Running aground was one of the major causes of shipwrecks in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Entering New York Harbor, for example, required a sailing vessel to make a long funnel-like approach. According to Dr. Dennis Noble, writing in his book A LEGACY: THE UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING SERVICE, January 1976, ” During a strong nor’easter, a sailing craft could be driven upon New Jersey’s lee shore. Both coasts contained sandbars located between 300 to 800 yards offshore. Any ship stranded on the sandbars in a storm usually went to pieces within a few hours. Few people could survive a 300-yard swim in 40-degree storm-tossed surf. Even if a few sailors managed to reach the beach in winter, they stood a good chance of perishing from exposure on the largely uninhabited shore. On January 2, 1837, for example, the American bark Mexico wrecked on the New Jersey coast, and all 112 emigrant passengers on board were lost.”
In the early days, life-saving stations were a rag-tag group of ill-trained and ill-equipped volunteers operating out of merger stations along the beaches near ports and often only during the shipping season. A vicious storm in 1854 caused the death of many sailors who were within sight of rescuers but could not be reached. Soon after, lifeboats were added, stations built, and rescuers trained. The conditions improved dramatically when a young lawyer from Maine named Sumner Increase Kimbal was appointed to head the U.S. Life Saving Service. Kimball was instrumental in asking the U.S. Army for assistance in developing a gun that could fire a line out to a ship when the seas were too rough to risk a lifeboat.
Most often shipwrecks were less than 500 yards from the shore. But even those close, rough seas made reaching them impossible. Pounding surf, tangled sails and lines in the water, added to debride from the crumbling ship and ice-cold water made the journey a suicide mission.
West Point graduate, first lieutenant, David Lyle was a specialist in ordnance and was assigned, in addition to his other duties, the task of developing a gun that could fire a line out to a stricken ship. He worked on the project for two years, and then in 1878, he introduced a lightweight gun that could fire a line to a ship from the beach or another ship. Lyle developed 3-inch bore bronze, smooth-bore guns of different sizes. The 2 & 1/2-inch –bore gun was the standard line-throwing gun of the U.S. Lifesaving Service.
The Lyle Gun was an instant success. It is estimated that by 1906, using the Lyle Gun, rescuers were able to save 4,500 lives. Over the years, Lyle guns evolved from small brass cannons to hand-held rifle-type devices. After the Lyle Gn was used to shoot a line between two ships underway at sea, transferring passengers, mail, and goods from ship to ship was commonplace using a Breeches Bouy. The famous American marine artist, Winslow Homer dramatically depicted the operation in his painting “The Lifeline ” in 1884.
Writing in the American Society of Arms Collector’s Bulleting 111:90:125, John Spanger wrote, in his article, Guns To Save Lives, “Line throwing gun” is defined here as a device intended to throw a line by attaching it to a projectile which is fired over or near a target. The projectile is not intended to strike or damage the target. Line-throwing guns come in many different sizes, ranging from handheld pistol-type devices to shoulder-fired rifles, to small mortars and cannons. “Line throwing gun” is interpreted broadly to include a wide variety of “apparatus,” not just those that are purely firearms, since the different concepts are closely related and sometimes overlap. Thus, we include a number of early “stick rockets” and later small rockets or CO2-powered devices. Some famous names are associated with line-throwing guns, such as Sharps, Winchester, Springfield, Smith & Wesson, Harrington & Richardson, Mossberg, and the like, although their line-throwing use is unfamiliar to most arms collectors. Some of the other names connected to line throwing are almost unknown such as Lyle, Schermuly, Kilgore, Westun, Manby, Trengrouse, Coston, Frank Hall, and the Naval Company.”
Several years ago, this writer interviewed a World War II Navy fighter pilot who, after being shot down at the battle of Toyoko crashed into the sea and was rescued by a US. Navy destroyer escort. He was returned to his carrier through the use of a Breeches Bouy between the carrier and the destroyer escort. Retired Norton Lieutenant Hurd recalled the experience as having been frightening. He said the ship had to be steered precisely to keep the venturi effect from pulling them together in which case the line would have slackened, and he would have been dropped into the sea. On the other hand, if the ship were steered too far apart, the line would be broken, and he would have been dropped into the sea.
The Lyle Gun has been the means, since 1808, of saving literally thousands of lives by making maritime rescues possible. Over the years, guns have been made smaller, even to the point where they are the size of a rifle and beyond that to piston size. Their use in setting up Breeches Buoys is legendary. Sailors also use the Lyle Gun to “shoot” a “shot line” to pull a larger “messenger” attached to a large “hawser” line to a high point on the vessel. However, they have been used beyond maritime use to build bridges, run utility lines across rivers and ravines, and rig “zip lines “through forests.
William Schermuly, a British seaman, observed that it was easier to shoot a line to the shore than to shoot a line from the shore to a shipwreck. Working alone in 1897, he created his first rocket-propelled line-throwing device. For years, he labored with little success, and then, in 1920, he and his son developed the idea of combining a rocket with a gun. The final device was like a pistol, with a minimum recoil.
In 1950, the U.S. Coast Guard ordered crews to use the Schermuly type “impulse project rocket type line throwers” on larger vessels instead of the Lyle Gun that was used until that time. The difference the USCG seemed to prefer was the Schermuly rockets were simple, lightweight and reliable. The Lyle Guns were still allowed on smaller vessels.
The Lyle Gun and the Schermuly Rocket were innovative devices that, over the years, saved the lives of countless numbers of shipwrecked sailors and passengers. The maritime world owes an enormous debt of gratitude to their foresight and determination.