Barnstable to Disney: When Faith Was Their Only Compass

Fear can do quite a bit to inspire people.

But precisely how much it can inspire people is the focus of Casey Sherman and Michael J. Tougias's book, The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue, first published in 2009 by Scribner. While the story may be almost 60 years old, this spellbinding tale is now in the final stages of pre-production by Disney with its screenplay being written by Paul Tomasy and Eric Johnson whose work includes The Fighter; it is being produced by Cinderella Man's Jim Whitaker and The Fighter's Dorothy Aufiero.

According to Sherman, just about every major actor and director in Hollywood today has "circled" the proposed film on their "list" of projects they most want to be affiliated with or work on. What it boils down to for this Nautical Way, Hyannis native and former Barnstable High School football player, is that due credit will finally be given to four of the bravest men to ever don the US Coast Guard uniform.

For an author who has garnered virtually every possible journalistic award, it means the culmination of his efforts to revitalize "old-fashioned storytelling" as well as garner due recognition for a rescue that was more like a "suicide mission" that left its participants "haunted" for life.

Sherman and Tougias's tale - the two authors realized they were both writing the same book simultaneously, so they joined forces - is about four Coast Guardsmen who were ordered to go out into a storm some say was worse than the infamous "Perfect Storm" of 1991 and return home with "as many men as they could save."

On the night of February 18, 1952, facing 60-foot seas and a blinding maelstrom of hail, sleet and snow, US Coast Guardsman Bernie Webber captained the 36-foot wooden lifeboat, the CG36500, or "Ol' 36," took with him three men from the Chatham Coast Guard Station and headed five miles due south to the SS Pendleton. A re-fitted World War II Liberty ship, the Pendleton had been bound for Portland, ME with its tanks loaded with home heating oil until the insanely high seas snapped the ship in two pieces - bow and stern - with dozens of crew trapped in both halves. Twenty miles off the elbow of Cape Cod, the SS Fort Mercer, also a re-fitted World War II Liberty ship and also loaded with home heating oil, also was snapped in two. It was a night some Coast Guardsman for years tried to forget.

"They went to Washington D.C. and received the Gold Lifesaving Medal, perhaps the next highest honor to the Congressional Medal of Honor, they came home, then put their medals away in shoeboxes," Sherman said.

For US Coast Guard Coxswain Webber and his three mates, evidence of the storm's relentlessness was immediate, according to Sherman, as the small boat was lifted so high in the air by the waves it "tore the boat's compass off its mount" and Webber was made quickly busy "picking shards of glass from his shattered windshield from his face."

With no other navigational tool but his faith in God, Sherman recounted, Webber "began to sing" church hymns, perhaps for no other reason but to maintain his sanity in what appeared to be the most untenable situation the "Coastie" had ever faced in his young but "seasoned" life on the sea.

But Webber and his crew returned with 28 survivors from the Pendleton's stern, arriving hours later that night to a "roar of applause" at the Chatham Fish Pier, a reception given by about 60 townsfolk, Sherman said.

And while Webber and his crew of Richard Livesey, Erwin Maske are all since deceased, only "Ol' 36" crew member Andy Fitzgerald, 81, remains alive today.

"These were reluctant heroes," Sherman said. "But they had a job to do."

Sherman’s brief recounting of his book The Finest Hours was given Friday night (Nov. 18) at The Willowbend Country Club as the first in a series of upcoming Special Guest events that will feature various celebrities, authors and sports stars.

Joining Sherman last night was William Martin, author of Cape Cod, whose oration was equally as spellbinding as Sherman’s was. Martin synopsized his work – historical fiction – as the depiction of the premise that “human nature doesn’t change, but human perspectives do.” Martin has been credited with the inception of the genre, according to event emcee Matt Pita of WXTQ.