As it happened: How local news reported the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
NORTHERN MICHIGAN — Forty-seven years ago “the gales of November came early” to Lake Superior.
The Edmund Fitzgerald, one of Michigan’s most well-known freighters, sank in the dark, choppy waters near Whitefish Bay on Nov. 10, 1975. All 29 people onboard were lost.
More:The legend lives on: Edmund Fitzgerald book reveals new information after 47 years
The tragedy has become famous, largely thanks to the Gordon Lightfoot song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” — and each Nov. 10 the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise hosts a ceremony to honor the lost sailors.
The tragic day is also memorialized in newsprint, as the story made headlines across the region, state and country.
The Nov. 11, 1975, edition of The Petoskey News-Review ran the story “Find no survivors of Fitzgerald.”
“The 729-foot ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald carrying a crew of 28 and one apprentice seaman apparently sank last Monday in a fierce storm on Lake Superior that kicked up 25-foot high waves,” the article read.
“A Coast Guard spokesman in Sault Ste. Marie said there were no signs of survivors. In Cleveland, an official of the company operating the ‘Fitz’ said the ship carried 28 crew members, including the skipper, plus one apprentice. An official identified only the skipper, Capt. Ernest McSorley of Toledo, Ohio.
“The Coast Guard spokesman, Petty Officer Bob Wiard of the Sault Ste. Marie station, said search ships in the area — about 50 miles northwest of Sault Ste. Marie — found debris and an apparent oil slick.
“‘They found no survivors,’ Wiard said. ‘We’re sure it’s from the Fitzgerald.’
“An armada of ships and aircraft, some flown from North Carolina, joined the search operations at dawn today. Other vessels spent the night crisscrossing the area, firing flares into the night for illumination.
“The first wreckage was sighted at about 4:40 a.m., EST, about 13 miles north of Whitefish Point and eight miles west of Copper Mines Pointe, Ont. near the area where the Fitzgerald disappeared.”
The Nov. 11, 1975, edition of The Holland Evening Sentinel reported “Ore carrier sinks in lake storm.”
“The 729-foot ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, once called the monarch of the Great Lakes, sank Monday night during hurricane-force winds and 25-foot high waves on Lake Superior,” the article read. “A Coast Guard officer said he feared all 28 crewmen, plus a cadet seaman, were lost.
“Ships and planes that spent all night and early today seeking the 17-year-old ‘Fitz’ turned instead to the grim task of looking for bodies.
“‘She went down, I think we can say that for sure now,’ said Coast Guard Capt. Charles L. Radt.”
For many coastal communities, the sinking brought back memories of other shipping disasters.
The Nov. 11, 1975, edition of The Escanaba Daily Press ran the headline “Lake vessel sinks; 29 crewmen lost,” and just below another article titled “1913 disaster recalled,” which highlighted the deadly storms of Nov. 9, 1913, when multiple Great Lakes ships sunk.
“The disappearance Monday of the 729-foot Edmund Fitzgerald in the storm-tossed waters of Lake Superior recalled the 1913 tragedy when two massive storms collided, swirled into blinding snow, driven by winds of up to 80 miles an hour and swept over the five inland seas,” the article read.
“The astounding toll added up to 12 ships sunk, seven lost without a trace, and a loss of some 240 lives. Estimated financial loss was $3 million. In addition, 16 ships were driven aground, seven of them destroyed. In all, 71 ships were damaged or sunk.”
Other newspapers highlighted personal connections to the tragedy, like the Nov. 12, 1975, edition of The Traverse City Record-Eagle, which reported a former cadet from Northwestern Michigan College Great Lakes Maritime and a current cadet were among the missing crew.
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The Nov. 13, 1975, edition of The Hillsdale Daily News ran an article called “Former Hillsdale man sailed on Fitzgerald as cadet in 1972,” in which former resident Craig Silliven recounted his time on the Fitzgerald and his memories of the crew.
“According to Silliven, (Fitzgerald’s Captain Ernest) McSorley was an excellent captain,” the article read.
“‘You couldn’t fund a better ship handler than him,’ Silliven said. ‘It had to be something other than human error. It couldn’t have been that with McSorley.’
“Silliven worked with the 63-year-old captain from Toledo and said, ‘he was very competent as was (first mate Joseph H.) McCarthy. The whole bunch of them were.’”
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum hosted a memorial service for the Edmund Fitzgerald’s crew on Thursday, Nov. 10, on the anniversary of its sinking.
In Detroit, the annual Great Lakes Memorial service will be at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, and will be livestreamed from Mariners' Church along the Detroit River. According to the Associated Press, an estimated 30,000 deaths and roughly 6,000 shipwrecks have occurred on Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: As it happened: How local news reported the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
