Fox Movietone News Seattle bureau photog Chalmer Sinkey writes about riding aboard the US Coast Guard vessel Triumph while she delivers mail and supplies to the lighthouse at Tillamook Rock, Oregon in January of 1941.

A surly wind is whipping the mouth of the Columbia River into white-topped furrows. It is mid-January, and the sunshine has a vague, insincere aspect, as though it could hardly wait to duck behind an ominous bank of clouds rolling in from the northeast. At Point Adams, the U. S. Coast Guard station, storm warnings beat muffled tattoos on the gusts of a rising gale; the blue-uniformed men go about their business with an air of expectancy.

For this is a “Second Tuesday,” and every Triumph Tuesday, come rain or shine, the Coast Guard boys load up their small, efficient life-boat, the Triumph, and journey forth eighteen miles at sea. There, opposite the rugged Oregon shoreline, they approach Tillamook Rock.

Nine times out of ten the Triumph rides into heaving swells that break and eddy about the towering rock, like a dizzying maelstrom. Never does the boat make actual contact with any part of this formidable outpost, for there is nothing but sheer, stone-grey walls and the sea rushing in, only to surge out again, as though intent upon keeping this spot apart from all of the rest of the world.

And yet, man has already won, over the sea, for a great light revolves, one hundred and sixty feet up, atop this menacing but natural foundation. Six men spend shifts of lonely days and nights on Tillamook Rock, keeping the light burning, guiding ships that pass; and every sea-faring man knows that were it not for these men, his craft might be added to others that have been dashed upon treacherous shoals in this graveyard of ships.

When the Triumph edges in on the swells, a swinging boom reaches out to grab supplies. Men who are landed or taken from the rock ride a breeches buoy, swung from this same boom. Occasionally the sea is too rough to make even this contact, but the Coast Guard boys always try!

Today when the Triumph goes out across the bar, Movietone News’ camera equipment will be tucked in with the mail and supplies. We’ve been waiting for just such a glowering day to make the trip.

The commanding officer takes a last look at the barometer and signals us aboard. We button up our waterproof jackets, store the cameras solidly into a protected corner, and assume a nonchalant air as the small boat noses out of its mooring.

A powerful surge of motors drones above the wind. Commander McCormick takes a wide stance behind the wheel. “The best boat in the whole service!” he says proudly. “She can stand a rougher gale than any other craft in these parts.

“Remember that night when the Iowa went down-and every man on board was lost? Well, we were there, combing through the waves. Sometimes she was darn near standing on her beams, but the Triumph weathered the gale!”

I take appreciative mental note of our motorized life-boat. She is some sixty-five feet long, with an all-metal hull. There is two-way radio equipment, one life-raft lashed above the compact deck. The Triumph was obviously not designed for comfort, there are no upholstered corners for taking one’s ease. Every inch of space counts.

As she throbs against the choppy harbor you get a strange feeling that she is a thing, alive: a gallant, fighting thing that challenges the sea.

The Triumph might be called a glorified surf-boat. She has safety-compartments. In case she were dashed against a rock, she would be only partially disabled. Then, there is another cheerful thought-although she might capsize, the Triumph would right herself.

“If we should get swamped,” cautioned Mac, “grab for a life-line and cling to the ship. We’re practically indestructible.”

I move over a step to get out of the icy spray that is breaking across the prow, and divide my attention between the piling waves that keep rushing at us, and the matter-of-fact sagas of the sea that Commander Mac is relating.

Behind us, the five-mile expanse of the river’s mouth merges into a last, stormy view of Astoria, Oregon-ahead, a persistent rumbling sound tells us that the breakers are pounding against the jetties. This is my first trip across the Columbia River Bar.

Mac looks at us obliquely, as though he is secretly enjoying our private impressions.

Suddenly, we change our angle of progress and head for a wall of spray. This rises and falls, like Northern Lights. Still far away, it comes and goes, stretching high above the waves that surround us. “Feeling a little sea-sick?” ventures our host. “Don’t let it bother you; it’s all a state of mind.”

Which reminds me to get out a lemon that I brought along for just such an emergency. There’s nothing like a good sour lemon to bolster up your state of mind in a rough sea. The Triumph rises and falls, each lurch seeming to push us closer to the spray.

Then it dawns upon me that this is not actually spray, but a solid wall of foam topped, heaving water. It is the ocean, the storm-mad Pacific, rolling against its barriers, crushing the comparative calm of the river, which has come to the end of its way.

We are about to cross the bar!

The Triumph plunges into the first breaker; she strikes against it, and shivers. Then comes a lull, while she climbs to the top of a gigantic wave. With a sickening lurch, the boat seems to drop from under us. I pick myself off the deck and take a vicious bite out of the lemon. Mac is grinning.

During the next lull, we hastily don lifejackets.

“Just natural government precautions,” says the commander. “Not that I am expecting any trouble.”

Mac is really enjoying this. If Movietone wants pictures, he’s the man who can provide the thrills.

A couple of Coast Guard men help to anchor the tripods, and we go about the business of trying to capture the giant seas on film. This goes on for several minutes, until finally the seas settle into a steady, rolling beat. Off the stern, the long jetties are disappearing in a driving rain.

We have crossed the bar.

My lemon is chewed to bits.

I wonder just where Tennyson got his first-hand inspiration for the poem that goes:

“May there be no moaning of the bar. When I put out to sea….”

And so, once more, the Coast Guard has gone through, where great ships fear to tread.

Heeding the storm-signals, all navigation has halted outside the bar, until a safer time to pass. But the Triumph wallows heroically through the storm, for it is a “Second Tuesday” and eighteen miles at sea is Tillamook Rock.

There six men are waiting for mail and supplies. The Coast Guard boys will get through. Commander McCormick and the Triumph will not fail them.