By Theresa Mitchell Barbo with Captain W. Russell Webster, USCG (Ret.) Published by the History Press 128 pages paperback $19.99
On February 18, 1952, a very powerful nor’easter caused two oil tankers, the Fort Mercer and the 503-foot Pendleton, to break in half off the coast of Cape Cod. Four Coast Guardsmen set out from Station Chatham to rescue the Pendleton’s crew that night, knowing that even finding the ship in those conditions with only a spotlight was unlikely, and that their own chances of surviving the 70-knot winds and 60-foot seas in a 36-foot, single-engine lifeboat were slim.
Against those odds, the crew of CG36500, Coast Guard boatswain’s mate first class Bernie Webber and his crew, Ervin Maske, Andy Fitzgerald and Richard Livesey, located the stricken ship. Exhibiting remarkable seamanship, the 23-year-old Webber maneuvered his boat under the tanker’s stern section as the crew abandoned ship on a Jacob’s ladder. Webber and his crew rescued all but one of Pendleton’s crewmen (one perished from exposure in the ship’s bow section).
As 36500 left the wreckage of the Pendleton, Webber reported in to Station Chatham. “I had told them that I had thirty-two survivors from the tanker Pendleton on board and I was trying to make my way back in,” he recalled. “But before they could almost answer me, two or three of the Coast Guard cutters that were further off shore – I don’t know where they were – started giving me orders to bring the survivors out to them, and then there were arguments between them, and all kinds of conversations going on.”
Webber, who was freezing, exhausted and unsure of his own position, remembered, “I shut off the radio so as not to be placed in the position of being directed to do what I knew was a bad decision on their part.” Nevertheless, Webber, Maske, Fitzgerald and Livesey were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for their heroic actions.
This 2nd edition of The Pendleton Disaster, which includes a chapter on today’s Coast Guard and an appendix about the ‘Top Ten Coast Guard Rescues,’ is on the U.S Coast Guard Commandant’s Recommended Reading List for Leadership. All author proceeds will be donated to a scholarship fund at the Coast Guard academy in New London, CT. This fine book is available at bookstores or directly from the publisher at historypress.net. ✦
