Tiny was, indeed, the only one of the 33 men aboard the Pendleton ’s stern to die during the rescue. part-time chef played by Abraham Benrubi, died after a wave caused him to be tossed against the Pendleton while descending the ladder to the rescue boat. Partly Fiction: George “Tiny” Myers, the beloved 300-lb. They quickly realized that the number of men to be rescued far exceeded the capacity of the boat, but they agreed, “We would all live, or we would all die.” Upon their return, more than one hundred locals were waiting to welcome the freezing cold men. Upon reaching the Pendleton despite a lack of navigational tools, they assumed it was a ghost ship until they saw one man on the deck, followed by dozens more. After making it past the bar, they lost their compass and radio signal and the boat's windshield had shattered, spewing bits of glass. As they approached, they sang “Rock of Ages” to comfort themselves.
Mostly Fact: The rescue took place largely as depicted in the movie-with the exception of the song the men sang to soothe themselves during a moment of overwhelming fear.Ĭluff told the men to “proceed as directed,” even after hearing Bernie’s report of the 60- to 7o-foot waves beyond the bar. Tougias and Sherman describe the bar as “a collection of ever-shifting shoals with flood currents carrying ocean waves that can splinter small boats in a matter of seconds.just in normal weather.” Cape Cod Bay was often referred to as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” and had seen some 3,000 shipwrecks over several centuries. Only four of the Mercer ’s crewmembers survived.įact: One of the most dangerous parts of the rescue mission was getting past the Chatham Bar, so the crew thought hard about whether to even attempt it. The screenwriters took liberties with the timeline more than the facts here, since Bernie and Miriam Penttinen (played by Holliday Grainger) had actually been married for more than a year and a half in February 1952-but their real-life courtship played out much as it does in the film.įact: Chatham Station was on its own in the Pendleton rescue because the Boston and Nantucket Coast Guards had dispatched all their crews to another oil tanker that had split in half.Ī tanker called the Fort Mercer suffered the same fate as the Pendleton during that February storm. The four men had not trained together as a unit and 24-year-old Bernie, who had joined the Coast Guard in 1946 (despite his father’s wish for him to enter the ministry), was the oldest and most experienced.įiction: Bernie and his girlfriend Miriam were on the brink of getting engaged when Bernie set out on the rescue mission. Richard (Ben Foster) and Fitz (Kyle Gallner) were the first to volunteer, followed by Ervin (John Magaro). Sybert, played by Affleck, became the de facto captain of the stern.įact: After securing boats to the pier, Bernie was ordered by Chatham Station commanding officer Cluff to pick a crew for the mission, and he got three volunteers: Richard Livesey, Andy “Fitz” Fitzgerald and Ervin Maske.Īs in the film, Bernie’s friend Mel Gouthro attempted to volunteer, but all agreed he was too sick to go. Fitzgerald and seven crewmen had gone down with the bow. It would later be confirmed that Captain John J. But the crew didn't realize the tanker had split in half until a young seaman named Chris Bridges ascended to the catwalk and realized that it just ended a few feet in front of him. The tanker had sustained a three-way fracture the previous year, and despite a failure to repair it, the boat still passed inspection in January 1952, the month before the storm.
#MIRIAM PENTTINEN WEBBER CRACK#
Warning: Spoilers for The Finest Hours follow.įact: The Pendleton split in half because of a crack in its hull that couldn’t hold against the raging sea. Here’s what really unfolded on that blustery February day. Tougias and Casey Sherman’s 2010 book The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. With some exceptions for the sake of dramatic tension and concise storytelling, the script largely sticks to its source material, Michael J. The new film, which stars Chris Pine and Casey Affleck, is based on the true story of one of the most dangerous and daring rescue attempts in Coast Guard history: Boatswain’s Mate First Class Bernie Webber (Pine) sets out with a small team to rescue the crew of the Pendleton T2 oil tanker, which split in half off the coast of Cape Cod during a brutal nor’easter in 1952. If you’ve never felt a strong sense of connection to the U.S.
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