Sunken Cedarville is depicted as she lies underwater at the Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Museum at Mackinaw City. LAKE HURON HISTORY: MV Cedarville Sinking 50 Years Ago Recalled
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(NOTE: Thanks to the Saginaw River Marine Historical Society and its President Don Comtois for the opportunity to present this story about The Bay City Times coverage of the sinking of a Great Lakes ship 50 years ago to their group last Saturday.)
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It is May 7, 1965 -- half a century ago.
I am an eager 27-year-old reporter at the Bay City Times.
On May 5 the first large scale U.S. ground troops enter South Viet Nam. It is an ominous sign that would absorb -- and tear apart -- the nation for the next decade and beyond.
That month the Beatles' song 'Ticket to Ride' hit No. 1 on the pop charts and Vivian Malone becomes the first black to graduate from the University of Alabama.
Things are quiet in Bay City, unless you listen closely to the men's beards being grown for the sesquicentennial celebration.
Two days later -- Friday, May 7--the newswire machines in the glassed-in wire room on the west side of the Times news room suddenly clack furiously. Robert Cox, production manager of WTOM-TV in Cheboygan, has alerted the world to a breaking story.
"Big news up North," hollers Wire Editor Wally Town, rushing toward the city desk, burning cigarette in one hand, the other trailing long strips of tan paper from the Associated Press printer -- "two ships collided in the Straits of Mackinac, one cut in half with some crew trapped below, he blurted. "A Norwegian freighter hit the Cedarville in heavy fog."
"You better get up there, and take a photographer," says crusty, salty tongued Ray Kuhn, who had hired me six years before, right after my internship at the Chicago Tribune.
Kuhn, managing editor of The Bay City Times, arranged for Photographer Dick Hardy and I to meet a pilot, Dr. James Cooper, at James Clements Airport. Dr. Cooper was a 45-year-old former ace Air Force pilot and veteran of World War II. A native of Kansas, he was an OB-GYN specialist with an office on 16th Street. His wife Joan was his office assistant.
Unable to land any closer because of dense fog enveloping the Straits, Dr. Cooper sets the four-seat Cessna down at Pellston, 20 miles east of the Straits. We rent a car and arrive at the dock in Mackinaw City on the afternoon of May 7, the day of the accident.
The pea soup fog obscures the huge girders of the five mile long Mackinac Bridge -- you can't even tell it is there although its steel superstructure and cables loom 552 feet above the water and stretch five miles from Mackinaw City to St. Ignace.
Foghorns blast every two minutes -- one prolonged blast plus two short blasts -- warning the dozens of ships waiting their chance to safely get under the bridge and into either Lake Michigan or Lake Huron.
Photographer Hardy and I are surprised and saddened to see sobbing women and children on the dock at Mackinaw City. What happened? We soon learn that eight sailors are trapped in the ship below the waters.
We rent a fishing boat, with a sliding door for hauling nets, and the captain takes us to the spot on the lake where the Cedarville had gone down. Only a small orange buoy marking the spot and bubbles in the water -- coming from the huge ship below -- tell the grim tale.
Why had the eight crew members not abandoned ship, boarded the lifeboats or been picked out of the water by other ships? This puzzling situation did not become clear in the inquiry in 1967 and were not fully spelled out until the Cedarville Conspiracy book by Stephen Cox came out in 2005 and the author spelled out the reasons. Cedarville Captain Martin Joppich had gotten instructions by radio from U.S. Steel officials in Pittsburgh: don't give up the ship!
The eight men had stayed faithfully at their posts in the engine room and were trapped by the water enveloping the sinking ship.
The 17th Century French Explorer Samuel de Champlain called Lake Huron 'La Mer Douce,' or great sweetwater sea. Huron was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered and is the second largest Great Lake and 5th largest body of freshwater in the world.
Local author Jack Parker, noting her nickname 'The Mad Mallard,' wrote "the lake that swallowed eight big ore carriers in one storm, (November 1913) Huron is rougher, tougher and more violently ferocious than any of our oceans."
Since it had more traffic because it is a 'pass through' in the chain of lakes, 40 percent of the shipwrecks in the Great Lakes are in Lake Huron, including the Cedarville. Since the first ship to disappear in Lake Huron, LaSalle's Griffon in 1679, an estimated 6,000 ships have gone down and 30,000 lives lost. By that measure, Lake Huron has about 2,400 wrecks alone.
Cedarville had loaded 14,411 tons of limestone and a crew of 35 at Calcite, near Rogers City. The 588 foot long Cedarville, built in 1927 at River Rouge, Michigan, was refitted as a self-unloader at Defoe Shipbuilding in Bay City in 1958.
She had been converted from steam to diesel and thus transitioned from SS (steamship) to the designation MV (Motor Vessel).
Cedarville sets sail at 4:30 a.m., heading for U.S. Steel facilities at Gary, Indiana; water temperature is 37 degrees, choppy seas prevail; thick fog limits visibility with temperatures in the low 40s. Winds from the southwest are light.
Fog worsens as Cedarville approaches the Mackinac Bridge from the Lake Huron side. The captain is steaming full ahead -- 12.3 miles per hour -- with no concern for the dense fog or other ships known to be in the area. Visibility is limited to 300 to 600 feet, about one half mile.
Meanwhile, from the Chicago side, the 424 foot Norwegian freighter Topdalsfjord, with Captain Rasmus Haaland at the helm, approaches the Straits, bound for the DeTour passage on the northeast coast of the Straits, 35 miles away. Topdalsfjord's sharp prow rakes forward and its hull is reinforced with thick steel for plowing through North Atlantic ice. The vessel's speed is in excess of 6.5 miles per hour, too fast for conditions, an attorney for U.S. Steel later argues at the inquiry.
When the German ship Weissenburg passes under Big Mac at 9:38 a.m., the German master tells the Cedarville captain Martin Joppich there is a Norwegian vessel ahead. The master of the Cedarville tries several times to make radio contact but cannot communicate with the Topdalsfjord to arrange for a passing agreement.
After the Cedarville's last long whistle blast, Topdalsfjord looms out of the fog 100 feet away. Joppich orders hard right and then, when the Cedarville's bow passes ahead of the Norwegian, he orders hard left to try and swing the stern clear.
At 9:45 a.m., Topdalsfjord's sharp prow collides with Cedarville abreast of No. 7 hatch portside at a near perpendicular angle. Many of the crew are unaware there has been a collision.
As the ship rapidly fills with water, Joppich decides to run toward Mackinaw City and attempt to beach the vessel. That's when a bad situation turns tragically wrong.
"The beaching course furnished by the third mate was incorrect and the master should have immediately realized this. It is tragic that the Cedarville steamed enough miles following her fatal wound to have made the beach at Mackinaw City," states the Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation report that also concludes:
"As the Cedarville turned over to starboard, the crew standing by the lifeboats made last minute attempts to launch them. The No. 1 lifeboat was never released and sank with the ship. The No. 2 lifeboat with several crew members aboard was released as the Cedarville sank beneath it. Both life rafts floated free. The majority of the crew are thrown into the cold water.
Twenty-five crew members are rescued by the Weissenburg, whose captain and crew later were honored by the Coast Guard for their life-saving work.
The inquiry board's report stated:
"There is evidence of considerable false optimism on the Cedarville that the vessel would be successful in its beaching operation. Due to this a plan for minimizing personnel in the engine room or abandoning ship was never initiated."
As the sea laden ship wobbled drunkenly through the water toward shore, it slowly rolled over and sank.
Photographer Hardy and I spend the night in a motel in Mackinaw City, the sound of foghorns haunting our memory for years. The next day the adventuresome Dr. Cooper flies back and picks us up.
The full story of the Cedarville is told in the Conspiracy book and dramatized in a video by Out of the Blue Productions, run by noted divers Jim and Pat Stayer, former directors of the Michigan State Underwater Preserve Council.
One of Lake Huron's most popular dive sites, Cedarville now is part of the Straits of Mackinac Underwater Preserve. She lies in 110 feet of water and her hull is within 35 feet of the surface. Some of her artifacts now reside in the new Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Museum at the Old Mackinac Point lighthouse.
Cedarville goes down in history as the third worst disaster in Great Lakes history, after the Edmund Fitzgerald of 1975 and the Carl D. Bradley of 1958.
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tennis1960 Says:
On May 19, 2015
at 12:10 AM
I love these historical articles. I am very fortunate to know you well......keep writing DAD !
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Dave Rogers |
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