SS Pendleton was a Type T2-SE-A1 tanker built in 1942 in Portland, Oregon, United States, for the War Shipping Administration.

Her propulsion was "turbo-electric" (a steam turbine driving a generator that produced electricity to power a motor that drove the propeller shaft).

[2] During World War II, Pendleton was a member of convoy ON 249, which departed from Liverpool, United Kingdom on 18 August 1944 and arrived at New York City on 2 September.

[4] On 18 February 1952, while en route from New Orleans to Boston, Pendleton broke in two in a gale south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The Coast Guard motor lifeboat CG 36500 captained by Boatswain's Mate, First Class Bernard Webber was dispatched by commanding officer Daniel Webster Cluff from the USCG station at Chatham, Massachusetts.

Webber carefully maneuvered CG 36500 underneath the listing hull and motored the Coast Guard boat back and forth with the waves while Pendleton's crew lowered themselves down the side with a Jacob's ladder.

He was lost when he jumped from the Jacob's ladder, fell into the ocean, and was crushed to death between the CG 36500 and the Pendleton when the former was hit by a wave and thrown against the ship, killing him instantly.

[10] However, it was stranded on 4 June 1953 in the Delaware River and dismantled there circa 1978 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.