Hero William Hart’s stolen Gold Lifesaving Medal

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The United States Coast Guard honored William C. Hart, a Philadelphia native born in 1898, for heroism with its most significant rescue accolade, after he saved a crewman from the Tug Thomas Tracy which was stranded on Absecon Bar, New Jersey, on Nov. 16, 1926. 

The Coast Guard’s sixth Commandant, Frederick Billard personally conveyed the Gold Lifesaving Medal of the First Class in a formal ceremony at the Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, on Nov. 29, 1927. During the 70 years from 1874 to 1944, only 600 Gold Lifesaving Medals — the Coast Guard’s highest merit for rescuing personnel — were issued to heroes from all walks of life. These rare medals were awarded “upon any persons who shall hereafter endanger their own lives in saving or endeavoring to save lives from perils of the sea, within the United States, or upon any American vessel.”  

The award was confined to cases of “extreme and heroic daring,” The honor was unique and prestigious, acknowledging individual heroism that placed the rescuer’s life at great risk on behalf of another under extraordinary circumstances. Some have likened the gold Olympic medals because of their rarity and the skill necessary to achieve success. Others do not believe it’s a fair comparison when the personal risk to the lifesaver is considered. To have received this award only to find out the medal had been stolen would be devastating to any recipient. 

Hart was the youngest child of eight siblings and lost his mother to stomach cancer at age nine. Always driven to be occupied and to better himself, Hart finished high school and two years of college by 19. Soon after World War I broke out, Hart enlisted in the Navy once the U.S. joined the fight, following the service tradition of his father and grandfather. In just two years of service, he advanced from seaman apprentice to Chief Quartermaster. His European destroyer flotilla was credited with sinking two enemy submarines. After the war, Hart was employed by a Philadelphia Yellow Cab company for five years as an auto mechanic. 

In 1924, Hart joined the Coast Guard as a Chief Quartermaster and within a year was appointed a temporary Boatswains Mate Chief Warrant Officer. That same year he married first wife Margaret who would bear him three children. Then, the Coast Guard was the only service charged with enforcing the unpopular 1920 Volsted Act, and the prohibition of alcohol. According to Atlantic Area Historian, Dr. William Thiesen, “by 1922, the Federal Prohibition Commission counted hundreds of mother ships hovering off U.S. shores in “Rum Row” with up to 60 off the Jersey Coast alone. These mother ships were also stationed off Boston, New York, the Chesapeake Bay, New Orleans, and West Coast ports.” Hart had entered the Coast Guard at a time of great expansion with a tripling of budget requested for the interdiction of illegal alcohol from the sea and the expansion of the cutter fleet by almost 300 vessels. He would soon command one of the newest “six-bitters,” a wooden, 75-foot offshore coastal picket boat in what was the service’s most numerous class of cutters. This class of 15-knot capable cutters would account for “half the personnel increases at the time.” 

While in charge of the 75-foot-long patrol boat CG-213 on Nov. 16, 1926, Hart got underway to assist the steam tug Thomas Tracy that had stranded on Absecon Bar, New Jersey. When he arrived on scene, he found the vessel in a “helpless” condition with both anchors gone, and with four feet of water in the hold. The tug’s fire room had been ablaze until the inrushing waters extinguished the blaze. Eventually, once the vessel had heeled over and was awash, the main steam lines exploded, blowing her smokestack over the CG-213. After clearing the wreckage from the Coast Guard boat, Hart skillfully maneuvered his vessel close alongside the stricken tug and took the first two men off. Complicating matters were prevailing heavy seas and near-hurricane force winds. While this was in progress, a fireman from the tug’s crew fell overboard and was in imminent danger of being crushed between the two vessels. Hart quickly turned control of the CG-213 over to another man and jumped overboard and attached a rescue line to the imperiled crewman, who was quickly hauled aboard. The rescue was undertaken at great personal risk to Hart, as the two vessels were not more than six or eight feet apart in the raging seas. Hart and his crew would then rescue the 13 remaining members of the tug’s crew. He would go on to serve almost seven years during his first stint with the Coast Guard. 

Hart would serve the next six years as an Army Corps of Engineers employee in Saint Louis, Missouri. It was during this third period of government service that Hart, while traveling by train from Savannah, Georgia, to Baltimore, on Nov. 15, 1929, reported that his precious Gold Lifesaving Medal had been stolen. More than five years later, still with the Army Corps of Engineers, he sent a letter dated Nov. 27, 1934, to the Department of Treasury, inquiring about the process and cost to replace his lifesaving medal. At the time, the country was in the middle of the Great Depression, and more than 25 percent of the eligible workforce was unemployed, making the loss even more important and costly. On Jan. 15, 1935, the Treasury Department responded and indicated the total cost for striking, engraving, and boxing the replacement medal was $154.70 an exorbitant sum of money. In today’s dollars, the medal would cost $3,388.46! By a stroke of great fortune, later that same year, Hart’s stolen Gold Lifesaving Medal was found in the pocket of a jacket in a junk shop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and returned to him by a good Samaritan. 

In June 1941, Hart was again drawn to military service as the United States was mired in the Second World War. He subsequently commanded at least three ships and operated with distinction in the ice off Greenland and in the Atlantic and then served in the forward areas of the central Pacific. On Oct. 1, 1944, Hart, then the commanding officer of the USS Mintaka, operating in the far Pacific, received the terrible news that his wife had died. He could not return home on bereavement leave to lay his wife to rest until almost three months later, on Christmas Day. 

William Hart was medically retired on Aug. 1, 1950. On Feb. 12, 1962, he passed at the age of 64 at Boca Raton, Florida. Coast Guard Commandant E.J. Roland expressed his personal condolences in a letter to Hart’s son, U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class William Hart, and said, “He shall always be remembered for the honorable service he gave to his country. I trust that the knowledge of the esteem which he was held by all who knew him will comfort you at this time.” In addition to the Treasury Department’s Gold Lifesaving Medal, Lt. Cmdr. Hart’s service record indicates he received a Good Conduct Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, Campaign medals from the American Area, Europe-Africa, and the Asian-Pacific, and the American Defense, World War I and World War II Victory medals. In addition to his service in two world wars, Hart also commanded a Coast Guard cutter during the Rum War and was credited with seizing the Honduran Motor Vessel Aurora, and its illegal cargo of 502 sacks of liquor. At the time of his death, he had 34 years accumulated Federal service with three different organizations, including the Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Coast Guard. 

In May 2009, then-Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, and then-Command Master Chief Skip Bowen made plans to name the new fleet of Fast Response Cutters (FRC’s) after enlisted heroes. Their decision came hours after Admiral Allen and Master Chief Bowen attended funeral services on Cape Cod for Chief Warrant Officer Bernie Webber, the coxswain of the famed CG 36500, whose crew saved 32 seamen from the floundering 502-foot tanker Pendleton, on Feb. 18, 1952. Despite having the support of the Commandant and its command master chief, the Coast Guard Naming Board initially voted the idea down. Finally, with the personal intervention of then Vice Commandant, Vice Admiral David Pekoske, the decision was overturned and the FRC’s would finally become the namesakes for enlisted service heroes, past and present. 

On Sept. 26, 2019, Margaret Hart Davis, William Hart’s daughter, helped commission the fast response cutter named for her father in ceremonies at Base Honolulu, the ship’s homeport. The cutter’s current commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Hills, indicates the cutter Hart now “conducts search and rescue, fisheries and living marine resource and law enforcement missions around the Hawaiian Islands, Guam, and the Oceania areas.” In a testament to their namesake, William Hart, the cutter’s motto “PU AWAI O KE KAI” roughly translates to “Heart of the Sea.” 

-USCG- 

[Captain Webster was recognized in 2012 by the Foundation for Coast Guard History for his more than three decades of commitment to service heritage. Webster is authoring three new books: New England’s Lifesaver: Coast Guard Legend Master Chief Jack Downey, (The story of the Coast Guard’s First Ancient Keeper, Master Chief Jack Downey); Finding America’s Lost Son (The government’s 1999 coordinated effort to find JFK Jr.’s plane and respectfully recover the three victims and place their ashes on the sea); and The Search for the lost Revenue Cutter Bear. https://www.wrussellwebster.com)].