PORT ANGELES — While the U.S. Coast Guard’s finest hours will be on the big screen beginning Friday, they are also on display almost every day on the Olympic Peninsula coast.
The movie “The Finest Hours,” starring Chris Pine, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster, is based on one of the greatest Coast Guard rescues in the history of the law enforcement and rescue service.
The dramatic rescue mission took place in 1956 off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., during a blizzard in which two tankers, the SS Fort Mercer and SS Pendleton, each broke in half, their crews stranded in the sinking hulls.
In violent seas, a crew of four in a 36-foot motor lifeboat from the Chatham, Mass., Lifeboat Station was sent to rescue the crew from the Pendleton while several Coast Guard cutters and aircraft responded to locate the Fort Mercer’s two separated sections and take aboard any survivors.
Regular reality
For more than 200 Coast Guardsmen stationed more than 3,000 miles away on three bases in Clallam County, severe-weather rescues are business as usual.
“The water in the Pacific Northwest can be worse [than the North Atlantic] in its own way,” said Chief David Mosley, spokesman for the Coast Guard in Seattle.
The Coast Guard presence that would become Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles, on Ediz Hook, was established in 1862.
The air station was commissioned in 1935 and is the oldest continuously operating Coast Guard air station in the U.S., according to the Coast Guard.
The main Port Angeles base is home to MH-65D Dolphin helicopters, the 210-foot USCGC Active, the 110-foot Island-class patrol boat USCGC Cuttyhunk, four 87-foot Marine Protector-class patrol boats, the USCGC Adelie, USCGC Osprey, USCGC Swordfish and USCGC Wahoo.
Station Neah Bay was established in 1908 and Station Quillayute River was established in 1929, and each has two 47-foot motor lifeboats to respond to maritime emergencies on that wild, sometimes violent coastline.
30 missions yearly
The boats from the Quillayute station go on about 30 rescue missions per year, and about five of them are “majors,” which could easily result in loss of life, said Senior Chief Cory Wadley, commanding officer at the Quillayute station.
Rescues on the coast often involve helicopters from Port Angeles and also the motor lifeboats, the star of “The Finest Hours.”
Drivers of each motor lifeboat are called “surfmen” and wear a special insignia that can take two to six years to earn, Wadley said.
Wadley’s uniform proudly displays the insignia, as does the uniform of Petty Officer Jason Steinhoff, who Wadley said is among the newest surfmen in the Coast Guard.
Each surfman has a team of three crew members who manage other tasks on their boat while the surfman keeps the boat steady, including working with the engines, rope work, watching for flotsam in the water and physically assisting the victims in the water or on boats or ships in distress.
“My job is to keep the boat on station while they do all the work,” Steinhoff said.
That boat has to be kept in place while towering waves continue rolling and breaking, the wind pushing, in close proximity to the person or vessel in distress.
“It is your boat, your responsibility,” Steinhoff said.
Norn rescue
Steinhoff and his crew — Petty Officer Joshua Brandsma, Fireman Jonathan Hathaway, Petty Officer Daniel Brannon and Seaman Kristina Foster — were responsible for the rescue of the crew of the FV Norn on Dec. 17.
Fishermen from the 38-foot fishing vessel Norn broadcast a mayday call and reported the vessel was taking on water, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Steinhoff’s crew from the Quillayute station and an MH-65D Dolphin helicopter crew from Port Angeles responded to the distress call.
The distress call was followed by a signal from an emergency position-indicating radio beacon registered to the Norn. The vessel’s radio operator said the crew was putting on their survival gear and preparing to abandon ship in a life raft.
“It was two hours out,” he said of the trip to reach the Norn, which had gone silent. The helicopter ran low on fuel and had to return to Port Angeles.
The Coast Guard reported the air temperature was 38 degrees with 40 mph winds, rain, 14-foot seas and 48-degree water.
“When we got there, we found three guys in a life raft,” Steinhoff said.
In 14-foot seas, the fishermen swam from their life raft to the motor lifeboat. The surfmen hauled them aboard and treated them for hypothermia.
“It was a situation where there could have been loss of life,” Wadley said.
Training
It is not a job for the faint of heart, but Wadley said it is safe — or as safe as every possible training and procedure measure can make it.
Improved ship and boat safety regulations and inspections have reduced the number of rescue missions for which Guardsmen are needed and have reduced the loss of life, he said.
Nor do they take chances today that they would have in the past, he said.
In the movie, Chris Pine, who plays real-life hero Petty Officer Bernard Webber, coxswain of the 36-foot motor lifeboat used in the rescue, has this line: “In the Coast Guard, they say we gotta go out, but they don’t say we gotta come back in.”
That is no longer true, said Wadley, who was at one time stationed at the Chatham Lifeboat Station while Webber was still alive and lived in the area.
“With every mishap, the Coast Guard learns something about itself,” Wadley said.
He noted that if the Coast Guard members get themselves killed, they can’t get to the next rescue.
Disaster strikes
Despite the many safety measures put in place to keep Coast Guardsmen alive, the job is still dangerous.
In 1997, three members of the Quillayute River station did not come back.
At 2:26 a.m. Feb. 12, 1997, four Guardsmen took the 44-foot motor lifeboat 44363 to respond to a report of a sailboat that lost its mast in heavy sea conditions off the Quillayute River bar.
The tough motor lifeboat, designed to bob up from under huge waves and right itself in the most severe conditions, capsized three times, once stern over bow, and was battered against the rocks.
It took the lives of Petty Officer David A. Bosley, Petty Officer Matthew Schlimme and Seaman Clinton Miniken.
The lone survivor, Seaman Apprentice Ben Wingo, stuck it out through the boat’s violent ride, stepped off in waist-deep water and set off a flare to signal for a rescue.
A memorial to the lost crew members was built in La Push.
On Feb. 12 each year, the crew assigned to the station holds a memorial ceremony and lays a wreath into the water from a 47-foot motor lifeboat in honor of the three crew members who lost their lives.
The Coast Guard also is currently in the process of moving a set of lights set up on nearby James Island to illuminate the bar at night to light up more of the bar and less of the harbor.
Despite the many lessons learned in the past, there were still new lessons to learn from the 1997 disaster, Wadley said.
When a wave hits a motor lifeboat and they are spun about or otherwise knocked around and become disoriented, crews are specifically trained so their first reaction is to look for the next wave so they can complete their mission.
Historic rescues
One wall of the Station Quillayute River’s common room is dedicated to photos of past rescues and a life ring from the Temple Bar, one of their most successful rescues.
According to historical accounts, the Temple Bar wrecked in April 1939, and the 36 members of the crew were saved by Coast Guard crew members who responded to the sinking ship and towed lifeboats full of survivors to safety.
In June 1942, the Coast Trader was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine 35 miles southwest of Cape Flattery.
All 56 members of the crew escaped into a lifeboat and several rafts, which were separated in heavy seas.
The lifeboat was found by a fishing vessel, but the sailors in the life rafts floated for 40 hours before Coast Guard aircraft from Port Angeles discovered them and directed a Canadian Coast Guard cutter to their location.
One crew member died of exposure before their rescuers arrived.
In April 1943, the Lamut, a Soviet freighter, ran aground during a storm on Teahwhit Head, south of La Push.
Station Quillayute River sent their crews by both land and sea, but the heavy surf prevented the rescue boat from reaching the stricken ship.
Coast Guardsmen hiked through miles of forest, then climbed partway down a cliff adjacent to the ship and worked to establish a line from the cliff to the ship.
All but one member of the crew, who was killed soon after the ship grounded, crossed the line hand over hand, and an injured crew member made the crossing in a litter.
Soon after the crew was rescued, waves lifted the ship from its grounding and smashed it into the rocks of a nearby cove.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
