Fire Dept. leaders mourned

Three perished in tower; 300 among missing

By Cindy Rodri Guez, Globe Staff, 9/16/2001

EW YORK - To the sound of wailing bagpipes, the city yesterday mourned the deaths of three New York City Fire Department leaders who perished in the scramble to save lives as the World Trade Center crumbled above them.

One was Fire Chief Peter Ganci, who raced forward with other firefighters, even after the first tower collapsed. Another was First Deputy Fire Commissioner William Feehan, who also charged ahead as the heat intensified from the flames overhead.

The third was their spiritual leader, chaplain Mychal Judge, who was struck by falling debris while he knelt beside a fallen firefighter. The clergyman had removed his fire hat to give a proper final prayer.

''Our hearts are broken. We never imagined there would be a funeral for Mychal Judge, Bill Feehan, and Pete Ganci on the same day,'' Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said at Ganci's funeral in Farmingdale, Long Island. ''Those three men embodied what it is to be a New York City firefighter: Brains, brawn, and spirit.''

Hundreds of firefighters, dressed in blue uniforms with shiny brass buttons, patent-leather shoes, and white gloves, fought traffic to get to the funerals, held in Queens, Manhattan, and Farmingdale. They all knew that this was just the beginning. More than 300 firefighters who rushed to the World Trade Center are still missing and presumed dead. It is the highest number of firefighter deaths ever recorded in a single day in the United States.

The second-highest tally was in April 1947, when 27 firefighters were killed following a ship explosion in Texas City, Texas. Between 1975 and 2000, the average on-duty firefighter death toll has been about 100 a year for the entire nation.

''We are here at a very difficult time. There is no way to describe the tremendous depth of sorrow this has created in our city,'' Mayor Rudolph Guiliani said.

Visiting a firehouse after the service, former president Bill Clinton said Judge's vocation was ''a rebuke to the act of hatred'' that killed so many Americans.

''So all of us who were here this morning feel a special loss,'' Clinton said. ''We should live his life as an example of what has to prevail.''

Along Main Street in Farmingdale, rows of firefighters, four people deep, stretched a block outside of St. Killian's Church. They stared ahead in silence, looking both pained and tired.

As a single bagpipe player, wearing a green kilt, played ''Amazing Grace,'' eight pallbearers lifed the casket carrying the remains of Ganci from a red fire engine from East Farmingdale, his hometown.

Behind the pallbearers, a firefighter carried Ganci's fire hat. Though polished, black marks were still visible - the indelible signs of a man eulogizers called ''a fireman's fireman.''

Dan Nigro, a friend and colleague, said as Gianci led teams of firefighters toward the Trade Center's twin towers, he had ''a look of defiance on his face, as if to say, `I'm going to get you, fire.'''

Raja Mishra of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was also used.

This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 9/16/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.