Letter from Duane Bartlett - Sailor of Great Lakes

(sailed with some of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald)

-Duane Bartlett, now almost 80, shared this letter that he wrote to his son, in memory of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Nov. 7, 2000....Today I celebrate 3/4 of a Century on this earth. Some thoughts of this "Old Lonesome Sailor" as I was sometime known among my fellow shipmates. I sailed on the Great Lakes for 35 years without missing a days work for the Columbia Transportation Company. As I observe my birthday I am reminded of a journey I began on another birthday in 1975.

My ship, the M/V Joseph H. Frantz, had departed Toledo. Ohio with a cargo of coal for Ashland, Wisconsin, which is on the West end of Lake Superior.  We entered Lake Superior on the morning of Nov. 10th.  At approx. 1600 we pass abeam of Eagle Harbor, the middle of Lake Superior.  As the sun set I was aware of a strange phenomenon...the sky was a odd, strange, peculiar color and the water was a  glassy slate gray...as if brooding.  Indeed it was.  By the midnight watch the wind had reached hurricane strength and the waves looked like mountains...we were struggling to reach the lee of Madaline Island in the Apostle Islands where we could find safe anchorage.  We finally managed to come around under the island and drop two anchors to hold us until the storm abated.   I have never rolled a ship as hard as we did that night. 

In another part of the Big Lake Gitchee Gumee the Steamer Edmund Fitzgerald, the Columbia Fleet's Flagship, and the pride of the Fleet had sailed from Superior, Wis.  Radio communication between ships on the Lakes is limited to about 50 miles so we had heard nothing from the Fitz.  We did not even know of her problems until we went to anchor and someone caught a message from the Coast Guard about the Fitz being missing.  By morning we had made contact with our fleet dispatchers and they informed us of the nights events.  The Fitz was missing somewhere near Whitefish Point.   The storm was so severe that the Coast Guard was unable to send search vessels out for some hours.  The ship was eventually found under 500 feet of water 15 miles from the safety of the lee of Whitefish Point.  The only things that was ever found was a wrecked lifeboat and some other debris from on the decks.  No bodies were ever found.  Lake Superior never gives up her dead.  The Fitz went down without a warning. No distress call...no nothing...she simply just disappeared from the lake.  A ship following behind radioed the Coast Guard that the Fitz had dropped off his radar and vanished.  The Pride of the Great Lakes Fleet had gone to the bottom in a wild storm of such force that the she had no opportunity to send a May Day.

The sinking of the Fitz was a deep blow to me...I had the privilege of working with and knowing all the men on the Fitz.  I had worked with Captain McSorley for 9 years and with First Mate Jack McCarthy for 12 years.  I loved them dearly.  I knew all of the other crew members and had worked with most of them at one time or another.  I was very saddened by this turn of events as was all the other seamen of the Great Lakes.

On this occasion of my 75 birthday I think of that November Gale that took the lives of my friends.  I am reminded how sweet life is and how short it can be in reality.  I listen to the tribute of Gordon Lightfoot and his rendition of his song The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald and my eyes well with tears and I relive all the misery of that fateful night in that Hurricane West Wind of November 10, 1975.  I am grateful to have survived  to relate this story to you.  It is etched in my memory forever.  I salute the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

-The Old Lonesome Sailor....Duane Bartlett