The Finest Hours. I was recently riffling through my collection of video discs, searching for one to use to use as a source in a review, when this 2017 title dropped into my hands for the first time years. It's the true story of the nearly impossible rescue of an oil tanker, the SS Pendleton caught in a furious February 1952 nor'easter off Chatham Massachusetts on Cape Cod. It remains the most incredible small-boat rescue in Coast Guard history. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bernie Webber and his small crew set out in a 32-foot boat to save the tanker's 32 surviving crewmen.