Captain W. Russell Webster, USCG (ret.) graduated from the Untied States Coast Guard Academy in 1977.  He is the co-author of The Pendleton Disaster Off Cape Cod: The greatest Small Boat Rescue in Coast Guard History.  According to the book description, “On February 18, 1952, four Coast Guardsmen set out from Station Chatham in a thirty-six-foot motor lifeboat to locate the mortally wounded T2 tanker Pendleton and rescue its crew during a Nor'easter. All four men knew the odds of finding the Pendleton and surviving the storm were slim. Whether by a miracle, luck, fate or able seamanship, amid sixty-foot seas with only a small engine and a single spotlight, the crew of the 36500-Bernie Webber, Ervin Maske, Andy Fitzgerald and Richard Livesey-found the hulk of the Pendleton and rescued thirty seamen, bringing the survivors safely to shore.”

One reader of The Pendleton Disaster Off Cape Cod: The greatest Small Boat Rescue in Coast Guard History said, “The Pendleton Disaster gives new and important insights into Bernard C. Webber's impossible rescue of the crew of the SS Pendleton stern in 1952. The authors have done in-depth interview with the rescue crew and what emerges is heart-touching as well as insightful. The organization of the book is a bit choppy here and there with free-standing chapters on various aspects of the wreck. But the sum is far more than the parts and any fan of Cape Cod history, the Coast Guard or maritime rescues in general will be rewarded with this read.”