passengers to the boat deck. The upper deck was ablaze within 10 minutes. Many of the passengers who had been asleep in their cabins found themselves unable to escape the fire. Some passengers were told to go to the main dining room to await instructions, but most ignored this order, since the dining room lay directly in the path of the fire. At 11:30 p.m., the ship's chief radio officer Antonios Kalogridis sent out the first distress call: "Fire spreading up. Prepare evacuation on ship." At midnight, a second distress call was sent out: "We are leaving the ship. Please immediately give us assistance. Please help us." Kalogridis sent out the last call at 12:22 a.m., just before the radio room caught fire: "SOS from Lakonia, last time. I cannot stay anymore in the radio station. We are leaving the ship. Please immediate assistance. Please help." A six-man fire crew tried to fight the blaze, but the fire spread too quickly to be contained. Boilers began to explode, filling the rooms and hallways with thick, black smoke, and the suffocating passengers were forced on deck. Evacuation The ship's purser gave the order to abandon ship shortly before 1:00 a.m. Dazed passengers made their way to the lifeboats, some in their pyjamas and others still wearing their jewellery and evening wear. A few crew members went below decks to try to save passengers from their burning cabins. The ship's swimming pool attendant and a steward lowered themselves over the side of the ship, by rope, to pull trapped people from portholes. Evacuation of the ship was very difficult. Some lifeboats burned before they could be lowered. Two of the lifeboats were swamped, spilling their occupants into the sea; one when it was lowered only by one end, and the other when its davits broke off. Chains had rusted in many of the davits, making boats difficult or impossible to move. Only just over half of the lifeboats made it safely away from Lakonia, and some of them less than half full. Several people who dove overboard struck the side of the ship on the way down, killing them before they hit the water. Passengers were angered when the radio operator left the ship in a launch, with a nurse and two musicians. Kalogridis later testified that he had left to rescue people from the water. He stated that he did not