ON ERIE BOAT RESCUES 9 IN OCEAN

BEHREND"S YACHT AIDS IN BERMUDA

4-Mastered Schooner Foundered Near Islands

Special to The Times

New York, April 25. - Ten members of the crew of the four-masted schooner, the James E. Coburn, who drifted in the Atlantic Ocean in an open lifeboat for more than a week after the vessel had foundered about 250 miles north of the Bermuda Islands, are being brought to New York aboard the Amida, private yacht of Ernst R. Behrend of Erie.
After the Amida crew effected their rescue early Thursday morning, wireless messages from the Erie yacht stated that the ten survivors were half-dead when picked up in the buffeted lifeboat by the crew of the Amida, who endangered their own lives in effecting the rescue.
An eleventh member of the crew had died from exposure a short time before the survivors of the ill-fated Coburn were taken aboard the Amida. He was W. Sargent, the cook.

RESCUED CREW

The rescued crew members were Jose Pereira, master of the Coburn, Edward Price, W. Milliken, Eugenio Semedo, Joe Delgado, Joseph Madeiros, Manuel Silva, John Britto, Henry Andrews, and Ambrose Montero.
Nearly the entire crew was from New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The Amida, which was making her maiden voyage across the Atlantic after leaving Kiel, Germany, on April 3 for New York, came across the crew of the Coburn in a lifeboat at 5 a.m. Thursday.
According to a wireless message from Skipper S. L. McLaughlin of the Amida, the rescue took place at 34.25 degrees north latitude and 64.35 degrees west longitude.
The Coburn had sailed out of Baltimore, Maryland, on April 1 for Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
More than a week later, the ship was last seen sailing past Cape Henry, and nothing was heard from it after that.

SKIPPER'S WIRELESS

McLaughlin wirelessed, according to the Marine Radio Corporation: I sighted the drifting lifeboat at dawn in north latitude 34.25, west longitude 64.35, and changed my course to bear down upon it.
I picked up the boat at 5 a.m., eastern standard time. The survivors were in a sorry plight.
Their food was all gone, and they had had no water for two days, drifting helplessly in a rough sea.
Their hopes were nearly dead when we picked them up.
The Amida was built by Fried Krupp-Germaniawerft, famous shipbuilders of Kiel-Gaarden, Germany, and is expected to arrive in New York Saturday afternoon.
She is in command of Capt. McLaughlin, formerly first officer on the S.S. Reliance, Hamburg-American line.

OWNED BY BEHREND

Ernst R. Behrend, the owner of the yacht Amida and president of the Hammermill Paper Co. of Erie, had the boat specially constructed. She is approximately 200 feet long and is equipped with Diesel engines.
The Coburn, which was chartered by a Boston, Massachusetts steamship agency to carry a cargo of coal from Baltimore to Martinique, was purchased a year ago by J. J. Fonseca of New York. The schooner is 900 feet long and of about 900 tons.
After she had foundered in a storm off the Bermuda Islands on the night of April 17, the entire crew immediately took to one lifeboat.
According to the wireless messages, they were tossed about the seas for three days before they sighted what appeared to be a tramp steamer, but the latter apparently did not see them.
On the fifth day, the little army of survivors, practically without food or fresh water, and several of the men were about to give up hope of being rescued.
It was stated that the arrival of the crew of the Amida was just in time to save the lives of most of the survivors, who were suffering from hunger and exposure.

YACHT IS OWNED BY BERHEND

Monday, April 29, 1929

Member of Schooner James E. Coburn Saved

by United Press

New York, April 25. - Nine members of the crew of the American schooner James E. Coburn have been rescued at sea in an open lifeboat by the yacht Amida, owned by Ernst R. Behrend of Erie, Pennsylvania.
It was reported early Thursday in wireless messages from the Amida received by the Marine Radio Corporation.
The messages said that the lifeboat also contained the body of one dead member of the ill-fated crew.
The James E. Coburn’s home port is New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The rescue was effected at latitude 34.25 N, longitude 64.35 W.-- Mr. Behrend, the owner of the Amida and president of the Hammermill Paper Company, was not in the city Thursday morning when The Times made efforts to communicate with him regarding the rescue. It was said that he had gone out of the city Wednesday night on business.
According to reports from the Erie Yacht Club, the Amida was recently built in Germany for Mr. Behrend, and it is believed she was making her maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
The yacht is said to be 200 feet long and operated by Diesel engines.

Monday, April 29, 1929

SAY SAVING OF 10 MEN ACCIDENTAL

E.R. Behrend, Owner, Meets Yacht in New York

by United Press

The story of how Ernst R. Behrend's new yacht Amida rescued ten shipwrecked sail- ors of the schooner James E. Coburn, which foundered in mid-Atlantic, was told here today following the arrival Sunday of the pleasure craft piloted by Capt. Sydney Mc- Laughlin.
Mr. Behrend, president of the Hammermill Paper company at Erie, Pa., met the Amida here Sun- day afternoon when she arrived after encountering stormy weather since the day of the rescue.
Capt. Jose E. Pereira, of the Ill- starred Coburn, was the only sur- vivor of the sea tragedy able to give a coherent account of the bat- tle against the elements which the survivors waged for eight days.
Prayers and Bible readings sus- tained the men when their fate seemed darkest, he said.
After the first four days they were without food or water, and one of the three white men, W. E. Milliken, the en- gineer, became temporarily mad, his hysterical mutterings adding to the babel of prayers.
W. Sargent. 60 year old cook of the Coburn, was unable to stand the privations, and succumbed, His body was not thrown overboard because the other ten men were exhausted.
Captain McLaughlin, of the Amida, sald that the rescue was an accident.
The Amida was fifteen miles off her regular course when she picked up the yawl, he said.
He added that because of the tor- ture they had undergone, the rescued men had not been told they had only almost missed being pick- ed up.

THE NEW YORK SUN, Monday, April, 29, 1929

10 SEA VICTIMS TELL OF RESUCE

Calm They Prayed For Falls as Succor Draws Near.

8 DAYS WITHOUT FOOD

Death and Madness Add to Plight of Coburn's Crew.

The tale of ten living men and corpse adrift for eight days on the high seas in the thundering gale with nothing save five Bibles and three prayer books was recounted yesterday by Jose J. Pereira, master of the four-masted schooner, James E. Coburn, which went down on April 17 off Bermuda,
after her seams had opened during a blow and the seas had filled her forward hold.

Capt. Pereia told his story coming up the bay from Quarantie on the yacht Amida, which had sighted his little twenty-five-foot yawl, after the ten men, three white and seven colored, had given up hope in everything except prayers and miracles.

Two days in the palatial quarters of the yacht, with warm beds, food and hot drink had put a little life back into the rescued crew.

One Still Abed

All except one were out on deck,but all refused to comment upon their adventures. The man still in his bed was William Milliken the engineer, whose feet had swollen due to their long soak in salt water and who was later taken to the Marine Hospital.
While the crew sat silently and a trifle sullenly in a close group their skipper described their heroic fight agsinst the Atlantic, breaking into his account now and then with praises for Capt. Sidney McLaughlin of the Amida, his rescuer.
The Bibles and prayer books he said, was all that kept up the morale of his men.
The misfortunes aboard the James E. Coburn began on April 14, her master declared.
On that day she ran into a heavy gale, and although nothing above deck was damaged her seams sprung and she began to leak.
This was a complete surprise, because the ship had been overhauled in February at Perth Amboy, a new keel had been fitted on, and she had received a firt-class certificate.

Pumps Chocked

All except one were out on deck,but all refused to comment upon their adventures.
The man still in his bed was William Milliken. the engineer, whose feet had swollen due to their long soak in salt water and who was later taken to the Marine Hospital.
While the crew sat silently and a trifle sullenly in a close group their skipper described their heroic fight agsinst the Atlantic, breaking into his account now and then with praises for Capt. Sidney McLaughlin of the Amida, his rescuer.
The Bibles and prayer books he said, was all that kept up thebmorale of his men.
The misfortunes aboard the James E. Coburn began on April 14, her master declared.
On that day she ran into a heavy gale, and although nothing above deck was damaged her seams sprung and she began to leak.
This was a complete surprise, because the ship had been overhauled in February at Perth Amboy, a new keel had been fitted on, and she had received a firt-class certificate.

Eleven Men Adrift

For some two hours, with the yawl's stern to the seas, they watched their schooner.
She was still under hir jib and mizzen, and at 2:30 P.M. she slowly settled and went down bow first.
After that there weee eleven men alone on the sea.
They were alone forbeight monotonous days and nights.
The entire time the gale cracked around them.
The waves washed into the tiny craft.
They bailed, pulled at the the three oars which had not been carried away, and slept.
As the days wore on William Sargent, 60 years old, the cook, slept more and more.
On the seventh morning he failed to awake, and they found that he had died.
He was left in the bottom of the yawl, a terrible reminder to his living companions, and was buried after the rescue from the deck of the Amida.
So much water was shipped by the small boat that all of the hard tack and bread became soaked and could not be eaten.
The canned goods lasted four days and the water was soon gone.
All that was left was cigarettes and a few matches.
Thee were smoked sparingly.

Brought Their Bibles

Although the men had not been permitted to take any baggage, they insisted on bringing books from the sinking schooner.
And during the days in the open boat the literate members of the crew read from these.
The impassioned sentences of King James's time describing.
As the gale shrinked, the seas pounded, and the yawl swung up and down monotonously,these were read over and over, ans the crew prayed.
At night when the Bibles could not be read these prayers were continuous. At odd intervals of the night, the captain said, there would be a sudden call across the sea, "Oh, Lord save us. Help us or perish."
At one time they were eighty-five miles from Bermuda.
But the wind shifted and blew them off again. At another another they sighted a vessel, but their flares would not work.
It was too stormy for the ship to pick them up anyway. Then Milliken went mad.
He babbled helplessly, thought he was in port and demanded his pay.
Capt. Pereira gave him a check for $10 and he became quite.

Quite Sea at Last

In this way they floated until thr Amida was sighted.
And her sighting and the subsequent rescue was in the eys of the crew the miracle for which they had payed.
Although the storm had beaten unceasingly for eight days, on the morning of the 24th it was clear.
They signaled with an inverted flag on an oar.
The yacht drew alongside and the sea was smooth as glass.
They were helped to her deck, and a few hours latern the gale began again. Next morning saw a hurrican.
The clear weather had lasted only long enough for the rescue.
With the exception of Milliken, the men will be sent to Baltimpre today.
The money paid Capt. McLaughlin for stories of the rescue will be divided among them and they will receive the proceeds of a painting of the event by Claus Bergen, a marine painter who was aboard the yacht.
Altgough when rescued their skin had been shriveled by the salt water so that they looked 100 years old, all are reported to be a little worse for the adventure.