Michael Tougias will present a talk and slide show on his book, and recently released movie, The Finest Hours: The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue, and his newest book, So Close to Home, on Friday, July 8 from 7:00 until 9:00 pm in the Media Center of the Old Rochester Regional Junior High School, 133 Marion Road, Mattapoisett. Introducing the author will be Mattapoisett resident Attorney Richard J. Grahn, President and CEO of The National Coast Guard Museum Association. The program, sponsored by the Friends of the Mattapoisett Library, is free and open to the public.
On February 18, 1952, a ferocious nor’easter split in half a 500-foot long oil tanker, the Pendleton, approximately one mile off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts; twenty miles away, a second oil tanker, the Fort Mercer, also split in half. On both fractured tankers, men were trapped on the severed bows and sterns, all four sections sinking in 60-foot seas. Thus began a life and death drama of survival, heroism, and a series of tragic mistakes. Of the 84 seamen aboard the tankers, 70 would be rescued. Tougias tells the tale of the men, the storm, the wrecks, and the four young Coast Guardsmen who launched themselves over Chatham Bars and into the storm to save the 32 souls stranded on the stern of the Pendleton.
Tougias has said, “This event was – and still is – the greatest, most daring sea rescue ever performed by the Coast Guard, and it happened right here off the New England coast. I like doing these programs because I transport the audience into the heart of the storm, so they can ask, ‘What would I have done?’ With a slide presentation, the viewer can visually relive the adventure of it.”
Tougias, author and co-author of 24 books, recently published So Close To Home, the story of a hard-working, blue collar family in the post-Depression years. When war broke out, they unknowingly entered the crosshairs of an ugly battle taking place right off America’s shores, sailing into the path of a German U-boat that was on a killing spree through unprotected waters near major port cities. So Close to Home takes you into both the struggle to get ahead as experienced by the Downs family and the U-boats’ race against the American war machine.
The presentation is suitable for all ages, and a book-signing will follow the program.