"LAFAYETTE, WE ARE HERE." These words were spoken during World War I at the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette during a speech honoring his heroic service in the cause of the American Revolution. On 4 July 1917 Paris celebrated American Independence Day. A U.S. battalion marched to the Picpus Cemetery, where several speeches were made at Lafayette's tomb. The historic words uttered on that occasion, "Lafayette, nous voilà" (Lafayette, we are here), have been popularly, but erroneously, attributed to General John J. Pershing. He stated that they were spoken by Colonel Charles E. Stanton, and "to him must go the credit for coining so happy and felicitous a phrase."

The Coast Guard fly's these fucking things into storms of all types, INCLUDING KNOWN ICING CONDITIONS, SEVERE SNOW STORMS, HEAVY WINDS AND DOWNPOURS to save lives. The people that fly the H-60 are well aware of it's capabilities and.....

There is NOTHING stopping one of these aircraft from safely operating in a gentle French rainstorm.

The 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as The No-Name Storm (especially in the years immediately after it took place) and the Halloween Gale/Storm, was a nor'easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and ultimately evolved back into a small unnamed hurricane late in its life cycle. The initial area of low pressure developed off Atlantic Canada on October 29. Forced southward by a ridge to its north, it reached its peak intensity as a large and powerful cyclone. The storm lashed the east coast of the United States with high waves and coastal flooding before turning to the southwest and weakening. Moving over warmer waters, the system transitioned into a subtropical cyclone before becoming a tropical storm. It executed a loop off the Mid-Atlantic states and turned toward the northeast. On November 1, the system evolved into a full-fledged hurricane, with peak sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km/h), although the National Hurricane Center left it unnamed to avoid confusion amid media interest in the precursor extratropical storm. It later received the name "the Perfect Storm" (playing off the common expression) after a conversation between Boston National Weather Service forecaster Robert Case and author Sebastian Junger. The system was the twelfth and final tropical cyclone, the eighth tropical storm, and fourth hurricane in the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season. The tropical system weakened, striking Nova Scotia as a tropical storm before dissipating.

Damage from the storm totaled over $200 million (1991 USD) and the death toll was thirteen. Most of the damage occurred while the storm was extratropical, after waves up to 30 feet (10 m) struck the coastline from Canada to Florida and southeastward to Puerto Rico. In Massachusetts, where damage was heaviest, over 100 homes were destroyed or severely damaged. To the north, more than 100 homes were affected in Maine, including the vacation home of then-President George H. W. Bush. More than 38,000 people were left without power, and along the coast high waves inundated roads and buildings. In portions of New England, the damage was worse than that caused by Hurricane Bob two months earlier.

Aside from tidal flooding along rivers, the storm's effects were primarily concentrated along the coast. A buoy off the coast of Nova Scotia reported a wave height of 100.7 feet (30.7 m), the highest ever recorded in the province's offshore waters. In the middle of the storm, the fishing vessel Andrea Gail sank, killing her crew of six and inspiring the book, and later movie, The Perfect Storm. Off the shore of New York's Long Island, an Air National Guard helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed; four members of its crew were rescued and one was killed. Two people died after their boat sank off Staten Island. High waves swept two people to their deaths, one in Rhode Island and one in Puerto Rico, and another person was blown off a bridge to his death. The tropical cyclone that formed late in the storm's duration caused little impact, limited to power outages and slick roads; one person was killed in Newfoundland from a traffic accident related to the storm.

At 10:00 p.m., taps was once again piped throughout the ship. Yet five minutes later, Furtney heard a command to change frequencies for an Air National Guard helicopter in distress. His adrenaline racing, he heard the co-pilot say, “We’ve lost number one, 40 pounds of fuel remaining, preparing to ditch.”

Furtney raced to brief the captain, and reveille was piped to awaken the crew once again. They learned the helicopter ditched approximately 30 nautical miles south of the Tamaroa.

“As the ship came about, all hands experienced the fury of 60-knot winds and 30-foot seas,” said Furtney. [Obviously, the same conditions that Pave Hawk was flying in during the rescue attempt. - ed.]

After nearly three hours, Tamaroa arrived on scene in the dead of night. With the assistance of aircraft from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, they located two sets of strobes about two miles apart.

“If not for those strobe lights, the aircraft and the Tamaroa would have never seen those survivors in the water,” said Furtney.

Trying multiple approaches over the next two and a half hours, they settled on using large cargo nets to pick up the survivors. During the rescue, the ship was put beam to the sea and the crew experienced 52-degree rolls for more than an hour.

“Visibility was severely impaired and water was blowing off the top of the high seas,” recalled Furtney.

At the height of the rescue, seas were greater than 40 feet and winds exceeded 80 knots. Pressing on, they were fueled by adrenaline and an intense desire to help. Although Tamaroa’s crew successfully rescued four Air National Guardsmen, there was one man still missing.