Posted on 11/10/2015 7:31:08 AM PST by bigbob
Forty years ago, on Nov. 10, 1975, the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a ferocious storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 men aboard.
Rather than linking to the famous Gordon Lightfoot song (and according to SiriusXM radio, Gordon personally attended todays annual memorial service held by the families), this is a 32 minute recording of actual US Coast Guard marine radio traffic from that tragic day.
Crip:
You didn’t see my VANITY from first thing this morning?
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3358345/posts
:: There is an annual memorial service as I understand it ::
Yes, there is. Typically November 11 each year as the shipping season closes on The Lakes.
It is a service for all the Maritime sailors who gave their lives to “The Lakes” (not just “Gitchee-gummee”).
There is separate tolling of the bells for each lost freighter and crew members. SS Edmund Fitzgerald still has 29 bells.
It is quite moving at the “Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral” (just down Jefferson Ave. from the RenCen). As they announce the name of the freighter, the number who served and the number lost.
Having been there and heard the chaplain say:
“The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, November 10, 1975.
29 crew members...All were lost.”
And then the bell is rung -as G. Lightfoot said- “29 times for each man that was lost”. It can make a man cry.
This always chokes me up. Forty years ago today I was hitch hiking to Detroit from the Upper Peninsula. It was Sunday. I had been camping in beautiful November weather but that day it looked like a storm was brewing. I caught a ride and we were crossing the Mackinaw Bridge at about 1300 and the wind was starting to howl. Around 1500 they closed the bridge to traffic because it was swinging so much. I arrived in Detroit at around 2000. The storm had followed me down. The next morning I awoke to the news.
God bless sailors everywhere.
What a story. Makes it come to life. Thanks for posting.
I can remember watching an interview with the US Coast Guard officer who went out on the lake that night along with Cooper. He said that he had served in the Navy and Coast Guard for about thirty years (on the open ocean and Gulf of Mexico) by that time but had never ever seen seas as nasty and rough as what was on Superior that evening.
Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DUFPNILvM
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Some time when I have a coupla hours to spare, I’ll listen to it.
Or am I thinking about, “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsV5-Hv-7U
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