Sixty years ago yesterday, Andy Fitzgerald was an engineman 3d class for the Coast Guard, stationed at Chatham on what he wryly calls “a dark and stormy night.’’ The Coast Guard calls it something else: the night of the greatest rescue by small boat in its history. The rescue was accomplished without a compass or a windshield, which had been smashed by pounding surf that soaked and chilled the crew, all of whom were in their early 20s.

Comments

14thColony

02/19/2012 01:19 PM

What an amazing and wonderful story. May it live on in next generations of those whom it inspires, and who leap into small boats together to perform great rescues, whatever they may be.