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On the night of February 18, 1952, during a raging 70-knot nor’easter snowstorm, four Coast Guardsmen (coxswain Bernard C. “Bernie” Webber, Andrew Fitzgerald, Ervin Maske and Richard Livesey) set out on the CG36500 to rescue crewmen on the tanker Pendleton that had broken apart in a storm. Incredibly, they returned to the Chatham Live-Saving Station with 32 survivors—on a boat designed to carry half that number safely. All the “Coasties” received the Gold Life-Saving Medal for their bravery under these almost impossible conditions. (Text from the Orleans Historical Society who saved and restored the boat).
The recent Walt Disney film “The Finest Hours” is about the brave young men and this lifeboat. The daughter of Bernie Weber, who we met, is usually with the boat on the summer weekends.
My wife is seen on the boat during the summer and the black and white photo is the winter mooring of the boat.
