When it launched in 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest freighter on the Great Lakes. On Nov. 10, 1975, the massive ship went down in Lake Superior during a wild storm. All 29 of the crew members died. Now, nearly 50 years later, there are still questions about what happened in the final hours before the sinking.
The history of the Fitzgerald, the lives of the men who served on the ship, and the repercussions of that final voyage are the subject of the new book The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And the author is a voice that's very familiar to Michigan public listeners, John U. Bacon.
The dangers of the lakes
In The Gales of November, Bacon includes includes a lot of history and context about the region, the Great Lakes, the shipping industry, and how the stage was set for the Edmund Fitzgerald to become a celebrity, record-breaking freighter. Bacon notes that the fresh water of the Great Lakes creates challenges and dangers that ship captains don't encounter in the salt water of oceans.
"I grew up on the Great Lakes, and yet a lot of this was surprising to me. Experienced sailors, commercial sailors, will tell you that the Great Lakes are more dangerous than the Atlantic Ocean, which seems impossible," Bacon said in an interview with Michigan Public's Morning Edition.
"One reason is the saltwater mutes the waves on the ocean. So they're not pointy, they're like big roller coasters. Spreads them out. They're twice as far apart as they are on the Great Lakes. The freshwater makes pointy waves like a mountain range, which means you can have the bow of a ship like the Edmund Fitzgerald in one wave, a 30-footer, and then nothing in the middle. And then your stern in another wave 30 feet high, which means it's going to crack in the middle. That's one of the theories about the Edmund Fitzgerald."
The fact that fresh water freezes more easily than salt water is another complicating factor. Ice buildup on the ship's exterior can be extremely dangerous.
"It weighs down the ship by hundreds of tons. It's just crazy. And it can make it tilt to a side, starboard or port, and now you're having a real problem," he said.
Meet Edmund Fitzgerald
The name Edmund Fitzgerald is so associated with the ship and its ultimate demise that many people don't realize that the freighter was named not for some historical figure, but for someone who was very much alive when the ship was built. In fact, it was his idea. So, who was Edmund Fitzgerald?
"He was the CEO of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance," Bacon said, noting that the company had never owned a ship before.
"They insured the shipping business. They insured the mines that produced the iron that the ships would carry. But also his five great uncles were all captains, and his dad was one of the greatest shipbuilders in the Great Lakes."
Bacon notes in the book that Fitzgerald did not want the ship named after him, but was thrilled with the freighter itself when it launched.
The cutting edge of shipping
The Fitz, as it was often called, stood out in a lot of ways from the engineering that went into its design to a set of luxury accommodations on board.
"For one thing, it was the biggest on the Great Lakes at 729 feet, carried the biggest loads, and also one of the fastest ships on the Great Lakes. It was also the most luxurious ... which seems oxymoronic. This is an iron ore carrier. But the cabins, the kitchen were all first-in-class. This was to attract the best crew in the Great Lakes. And they did," Bacon said.
The ship also had two staterooms for their VIP clients who owned the ore they were shipping. The accommodations included air conditioning, plush carpeting, and even color TVs.
"None of these were common in hotels at the time," Bacon said, "And why is that? To make sure the money keeps coming in."
Watching Great Lakes shipping freighters is a bit of a spectator sport. There's a two-story viewing gallery alongside the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula, a spot the Fitz frequently passed through. The Edmund Fitzgerald developed a following right from the start at its launch party in Detroit in June of 1958.
"They launched in Detroit because that's where the ship was built. Fifteen thousand people came out in the middle of the day, a work day, to celebrate the launch of the ship. They outdrew the Detroit Tigers," Bacon said with a laugh.
The Edmund Fitzgerald quickly started setting Great Lakes records for the amount of cargo it was hauling.
"Almost always, this ship would carry taconite, basically pelletized iron, 500 million pellets per ship. That's enough to build 7000 cars. And they would do this once a week. They'd go from Duluth, [Minn.] more or less, to Detroit or Toledo and then go back. It was called the Toledo Express for that reason. And they did that trip 50 times a year.," he said.
A beloved captain
The Fitz's final captain was Ernest McSorley, who took over in the 1972 season, a few years before the sinking.
"He was the greatest captain on the Great Lakes, and I've got current sailors who sailed with him, against him, and so on, all saying the same thing. One guy said, I saw that man park 729 feet of steel between two ships with three feet on either side as though he was parallel parking his F-150 pickup truck," Bacon told Michigan Public.
According to the author, McSorley was also considered the best in rough weather. He was also the most aggressive, never turning around to avoid going through horrible weather.
"Your strength is your weakness, of course," Bacon said. "But also, he's a fundamentally decent guy who is so loyal to his people, and they were so loyal to him that they would follow him from ship to ship. They loved that man."
The final voyage
The Edmund Fitzgerald set off from Wisconsin on Nov. 9, 1975, fully loaded, and captain Ernest McSorley chose to take what is known as the "northern route" across Lake Superior, turning south as it got close to the Big Lake's eastern shore. The captain of another freighter, the Arthur Anderson, did the same that day.
"Sunday, Nov. 9 was 70 degrees in Duluth. There's a storm coming in from Alberta, Canada, bringing cold, dry air. There's also another storm coming up from the southwest of the United States, bringing hot, wet air. It's all going to collide over Lake Superior, right in front of Whitefish Bay," Bacon said.
"McSorley always went straight shot across the lake, but this time he decided to be cautious. But it's going to add 14 hours to the trip. That gives the storm 14 hours to get there first, and now you're in unfamiliar waters."
The Arthur Anderson, the other freighter, was about ten miles behind the Fitz when it got the last communication from McSorley. There had been some understated radio calls from McSorley to the Anderson over a period of hours, but no specific mayday call at the end. And one of the most remarkable things that comes through in The Gales is how little we actually know about those final moments for this massive freighter on a well-traveled route.
"That's why I don't try to quite solve the mystery that happened," Bacon said. "I certainly promote some theories versus others based on new evidence that I've dug up, and others have as well."
Bacon said the best quote on that mystery comes from Ruth Hudson. Her only child, Bruce Hudson, was a 22 year old deckhand on the ship when it sank.
"She said, 'Only 30 know, 29 men and God. And no one's talking.' So without witnesses, we're left to guess."
Bacon includes many personal details about the men who went down with the ship — heartbreaking stories of crew members who were planning to retire after the run, a man who never got to meet his unborn child, and more. He also tells the story of Eddie Bindon and how he spent his last couple of days on shore before his final voyage.
"He was the first assistant engineer on the ship. He bought his wife a 25th anniversary ring in Duluth, Minn., right across from Superior, Wis., where the ship was docked, and gave it to a friend to give to her. And why he did this? Only Eddie Bindon could know because he's going to be home in Toledo, near his home in Ohio, three days later," Bacon said.
About a week after the ship sank, Mrs. Bindon received the 25th anniversary diamond ring in the mail from her husband.
Immortalized in song
Fifty years after the sinking, people who aren't old enough to remember the incident itself often mention the song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot, as the way they got to know about the story.
Bacon writes that Lightfoot was torn about releasing what the song he'd written.
"He had a melody in his head — an old Irish sea dirge, basically — but no words. And then the articles [about the wreck] came in and he realized, okay, this is what I need to write about. So he writes the song, but he does not want to record it. He's very sensitive about this and very self-conscious. And finally, they're recording [an album] in Toronto. But they're not going to record this song. And finally, they finished the album with a day and a half left, and the studio producer says, 'Look, dude, I'm charging you whether you play the song or not.'
The band had never heard the song before recording it in the studio.
"When they finished the song, they said, that wasn't half bad. And then they said, let's try it again. Not as good. They come back the next day, try it four or five more times. Not as good. The song you hear on the radio is the first time the band ever played it, and that never, ever happens."
The crew members' families had very mixed reactions when the song came out and started airing on the radio, but eventually they all came around.
"Even the families who are not sure about that song at first became huge believers in Gordon Lightfoot himself and the song."
The Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the many ships to go down on the Great Lakes, and there had been some other significant and deadly wrecks in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Some of them also happened on the final run of the season, in November, and in a major storm. Bacon says the prominence of the Edmund Fitzgerald helped force change in the shipping industry.
"There are 6,000 shipwrecks between 1875 and 1975. There has not been one since. So one per week for a century and none for half a century. Why? Like one of my experts told me, when do you fix anything? When it's broken. So this gets so much attention — [like the] Titanic going down, basically — that they finally fixed [weather] forecasting for good. They fixed communications with the captains. And also third, common sense, right? They simply do not go out in that kind of weather anymore. They used to all the time."
Bacon's The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald comes out on Oct. 7.
Editor's notes: Quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full interview near the top of this page.
