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Weekly UpdatesThe Broadway Street wall of the new lounge had a wall made of glass bricks. This wall and a small nearby window started to fail from the heat of the fire. Firefighters worked frantically around the Broadway Lounge door. Inside, they could see people collapsing and bodies piling up, as they desperately tried to gain access and rescue them.
Graney now dragged the charged high-pressure hose-line toward the corner of Shawmut Street and Broadway to the Broadway Lounge door. As he pressed in with the water from the hose deflecting off the ceiling, firefighters worked to reach unburned limp bodies lying just inside the doorway. As these people were dragged out, he noticed smudges around their noses and lips.
The firefighters now moved forward into the entrance-way. Graney looked down and saw a young woman who, while unburned, was on her back pinned down to the floor by bodies. When she saw Graney she yelled to him, "Please get me out, my father will be worried!" Just then the fire flashed over Graney's head and as he backed out he yelled to the girl to "hang on!" Yelling for another hose line, he didn't wait, but instead pressed inward again, allowing the girl to be pulled by others out to safety.
Never before had Graney confronted such a mountain of human beings. "It was incredible," he says. "I couldn't go forward or to the right because of the bodies, I couldn't even get in with the hose."
In testimony to the desperation of the rescue effort, the firefighters made the noblest of attempts to rescue as many as they could as quickly as they could, but they were overwhelmed by the shear number of people trapped by the fast-burning fire. Though no firefighters were included in the list of those who died, several of those first on the scene succumbed to the smoke and flames during their rescue efforts. One of those men was Charley Kenney, Sr. of Rescue 1 who, after pulling over a dozen people out the Shawmut Street Dining Room door, finally went down. Later in the hospital it was noticed that among his injuries he had claw marks on his legs, offering a mute testimonial of the desperate final moments of so many.
The fire was knocked down quickly. In a short period of time, the firefighters made an effective entry into the main dining room. If this fire had occurred in an unoccupied building, it would have been knocked down even more quickly; however, rescue was obviously the paramount concern.
With the flames now subdued, Graney now found himself with a policeman in the main dining room carrying out bodies.
"The tables weren't all burnt and in some places people, though dead, were only singed, still at their chairs and drooped over their tables. Yet elsewhere other bodies were so badly burned you couldn't tell the men from the women," Graney says.
The false walls on the Shawmut Street wall had been breached and soon lights were brought in so that the extent of fire damage could be seen. Out on the street first aid was given to those who could still receive it.
"I remember seeing a priest standing, quiet and solemn, watching as we carried out the bodies," he says.
Graney eventually worked his way through the building and found himself downstairs in the Melody Lounge. "There were small piles of belongings everywhere," he says.
Most of the bodies were now removed, and the firefighters continued with their overhaul duties. Venturing into the Melody Lounge was Mayor Tobin and the Boston Fire Department doctor Martin Spellman.
"All of a sudden a small portion of the ceiling came down and Spellman yelled 'get out!'" says Graney. "He said this remembering Maverick Square, but it turned out to be only a piece of the false ceiling material."
Despite the magnitude of the event, the fire was extinguished and the bodies removed in a relatively short period of time. Red Graney and Engine Company 35 were not released from the scene until around 4:30 to 5:00 a.m. in the morning. The entire event seemed so unreal and taxed reality by playing on everyone's fatigue.
"At the time we had no idea how many were killed, and we guessed that maybe 200 people had been lost," Graney says.
In the days following the fire, the firefighters who were involved in the event were asked to submit any reasons or thoughts on why the flames had spread so fast. This information would eventually assist the official fire department investigation. Graney was not among those who were asked for official testimony; however, there was much speculation in the firehouse.
"There were all kinds of thoughts," Graney says. "There was talk that vapors from alcoholic drinking along with a lot of smoking contributed to the fire. Some also were saying that it was German sabotage since there were a large number of suspicious fires during the war years."
There was much conjecture, but it would be over a year before the official Boston Fire Department report became available and provided some answers to why the fire had spread with such incredible ferocity.
Red Graney retired from the Boston Fire Department after a prestigious career. While president of Local 718 of the International Association of Fire Fighters during 1952 and 1953, he was one of those responsible for introducing the muscular dystrophy campaign to the fire service. He is more widely known for the "Graney Plan," the widely adopted fire department work schedule system still used today throughout North America.
The Serviceman
John Collins had been on the Boston Fire Department for about one year when the attack occurred at Pearl Harbor. Like many, he enlisted before the draft, immediately after Pearl Harbor. The year 1942 that followed was arguably the most hectic for the gearing up of the U.S. military during World War II.
Because of his firefighting background, Collins found himself as the first man in the U.S. Navy's firefighting program based in Boston. This was one of five U.S. Navy firefighting schools located around the country. The others were located in Norfolk, VA; Pearl Harbor, HI; San Diego, CA and Bremerton, WA. The school in Boston had at any given time ten firefighters, half of whom were from the New York City Fire Department and half from the Boston Fire Department. This group was lead by Navy Lt. Commander Peter Hogstrom, originally from the New York City Fire Department.
The school in Boston was referred to as a A school, complete with a simulated ship structure made of concrete. Located at East First and I Streets in South Boston, the intent was to prepare the navy fire service for shipboard firefighting tactics. John Collins and the other instructors lived in barracks located at 500 East First Street. An emphasis was given to several innovative techniques, including the use of foam, and also the use of fog streams.
It was a Saturday night like any other and John Collins, who was on standby, was passing the idle time. As the evening came to a close he had just laid down on his double-decker bunk when the Lt. Commander came in and shouted for everyone to get their turnout gear. They were being called to a bad fire in the "film district" of Boston. The men grabbed their equipment, jammed into a single navy wagon and sped off to the scene.
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Upon their arrival, the fire itself was quickly becoming subdued. However, a massive rescue effort was under way and the services of the Navy Fire fighters were clearly needed. As the group approached the Cocoanut Grove building, they came upon the main entrance revolving door on Piedmont Street. A row bodies had been laid out on the street and the rescue efforts had only cleared out the revolving door itself. Inside, a gruesome pile of bodies could be seen piled seven and eight high.
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People were running and hollering everywhere, Collins says. Standing near the revolving door exit directing operations was Boston Fire Commissioner William Riley. Being a member of the Boston Fire Department on military leave, John Collins introduced Lt. Commander Hogstrom to Commissioner Riley. At least with regard to the Navy, Lt. Commander Hogstrom appeared to be the ranking Navy officer on the scene. Riley said that he thought there were about 200 dead.
"I couldn't believe it," says Collins."Two hundred dead--it seemed so high for such a small place."
The navy men split up and immediately started to work. The fire was being brought under control and the task at hand was to get the people out. Collins began helping to remove bodies at the entrance on Piedmont Street through the now tomb-like main entrance where the revolving doors had been. Just a few feet away other firefighters finally broke down an adjacent door with much effort, only to reveal a shocking sight. Bodies were piled chest-high against the door.
This door was located at the top of the stairs from the Melody Lounge in the lobby and was equipped with panic hardware, but it was doublebolted shut, with lifeless forms piled against it from the inside. After it was broken open, bodies were brought out through this opening. originally intended to provide safe escape.
"Some bodies were very badly burned, but some were not. It was very, very strange," says Collins. "But more than anything else, the stench of burned flesh was terrible. It was overwhelming."
The stairway to the Melody Lounge was now being cleared, and the firefighters had finally gained access down into the basement Lounge from the lobby. Surprisingly, the fire damage downstairs was minimal. Except for the overhead area, there seemed to be very little damage from the fire itself.
"Of all the vivid impressions made upon me that evening, perhaps the most unforgettable was when we first went down into the Melody Lounge," says Collins. "There, sitting at a table was a very pretty girl. She was sitting with her eyes open and her hand on a cocktail glass, as if waiting for someone. As I first looked at her I wondered why she was just sitting there, thinking she was okay. But, of course, she was dead. It seemed very strange."
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