Fifty years later, Boston is remembering one of the worst fires in U.S. history, a blaze that claimed hundreds of lives in minutes and whose cause remains a mystery.
The fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub broke out shortly after 10 p.m. on Nov. 28, 1942. Within minutes most of the 492 who would die had perished, making it the second worst blaze in U.S. history - only the Iriquois Theatre fire in Chicago in 1903 was worse, with 602 fatalities.When the final death toll was reached, church bells tolled through-out New England.
On Saturday a reunion will be held at a Boston hotel for some 30 survivors and firefighters.
But not all will be there.
Ed Hubert, 83, who was having cocktails with his first wife when the fire broke out, says the memories are too painful to attend.
"We heard this cry of `Fire!' and saw this great ball of flames," he recalled. " . . . I woke up four days later in Cambridge Hospital. My wife, Louise, was dead."
At Boston City Hospital, a fire victim was brought in every 11 seconds for more than an hour, surpassing the rate recorded at London hospitals during World War II blitz attacks.
Of the more than 400 victims brought to Boston City Hospital during the night, almost 300 were dead on arrival.
In all, 187 firefighters from 26 engine companies fought the blaze. All traffic in Boston came to a standstill, and calls went out for every medical examiner within 50 miles.
One family lost four sons in the fire, all in the military. Five children from another family were orphaned, losing not only their parents but two aunts, an uncle and their grandmother.
"The people died too quickly to fight for their lives," says one medical examiner, Dr. William Wat-ters.
The Cocoanut Grove fire was a textbook case of a disaster waiting to happen. Despite a legal limit of 460, 1,000 patrons were at the nightclub that night. Six of the club's exits were locked, and one had been sealed off by brick years before.
Survivors who have lived to see the ominous anniversary come to pass describe the terror as if it were only yesterday.
"The screams were dreadful," says Benjamin Ellis, a bystander on the street that night. "Those people didn't have a chance. They were fighting to get out, blinded by a black smoke that became denser as the heat intensified."
The Suffolk County medical examiner concluded that at least 400 people died within 13 minutes after the blaze started. But what caused it remains undetermined.
Although 16-year-old bar boy Stanley Tomaszewski was initially blamed for the fire and is still vilified by some, he was vindicated by investigations that pointed else-where.
"The phone calls, I'm happy to say, have almost ceased," he was quoted as saying recently.
Tomaszewski has made it clear to friends he wants no part of a commemoration.
He was replacing a light bulb that had been taken out by a customer when he lit a match to see his way. He stamped out the match but a moment later someone saw flame on the satin-lined ceiling.
The Boston Fire Department still lists the cause of the blaze as undetermined.