Brooklyn Eagle (September 10, 1942)
They even rescued a cat from blazing Wakefield
The story of the escape of 1,590 persons from the naval transport Wakefield was expanded today as Coast Guard members of the crew arrived here to tell tales of individual and collective heroism during the inferno aboard the luxury liner converted to war uses.
One of the rescuers in the Morro Castle disaster in 1934, Lt. Joseph Mazzotta, took pride in the fact that valor, speed and efficiency had not only prevented the loss of a single life when 25-foot flames swept the Wakefield, but was so effective that:
We even saved a cat.
Lt. Mazzotta, 34, and a resident of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, was overcome once himself before the order to abandon ship was given at 8:15 p.m., an hour and 45 minutes after the automatic alarm first sounded, but he considered that a minor mishap.
He said:
Some of the boys were overcome several times and still managed to fight it off and keep going.
Lt. Henry P. Knickern Jr. of Manhattan told how 60 persons in sick bay were taken to safety without ill effect and Ens. John Mahrley, 31, of St. Paul related the rescue of six overcome passengers from a lower deck.
Charles Albert Buchert, Carpenter’s Mate 1st Class, of Glennside, Pennsylvania, was cited for pulling three passengers who had no gas masks from an escape hatch, while Richard Foutter, gunnery officer, hailed all the passengers for keeping cool in the midst of soaring flames.
To Ens. Mahrley, the most remarkable phase of the holocaust was the manner in which, he said:
…three members of the crew who were trapped in a laundry escaped by forcing a watertight door below water level and made their way to the upper decks.