Thomas Willett was a New York City Fire Departmentfireboat.[2] She was launched in 1908 and retired in 1959. She was built as a steam-engine powered vessel with coal-fired boilers. She was converted to oil-fired boilers in 1926.
Operational history
At 02:00 hrs on July 5, 1927, a fire was discovered among cotton bales in the number 6 cargo hold of RMS Ebro as she approached New York. She docked in the North River just before 10:00 hrs, disambarked her passengers, and then John Purroy Mitchel and Thomas Willett fought the fire. It was extinguished by 14:00 hrs.[3]
On August 14, 1927, a tugboat of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, towing two barges of railway rolling stock, collided with a train of rock barges towed by Henry F. Wills.[4]Thomas Willett responded, when one barge was sunk and others damaged, saving their crew.
^"20 Saved as Barges are Rammed in Dark". The New York Times. 1927-08-15. p. 8. Retrieved 2017-03-24 – via Times Machine. The crew of the fireboat Thomas F. Willett rescued Captain John Webber, 50 years old, and his wife, Dorothy, from the sinking rock barge Moonstone, which was rammed off the Statue of Liberty early yesterday morning, and eighteen men and women, captains and their wives from eight other barges which were cut adrift but were undamaged.
