Keep Buggering On S2E6-"Fellas, It's Been Good to Know Ya": The Fitzgerald, the Bell, and the Man Who Refused to Let It Be Forgotten
The sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald — Lake Superior, November 10, 1975
On November 9, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin, loaded with 26,116 tons of taconite iron ore pellets, bound for a steel mill near Detroit. At 729 feet, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes when launched in 1958 and had spent 17 years as one of the most productive freighters in the fleet, still commanded by a 44-year veteran, Captain Ernest McSorley. A severe November storm moved in from the Great Plains, and by the afternoon of November 10 the Fitzgerald was taking on some of the worst seas McSorley had encountered in his career — waves reported up to 35 feet, winds near hurricane force. The ship lost both radar systems and developed a list. Traveling nearby, the freighter Arthur M. Anderson stayed in radio contact; at 7:10 p.m., McSorley radioed that the Fitzgerald was "holding our own." It was the last message anyone received from the ship. Minutes later, she vanished from the Anderson's radar. No distress call was ever sent. All 29 crew members died; none of their bodies were ever recovered. The wreck was later found broken in two, 530 feet down, about 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay — the worst single shipping disaster in Lake Superior's history. The exact cause has never been conclusively determined; the U.S. Coast Guard's investigation pointed to flooding through ineffective hatch closures, but with no survivors, no one could confirm the ship's final minutes. The story reached far beyond the maritime world the following year, when Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot turned the wreck into one of the best-known ballads in American music — a rare case of a real, still-unsolved tragedy becoming permanent public memory through song.
Sources
● Wikipedia, "SS Edmund Fitzgerald" (voyage timeline, last radio contact, wreck location)
● U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, "SS Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975"
● National Transportation Safety Board, DCA76AM001 investigation summary
● Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, "Edmund Fitzgerald"
History.com, "Cargo ship suddenly sinks in Lake Superior"