![]() “We couldn’t see the Fitzgerald any longer (during the squall),” Belanger said, “and lost track of her on radar. The final words from McSorley were, “We are holding our own.” It needed the Anderson to be its eyes.Ĭooper contacted the Fitzgerald for the last time at 7:10 p.m. Then, at 4:10 p.m., the Anderson received another transmission. It had lost two vent covers and a fence railing. McSorley of the Fitzgerald that the ship was taking on water. Cooper, received a radio transmission at 3:30 p.m. “Other times, we couldn’t see anything below us as we rode the crest of the waves,” he said. Waves rose, and Belanger recalls times when they could see 35-foot waves towering over the bridge approaching them. The squalls played havoc with the ship’s radar and other equipment.īy late afternoon, winds had increased to gusts of 75 knots, or 86 miles an hour. The Anderson lost sight of the Fitzgerald. The storm eased up for a brief period during that second day as the ships passed through the center of the storm.Īround 2 p.m., however, it began to snow. Ten-foot waves would come crashing down upon the deck of the Anderson. When squalls came through, they sometimes couldn’t even see the stack at all. As the weather grew worse, the Fitzgerald slowed, so the ships could keep within sight of each other.įrom the bridge, Belanger could see the stack at the forward section of the ship pitch as it rolled over waves. The Fitzgerald had been traveling faster than the Anderson and was ahead of it. The crew would walk the full 740-foot length of the ship holding onto the sides of the hall to steady themselves in the tossing vessel. ![]() “My quarters were in the aft of the ship, and the galley was in the forward section.” “We were given crackers and peanut butter to eat for about a day and a half,” Belanger said. As the storm became worse, the chefs reported it was too dangerous to cook. Waves were reaching 10 feet.īelanger, who was assisting with navigation on the bridge of the Anderson, remembers going through various rain and snow squalls. The Fitzgerald reported winds of 52 knots, or 60 miles an hour. They also kept in radio contact as the forecast changed from gales to a full-blown storm.Īt 1 a.m. Gale warnings were issued for all of Lake Superior.Īs a safety precaution, the captains of both ships changed course and followed the Canadian shoreline as winds out of the northwest stirred the waters. However, the weather grew steadily worse as the day progressed.Īt 7 p.m., the National Weather Service altered its forecast. “It was a nice, calm day when we started out,” Belanger said. the following day.Īt about 5 p.m., the Anderson and her crew were joined in their eastbound journey by a second ship by the name of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was heading for a steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit. A major storm was predicted to pass just south of Lake Superior by 7 a.m. The weather report for their voyage was favorable. It was a four- to five-day journey, which included two days alone to cross Lake Superior. That afternoon they headed off across Lake Superior, destined for Gary, Ind., on the south end of Lake Michigan. The crew of 28 men (plus Belanger) had a load of taconite ore pellets to deliver. He has been though two hurricanes on the East Coast, but says he has never experienced anything as horrible as that storm 37 years ago.īelanger, then a 20-year-old cadet at Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Traverse City, was receiving training aboard the Arthur M. GAYLORD - “I still have nightmares about it,” said Gaylord resident Ed Belanger as he recalls that night back in 1975 when he was aboard a ship following the Edmund Fitzgerald when it sank in Lake Superior.Ī retired Coast Guard and Army SSG/E6 staff sergeant, Belanger has been a medic and part of search and rescue teams during his career. This is one seaman’s story as his ship followed the Fitzgerald and the messages she received from her on that fateful night. No one survived the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but another ship was following at the time and made it through the terrible storm. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not a new story, but it certainly deserves repeating occasionally.
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