This movie has a lot of action and suspense, which is what many of us look for in a film. However, it is much more than a story of an event at sea, it is a testimony of what four men of the US Coast Guard in the '50s were willing to do despite the risk to their lives.
A full scale nor'easter stirred the waters of Massechusetts Bay, making the seas dangerously life threatening. Word by two-way radio of vessels being damaged and broken from the force of the waves demanded the local Coast Guard Commander send his men to rescue who they could.
Reluctant, initially, to respond to such a perilous task, to rescue men that may still be alive aboard one sinking vessel, the Pendleton, Boatwainsmate Bernard Webber gathered three volunteer sailors to assist him. The freezing snow, winds, rain and treacherous waters were certainly more than he and his men bargained for when they enlisted.
Webber took the helm of the craft, the size of which could barely hold him and his three man crew through fifty and sixty feet waves, finally reaching, purely by luck, the darkened liner, a 503 foot, 10.448 gross ton tank vessel that, at its start, contained a full cargo of kerosene and heating oil.
Tactics used to keep the Pendleton from sinking are a lesson to watch. During today's rescue efforts, it is the CG's option to use a helicopter for such undertakings, but when the numbers are as many as these survivors, I doubt one trip would end with Webber's results.
The bravery and single-mindedness needed to accomplish what these four men sought to do makes me very proud to know our country has such heroic individuals willing to give their lives to save complete strangers.
