| Rescued at Sea |
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Seven-year-old Dennis J. Ahern, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Ahern of Webster street, Arlington
and 54 Beach street, [Rockport, Mass.], blissfully slept through being drifted out to sea in a small skiff late last night. After an extensive
land and sea search, with some 100 people and a flotilla of some 20 boats, he was found by Walter F. Church, local fisherman, scouring
the waters off Sandy Bar [sic] breakwater at 12:10 o'clock this morning, some three miles from where he had originally embarked.
The lad, eager to try night fishing, had found rowing too much for him, and calmly decided to turn in until daylight would in his opinion
permit him to find his way back to shore.
Dennis was in the habit of attending the Legion band concerts on Beach street Sunday nights.
His parents felt he had gone there when the boy left the house around 7:45 o'clock. However on this night Dennis had other plans in mind,
and thought he would try fishing for a change. He is very fond of boating. He went to the Granite company stone wharf off Granite street,
and with another boy enjoyed fishing off the rocks for awhile. The other boy left for home shortly afterward and advised Dennis to do likewise.
But instead, Dennis took to a small skiff owned by a Mr. McRae, and secured oars and oar-locks from another boat. He also got a life-belt
and donned it. He began to row away from the pier to find himself a better fishing spot. It was close to 9 o'clock by this time. Dennis soon
realized that rowing any distance was too much for his age. He noticed a sail boat some distance away and shouted for a tow, but
apparently the sail boat occupants did not hear him, or else they could not locate the drifting boat. He evidently tried to put out the
anchor but there wasn't line enough for it to reach the bottom. Logically enough, he felt his best bet was to go to sleep and wait until
daylight when he felt he would be rested and could see where he was heading. Chances are, however, that but for his being found,
the boat might well have drifted far out to sea.
Meanwhile, when his parents failed to find him being at the band concert, they became
concerned, and started to look for him. They went to the wharf. Then they decided to request further help. They notified police headquarters
where Officer John F. Borge, on duty at the desk, at once set the wheels in motion for one of the most elaborate hunts ever instituted here.
Ten minutes prior to the Ahern call, a woman reported to police that she had heard cries of a child coming from the water, calling for his
mother and father. Officers Leroy C. Silva, Eben R. Hodgkins, and Auxiliary Police Roger L. Eaton and John J. Francis were detailed to
investigate. When the call came in from the parents, Officer Hodgkins, Fire Chief Guy A. Thibeault and Dr. Thomas A. Kelley, a friend of
the Aherns, enlisted the aid of small boat owners, Richard Gray, George Nelson and Uno Peterson to search the harbor waters.
Officer Borge increased the searching fleet by getting four other boat owners, Ralph Nelson, Walter Church, Carl Nelson, and Gene Lesch
to do likewise. Straitsmouth station US Coast Guard, notified, immediately started out. Numerous other outboard motor craft joined in the
flotilla.
Along the shore, police, firemen, auxiliary police, auxiliary firemen, Coast Guards, and citizens armed with fire department flood lights,
covered the shores from Halibut Point around to Land's End in an effort to locate any sign of the boy. Police Chief Richard K. Manson was
emphatic in the high praise he paid to Officer Borge for having organized so large and thorough a searching party. It was the motorboat
Junee Boy, owned and skippered by Walter Church which found the drifting skiff, at a point some 200 yards northeast of the gas buoy
outside Sandy Bay breakwater about midnight. Dennis was lying in the bottom of the boat, sound asleep, while the anchor was dragging
over the stern. Aboard the Junee Boy were Auxiliary Policeman Raymond Reed, Fireman Benton C. Story, and also Paul and Jack Kelley,
brothers. They picked the boy up from the skiff and into the Junee Boy. The boy even slept through his rescue, so exhausted was he from
his nocturnal rowing.
His frantic parents were overjoyed to have the boy returned to them safe and sound. Mr. Ahern repeated over and
over again his and his wife's heartfelt thanks for all those who took part in the search and especially to the crew of the Junee Boy.
Firemen had been summoned by a bell alarm on the fire system, two blows repeated, calling the crew of the Pigeon Cove chapel.
The Pigeon Cove combination kit's lighting equipment did legion work along the shore. It was another instance of the wonderful
cooperation of everyone in a small town to turn out anytime of the day or night to help a neighbor or a visitor. |
| — Gloucester Daily Times 20 August 1951 |
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