DISASTERS TO VESSELS INVOLVING LOSS OF LIFE. Section 9 of the act of Congress approved June 18, 1878, provides: That upon the occurrence of any shipwreck within the scope of the operations of the Life-Saving Service (now Coast Guard), attended with loss of life, the general superintendent shall cause an investigation of all the circumstances connected with said disaster and loss of life to be made, with a view of ascertaining the cause of the disaster, and whether any of the officers or employees of the service have been guilty of neglect or misconduct in the premises. In accordance with the requirements of the foregoing, all disasters of the class named have been or are now being investigated, and the attendant facts and circumstances in each case ascertained by testimony under oath. The results are tabulated below: NOTE.-The foregoing tabulation of lives lost does not mean that in each of these several instances the lives of all persons involved in the disaster were lost. On many of these occasions lives were saved, and whenever the Coast Guard was instrumental in saving those lives, the facts are recorded in the tabular 283 statement. 4943°-15-19 BLUE ANCHOR SOCIETY, AID FOR THE SHIPWRECKED, WOMEN'S NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. The above-named society was organized in 1880 for the purpose of extending aid and comfort to the victims of shipwreck and other marine casualties on our shores, and has perhaps found its widest field of usefulness in conjunction with the rescue and relief service performed by the crews of the United States Coast Guard. The endeavors of the society, in so far as they are associated with the Coast Guard, consist in furnishing wearing apparel, etc., to the various stations of this service for use as above indicated. The enterprise is altogether a private philanthropy. As no provision is made by the Government for clothing those whom maritime dangers have placed temporarily in the care of the Coast Guard crews, the efforts of the society, needless to say, have done much to alleviate human distress. The following statement shows the stations at which such supplies were expended during the last fiscal year, the individual cases of distress thus relieved, and the circumstances which in each case gave rise to the need sought to be relieved: Date. Station. Beneficiaries. 4 men from stranded launch. Small boy who had fallen into water. 10 men, thrown into water by explosion of launch Vendetta. Fisherman, who lost his life trying to swim from anchored boat to shore, given clothes for burial. Girl who had fallen over bank into the surf. 3 men from capsized boat. 6 Wood End.. 2 men whose clothes had been washed away while they were in bathing. 2 men from disabled boat, having been adrift three days. Man from swamped launch. 3 men from foundered launch. 14 sailors from wrecked steamer Rochelle. 2 women, passengers of stranded steamer. 3 men from capsized dory. 2 men from capsized dory. 3 men from launch towing swamped barges. |