Customer Reviews

Wreck of the Carl D.: A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea

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Imagine if you can spending 15 hours in the dark on an 8 by 10 foot liferaft in northern Lake Michigan during late November with 20 to 30 foot waves buffeting the raft and tossing you into the big lake several times . . . and surviving the ordeal.

This is what happened to two crew members of the Great Lakes freighter CARL D. BRADLEY after their boat broke up and sank with no warning on November 18, 1958 during a gale (winds of approximately 60 - 65 mph). Unfortunately, 33 other crew members weren't so lucky and drowned. 56 children from Rogers City, Michigan (the boat's home port) were left fatherless on that night fifty years ago.

This well-written book tells the story, in the present tense mainly, of the BRADLEY disaster in an exciting and detailed manner. If a person has an interest in Great Lakes maritime history, they in all likelihood will have a hard time putting this book down once under way. (In this respect it reminds me, somewhat, of THE GALES OF NOVEMBER by Robert J. Hemming, a fascinating book about another Great Lakes tragedy, the EDMUND FITZGERALD.) In the book under review, Michael Schumacher describes the BRADLEY, talks about individual crew members, life in Rogers City, and, of course, narrates in great detail the boat's final voyage up Lake Michigan, and the aftermath of the disaster, including the US Coast Guard investigation and report.

As I was reading the book I kept wondering and thinking about two key questions: why did this tragedy occur and could it have been avoided? My answer to the second question really ties in with the answer to the first one.

Yes, the horrible event of November 18, 1958 could have been avoided if Captain Bryan had remembered this fact about his boat, in which he had earlier noted to a friend:

"The boat is getting pretty ripe for too much weather. I'll be glad when they get her fixed up...The hull is not good...and was badly damaged...."
He also said he had been ordered by the boat's owners to "nurse" the boat in bad weather and to "take it easy" on his boat. (quotes from p. 8)

With all this in mind and given the weather forecast he received, and because of increasing winds that he observed the afternoon the boat sank, I conclude he should have done what some (though not all, I admit) other captains of Great Lakes freighters were doing that day: heading into a port, or bay, or taking cover behind one of the many islands along the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan.

So it appears that maintaining his schedule was more important to the captain than putting his damaged boat and the human beings who sailed it in possible peril. Sad indeed, but he was certainly not the first Great Lakes captain to put his crew in jeopardy, nor the last.

Included in this book are the names of the BRADLEY crew on the fateful day, the findings and report of the US Coast Guard panel which studied the sinking, the Coast Guard Commandant's dissent from the panel's conclusion, a glossary of nautical terms, a map of Lake Michigan's western shore, a section of black and white photos, and a useful bibliography.

Having written books about the BRADLEY and the FITZGERALD (*MIGHTY FITZ*), perhaps Mr. Schumacher might turn his attention to the sinking of the DANIEL J. MORRELL, to which he makes a brief reference on page 181?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and his other one on the FITZGERALD.

Tim Koerner
December 2008

A very good account of the wreck of the Carl D. Lots of infpormation for people who go down to the sea. An intersting story for nautically minded people.

Death has many faces. For the loved ones of the decedent, there is loss, grief and sadness. To the bookkeepers of death, it is more dispassionate.

Both sides of death - sudden and violent - are uniquely alive in the pages of "Wreck Of The Carl D." as told first by Michael Schumacher and then in the words of a Coast Guard Board Of Inquiry.

The Carl D. Bradley of the title was a ship, 638 -feet long that carried limestone on the Great Lakes. On November 18, 1959, it was sailing on Lake Michigan in a storm that was considered by many veteran sailors as he worst they had ever known.

Within minutes, the rough ride of the Carl D. Bradley in gale-force winds and mighty waves turned into the rough ride to oblivion for all but two of the Bradley's 35 member crew. Twenty-eight of the dead came from the small town of Roger City, Michigan, with a population of only a few thousand.

Michael Schumacher is both a historian of the Great Lakes and a very fine writer. His earlier "Mighty Fitz" chronicled the sinking of the ore carrier, the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was immortalized in a song by Gordon Lightfoot and became known around the world.

Schumacher sketches for us the imagined responses of the crew as the Carl D. is buffeted by high winds and giant waves. His portraits are quickly sketched, not overly wrought and have the feeling of plausibility. Most of the Carl D's crew were veteran sailors and Schumacher (who conducted more than 150 interviews) seems to mirror their minds. These men were veterans of storms on the Great Lakes and such storms held no great fear for them.

But this one was different and the ship's "hoggiing" ("the bending down of the front and back of a ship, with no support for the middle") resulted in the Carl D's splitting in the middle - in the dark on a storm tossed lake.

Schumacher recreates the disbelief of the crew, then their practiced moves toward survival - and so much going so wrong in so few minutes.

Only two men survive.

Schumacher excels at capturing the differing moods of the various people drawn into this tragedy. Family members, of course, are struck with a sense of impending doom. They know the ship has sunk, but don't know if there are any survivors. With disregard of their own safety, the crew of a nearby freighter makes toward the sinking site while a Coast Guard cutter is dispatched into the awful night to aid in rescue and recovery. A Coast Guard plane crew, already exhausted, braves the storm looking for survivors.

The whole story is well-covered here, from the building of the Carl D., its one-time status as the largest ship on the Great Lakes, its many years of service; the men of the crew, some of whom loved the life of the sailor and some who considered it just a job; the wives who accepted the absences of their men. The reaction of families and friends to the death of 28 fathers, sons, friends, husbands, brothers in a town where everyone knew practically everyone else and, in many cases, were related.

The bureaucratic proceedings of a Coast Guard Board of Inquiry attempting to determine the cause of the unexpected sinking, complete with the inclusion of the official reports as appendices. These are, by the way, well worth reading, the sterile official language contrasting with Schumacher's far more passionate prose.

Overall, a marvelous book for anyone with even a passing interest in the giant boats seen on the Great Lakes - and a reminder that terror and death are always just a moment away.

Jerry

Fast shipping, accurate condition (really nice). One I would be happy to share with friends.

I grew up in Michigan on the St Clair River watching the Lake Boats was one of our favorite passtimes. I well remember the sinking of the Bradley and the search effort.

A well research and told story.