Leo T. reviewed on 9/19/2019 + 1775 more book reviews

This is an easy to read offering by experienced authors of popular books; note their skill in the two page prologue. Published in 2009 it was made into a film in 2016 but someone else got to write the script; however I am sure they had a good payday. This book was included for free by Ms. Clampit of Bastrop in an order of nonfiction for the old soldiers' home and I am sure someone will pass a few hours with it.
Substandard steel found two tankers breaking in two off Cape Cod in 1952: the Fort Mercer and the Pendleton. This resulted in the greatest ever Coast Guard rescue operation in small boats. This will remain the largest rescue of US mariners ever in that in 1950 there were 50,000 such and only 10,000 in 1990 (per a long article I read in a 1990 New Yorker). They contended with a February nor'easter that brought seventy foot seas and it was terribly cold and snowy.
Sample: "The Yakutat crewmen, helpless to assist the men in the water, watched as Fahner and Guldin struggled in the breaking seas, desperately trying to get a firm grip on the raft before hypothermia made their limbs useless. For a moment it looked as if the ocean would claim two more victims, but the men fought valiantly, and both managed to grab hold of the raft, flip it right side up, then climb aboard, collapsing on the bottom."
Appendix with a paragraph on the later life of several of the principals.
Bibliography, no index (and so I deduct one star from my review).

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