10/13/2026
Great info
The lifeboat was designed to carry 12 people. Bernie Webber brought it home with 36 aboard. On February 18, 1952, the tanker SS Pendleton broke in half during a violent nor'easter off Cape Cod, leaving 33 men stranded aboard its stern section. The Coast Guard sent 24-year-old Bernie Webber and crewmen Andrew Fitzgerald, Richard Livesey and Ervin Maske to find them aboard CG-36500, a 36-foot wooden motor lifeboat. The conditions were almost unimaginable. Nearby vessels reported waves reaching 60 feet. Crossing the dangerous Chatham Bar, a massive wave smashed the lifeboat's windshield and tore away its compass. Webber kept going. Somehow, in darkness and blowing snow, the four men found the broken tanker. Webber repeatedly maneuvered the tiny lifeboat alongside the towering wreck as the stranded sailors climbed down a Jacob's ladder one at a time. Thirty-two of the 33 men were rescued. Now carrying 36 people on a boat designed for 12, Webber had to find his way back without a compass. Eventually, the crew spotted the small red light of a buoy marking the entrance to Chatham Harbor and followed it home. All four Coast Guardsmen were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal. Their mission is still remembered as one of the greatest small-boat rescues in U.S. Coast Guard history.
