Cross, Dickie (1925 – 1943)

Honolulu-born surfer who drowned at Waimea Bay in 1943, in what many surfers still regard as the most terrifying big-wave episode ever told. Dickie Cross, along with older brother Jack, was a fixture on the Waikiki surfing and paddleboard-racing scene in the late 1930s and early '40s. While still in middle school, the two boys made a sailing canoe in their backyard, and sailed it, alone, from Waikiki to Molokai, a distance of 40 miles.

On December 22, 1943, Cross and Woody Brown, a 31-year-o...