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.

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