Lifeboat

As a freed U.S.-flagged freighter cruised out of Somalia's crime-infested waters Thursday, a tense standoff continued for a second day between a U.S. warship and a tiny lifeboat, adrift with four stranded pirates and the American captain they were holding hostage. A day after the American crew managed to turn the tables on pirates who had seized their cargo ship, the Danish-owned Maersk Alabama headed for safer waters with 18 armed guards from the U.S. destroyer Bainbridge on board. Reports suggested that the cargo ship, which is carrying food and other humanitarian aid for African nations, including food destined for Catholic Relief Services programs in Rwanda, was headed to its original destination of Mombasa, Kenya.

Charles F. "Blackie" Blockston Jr., a merchant mariner who during World War II survived the U-boat sinking of the freighter Carlton and spent three weeks drifting 600 miles in a lifeboat before being rescued, died Aug. 28 of multiple-organ failure at the Veterans Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. The longtime Rosedale resident was 93. Mr. Blockston's wartime adventures began in the engine room of the SS Carlton, a Lykes Brothers Steamship Co. freighter that departed Iceland on May 20, 1942, sailing for the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk.

Ruth Roman, the former sultry star of stage, screen and television who died this month at her California home, found herself caught up in a real-life drama when the grand ocean liner the Andrea Doria collided with the Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., on July 25, 1956.Roman was returning to New York from Italy aboard the Andrea Doria with her 3 1/2-year-old son, Dickie Hall, and a nurse-companion, Grace Els.While her young son slept in cabin 82 on the Andrea Doria's upper deck with Els, Roman, dressed in an evening gown, had gone to the ship's Belvedere Lounge for a drink and to mingle with other passengers.

Joan Hecht Lorber, who made newspaper headlines in 1939 when she survived the sinking of a torpedoed passenger ship in the early days of World War II, died of Parkinson's disease Aug. 26 at her Boca Raton, Fla., home. She was 80 and had lived in Pikesville until the 1950s. As a 9-year-old, Joan Hecht was returning to Baltimore aboard the liner SS Athenia when it was sunk by a German U-boat after its captain mistook the vessel for an armed merchant cruiser, not the Donaldson American Line passenger ship it was. German authorities immediately suppressed the facts surrounding the torpedoing.

Lifeboat [Fox] $20 With the release of this 1944 flick, all of Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood films are now out on DVD. Starring Broadway star Tallulah Bankhead, heartthrob du jour John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, William Bendix, Hume Cronyn, Henry Hull and African-American actor Canada Lee, Lifeboat is sort of a claustrophobic Grand Hotel set on the high seas. Hitchcock brilliantly uses one set - the lone surviving lifeboat of an Allied ship sunk by a German U-boat - to weave his tale of survival, the class system and morality.

Edith Haisman,100, the oldest survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, died Monday at a nursing home in Southampton, England, 80 miles southwest of London, her family said.Mrs. Haisman remembered seeing her father, Thomas Brown, standing on the deck of the sinking ocean liner the night of April 14, with a glass of brandy and a cigar. He waved and said: "I will see you in New York."The Titanic, then the world's largest liner, sank with 1,500 people aboard. Lifeboats got away with about 700 crew and passengers as the vessel broke up and sank 560 miles off Newfoundland.

WASHINGTON -Before ending a pirate standoff with three fatally precise shots, Navy SEAL snipers had passed on multiple opportunities to fire. They had moved into position after the White House expanded the authority it had given the world's most powerful navy against a rag-tag foe holding an American sea captain hostage on a lifeboat. They kept their scopes trained on their Somali targets as prospects for a peaceful resolution seemed to shrivel. Most of all, they waited as a series of seemingly insignificant moves - from extending the pirates a rope for a tow to bringing an injured brigand onboard - improved the sharpshooters' odds of success.

The 10th Duke of Atholl, 64, one of Scotland's richest landowners and the head of the only private army in Britain, died of a stroke Tuesday in London. Born George Iain Murray, he succeeded to the title in 1957. He had served as president of the Scottish Landowners Federation, president of the National Trust for Scotland, chairman of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and captain of the House of Lords bridge team.Bernice McMurry Scott, 91, mother of Coretta Scott King and mother-in-law of Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday in Atlanta.

Adrift with his captors in sight of U.S. warships, the American sea captain being held for ransom by Somali pirates briefly escaped their lifeboat by jumping overboard, a U.S. official said Friday, but was recaptured and brought back. The U.S. military said Richard Phillips, who was taken by the pirates from the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama on Wednesday, appeared unharmed after the escape attempt. The military, which has been maintaining real-time video surveillance via an unmanned drone overhead, observed him moving around on the lifeboat after he was recaptured.

Joan Hecht Lorber, who made newspaper headlines in 1939 when she survived the sinking of a torpedoed passenger ship in the early days of World War II, died of Parkinson's disease Aug. 26 at her Boca Raton, Fla., home. She was 80 and had lived in Pikesville until the 1950s. As a 9-year-old, Joan Hecht was returning to Baltimore aboard the liner SS Athenia when it was sunk by a German U-boat after its captain mistook the vessel for an armed merchant cruiser, not the Donaldson American Line passenger ship it was. German authorities immediately suppressed the facts surrounding the torpedoing.

WASHINGTON -Before ending a pirate standoff with three fatally precise shots, Navy SEAL snipers had passed on multiple opportunities to fire. They had moved into position after the White House expanded the authority it had given the world's most powerful navy against a rag-tag foe holding an American sea captain hostage on a lifeboat. They kept their scopes trained on their Somali targets as prospects for a peaceful resolution seemed to shrivel. Most of all, they waited as a series of seemingly insignificant moves - from extending the pirates a rope for a tow to bringing an injured brigand onboard - improved the sharpshooters' odds of success.

MOMBASA, Kenya - The Maersk Alabama cargo ship docked at this Kenyan port city Saturday night, its American crew appearing tired but in good spirits, with some sailors leaning over the ship's railing to wave, ask for a beer and tell how they thwarted an attack by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Facing a sea of reporters on the dock below, the sailors seemed most eager to identify their heroes, especially Capt. Richard Phillips, whom the pirates are still holding hostage in a lifeboat adrift in the ocean.

Adrift with his captors in sight of U.S. warships, the American sea captain being held for ransom by Somali pirates briefly escaped their lifeboat by jumping overboard, a U.S. official said Friday, but was recaptured and brought back. The U.S. military said Richard Phillips, who was taken by the pirates from the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama on Wednesday, appeared unharmed after the escape attempt. The military, which has been maintaining real-time video surveillance via an unmanned drone overhead, observed him moving around on the lifeboat after he was recaptured.

As a freed U.S.-flagged freighter cruised out of Somalia's crime-infested waters Thursday, a tense standoff continued for a second day between a U.S. warship and a tiny lifeboat, adrift with four stranded pirates and the American captain they were holding hostage. A day after the American crew managed to turn the tables on pirates who had seized their cargo ship, the Danish-owned Maersk Alabama headed for safer waters with 18 armed guards from the U.S. destroyer Bainbridge on board. Reports suggested that the cargo ship, which is carrying food and other humanitarian aid for African nations, including food destined for Catholic Relief Services programs in Rwanda, was headed to its original destination of Mombasa, Kenya.

Nearly 60 years have passed since Bernard C. "Bernie" Webber and his crew of three Coast Guard lifeboatmen braved a vicious Atlantic nor'easter with 70-knot winds and pounding 60-foot seas for one of the most daring rescues in maritime history. Webber was coxswain of the CG36500 lifeboat, which responded to the SS Pendleton, a 503-foot oil tanker that broke up off Cape Cod. Webber died in January at his home in Melbourne, Fla. He was 80. After running away from the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Gill, Mass.

Lifeboat [Fox] $20 With the release of this 1944 flick, all of Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood films are now out on DVD. Starring Broadway star Tallulah Bankhead, heartthrob du jour John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, William Bendix, Hume Cronyn, Henry Hull and African-American actor Canada Lee, Lifeboat is sort of a claustrophobic Grand Hotel set on the high seas. Hitchcock brilliantly uses one set - the lone surviving lifeboat of an Allied ship sunk by a German U-boat - to weave his tale of survival, the class system and morality.

Henry Wilson Harrison, who as a merchant marine officer in World War II helped save the lives of 11 of his crewmen after their ship was sunk by a German U-boat, died Friday of Alzheimer's disease at Genesis Heritage Nursing Center in Dundalk. He was 85.The seamanship and navigation skills he acquired growing up on Tilghman Island helped him sail a 25-foot, sail-powered lifeboat through rough seas for more than 1,000 miles until the survivors were rescued by a fishing vessel off the northwest coast of Africa.

Charles F. "Blackie" Blockston Jr., a merchant mariner who during World War II survived the U-boat sinking of the freighter Carlton and spent three weeks drifting 600 miles in a lifeboat before being rescued, died Aug. 28 of multiple-organ failure at the Veterans Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. The longtime Rosedale resident was 93. Mr. Blockston's wartime adventures began in the engine room of the SS Carlton, a Lykes Brothers Steamship Co. freighter that departed Iceland on May 20, 1942, sailing for the Soviet Arctic port of Murmansk.

It's a voice with an accent that falls somewhere between the American heartland and London's West End. Or is it the Deep South and sunny Spain? In an era when cigarettes are social poison, this voice is unadulterated nicotine -- a sound so low and sultry, it could singe the phone wires. And then there's the vocabulary. "Extraordinarily" pops up more than once. So does "exhilarating." No understatement here, thank you. The voice is so distinctive it couldn't belong to anyone but Kathleen Turner -- unless, of course, it belonged to Tallulah Bankhead.

Ruth Roman, the former sultry star of stage, screen and television who died this month at her California home, found herself caught up in a real-life drama when the grand ocean liner the Andrea Doria collided with the Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., on July 25, 1956.Roman was returning to New York from Italy aboard the Andrea Doria with her 3 1/2-year-old son, Dickie Hall, and a nurse-companion, Grace Els.While her young son slept in cabin 82 on the Andrea Doria's upper deck with Els, Roman, dressed in an evening gown, had gone to the ship's Belvedere Lounge for a drink and to mingle with other passengers.