50^th ANNIVERSARY

THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD (cont.)

No Coast Guard vessel in the area was capable of braving such heavy seas this night, but an HU-16 “Albatross” and an HH-52 “Sea Guard” helicopter were launched.  In addition, Anderson reversed course to search the area (no small feat in that sea state) and the American freighter SS William Clay Ford and the Canadian Hilda Marjanne got underway from Whitefish Bay to assist.  The following morning SS William R. Roesch picked up half a lifeboat drifting toward the Canadian shore.  Later on the 11^th another lifeboat and two pressure release inflatable rafts were found.  None of Fitzgerald’s 29 crewmen was aboard.

Coast Guard, Canadian, and civilian vessels searched until November 14^th, when MAD-equipped US Navy P-3 “Orions” operating out of NAS Glenview detected a solid metallic contact.  Winter postponed further work, but the following April the Navy unmanned remote camera sled CURV III, deployed from USCGC WOODRUSH (WLB-407), confirmed the object to be Edmund Fitzgerald.  She lies 17 miles northeast of Whitefish Point just inside Canadian waters.  She broke into three sections, her bow is resting upright, plowed 30 feet into the mud.  Her stern is inverted, lying only about 170 feet to the northeast.  Her amidships section is an unrecognizable jumble of twisted steel and taconite pellets.

Theories abound as to her demise.  Some suggest she scraped lightly when she passed too closely aboard the reef at Caribou Island and opened a small breach in her hull.  Some suggest the flexing of her massive length in the heavy seas fatigued her bulwarks.  However, the official Coast Guard inquiry sited damage disclosed on the underwater video to the cowlings of her multiple deck hatches.  This suggests Fitzgerald was in graver straits than even her skipper realized.  Over-crashing waves had opened the seals of her hatchways, admitting water directly into the hold.  Her pumps did not draw from the cargo hold, in fact freighters of her day had no way even to monitor water accumulation here.  To make matters worse, taconite absorbs water, increasing its weight by 7%.  Fitzgerald lacked watertight bulkheads, allowing the accumulating water to shift freely toward the bow, trimming her stem ever more deeply.  Her terminal dive might have been precipitated by striking an unseen floating object, or simply by a massive wave that finally tore away the loose hatch covers, but in any event, she dove suddenly, nose first.  Her bow struck the 550-foot bottom with her stern still out of the water, causing a strain amidships that broke her apart.  Still adored at that time as “The Pride of the American Flag,” her loss shocked the entire region.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  17 NOV 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of Transportation, US Coast Guard.  SS Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November with Loss of Life.  US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations Report and Commandant’s Action, Report #USCG167/64216, Washington, DC: GPO, 15 April 1977.

“Edmund Fitzgerald’s Grip on Hearts Still Powerful 20 Years After.”  The Detroit News, 10 November 1995.

Farquhar, D.M., “The Loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  Sea Classics, Vol 29 (7), July 1996, pp. 40-42.

“Lakes’ Safety Plan Tied to ’75 Tragedy.”  Chicago Tribune, 10 November 1985.

Ratigan, William.  Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals.  Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977, pp. 315-46.

Smart, David.  “The Last Expedition:  Retrieving the Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  Sea Classics, Vol 28 (12), December 1995, pp. 44-48.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

“Superior, they say, never gives up her dead

When the gales of November come early.”

This line from Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 hit is surprisingly accurate (as is the rest of his lyric).  Superior is the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes.  Hypothermia kills in minutes, and so frigid is the water that corpses frequently “refrigerate” rather than bloat.  No trace of Fitzgerald’s 29 crewmen has ever been found.

Fatal Fall gales (“Witches of November”) occur with some regularity on the Great Lakes.  On 11 November 1913 a storm destroyed 18 ships and killed 254 sailors.  On 11-13 November 1940, three freighters took 57 sailors to their deaths.  On 18 November 1958 the freighter Carl D. Bradley foundered in a gale killing 33 of her crew.  And on 29 November 1966 another gale wrecked Daniel J. Morrell killing 28.

In 1995 the Canadian Navy assisted Michigan State University’s expedition to recover Fitzgerald’s bell.  This task was made more difficult by the knowledge from the 1976 underwater video that the bell had been dislodged in the sinking.  It was located however, and brought ashore on July 7^th, 1995, at Whitefish Point.  It rests today in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at that location.  A facsimile bell, inscribed with the names of the 29 who died, was replaced by the expedition atop Fitzgerald’s pilothouse.  As the wreck is believed to contain human remains, a 2009 amendment to the Ontario Heritage Act forbids any surveying, salvage, or exploration of the wreck.

The post The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (cont.) appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                              50^th ANNIVERSARY

                        THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD

When she slid off the ways in 1958, the 729-foot SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest man-made object ever to hit freshwater, indeed her size took Great Lakes freighting to a new standard.  Named for the sitting chairman of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, her owner, she bordered on luxurious even by modern standards; her crew spaces bore leather-grained wall coverings, thick pile carpet, and tiled heads.  Her size earned her the accolade “Queen of the Lakes” from a payload perspective as well, as she repeatedly broke records for tonnage carried per trip and per season.

On Sunday afternoon, 9 November 1975, Capt. Ernest R. McSorley departed Superior, Wisconsin, at the extreme western tip of Lake Superior, heading out on the northeast-southeast dogleg course to the locks at Sault Ste. Marie.  On this last trip of the season, he was laden with 26,116 tons of taconite (iron ore) pellets, drafted to the minimum freeboard the recently loosened shipping laws allowed.  Two hours out he met Capt. Jessie B. Cooper aboard SS Arthur M. Anderson, another ore freighter outbound from Two Harbors, MN.  As the wind freshened both captains elected to take a more northerly course and hug the lee shore of the Canadian side.

A storm broke with uncommon fury through the night and following day.  And having made their dogleg to the southeast, both ships now bucked the full force of what had unexpectedly matured into a once-a-century gale with 70 mph headwinds and 30-foot seas.  Snow squalls limited visibility, and both vessels took green water over their weather decks.  About 1530 McSorley radioed Anderson that two ventilation covers had been carried away, that he was shipping water and listing slightly, and that both radars were out.  He confirmed that his pumps were working but asked Anderson for help in maintaining a correct course for the sheltered waters of Whitefish Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.  As the stormy afternoon wore on, several subsequent radio transmissions beamed from Fitzgerald, one to the Swedish freighter Avafors, upbound in the opposite direction, asking whether the Whitefish Point navigation beacon was operational.  In none of these communiqués did McSorley suggest a threat to his ship, in fact Fitzgerald’s last transmission at 1910 indicated, “We are holding our own.”

The watch aboard Anderson monitored Fitzgerald on their radar throughout that dark and fateful afternoon.  From their position about ten miles behind they even caught an occasional visual sighting between snow squalls.  Ground clutter periodically overwhelmed the radar, but Fitzgerald’s lumbering progress against the heavy seas was followed.  Then around 1930 this day Edmund Fitzgerald vanished from the radar.  Having battled over 500 miles down Lake Superior, at that moment the shelter of Whitefish Bay lay a mere fifteen miles distant.

Continued tomorrow…

Department of Transportation, US Coast Guard.  SS Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November with Loss of Life.  US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations Report and Commandant’s Action, Report #USCG167/64216, Washington, DC: GPO, 15 April 1977.

“Edmund Fitzgerald’s Grip on Hearts Still Powerful 20 Years After.”  The Detroit News, 10 November 1995.

Farquhar, D.M., “The Loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  Sea Classics, Vol 29 (7), July 1996, pp. 40-42.

“Lakes’ Safety Plan Tied to ’75 Tragedy.”  Chicago Tribune, 10 November 1985.

Ratigan, William.  Great Lakes Shipwrecks & Survivals.  Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1977, pp. 315-46.

Smart, David.  “The Last Expedition:  Retrieving the Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  Sea Classics, Vol 28 (12), December 1995, pp. 44-48.

The post The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald appeared first on Today in Naval History.

SS CENTRAL AMERICA (cont.)

The first waves to crash over the steamer sent panic into the passengers and shipped more water through the portholes.  Herndon ordered sail unfurled to hold the ship head-up, but the vicious winds mercilessly shredded the canvas.  To lighten the bow and increase wind drag aft, Herndon ordered the foremast cut away, but in falling to leeward the mast fouled under the hull and began pounding the weakened seams with each passing wave.  Most of the passengers aboard were men, returning with personal fortunes from the California gold fields, and Herndon ordered the formation of bucket brigades to bail out the hold.  Over 300 formed three lines and for a few hours gained on the water.  By late afternoon on the 11^th, the port boiler was dry enough to be re-fired, but the effort fizzled.  Even the passing of the hurricane’s eye after nightfall did not give respite enough to gain further on the rising water.  By the morning of the 12^th, it became apparent that Herndon’s ship would founder.  The bailing continued–not in an effort to save the ship, but to keep her afloat long enough for help to arrive.

That afternoon the West Indies brig Marine, herself well-battered in the storm, was sighted to windward.  She had worked close enough by 1500 for Herndon’s crew to launch his five lifeboats.  Two were smashed in the twenty-foot seas, and in the hours it took to transfer the women and children to the boats, Marine was blown six miles to leeward.  Superhuman efforts by exhausted crewmen rowed the lifeboats through tumultuous seas; each boat made two successful trips to Marine.  One boat returned for a remarkable third time.  In all, 57 women and children and 44 men were transferred.  Meanwhile aboard Central America, Herndon ordered the 440 remaining men to cut away hatches and decking for rafts.  Herndon then donned his full-dress uniform and took up station on the hurricane deck.  From a distance in the stormy darkness, the last lifeboat watched the bow of the steamer rise, then plunge toward the bottom.

Another passing brig, Ellen, rescued 49 more from the water.  Three men drifted for nine days in a swamped lifeboat before being picked-up by the passing brig Mary.  In all nearly 400 men including CDR Herndon perished, and gold coins, bars, and nuggets valued in that day at several million dollars were lost.

Central America lay undisturbed in her watery grave for over a century.  Then in September 1988 an expedition led by engineering genius Mr. Thomas Thompson located the steamer in 8,000 feet of water off South Carolina.  To date nearly a billion dollars worth of gold has been recovered using remote unmanned vehicles in a salvage and archeological operation that continued through 1999.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  19 SEP 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Baldwin, Hanson W.  Sea Fights and Shipwrecks:  True Tales of the Seven Seas.  Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1955, pp. 13-18.

Kinder, Gary.  Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea.  New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1998.

Site visit, US Naval Academy, 1999.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The loss of 400 passengers in this disaster had a significant impact on the American public, more than the loss of the bullion.  It was reported at the time to be the worst maritime disaster in America’s history.  CDR Herndon was last seen in full-dress uniform, megaphone in hand, grasping the rail of the hurricane deck over the wheelhouse.  He has been remembered in the naming of two US Navy destroyers, the post-WWI Clemson-class DD-198, and the Gleaves-class WWII veteran DD-638.  Perhaps a testament to the public sentiment over this tragedy, a memorial to Herndon was erected at the US Naval Academy where it stands to this day near the Chapel.  It is inscribed with a eulogy by Herndon’s brother-in-law, CDR Matthew Fontaine Maury, USN, “Forgetful of self, in his death he added a new glory to the annals of the sea.”  The city of Herndon, Virginia, is also named in his honor.

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SS CENTRAL AMERICA

The US Mail Steamship Line was a government underwritten packet steamer company running the US Mail as well as passengers and cargo between New York and New Orleans in the mid-1800s.  After the Mexican War a similar Pacific Mail Steamship Line was subsidized to run mail, gold, and other commodities between California and New York via Panama.  US Navy officers were detailed to command these civilian-crewed, unarmed packets.  It was thus that CDR William L. Herndon acquired command of the US Mail Line packet SS Central America in 1855.  Herndon was a 29-year veteran of Navy service.  He had commanded USS IRIS in the Mexican War, and in 1851-52 he led a six-man team from Lima, Peru, to the Brazilian coast in a detailed exploration of the Amazon.

Central America was a sleek 282-foot three-masted schooner whose real muscle was two 375-ton steam engines, each turning a side-mounted paddle wheel.  She left New York on the 20^th of each month bound for Aspinwall, Panama, with 500 California-bound passengers.  In Panama she usually embarked 500 returning passengers, consignments of gold or silver from California’s mines, and of course, mail.  On September 4^th this year, Central America headed north from Panama carrying her usual 484 passengers and $1.5 million in gold bullion and coin.  But as she weathered the Florida Straits on the 9^th, a storm began to brew.  By the time she skirted South Carolina the blow broke with the full fury of a hurricane.

Though Central America had outlasted many storms in her day, she had never seen a gale like this one.  For two days she fought mountainous seas, tempestuous winds, and horizontal rain, using her powerful engines to keep her head-up to the seas.  But the violent pounding was slowly loosening her seams, or perhaps a small patch of her hull stove in, but by the 11^th, she had shipped enough water that it sloshed to and fro in her hold.  Chief Engineer George Ashby could not find the source.

The pumps were started and for a time kept up with the leak.  But like most steamers of this day, Central America lacked water-tight bulkheads.  Water shifted from stem to stern with the pitching of the seas and pushed the vessel onto her starboard side.  More water shipped, and the cant of the decks increased, leaving the coal passers struggling to haul their wheelbarrows from the aft bunkers to the boilers.  A bucket brigade was formed for coal, but the intense boiler fires demanded more than this could supply.  The cooling fires dropped the steam pressure, the paddlewheels slowed, and the pumps lugged.  The deepening water soon splashed against the hot boilers sending bursts of steam hissing into the air.  Then late in the afternoon of the 11^th, the rising water doused the fires–first the starboard boiler, then the port.  The paddlewheels ground to a halt.  Herndon realized Central America was now in extremis, at the mercy of over-crashing waves.

Continued tomorrow…

Baldwin, Hanson W.  Sea Fights and Shipwrecks:  True Tales of the Seven Seas.  Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1955, pp. 13-18.

Cutler, Carl C.  Queens of the Western Ocean:  The Story of America’s Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1961, pp. 278-80, 298, 351.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 3 “G-K”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 315-16.

Kinder, Gary.  Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea.  New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1998.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  USS IRIS above was a 400-foot sidewheel steamer purchased by our Navy in 1847 for the blockade of Mexico during our 1840s war.  She mounted a single 32-pounder.

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