A Tribute to 'The Boatlift That Was Bigger Than Dunkirk': The 9/11 Story Not Enough of Us Know About

New York Daily News Archive. Getty Images.

For the last eight years, on September 11th, this blog as, and forever should, be dominated by Large's personal account of his harrowing experience on this day 25 years ago. It's a must-read. 

And still, after all this time, there is more to be learned about that day. When Large invited me down to Barstool HQ to podcast with him a couple of weeks ago, I set aside time to visit the 9/11 Museum, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It's as reverent, respectful, powerful, informative, and comprehensive memorial as you could possibly imagine. Not just to 9/11/01, but the events that led up to it and all that ensued. I urge everyone to go. 

It was there that I saw this video for the first time. If one of the museum's guides didn't kindly suggested I go see it, I'd have walked right past the room that shows it several times a day. And I'm eternally grateful to the person who recommended it. Because I have to confess, I knew nothing about this part of 9/11's history. And most people I've talked to since haven't either. This will be the best 11 minutes you'll spend today:

If you don't have the time now, make time for it later. You won't regret it. Until then here are the broad strokes:

… help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, report to Governors Island.” 

The boats were already coming. 

The bridges were closed. The tunnels were closed. The subways were dead. South of the towers, hundreds of thousands of people had nowhere left to walk. Some jumped into the Hudson. Some stood on seawalls that were never meant to be docks and waited for anything that floated. 

Dunkirk took nine days to pull 338,226 Allied soldiers off a beach in 1940. 

On 9/11, roughly 800 mariners on about 150 vessels moved as many as 500,000 civilians off Manhattan in about nine hours. Ferries. Tugs. Dinner boats. Pilot boats. Yachts. A retired fireboat. Rubber dinghies that held two people. The largest water evacuation in history. 

NY Waterway did not wait for the official call. After the second plane hit, the whole fleet moved. Captain Rick Thornton nosed his ferry against a seawall that was not a slip and started taking people off. Some of them he pulled out of the river. His company alone carried about 158,000 people to Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Brooklyn, and Queens. 

On a normal Tuesday they carried 34,000. 

The Staten Island Ferry moved more than 50,000 people and came back the other way with water, bandages, and men who still had work to do in the dust. 

The old fireboat John J. Harvey, already retired, tied up near the Museum of Jewish Heritage, took civilians off the seawall, then pumped water when the hydrants downtown died. 

Lt. Day later admitted what the day required. “I broke more rules that day than probably I’ve enforced in my whole Coast Guard career.” 

In raw numbers it was bigger than Dunkirk. No boat went down. By nightfall the southern tip of Manhattan had been emptied by people who were not on anyone’s list of heroes when the morning started. 

They were tug captains. Ferry deckhands. Pilots. A lieutenant with a microphone. Ordinary boats answering one sentence.  

All available boats.

That said, the sheer scale of The Boatlift is astonishing. As is the courage shown by everyone who drove their boats into the unknown. Pointed their bows toward the dust and debris, with no way to know if another attack was coming. If another plane was about to bear down on Lower Manhattan. If bombs had been set there as a trap for this very scenario. There was potential danger all around. A chaotic scene where nothing seemed real. It was Armageddon. And they sailed into the teeth of it. 

The thing is, some of the people who answered the call are professionals. Some had a sworn duty to perform these rescues. But most weren't. Most were "ordinary" citizens who chose to do something extraordinary. They could've sat this one out and no one would've even known, much less held it against them. Hell, it's been a quarter of a century and I only just now learned their story in their own words. They went because they felt a sense of obligation to their fellow humans to do what they could. 

I can't watch that one moment when someone is lifting a toddler wrapped in a life preserver and not think that "hero" just isn't a big enough word. And to a person, these boat captains are blue collar workers. Guys with dirty hands and clean souls. Whose office is NY Harbor. Whose work computer is depth finder. Whose cubicle is the bridge of their boat. And whose workplace is decorated, appropriately enough, with the Statue of Liberty. 

I said most people I've talked to has never heard of The Boatlift or seen this video. I'm happy to report that the one who did is the wife of one of my best friends. She teaches high school. And shows it to her students every year on 9/11. Which should give us some hope for the future. Here's praying that America keeps producing people like the ones who answered the call, even before it came. 

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All available boats.

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