Desperate Chances Taken. Rescue of Schooner Eric’s Crew a Most Sensational One.

Capt. Giffin and Crew of Schooner Conqueror Highly Praised.

Undoubtedly one of the bravest rescues ever attempted by a Gloucester fisherman was that of the saving of the captain and crew of the British Schooner Eric, coal laden, off Nauset a week ago last Friday by the men of the Schooner Conqueror of this port. At the time particulars were not obtainable but recently the story of Capt. Giffin of Schooner Conqueror has been published from which we make the following extracts.

As brave a rescue as men ever made at sea, a feat of indomitable daring for the performance of half of which medals of gold adorn the breasts of hundreds of heroes of the deep…..received scant mention in the news dispatches because a nation was busy with its politics. It was a tale worthy of the telling by a Kipling or a Connolly that Capt. Robertson Giffin recounted when the trawler Conqueror out of Gloucester, put in at Provincetown. Casually and evenly, merely as describing an incident of the day’s work, he told the habitues on the waterfront of the Cape Cod town how Alonzo Townsend, Charles Decker, William Meuse, Thomas Lannon and Charles White, sturdy seafaring men, defied death in dancing cockle shells of dories to snatch the men of the Schooner Eric, coal laden and low-squatted, from the furies of wind and wave as they clamored for victims off Nauset in the leaden morning of a fall day. When the simple story had been completed, the doughty captain buttoned his oilskins, rowed out to the Conqueror and headed for port with his fare of fish.

No matter though the gale had turned on yet another stop and the ocean’s diapason had become deafening, the trim wind jamming fishing schooner was soon bowling onward, slowly but surely winning her way into the teeth of the gale, and her crew said no more of the rescue. But real men will thrill when they hear the story.

Capt. Albert Larkin of the Schooner Natalie J. Nelson, which arrived at Boston Saturday, was in this city Saturday evening, and in talking with a number of skippers and vessel owners about the hard weather which had prevailed on the fishing grounds since a week ago Thursday, said that since that date none of the offshore fleet in the Channel or on George’s had a chance to have a set. Referring to the rescue of the crew of the coasting Schooner Eric, during the terrible gale of a week ago Friday, off Chatham, Cape Cod, by Schooner Conqueror Capt. Robertson Giffin of this port and five of his crew, he said, "There are no medals made that are any too large for Giffin and those five fellows. I have seen men and crews saved at sea, and had a hand at it myself, and sometimes under very hard weather conditions, but this act of Giffin and the chaps that went in those two dories was certainly the limit; yes, it was beyond the limit. Mind you, we were right there and saw it, so I know what I’m talking about. The wind that day, you know, was 70 miles an hour at Highland Light, and this was just down of Chatham, and you know no rougher spot could be picked out in a northeast gale. Why, the big Yale, that outsize steamer on the New York line, couldn't make up around the Highland that day and had to turn back and anchor, yet Giffin brought the Conqueror down abreast of that sinking craft and he was wagging his riding sail, foresail and jumbo. It did not seem possible that they could do any more than lay by until the gale went down and then pick them off." The Captain of the Eric told in Provincetown afterward that he never expected to see them make the attempt to take them off, and he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw them stick out two dories and row down to them in the face of all that wind and sea. And he took them off to windward mind you, which made it all the harder and all the more desperate. The dories could not get on her leeward side, as all the wreckage, booms, gaffs, etc. were slatting around on that side.

And so, the rescue of the men off the Schooner Eric was made off Nauset in 1908. Tom Lannon and his mates each received a medal for their heroic deed. Many other brave men did not fare as well and were not saved when their ships went down to the sea.