DEATH TOLL IN CIRCUS DISASTER REACHES 146

Most Of Victims Reported To Be Women, Children.

Hartford, Conn. -- AP – While grief among parents, relatives and friends grew hourly deeper, officials placed the list of dead at 146 today as they counted and recounted the victims of the greatest fire in circus history which yesterday turned the big top Ringling Brothers Circus into a flaming inferno.
At least 250 other victims, many of the seriously burned and trampled were scattered about the city's hospitals.
Identification of the dead continued slow as sorrowing friends and relatives of missing persons trooped mournfully through the huge State Armory where the dead, many of them charred beyond possibility of visual recognition, lay in somber aisles.

Toll Recedes
The death toll – which at one time was feared might reach 200 – receded slowly as duplicating identifications were corrected but the condition of many in the hospitals indicated it might rise sharply again.
Meanwhile investigators sought the origin of the blaze which was variously asserted by some to have started from a discarded cigarette but by others to have first appeared high above the crowd in the lofty tent top, as 6,000 carefree spectators watched enthralled the opening act of the big show.
Held in high bail today on charges of manslaughter were five officers of the circus company as Mayor WILLIAM MORTENSEN announced he was considering the probability that the city would have to bury many of the prospective unclaimed dead.
While a quickly mobilized emergency corps went about the poignant task of counting the full cost of the tragedy, believed to have been caused by a carelessly tossed cigarette, eye witnesses piled one detail of horror upon another.
Everyone, among them some who had succeeded in cheating death at the scene where all had been laughter and gaiety, seemed to get relief from the shock of the tragedy by relating their experiences.
There was MRS. ROSE DUNN of Hartford, who with her two children counted themselves among the fortunate even though they suffered numerous scratches and burns.

Shocked by Scene
Said MRS. DUNN, still shocked by the scene:
“I was sitting only a short distance from where the fire broke out. I immediately sensed something was wrong, and even though I was about 10-feet high, tossed my 5-year-old son, HERBERT, down to the ground, after telling him to remain there.”
“Then I lifted my 3-year-old daughter, BETSY, over my shoulder and jumped with her. Grabbing HERBERT and carrying BETSY I crawled under several animal cages, meantime stepping over a few bodies, and managed to get outside. I still don't know how I did it.”
A physician and his wife, listening to the booming of the loud speaker on a State Police car, suddenly broke out in a nervous smile as they learned that their two children, who had left the house for the circus, had changed their minds and gone instead to a neighborhood movie, where they were found.

Seek Reason
Meanwhile investigators seeking to establish a reason for the startlingly rapid spread of the blaze which all eye-witnesses agreed mushroomed with incredible speed from a tiny finger of flame near the main entrance to a gigantic inferno of smoke and fire.
Police Court Prosecutor JAMES F. KENNEDY announced that his preliminary investigation had established that the huge canvas then had been coated with a water-proof solution of gasoline and paraffin before the circus left its winder quarters at Sarasota, Fla., early in the year.
Many witnesses to the appaling[sic] scene commented upon the thick, oily nature of the billowing flames and smoke.
Among other agencies investigating were the state's attorney's office, the FBI and a special committee appointed by Mayor WILLIAM MORTENSEN.
In contrast to the stories of various persons present when the fire broke out yesterday, shortly after the opening of the afternoon performance that the blaze originated low in the tent, HAL OLVER, circus press representative said today:
“The fire definitely started at the roof of the tent.”
And he added: “We have a theory, but we're not making it public now. We expect to make an announcement later.” He further declared that “absolutely no credence was being given any theory of incendiarism or sabotage.
As Mayor MORTENSEN indicated that the city might be called upon to provide common burial for the unidentified and unclaimed, War Manpower Area Director WILLIAM G. ENNIS announced that employment ceilings for all persons needed as undertakers helpers, cemetery workers and various relief agencies had been lifted.
MORTENSEN said: “I am told that a large number of bodies are beyond recognition. The dead are still in the custody of the coroner but it may be impossible to keep the bodies in their present condition much longer.”
For the third successive day a sweltering heat wave gripped this city. Because of it many woman and children, who comprise the majority of yesterday's victims, were lightly clad in flimsy attire with few identifying marks as they trooped gaily to the circus grounds.

Only Half Identified
At the Armory morgue alone today, where 142 bodies lay, only half had been identified.
Mayor MORTENSEN, who toured the hospitals, described the scenes in the various institutions as “heart breaking.”
He stopped into one room just as a young girl died.
Back on the circus lot under a baking sun, the scent of wild animals drifted across the scorched terrain as roustabouts and performers alike wandered fitfully about. Police still fended away the curious and the morbid. At the performers quarters life went on listlessly, women washed and hung out clothing to dry, artists examined the spangled contents of their costume trunks or sat idly and dully about.
The fire, acknowledged to be the greatest disaster in American circus history, reduced the show's main tent to ashes within less than an hour yesterday and brought injury to at least 225 of the estimated 6,000 spectators at the afternoon performance.
State police on duty at the temporary morgue estimated that two-thirds of the dead were children and said most of the adult victims were women.
A chilling quiet prevailed at the morgue, broken only occasionally by the sudden sob of a mother recognizing some whisp[sic] of her child's clothing on a twisted and blackened figure.
But there was no hysteria as fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands and other relatives walked silently from cot to cot. Many searched futilely among the small bodies burned beyond recognition. They will return again today – still hoping, yet dreading, to recognize some piece of jewelry, a shoe, a charred scrap of a dress.
Confusion was absent in the rescue work and at the morgue. The state civilian defense organization was prepared.
On first word of the fire, all Connecticut's emergency resources had been mobilized. The morgue was set up within two hours after the fire.

Governor At Scene.
Governor RAYMOND E. BALDWIN was at the scene quickly and remained until late in the night. Nurses aides and volunteer workers toiled through the night, aiding both the injured and the grief-stricken survivors.
Cause of the blaze remained undetermined today, but an investigation was started immediately under the governor's direction.
Only the first act, the performance of the trained animals, had been completed when the blaze, at first so small that, as one witness said, it could have been extinguished with a bucket of water, was seen near the main entrance of the big top.
Survivors agreed that the circus staff had tried valiantly to prevent panic. The first move toward the exits was orderly and many of the children making their was from the tiers of seats were seen laughing excitedly.

But when the flames roared with terrifying speed to consume the entire canvas roof, the audience became a fighting, screaming terror-stricken mass.
Some children dropped to the ground were trampled unconscious by others jumping behind them. Others were tangled in the blazing canvas.
The performing animals had been safely herded through the caged runway back to their trucks when the blaze was first seen and only five circus performers, the “Flying Wallendas,” were in the arena.

Trapped In Runway
It was the animal runway, spectators said, which trapped many of the audience under the fiery canvas as it fell.
The scene was described by FELIX ADLER, the show's famous clown, as the most horrible ever witnessed by a circus performer.
“We heard a roar like applause,” ADLER said, describing what happened in the performers dressing room. “Only we knew the animal act was over and there shouldn't be applause. We knew that something was wrong. Then we smalled smoke, x x x I thought the menagerie fire in Cleveland (in August, 1942, which injured three circus employees and killed 40 animals) was the worst thing I could every see, but no one in the circus business has ever seen anything as horrible as this.”
The circus' future remained doubtful today, although most of its staff agreed that it would return to its Sarasota, Fla., winter quarters as soon as authorities here would permit removal of the remaining equipment.
HERBERT DUVAL, circus adjuster, declared, “We're out of business.” But ROLAND BUTLER, general press representative, predicted that the show would return to the road later this summer perhaps using last year's tent which he said “still is in pretty good shape.”
BUTLER reported that all the show's animals were saved and that none of the performers had been injured seriously.
Estimates of the fire loss ranged from $75,000 to $300,000, but no authoritative report on damage had been issued by the management.

Kingsport Times Tennessee 1944-07-07
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!