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Article on Captain William Carl Johns I found: not much new!
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Article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. August 12, 1941.
By Florence Fisher Parry in her daily column "I Dare Say"
I Dare Say- Seamen have Blue Eyes.
By Florence Fischer Parry
Jones Beach, L.I. - He was sitting on the highest tower, lord of all he surveyed: and I had to call loudly for him, for the strong singing surf was in his ears, and his eyes- I knew- were combing the sea. I knew they'd be blue eyes, for all true seamen borrow from the Sea it's bluest blue, and extract from it it's purest essence for their eyes, so strong is the affinity between them. And yes so they were- blue as blue comes, and set far back under a seaman's frown and crystal as a child's. And as he talked to me, they kept on combing the sea, and I knew by the look in them that were they asked to rest for long on any other sight they would surely go blind from the cruel deprivation . He was Captain William C. John, captain of the life guards here at Jones Beach, lean and leathered by the salt winds and the sun, with a body of a youth carrying his grizzled head. He has spent his life on the sea and besides its shores, and 13 years ago came here to take charge of Life Saving, when Jones Beach had its christening. "I had four men then: now I have 90." he told me. "and they've maintained the highest of all records all these years. We've had two drownings in that time, and both occurred in unprotected areas and when the guards were off duty." "How many rescues have you on a typical day like this?" "There's no such thing as a 'typical day'. The sea has a million moods: and it's for us to size up, each day, its disposition and the prankish turn it'll take. Today, even with a surf, it's safe for fools, and we'll have no more than 40 or 50 rescues. But on a day the sea plays tricks, we'll have from 250 to 300 rescues, the 90 of us, and that means we're fairly busy." "But we don't see them! How do they take place so quietly?" " that's our job. Our guards don't rescue AFTER a swimmer's in trouble, it's their job to spot him before he realizes his own plight. They have to know the currents, look for them, know where trouble's likely to pop up, and line their rescues up almost before the swimmers know themselves that they're in danger. It's funny to see a typical rescue . . . there he goes, cock-sure and vain, swimming boldly out on a 'sea-puss' flattering himself he's swimming fast when all the time it's the 'sea-puss' that's doing his work for him! Then he begins to swim back. And he makes no headway whatever. Left alone, he'd be exhausted in no time: but we don't wait for that. We get to him and bring him in: and half the time as soon as he recovers his breath he tells us grandly that he could have made it easily alone. It's always the good swimmer who need rescue." TADPOLES " How about the women?" "Well, I'd say we rescue 40 women to 60 men: the women need a little more fussing over that's all. If they're unconscious we lose no time and resuscitate them right on the beach. Later we take them to First Aid and fix 'em up in great shape." "How about the children?" "Oh, we hardly ever have a really serious rescue of a child. They stay close to shore. They're tadpoles, they're brought in by the kind waves. Our main 'rescues' of children is rescuing them from being lost. But we hold them up on our towers and blow our whistles and they're claimed in no time. We had a child though, who was lost from in the early afternoon until 2 o'clock the next morning. The parents were out of their minds, but we felt sure the tot would show up, our men's eyes couldn't have missed it in the surf . . . Well the little girl- only four she was- had wandered over five miles up the beach and was lying peacefully on the beach, worn out, when we found her. The beach is so safe that no wonder parents lose sight of their young ones. And as a rule the tots have much more sense than their elders. " Now take today, " he said his blue eyes roaming over the beach, "There are about 150,000 people here, most of them going into the water. They all come under the eyes of these 90 guards. Let one of them make a false move, or get scared, or winded, or beyond his depth, or in a riptide or sea-puss and he's brought in before he knows he is being watched!" " How? One of the guards swims out with a can-bouy, that torpedo shaped bouy you see there sticking n the sand. He gives the exhausted swimmer the bouy to hang onto: meantime a second guard comes along with a line, and everything's hunky dory. Sometimes a sea-puss can carry a swimmer out 600 to 800 feet before he knows it. Then of course we use the boat with two extra men. We take no chances." "I Qualify 'Em" " What qualifies a life guard at Jones Beach?" "I qualify him. I mean, he has to pass my judgement as to how good a swimmer he is. He has to know how to swim circles around the best of 'em! With that foundation, he begins here to learn how to be a guard. It takes about three years to be a really good life guard: he has to know the ways of the sea, and the ways of humans, and the ways of the wind, and the ways of a boat in a 20-foot sea. He sits there in his tower and he watches bathers and swimmers and he doesn't do anything else. He can't talk, he can't be distracted for an instant. He's vigilant every second. He has to be able to single out, among thousands of swimmers, those who are BEGINNING to show signs of distress. He must get to them before they know their own danger. That takes a practiced eye."
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