62 YEARS AGO TODAY
Nov 28 1942
A fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Boston, kills 491 people. The dead were crushed, burnt, and asphyxiated, all within minutes.
The Cocoanut Grove was one of Boston's most elegant clubs. Lined with palm trees, it was a tropical paradise. In summer, the roof could be rolled back electrically for dancing under stars. Upstairs, in the dining room, shortly after 10, Mickey Alpert's band was about to begin the second show. Downstairs, the piano player was banging out "Bell Bottom Trousers" in the Melody Lounge, where the fire began.
A young couple, wanting privacy, reached to a palm frond to unscrew a 7.5- watt bulb. Told by a bartender to restore the light, a 16-year-old busboy climbed upon a seat, and then struck a match to locate the socket. A moment later, someone noticed flame along the satin ceiling. At first, people were amused by the antics of waiters trying to douse the fire with seltzer water.
It eventually involved 187 firefighters, 26 engine companies, five ladder companies, three rescue companies and one water tower.
The fire picked up speed, swept across the ceiling and mushroomed up a stairwell, then exploded with tremendous force in the dining room. For some, the first indication of trouble was the screams of a woman, hair ablaze. The fire raced across the dance floor with the speed of a 20-mile-an-hour wind. As people scrambled for exits, an employee in a gray suit, 5 feet 4, insisted that no one leave without paying the check.
People celebrating one moment suddenly found themselves crawling along the floor or feeling along walls, battling fear and flames and darkness and terror and screams of agony, and amid the pandemonium of overturned tables and broken dishes, there seemed no escape from the searing heat and the acrid smoke that burned the eyes and scorched the throat.
"I knew there was a door across the dining room, but about 150 people were headed for it, and everybody was pressed together, arms jammed to our sides. The flame came down the side of the dining room like a forest fire, and within minutes, the stage was consumed with fire. Before I could get out, I got pushed through a door and fell head over heels downstairs into the kitchen and landed on other people."
"At the foot of the stairs, I was lucky enough to get on my feet. Everybody was scrambling, trying to break doors to the stock room. I said forget it, they don't go outside. I saw a heavy lady, Mrs. (Katherine) Swett, the cashier. I said, 'Let's go,' but she said, 'I can't leave the money.' Later, I saw a big person burned to death, and it was her."
Some headed for doors to Shawmut Street, only to find them locked. In the darkness, others stumbled, were trampled and, overcome with smoke, never got up. Only a handful made it through the revolving door before it jammed and became a death trap in front of which scores of people died.
The portico was a furnace, and firefighters were unable to get under the three arches of stucco, unable to penetrate nine feet to the revolving door, jammed with bodies, where they could see, through the glass, flames, smoke and men and women, succumbing and falling in a stack.
Officer Elmer Brooks recalled that when rescuers tried to pull bodies from the door, arms and legs came off in their hands. Brooks scanned faces, hoping not to find his daughter.
Some bodies were charred beyond recognition, but many people inhaled smoke and slipped to the floor and died, untouched by flames.
As night deepened, the temperature dropped. Water on cobblestones turned to ice. Hoses froze to the ground. Newspaper trucks were appropriated as ambulances. On the street, firefighters lugged out bodies and were treated for burned hands. Smoldering bodies, living and dead, were hosed in icy water. Some victims had ingested fumes so hot that when they inhaled cold air, as one firefighter put it, they dropped like stones.
On Sunday morning, edition after edition rolled off the press with five- inch headlines ever more ghastly: "SCORES DEAD IN NIGHT CLUB FIRE," and then, successively, 200 DEAD, then 386, 400 and finally 450. Throughout the morning, in front of the Boston Globe, a mournful line formed of people waiting for the next edition, praying not to find the names of loved ones among the dead.
"Buck Jones, the movie star, was there. He used to be my idol. Buck Jones had a cold and didn't want to come to the Cocoanut Grove, but they lured him there, and he got killed."
"There was a party of undertakers from Keene, a family of 10.One couple from the group didn't want to see the second show and went across to the Metropolitan theater, and when they got back, their whole family was wiped out."
- Coast Guardsman Clifford Johnson, 20, had helped people to safety and suffered burns over 50 percent of his body. After 21 months in a hospital and several hundred operations, he married his nurse and went home to Missouri, only to die in a fire.
- A 30-year-old postal clerk from Roslindale, discharged from a hospital after treatment for burns, was despondent that the fire had killed his bride and several friends. Readmitted a few weeks later, he leaped to his death.
- After the fire had been knocked down, Winn Robbins of Engine 21 was removing bodies. He passed a telephone booth. Inside, he saw a woman in a fur who had been about to make a call when she was overcome by smoke. On the floor was a nickel.
- A city councilor charged that bodies had been rifled of cash, wallets, watches and rings worth $3,800. A man known to be prosperous who had not paid his check had only $3.65 in his pocket. An undertaker noted that on one corpse, there was only one injury -- to the ring finger, which was bare.
- More than 50 military men lost their lives. The Fitzgerald family of Wilmington lost four sons, all servicemen home for the holiday.
- For some, the wounds were psychological. One man said he never again could see movies indoors, only at a drive-in. Others said they never could forget the smell of burning flesh.
At Mass General, as patients arrived, four priests administered last rites. For 75 minutes, Boston City Hospital averaged a new patient every 11 seconds. Of the first 200 victims to arrive, 150 were dead. Morphine was administered before doctors had time to determine if a patient were alive, and their foreheads were then marked with an "M," written in lipstick.
It took 90 hours to identify all bodies. For 10 consecutive days, newspapers reported deaths. Scores of victims lingered in hospitals for months until the final victim died May 5.
With 1,000 patrons, the club was 25 percent beyond capacity. Busboys were under legal age. A firefighter said he had inspected the club eight days before and found everything satisfactory. And yet, not only were decorations not fireproof, they were highly inflammable. The electrician who wired the Cocoanut Grove had no license, and he testified that the owner, Barney Welansky, had told him not to worry, that Welansky was "in with the mayor."
Not only did a revolving door become jammed, but other exits were locked, trapping scores of screaming victims. A plate-glass window that would have provided egress for 200 people was boarded up.
When assets were divided, survivors and families of the dead received checks for about $150.
-http://www.boston.com/news/daily/21/archives_cocoanut_112292.htm
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