The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975, stunned the Great Lakes communities that build and man the massive ships that sail the lakes.
“It’s a sad day for the Great Lakes,” Erie Times-News publisher Ed Mead, writing as Ed Mathews, wrote of the Fitzgerald’s sinking. “There are so many local people who have relatives on the Lakes that it sends shivers up the spine to think that these things can and do happen. Somehow a ship the size of the Fitzgerald seems so large and safe, but in the face of twenty-five foot waves anything can happen and did.”
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More than 730 feet long, the “Fitz” had been the largest ore carrier on the lakes before the 1,000-foot Stewart J. Cort — built at Erie’s Litton Industries marine division, now Donjon Shipbuilding — launched in 1972.
The Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior near Ontario’s Whitefish Bay during a ferocious storm packing 80-mph winds and 25-foot waves.
The ship was last heard from at 7:10 p.m. on Nov. 10, when one of its officers radioed the nearby freighter Arthur M. Anderson to say that the ship had lost two hatch covers and was taking on water.
All 29 crew members died when the ship sank.
‘The finest ship I’ve ever seen’
A number of Erie mariners and marine workers had sailed on the Fitzgerald or known members of its crew.
Sidney Smith, president of Erie Sand and Gravel in 1975, described the Fitzgerald as “the finest ship I’ve ever seen.”
Smith was “particularly hit by the disaster,” the Erie Times-News reported on Nov. 11, 1975.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was so impressive, crowds would gather to watch it go through the Soo Locks.
“Just last August Sid and his entire family took a trip on the ship and spent a great deal of time conversing with the approximately 35 man crew as well as captain Ernest McSorley. Now the entire crew is gone as well as the ship.”
The loss was more personal for the former Karen Loecks of North East. Her husband, James Pratt, of Lakewood, Ohio, was the Fitzgerald’s second mate, the Times-News reported.
‘I always felt bad’
The loss was personal, too, for Erie native Allen “Corky” Sharrer, who had sailed the lakes for 47 years, beginning when he was 15. Sharrer had served four times on the Fitzgerald and knew most of the ship’s crew. He shared his memories with the Erie Times-News in 2005 for the 30th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.
Sharrer was especially haunted by the youngest member of the Fitzgerald’s crew, 21-year-old deckhand Mark Thomas of Richmond Heights, Ohio.
CoErie.com archive, 2005: Erie native and Great Lakes seaman remembers Fitzgerald and its crew
Sharrer had urged the young man to apply for assignment to a large ship to qualify for a better engineer’s license. Thomas was assigned to the Fitzgerald.
The advice haunted Sharrer after the Fitzgerald sank.
“I always felt bad,” Sharrer said.
‘The seas were enormous’
Erie’s George Palmer was first mate aboard the A.H. Ferbert on Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975.
The storm that night was horrific, Palmer recalled in a 2002 interview with the Erie Times-News.
The wind “was a-whoopin’,” Palmer said. `”God, I don’t know what it was doing — half snow, half ice, half rain. The seas were enormous.”
The Ferbert had gone to anchor in Whitefish Bay to wait out the storm. The Fitzgerald sank about 40 miles away that evening.
“`I wasn’t up on the bridge until 4 a.m.,” Palmer said. “One of the deck watches told me about it. I didn’t know what to think. It took quite a while to sink in.”
Palmer later became a captain on the lakes. He died in 2006.
‘We’re holding our own’
Erie’s Chester Wasielewski was at the wheel of the freighter Johnstown as it moved through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the night of Nov. 10, 1975.
He was listening to the voice of Fitzgerald Capt. McSorley on the ship’s marine radio and heard him say, “We’re holding our own.”
Moments later, Wasielewski heard a transmission from the Arthur M. Anderson, which had been trailing the Fitzgerald.
“All of a sudden, they were asking, ‘Can you see a blip on your radar?'” said Wasielewski, who recalled the night for the Erie Times-News in 2005.
‘It couldn’t be the Fitzgerald’
When he heard the news about the Fitzgerald, Sharrer thought that there must have been a mistake.
He was working as an engineer aboard the freighter G.A. Tomlinson that night. The ship had been scheduled for a short run from Fairport Harbor, Ohio, to Cleveland but instead took shelter from the storm.
Sharrer learned of the sinking when he was summoned to his ship’s pilothouse that night.
“I said it couldn’t be the Fitzgerald,” Sharrer said. “Maybe the Canadian boat Fitzsimmons. Maybe they got the wrong one.”
Sharrer and Wasielewski each died in 2008.
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About the Fitzgerald
The Fitzgerald was built in 1957-58 in Michigan.
The ship was owned by Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and was named for the company’s then-president. It was operated by the Columbia Transportation Division of Oglebay Norton Co. of Cleveland.
On its final trip, the Fitzgerald left the Burlington Northern docks in Superior, Wisconsin, on Nov. 9, 1975, with 26,816 tons of taconite ore pellets bound for Detroit.
Its wreck was located in two pieces on Nov. 14, 1975, by a U.S. Navy plane that detected magnetic anomalies deep below the lake’s surface.
The ship has since been immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” and in books and documentaries.
Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie seamen recall the Edmund Fitzgerald. The ship sank 50 years ago