Three of Station Manomet Point’s Guardsmen, Boatswain’s Mate William Cashman and Surfmen Edward Stark and Frank Griswold, drowned after assisting the stricken Eastern Steamship Lines passenger liner SS Robert E. Lee on Saturday, March 9, 1928 in the waters off Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Boston-to-New York-bound steamer, with 273 passengers and crew, grounded on the treacherous Mary Ann Rocks just southeast of Manomet Point during a gale at about 8 p.m.
Seven oarsman and Cashman tried again and again to reach the stricken ship via their oar-powered surf boat, but were held back by raging seas. The Guardsmen ultimately reached the liner on March 10 and assisted in rescue efforts. The Guardsmen were on a return trip to the station when their surf boat overturned in “an unusually ponderous sea.” Three drowned.
“It was only one of the thousands of seas that the lifeboat had ridden buoyantly during the morning. But it caught her in a shoal place and it was an unusually ponderous sea. Its foot ‘tripped’ on the bottom and it towered high in the air, tilting the boat’s bow down and flinging Cashman almost above the heads of his seven oarsmen.
Then the wave broke at the crest, and the boat was whirled over, the men dropping out, clutching at one another and at the great oars that were tumbling down with them. Hundreds of people were watching the boat, and a great cry went up from the crowd. People began to run down to the bowlder(sic)-strewn beach, helplessly enough, in their distress.”
A number of young men watching from the shore secured small rowboats and rushed out to the stricken surf boat. Those rescuers were later awarded Carnegie Medals for bravery.
Stark died en route to a Boston hospital; Cashman died on the beach after lengthy resuscitation by a doctor, and Griswold’s body eventually washed ashore about two miles away. The five others were treated at hospitals in Plymouth and Chelsea.
| Name | Rating | Duty Station | Date |
| Cashman, W. H. | BM1 | STA Manomet Pt, MA | 3/10/1928 |
| Griswold, F. W. | Cox | STA Manomet Pt, MA | 3/10/1928 |
| Stark, E. P. | Surfman | STA Manomet Pt, MA | 3/10/1928 |