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40 years ago today

Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
[ame="http://youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A"]"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" - Gordon Lightfoot (HD w/ Lyrics) - YouTube[/ame]



Edmund Fitzgerald sinking remains a Great Lakes mystery 40 years later
By Edmund DeMarche Published November 10, 2015 FoxNews.com

It was exactly 40 years ago Tuesday when "the winds of November came early" and took the legendary Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald and 29 souls to the bottom of Lake Superior, a disaster memorialized in book and song that remains mired in maritime mystery.

The 729-foot ore-carrier, called the "Queen of the Great Lakes" sank during a brutal storm on the eastern section of the lake, but the exact cause of its demise continues to elude experts and historians. From the plausible explanations offered in Gordon Lightfoot's haunting classic, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," to crackpot theories involving space aliens, theories abound as to what caused one of the 20th century's best-chronicled American shipwrecks.

"There were no survivors and no witnesses and we will never know, definitely, what happened on Nov. 10, 1975," Fredrick Stonehouse, the author of the 1982 book “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” told FoxNews.com. "We do know that the crew must have thought, 'We're hurt, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.'"

Article continues at:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015...zgerald-great-lakes-mystery.html?intcmp=hpbt4
 

Umberto

Well-known member
One of the gals I went to nursing school with was from Superior, her father worked on the boat but missed it due to illness. She lost several friends.
 

pirate_girl

legendary ⚓
GOLD Site Supporter
40 years ago, a freight-carrying ship named the Edmund Fitzgerald went to the bottom of Lake Superior.

A memorial service to honor the lives of the 29 men who went down with the Fitzgerald was held Tuesday.

Now, a special presentation of the story of the wreck like you've never seen it before.

This is the Edmund Fitzgerald: A 40 year legend.

"The lakes are beautiful I think a lot of people need to sit down on the beach up there watch the ships go buy think about what they do. There is a lot of beauty out there and we focus on the storms we don't focus on the boat we don't focus on the people that run these boats. These guys are the bottom line that are building America the unsung heroes, these people are building America and America doesn't realize it.” Says Ed Belanger

Life on the lakes. Ships full of cargo and crew moving the raw material we need for our modern lives. It's not changed much since the 1950's.

"America was building. In other words, it was factories going full bore, it was producing consumer goods, it was cars and washing machines and everything that required steel. Steel meant iron ore, iron ore meant bringing it down from the iron mines in northern MI and northern MN."

Born out of necessity, The Edmund Fitzgerald was designed to keep the American machine running at an astounding pace. 1958. The Great Lakes Engineering Works. River Rouge. Detroit.

"When she came out of the yard, she was at 729 feet, the biggest vessel on the Great Lakes. And she would remain the queen of the lakes in terms of size up until the thousand footers coming out in the early 1970's."

The pride of the line, named after Edmund Fitzgerald, the president of the Northwest Mutual Life Insurance Company in Milwaukee. This ship built to set cargo records, could also carry VIPs.”

"When Fitzgerald was launched, she was the pride of the line. She literally was the best ship in the best fleet on the Great Lakes. That included having an entire suite of quarters for the owners. Or guests as matter may have it."

"I think that when they were building this, they knew they wanted this ship to be competitive. They wanted it to be an impressive vessel those VIPs could spend time on. It certainly was that." Shares Bruce Lynn of the Shipwreck Historical Society.

"She was the type of ship people wanted to sail in. If you were a sailor on the Great Lakes, you wanted to be a member of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. By the same token, when other sailors and captains saw her go sliding by, up bound or down bound, they really admired that ship."

Lynn says "I think they knew it was an impressive ship, but I think when they were really impressed is when it started setting records."

The Fitzgerald soon helped boost company profits and provide income for Great Lakes men and their families, thankful to have the work. Cheryl Rozman's father, Ransom Cundy was one of them.

"My grandpa knew a captain on some ore boat that used to come up into Hubble where we lived and he had told my grandpa if your son ever needs a job on the boats let me know. Daddy went soon after." shares Cheryl Rozman

She recalls visiting her father at work, on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

"I went on once. I had coffee in their dining room with him, and met the captain and a couple other men. Yeah, it was a beautiful boat."

Men working the lakes are a unique bunch, tough, with a necessary streak of humor.

“Everybody liked him. He always had a joke. He was tall. Kinda thin. Cigarette in his hand constantly. He used to have burn marks in between his fingers from holding the cigarettes.” Says Rozman

“Very tight crew. You're a family aboard those ships. When you're aboard them 9-10 months a year, that is your family. And you don't forget them.” Says Belanger.

Ed Belanger came aboard the Aurther M. Anderson in September, 1975 as a cadet doing his winter rotation, instantly melding with the crew and Bernie Cooper, the captain.

Belanger shares “It's a good comradeship. When you have that kind of relationship with your crew. And the respect they had for him for all the years of service he had done.”

Ed Belanger, captain cooper, and everyone on the Aurther Anderson were about to become witnesses to one of the darkest, most violent moments on the Great Lakes.
http://www.9and10news.com/story/30485408/the-edmund-fitzgerald-a-40-year-legend-part-1
Part 2
 

pirate_girl

legendary ⚓
GOLD Site Supporter
Thank you, Jim.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealin'.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At Seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said (2010 lyric
change by Gordon Lightfoot: At Seven P.M., it grew dark, it was
then he said,)
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya

The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized;
They May have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call 'Gitche Gumee'.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Here's a pic of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the route she took for the fateful trip.
 

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