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OCBP Then and Now: Memorial Day Wreath Ceremony on May 26

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Ocean City Beach Patrol members Jack Kelly and Joe Regan participate in a Memorial Day wreath ceremony in 1944.

A weekly feature from Ocean City Beach Patrol historian Fred Miller:

Seventy years ago on Tuesday, May 30, 1944, OCBP Captain Thomas A. Williams led the lifeguards’ Memorial Day ceremony on the Moorlyn Terrace beach saying, “While the Allied offensive is reaching new heights, this is Ocean City’s most solemn Memorial Day observances. Today we pay tribute to resort men who gave their lives both in World War I and thus far in World War II.”

After the Atlantic Ocean was “unlocked,” Joe Regan, left, and Jack Kelly rowed a memorial wreath a short distance from the beach and placed it on the sea.

On Friday, May 23, 2014, at noon, on the Moorlyn Terrace beach, Mayor Jay Gillian and lifeguards, will turn a large gold key into the sand and officially “unlock” the Atlantic Ocean for the summer of 2014.

Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 2014 at 9:15 a.m., on the Moorlyn Terrace beach, lifeguards will row out and place a wreath on the ocean to honor and remember the men and women who have sacrificed their lives so we can live free.