Free The Finest Hours by Michael J. Tougias Page B

was very familiar with Old Harbor and had been up and down it many times,” he later wrote in his memoir. “I knew where the shoal spots were and when the turns had to be made. I was in no mood to listen to the chatter on the radio.”
    News of the rescue sparked more than chatter on the Fish Pier, where Chatham residents had been waiting anxiously for word. Thunderous applause rippled across the pier as townspeople hugged and cried while waiting for sight of the boat.
    Tears were also being shed on board the CG 36500. Bernie heard crying from the men stuffed in the lifeboat’s tiny forward compartment. Despite calmer waters and what must have been intense feelings of claustrophobia, the survivors remained holed up in the cabin, refusing to come out until they had reached port.
    The small but sturdy lifeboat was now in sight, and the throngs of people gathered at the Fish Pier struggled for a closer look. Photographer Dick Kelsey positioned his big camera and began photographing what would become some of the most indelible images in Cape Cod history. Kelsey captured the battered vessel on film as it came in, rubbing against the wooden pylons. He could see the faces of the frightened but thankful men peering through the boat’s shattered windshield and out of every porthole.
    At that moment, Bernie gazed up at the Fish Pier and saw well over a hundred local residents. They were the men, women, and children of Chatham, and all appeared to be reaching out their hands to grab the boat’s lines to help. The Ryder children stood close to their father, David, a longtime Chatham fisherman who knew Bernie well, knew that he was a more-than-competent coast guardsman. Yet even he had not given Webber and his crew much of a chance that night. “There was great concern that the crew wouldn’t make it,” Ryder recalled afterward. “There’s no question he [Bernie] was a good man and had experience on the Bar, but none of us had ever seen a storm like this.” Like most people huddled on the pier that night, Ryder couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the small lifeboat making its way home. “She was coming in very low, and I was amazed at how many people came pouring out of her.”
    Once the CG 36500 was safely tied up to the pier, townspeople aided the shaken survivors off the boat. The vessel had been so weighed down that Richard Livesey felt it rise each time a man got off. An exhausted Bernie Webber stood quietly at the vessel’s stern, his elbow resting on top of the cockpit, his forearm supporting his head. His mind was filled with the terrifying images of the past several hours and the bravery of his crew. He thought about Tiny Myers and the look in the doomed man’s eyes just seconds before he was killed. He thought about the 32 survivors on board. And he thought about Miriam, and how he would be returning to her after all. His tired fingers began to tremble, and soon his whole body was shaking. Webber cried openly and thanked God for guiding them home. Dick Kelsey watched in silence and realized how Webber’s private moment could symbolize the ordeal each man had gone through. “It was quite a while before he left,” Kelsey said later. “All of the men had gone off by then, but he just stood there in a daze. What a wonderful thing he’d done.”
    The survivors were now being crammed into automobiles for the ride to the Chatham Lifeboat Station. Thirty-four-year-old Joe Nickerson, a lifelong Chatham resident, drove two of the men in his Ford sedan. “I drove one fella,” Nickerson remembered. “He told me that he was on the forward section of the ship when it split in two. He said that he saved himself by jumping over a huge crack back to the stern. If he hadn’t done that, he’d have been swept away with the bow.” However, the Pendleton survivors refused to call their skipper and eight others missing. The men were still