The passengers aboard the Albania were dancing in the dining salon when the sea behind them exploded.
During a violent electrical storm, a lightning bolt struck the water only 100 feet in the ship’s wake. The blast shook the vessel so violently that Captain Gibbons and the first officer were knocked senseless on the bridge, while the ship’s machinery was briefly thrown into confusion.
To the frightened passengers below, it felt as if the Albania had struck something deadly.
The music and merriment ended at once as people rushed for the boat deck and life preservers, believing the ship had hit a drifting mine.
Lightning Bolt Imperils Ship, Two Are Injured
New York. — A lightning bolt which struck the sea 100 feet in the wake of the Albania during a severe electrical storm Tuesday night, shook the ship as if she were a leaf in a hurricane and knocked her captain and the first officer senseless on the bridge.
Captain Gibbons gave an account of the storm when the vessel arrived today. The lightning shaft, he said, opened a yawning crater in the sea. He declared the shock was so heavy the mechanism of the ship was momentarily paralyzed.
The passengers, making merry at a ball in the dining salon, believed the ship had struck a derelict mine and rushed for the boat deck and life preservers.
Source: The Cordele Dispatch and Daily Sentinel. Cordele, Georgia. March 16, 1923.
