The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue
Michael J. Tougias, Casey Sherman
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 1416567224
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived.
In the early hours of Monday, February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, found themselves in the same horrifying predicament. Built with "dirty steel," and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy. The Finest Hours is the gripping, true story of the valiant attempt to rescue the souls huddling inside the broken halves of the two ships.
The spellbinding tale is overflowing with breathtaking scenes, as boats capsize, bows and sterns crash into one another, and men hurl themselves into the raging sea in their terrifying battle for survival.
Not all of the eighty-four men caught at sea in the midst of that brutal storm survived, but considering the odds, it’s a miracle—and a testament to their bravery—that any came home to tell their tales at all.
Captain Paetzel, who had been caught in his slippers when the tanker split, and made the crossing barefoot. Captain Naab on the Yakutat had seen the men run across the catwalk, and he knew the tanker crewmen were desperate enough to do anything, so he decided he had better make another attempt to get them off. He maneuvered the cutter windward of the tanker. His men then tied several life rafts in a row, dropped them overboard, and let the wind carry them toward the tanker. Lights and life
time he was not alone. Three other men were now with him, then four or five more appeared, and new figures kept coming. Within a minute’s time more than two dozen survivors in orange life jackets lined the rails! All of them looked directly down at the diminutive lifeboat trying to maintain position in the tumultuous seas. Fred Brown and Tiny Myers were standing side by side on the rail. Tiny turned to Fred, and while pulling his wallet out of his trousers said, “Take my wallet. I don’t think
Guardsmen died in the inferno, and twenty-one others suffered burn injuries. The board of inquiry noted that the Gulfstream was moving at excessive speed (15 knots) in the fog, but that the Eastwind, under the “rules of the road,” was primarily responsible for accident. Estey was cited for not following the standing orders to inform the commanding officer if any radar target approached within three miles, and to reduce the speed of the vessel’s propeller to 50 rpm and sound fog signals if fog
shown to her father. The reunion was an eye-opening experience for Anita, who had never been told the details of that traumatic night. “My dad always said it was no big deal,” Jevne recalls. “He said it was just his job and that he did what he had to do. Once I heard the story told at the reunion, I was a bit in awe of my father and of the other three men.” The reunion was spread out over several days. The welcoming reception at the Mariners House was followed the next day by a luncheon at the
one was no picnic for agent Ed Knappman and editors Colin Harrison, Jessica Manners, and Tom Pitoniak, and but their guidance and suggestions were instrumental and greatly appreciated. Thanks also to all my family members who offered words of encouragement and listened when I happily, and repeatedly, shouted, “I just found another eyewitness!” And of course, my thanks to Casey Sherman, who got me moving on the project, kept me fired up about the story, and was a pleasure to work with. Casey