THE FINEST HOURS - ANDY FITZGERALD

The late Andy Fitzgerald, of Aurora, Colorado, was a member of the U.S. Coast Guard crew whose heroics were recounted in the movie "The Finest Hours."

Against odds, Fitzgerald, then 20, and three other Coast Guardsmen set off on Feb. 18, 1952 in a 36-foot motor lifeboat to rescue the crew of the tanker S.S. Pendleton, which broke in two in a gale off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

“I was the lowest engineman there and hadn’t been out of school for very long. But I really wanted to be on that boat, so I talked my way on it,” Fitzgerald told the Denver Post in 2016. “I didn’t think we were going to die. I thought we were going to rescue some people.”

Dispatched from the Coast Guard station at Chatham, Massachusetts, motor lifeboat CG-36500 struggled from the start, the pounding surf knocked out its compass as it cleared the harbor. Running almost blind, the boat located the Pendleton's drifting stern section and maneuvered alongside as the merchant marines climbed down a Jacob's ladder to CG-36500, timing their movements with the crashing waves.

They saved 32 of 41 souls aboard Pendleton and Fitzgerald and the others were awarded the Coast Guard's Gold Saving Medal.

“We were confident we were going to do it,” Fitzgerald said. “We were on a 36-footer, but a pretty rugged one. We had Bernie (Webber) as our coxswain, one of the best in the Coast Guard. It was rough, with 70-mile-per-hour winds, and when I first got on the boat, it was so small I thought to myself, ‘Where do I go to the bathroom?’ But we got darn-near 40 people on that thing."

Fitzgerald’s hadn't mentioned the Pendleton rescue to his wife, Gloria, until after they married later in the 1950s, the Denver Post reported.

“We were going through some things at home and his mom said, ‘Gloria, do you want these newspaper clippings?’ ” Gloria recounted. “So I read them, and later I said, ‘Andy, I didn’t know you were on this dangerous mission!’ And he said, ‘Ah, no, it wasn’t too dangerous.’ Like all those guys, Andy just did his job and doesn’t think he’s a hero to this day.”

After the Coast Guard, Fitzgerald moved to Colorado and worked as a sales engineer. He died Nov. 15, 2018, and was laid to rest with full military honors.

The Pendleton was steaming to Boston from New Orleans when it wrecked - apparently knifed by a pair of booming waves. Pendleton crewman Fred Brown was quoted as saying it sounded "like the tearing of a large piece of tin. It's a noise that sends shivers up and down the spine and jangles every nerve."

For the record, the same February gale caused the tanker S.S. Fort Mercer to also break apart the same day off Massachusetts and members of its crew were also rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, the cutter Yakutat.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

The "Finest Hours" boat crew with Fitzgerald second from left.

Photo: Amy McNeil

U.S. Coast Guard honor guard at Fitzgerald's funeral in 2018 in Colorado.

Photo: Richard C. Kelsey, U.S. Coast Guard
This is the stern section of the S.S. Pendleton resting on Pollock Rip Shoal. The survivors of the wreck were taken off the stern, which stayed afloat after the tanker broke in two.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard
Fitzgerald (left) and shipmates secure CG-36500 after disembarking rescued mariners.