More at www.twotankersdown.com Bernie saved more than 30 men off the stern of the fractured tanker the SS Pendleton in 1952 in an incredible rescue.
Melbourne, Fl. January 26, 2009 -- Bernard C. Webber, who steered his small boat into the impassable waves of Chatham Bar on an impossible mission to rescue the crew of a stricken tanker off Cape Code, died Saturday at age 80 in Melbourne, Florida.Â
Mr. Webber, one of the U.S. Coast Guard's most fabled and honored rescuers, was stationed in Cape Cod in February of 1952 when two tankers, the Pendleton and the SS Fort Mercer, split in half on the same day in rough weather.
"Bernie Webber represented the very best values of the Coast Guard and of America," said Robert R. Frump, a maritime writer who had interviewed Webber recently. "The code he followed and the culture he engendered through his actions will live on so long as there is a U.S. Coast Guard."
Webber and his makeshift crew were dispatched on what was considered a suicide mission in an era when the informal motto of the Coast Guard was, "You have to go out, you don't have to come back."
Joined: 2009-01-27