16 The "Subway Sailors" Who Saved New York By NORTH CLAREY Not even the citizens of Man- hattan and Jersey City know how close they came to disaster the day a burning ammunition ship almost blew up in their faces. BATCH of those land-based Coast Guardsmen A sometimes jeeringly referred to as "subway sailors" were dawdling in their Jersey City bar- racks at 5:30 'clock on the afternoon of April 24, 1943. They were waiting for supper and, afterward, the pleas- ures of liberty. It was payday and the day before Easter, and New York, in a holiday mood. was just across the harbor. These Coast Guardsmen were members of the muni- tions detail, which meant that they fought the war by supervising the loading of ammunition at New York harbor. The ammunition went to battle, but these Coast Guardsmen stayed home. Other Coast Guards- men distinguished themselves landing marines and soldiers under fire at Tulagi, Guadalcanal, Bougain- ville, Africa, Sicily, Salerno. But the voyaging and In saving this flaming tanker, graduates of the Navy Fire Fighters School adventures of the munitions detail so far consisted used the same technique that prevented a giant explosion on the El Estero. mainly of riding the subways to visit girls in Brook- lyn, Queens, the Bronx and the dark nooks in Central Rear Admiral Parker decorates John Stanley and Arthur Pfister, lieutenant Park suitable for pitching woo. That's why their tra- commanders in Coast Guard, for bravery aboard blazing ammunition ship. ditional sparring partners, longshoremen and ship workers, dubbed them "subway sailors." The term seemed particularly applicable on this pre- Easter afternoon, as the boys prepared for romantic forays. They had donned their pea jackets and care- fully pressed dress blues. Some were rubbing shoes al- ready gleaming like onyx and some were doing their nails when the door was flung open and a voice yelled, "Hey, ammo ship on fire! They want thirty volun- teers!' A burning ammunition ship is a Gargantuan bomb. It is perhaps the most dangerous thing in the world. These youngsters knew that. Yet, of the nearly sixty slicked and dressed-up Guardsmen in the barracks, not one hesitated. They dived for the door like kids re- leased from school and headed for the circus. They scrambled for places on one truck until they were dripping from the fenders, clinging to the top of the driver's cab, dangling over the tail gate. About twenty others piled into a small pickup truck designed to hold ten, and the two trucks went racing the eight miles through Jersey City with horns blowing, the red USCG lights blinking, fenders rubbing on tires, white sailor caps blowing off and the boys whooping as if on a roller coaster. They passed Jersey City fire engines as if they were in low gear. Startled traffic cops and auxiliary policemen at the pier tried to flag them down, only to be forced to jump for their lives. These subway sailors weren't go- ing to lose their first chance for action. They thumbed their noses and jeered raucously at white-faced carpen- ters and longshoremen fleeing the scene; then, as the 100D,D. 251