Defending the honor of the Tamaroa. I am going to relate to you a story about how the honor of the Tamaroa was impugned then restored. Several years ago a book called Dark Noon was published.it was written by Tom Clavin. Fellow shipmate Bob Leonti brought to my attention a fatal flaw in the book. The author asserted that the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa was stationed out of New London and refused to leave to rescue an overturned party boat. I bought the book and was astounded as to the inaccuracies in it. Mr. Calvin asserted that the Tam was an 83 footer whose crew refused to leave. I knew immediately there was a problem. First the Tam as we all know is 205 feet and no ATF sailor would refuse to leave port for a rescue. Mr. Clavin said he got the information from a local paper. Determined to set things right, I wrote the National Archives and requested a copy of the ships log for the appropriate date. The log book indicates that the Tam was at anchor in Fire Island Inlet when she got the message to proceed to eastern Long Island to act as on scene commander. She weighed anchor around 4:30pm and arrived at the scene around 11:30 pm. The capitalizing occurred at least 10 hours before she arrived on scene. I presented all these facts, her size, her location, her home port and even sent him copies of the logs. Mr. Calvin said he could not change anything as he doubted the book would go to a second printing. He also marveled how I could get the information he couldnt. I have heard since that the book was reissued, as a paperback. I wonder if he ever updated it.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:18:44 +0000
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