"The Finest Hours" - The Rescue Began 76 Years Before the SS Pendleton Sailed

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Disney's recent movie, "The Finest Hours", tells the story of the most successful small-boat rescue in the Coast Guard's history. The movie has all the elements of a rousing tale - heroic men on a stormy sea, man-against-nature, and romance. The movie is based on a well-researched book of the same name published in 2009 by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman. Tougias has seen the film and applauds it for accuracy (read the interview), noting only two items changed for dramatic effect.

The movie was all the more exciting for me because I know that the SS Pendleton's rescue did not begin in 1952, but in 1871, the year that the US Life Saving Service (USLSS) was effectively established.

USLSS crew heading out in a surfboat.

Gas motors had not yet been invented to power the boats. Only "Norwegian steam" was available -- the power of 6 to 8 men pulling long oars against the churning waves, Just as in the movie, these men claimed the duty to sail from shore in the roughest weather and pluck sailors and passengers off doomed ships. The rescues these men performed became legendary; the men themselves hailed as heroes in magazine and news accounts of the day. Milton Bradley marketed a board game "Life-saver", and the colorful Life Savers(R) candy was invented in part to honor these "storm warriors". A grateful nation grew to depend on its government while it watched an organized system of rescue succeed again and again.

Station Chatham, from which the famous SS Pendleton rescue was launched, can trace its lifesaving roots back to the formation of the Massachusetts Humane Society in 1786. After the lighthouse and light towers were constructed in 1808, the station continued in its lifesaving activities and became part of the early USLSS. The lighthouse is currently home to an active duty Coast Guard Small Boat Station, with a primary mission of Search & Rescue, responsible for the safety of the local fishing fleet and recreational boating community.

The 36-foot life boat used in "The Finest Hours" rescue was a product of design and testing that started in 1876 by the USLSS on the East Coast and the Great Lakes. The life boats were self-bailing and self-righting, slow, steady and strong. Power could be supplied by "Norwegian steam" or by sails, and the craft could carry up to 33 persons. Motors were added in the 1890's. The crews of the USLSS tested the powerful craft and found them reliable and nearly unsinkable. They had names like Defiance, Retriever, Diligent, Valorous, and Resolute, apt descriptions for the character of the USLSS -- and its successor, the US Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard men joined an elite and historic group when they were awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for valor in the SS Pendleton rescue. This first-class award and the second-class Silver medal had been originally established for the USLSS in 1874. The Gold medal has always been awarded for "cases of extreme and heroic daring."

In 1915, a merger of USLSS and the Revenue-marine created the US Coast Guard. As its website says...

For over two centuries the U.S. Coast Guard has safeguarded our Nation’s maritime interests in the heartland, in the ports, at sea, and around the globe. We protect the maritime economy and the environment, we defend our maritime borders, and we save those in peril. This history has forged our character and purpose as America’s Maritime Guardian — Always Ready for all hazards and all threats.   ~from the US Coast Guard website

Semper Paratus. Always Ready.  "...we save those in peril". The mission of the US Life-Saving Service brought into the 21st Century.

Reference: Frederick Stonehouse. Wreck Ashore: The United States Life-Saving Service on the Great Lakes. Association for Great Lakes Maritime History, Pub. B4. Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. 1994.

Read about my related work-in-progress set in a USLSS station on the Great Lakes -

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