[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 70 (Thursday, May 7, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1084]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




HONORING THE PASSING OF CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER BERNARD C. WEBBER, UNITED 
                        STATES COAST GUARD, RET.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 7, 2009

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, it is my esteemed honor to rise today to 
commemorate the passing on January 24, 2009, of Bernard C. Webber, a 
truly great member of the maritime community and a genuine hero of the 
1952 Pendleton rescue off Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
  As a teenager from Milton, Massachusetts, young Webber demonstrated 
his service to his country by serving with the U.S. Merchant Marines in 
the Pacific during World War II. On February 26, 1946, Webber enlisted 
in the U.S. Coast Guard. He quickly rose through the ranks and was 
eventually assigned to Coast Guard Station Chatham as a First Class 
Boatswains Mate.
  After just six years in the service, he distinguished himself on the 
night of February 18, 1952, by executing the greatest small-boat rescue 
in Coast Guard history. Webber and his crew of three crossed the 
treacherous Chatham Bar and made their little 36-foot lifeboat, the CG 
3600, famous. After Webber and his crew crossed the bar, they 
immediately faced 70-knot horizontal blinding snow and 60-foot waves en 
route to the floundering 503-foot tanker Pendleton, a T-2 fuel tanker 
that had broken in half the same night. With the windshield all but 
destroyed, all means of navigation--including the compass--obliterated 
by seas and winds, and with limited-to-no visibility, Webber 
nonetheless found the stern of the tanker where thirty-three were 
huddled in the wet and freezing night.
  Webber skillfully guided his small boat powered only by a single 90-
horsepower gasoline engine and rescued all but one of the crew from the 
stern of the stricken tanker. Moments after the last crewman was 
rescued, the hulk of the Pendleton rolled over and sank. Webber then 
skillfully navigated his grossly-overloaded boat toward safe refuge, 
but had to cross the Chatham bar again before reaching the safety of 
Chatham Harbor.
  For their actions, Webber and his crew received the coveted Gold 
Lifesaving Medal, reserved for extreme heroism, and a place in Coast 
Guard history for having executed the Greatest Small Boat Rescue of all 
time. In 2007, the Coast Guard acknowledged the enormity of the rescue 
by declaring it their third most significant rescue of all time, 
ranking behind only the 1980 rescue of 520 people from the Dutch liner 
Prinsendam off Alaska and the service's phenomenal performance in the 
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, during which 33,545 people were saved. 
In 2002, I had the great and distinct privilege of overseeing the re-
issuance of the Gold Lifesaving Medals to Warrant Officer Webber and 
his crew at ceremonies honoring them in Boston and on Cape Cod.
  Webber's life was not solely defined by the Pendleton rescue or his 
time in the Coast Guard. He served in the Coast Guard until 1966 after 
serving a tour in Viet Nam and at several other stations and 
lightships. He went on to serve as the Town of Wellfleet, 
Massachusetts' harbormaster; a charter boat captain out of Orleans; the 
Warden-head Boatman for the National Audubon Society; and part of the 
Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine--all told, spending more 
than half his life on New England waters. In his later life, he 
continued to make contributions to his former service's proud heritage 
with his summer visits to local Coast Guard stations, and by educating 
Coast Guard Academy cadets and others about his time in the Coast 
Guard.
  Warrant Officer Bernard C. Webber leaves a legacy of quiet strength 
and dignity that is a loss to Massachusetts and the United States. As 
we honor his memory with a service this weekend, I encourage my 
colleagues in the House of Representatives to please join me in 
acknowledging the passing of an American icon and Coast Guard hero.

                          ____________________