Left to Be Answered

The expressive face, ordinarily lined with the reassuring smile marks of the luxury-liner captain, now was creased by weariness and worry. "I--I have had no sleep in such a long time," said Captain Avner Freudenberg, 53, a 31-year veteran of the sea, to reporters.

"I cannot--you will understand--give any details now." In response to continued questioning, Freudenberg finally smiled painfully and said: "I will now shut up. I cannot give any details." There were plenty of questions to be answered and plenty of details to be filled in by Freudenberg, skipper of the pride of the Israeli passenger fleet, the seven-month-old, $20 million Shalom, and by Captain Kristian Bendiksen, 54, of the 12,723-ton Norwegian tanker Stolt Dagali. The two ships collided early Thanksgiving morning in heavy fog 17 miles northeast of Barnegat Lightship, off the New Jersey coast.

The Unmistakable Sound. On the Shalom (Peace), just three hours out of New York on a Caribbean cruise, New York Pharmacist Stephen Tannenbaum and his wife Barbara were among the late-stayers at a Thanksgiving Eve party. Shortly after 2 a.m., they were dancing the cha cha cha in one of the ship's ballrooms when they were thrown to the floor and heard that horrifying dissonance--unmistakable to anyone--that means a collision at sea. On the Stolt Dagali (which means "Pride of Dagali," a Norwegian town), bound for Newark with a crew of 43 and a cargo of vegetable oil, Seaman Sverre Thun-berg, 19, was jolted awake by that same sound, looked down from his bunk and saw sea water rising fast beneath him; Thunberg grabbed his toothbrush and razor, raced above decks and leaped into a lifeboat, even then being lowered over the side.

First word of the disaster came to the U.S. Coast Guard's Boston station radio, which heard the faint words "Pan . . . pan . . . pan . . .," an international signal meaning that an urgent message follows. It was from the Shalom, which had a 40-ft.-long gash in her bow and was shipping tons of sea water into her No. 1 hold. Minutes later, a Long Island Coast Guard radio monitored a distress call from the Stolt Dagali. The Coast Guard asked Washington's Federal Communications Commission for a radio fix on the vessels. Navy and Coast Guard helicopters and planes were dispatched from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Naval Air Station and the Lakehurst, N.J., Naval Air Station. Six Coast Guard cutters near the scene were given the emergency "go" signal, and two commercial vessels in the vicinity raced in to help.

On the Shalom, Captain Freudenberg ordered all watertight doors closed. "We stopped immediately after the collision," he said. "There was no panic, not the crew and not the passengers. Then we heard the cries of men in the water. We knew it was none of our people. We lowered lifeboats to search for them." The Shalom's lifeboats picked up five of the tanker's crew.

As for the Stolt Dagali, it had been sheared in half by the Shalom's bow. The stern section sank almost immediately, taking 19 seamen with it. Left on the bow section were ten men, including Captain Bendiksen.

Still Missing. The first rescue helicopters hovered overhead, dropping flares to light the scene, descended to within 10 ft. of the 20-ft. swells, picked up nine men and 13 bodies, then took Captain Bendiksen and the nine others from the bow section of the Stolt Dagali.

By dawn, the rescue operation was over, and the Shalom was under way at slow speed back to New York. Still missing were a lot of answers. How could the collision have occurred between two ships equipped with radar that was reported to have been turned on, functioning perfectly, and being watched? And after a journey-of a mere 50 miles how could the Shalom, when it first radioed its position after the collision, give a reading 15 miles away from where it really was?

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