BOSTON — More than 200 Boston residents gathered Sunday to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Hotel Vendome fire that killed nine firefighters.
City officials held a ceremonial wreath-laying for June 17, 1972, when five stories of the hotel collapsed on the firefighters, according to the Boston Herald.
“It was my worst night on the job, believe me,” Firefighter Charlie Seaboyer told the Boston Globe.
Firefighter Seaboyer and others rescued 16 and recovered the bodies of the fallen firefighters that night.
Firefighters Thomas W. Beckwith, Joseph E. Boucher, Charles E. Dolan, John E. Jameson, Richard B. Magee, Paul J. Murphy, Joseph P. Saniuk, and fire lieutenants Thomas J. Carroll and John E. Hanbury, Jr. died in the tragedy.
Eight other firefighters were caught in the rubble but survived, the Herald said, and one fire truck was buried in the debris.
Relatives of the killed firefighters laid wreaths in front of names carved into a memorial and received medals commemorating the sacrifice.
“It means everything to me, everything,” Catherine Keane, widow of Firefighter Beckwith, told the Globe.
The four-alarm fire was extinguished within two hours by 16 engine companies, seven ladder trucks, two aerial ladders and two heavy rescue crews, but a section of the building fell on top of the firefighters as they were working on hot spots.
“The sacrifice of the Vendome nine is the greatest example for us to live up to as Boston firefighters,” said Edward Kelly, former president of the Boston firefighters union, at the ceremony.