Author brings background to Coast Guard tragedy

By Tom Paulu | Columbia Daily News • Published January 10, 2009

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Gary Hudson knows all too well that he could have been among the five Coast Guard crewmen who drowned during an attempted rescue on a wretched night in January of 1961.

Just a week before the tragedy, Hudson had been transferred away from the Coast Guard rescue station at Point Adams near the mouth of the Columbia River. Otherwise, he could have been on one of the three Coast Guard boats attempting to aid a fishing vessel that sank.

“They were all my shipmates,” Hudson said of the Coast Guard victims and survivors. “I knew them all.”

For several years after the disaster, Hudson drove a rescue boat over the same treacherous waters at the Columbia River bar, and rescued a few boaters himself. He couldn’t stop thinking about his lost comrades.

“All the time I was out on patrol I would think about those guys,” he said.

Hudson, 68, who now lives near Toledo, decided to do more then remember. He has written and self-published a book to set the record straight about what happened.

“They Had to Go Out” includes a detailed account of the worst loss of life the Coast Guard suffered on the Columbia River in a single incident. The book is heavy on facts about the rescue boats’ strengths — and weaknesses that may have been factors in the deaths.

Hudson said other articles lack the details and perspective he brings to the account. He spent four years interviewing survivors and going through the official records from the sinking.

“I thought every boat, every aircraft out that night had a story to tell.”

All the information makes “They Had to Go Out” a fascinating read for anyone who has boated near the mouth of the Columbia River.

The tragedy

On Jan. 12, 1961, two crab fishing boats headed out from Ilwaco to pick up their pots, even though other crabbers stayed in port because of the rough weather.

That afternoon, the rudder stopped working on the 38-foot fishing boat Mermaid, which was crewed by brothers Bert and Stanley Bergman of Chinook. The Coast Guard initially sent out two boats to help the Mermaid: a 40-foot utility boat from Point Adams and a 36-foot motor lifeboat from the Cape Disappointment Coast Guard station.

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