The Finest Hours Read Online Free

lifeboat was ordered out of Chatham. Station commander Daniel W. Cluff received orders to send the boat out, and he in turn told Chief Donald Bangs of Scituate, Massachusetts, to select a crew and head to the Mercer. Bangs quickly chose a crew consisting of engineer Emory Haynes, boatswain’s mate Antonio Ballerini, and seaman Richard Ciccone.
    When Bernie Webber heard the orders, he thought, My God, do they really think a lifeboat and its crew can make it that far out to sea in this storm with only a compass to guide them? Webber figured that even if the crew didn’t freeze to death, they would never be able to get men off the storm-tossed sections of the Mercer. Bernie was friends with these men and wondered if he’d ever see them alive again.
    Webber’s concern that the men might freeze to death was an all-too-realistic prospect. One of the body’s first responses to fight the onset of hypothermia is to decrease the blood flow to the limbs and thereby reduce heat loss from the body’s extremities, especially the feet and hands. Reduced blood flow to the limbs aids the body’s efforts to maintain core heat, which is essential for the main organs, especially the heart. But the decreased blood flow to the hands, arms, and feet comes at a cost—the ability to perform tasks. Should the lifeboat’s motor die, the men on board would not have the dexterity in their fingers to solve the problem. Hands and feet would also suffer frostbite. And in 1952, before the days of neoprene gloves and polypropylene inner wear, the crews had nothing to protect their skin other than rubberized foul-weather gear.
    Both Ormsby’s and Bang’s crews would be tested by the frigid sea and air—if their boats did not capsize first and end their lives.
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    Airplanes took to the stormy skies from the coast guard air station at Salem, Massachusetts, and from the naval air base at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. One of the planes arrived before the cutters at approximately two P.M. Pilot George Wagner radioed, “The tanker has definitely hove to. Her stern is into the wind and almost awash.” He also reported that the Mercer ’s lifeboats were gone. The pilot flew his plane downwind, searching for the lifeboats, but found none.
    About the same time the airplanes arrived on the scene, station commander Cluff and boatswain’s mate “Chick” Chase were in Chatham’s watchtower at the radar screen. Earlier in the day, the radar had malfunctioned, but now it was fixed, and the first thing they saw on the screen were two strange objects. “The objects,” recalled Chase, “were just five miles offshore, nowhere near where the Mercer was supposed to be. I wondered how the Mercer could have drifted so far, and we realized something wasn’t right.” Cluff immediately called headquarters, and they in turn alerted George Wagner, who was still flying above the stern of the Mercer.
    Wagner, struggling to control his plane in the storm, wondered what in the world this perplexing message was all about. He was staring down at the Mercer ’s stern and thought it impossible that its bow could have drifted over 25 miles toward Chatham. And what did it mean that Chatham radar picked up two targets? All Wagner could do was bank his plane and head west to take a look. Fortunately, the snow had turned mostly to rain and sleet, and visibility had improved a bit.
    Wagner flew at a low altitude and was buffeted by the wind but quickly made it to the known landmark of the Pollock Rip Lightship, a stationary vessel used like a floating lighthouse. Incredibly, not far from the lightship was the broken half of a tanker’s bow. Wagner noticed that the superstructure on the bow below was brown, a different color than the white superstructure on the stern he had come from. He shook his head in disbelief and circled around for another look. Then his jaw dropped. On