THE BELL OF THE FITZGERALD: Twenty-Nine Rings — And One Extra — Fall 1995
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
Author: Carol Johnson
Once again a bell tolled for the crew of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. This time, however, it was the Fitzgerald’s own bell, rung 29 times for her lost crew and once more for all the sailors who have lost their lives on the Great Lakes.
The Edmund Fitzgerald Bell currently on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Museum
Through the combined efforts of U.S. and Canadian divers and a state-of-the-art Canadian navy vessel, the bell was recovered from the wreckage 530 feet below the cold waters of Lake Superior on July 4, 1995. Tom Farnquist, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, Whitefish Point, Michigan and Joe Maclnnis, a marine scientist from Toronto along with Emory Kristof of the National Geographic Society, coordinated dive plans for June 22 through July 7, 1995.
Two years in the planning, the international team of divers used sonar-equipped minisubmarines, wreck reconstruction, high-tech underwater suits, and the assistance of a specialized Canadian navy ship, the HMCS Cormorant.
The 246-foot diving support vessel carries a crew of 82 and is equipped with specialized underwater acoustic tracking devices, precision echo sounders, and a GPS navigation system for pinpoint accuracy in making dives. Also aboard are two submersibles, one of which can dive to 650 feet and the other to about 6,500. They can carry three to five persons.
Kristof made five dives in one of the subs which carried high definition television equipment, the most advanced TV system that had ever gone down in a sub. Special mercury vapor lights illuminated the wreckage and according to Farnquist, “We lit up the top of that pilothouse like the sun lights up your front yard. The ship looks very much like it had gone down yesterday.” After the photo dives were completed, divers undertook the job of retrieving the bell, wearing atmospheric diving suits developed in British Columbia which can be worn to a depth of 1,013 feet. Called the Newtsuit, it looks like a space suit and allows divers to withstand water pressure at depths formerly accessible only by submarine.
Self-propelled with power packs, it has an oxygen system that lasts for up to 54 hours. About a dozen Fitz crewmen’s family members were aboard the Cormorant and watched as, after a three hour dive, the tarnished brass bell was brought from the water at 1:25 p.m.
While some 80 relatives of the Fitz’s crew have voiced support for the bell’s removal, not everyone agreed with the project. Jim Clary, a well-known maritime artist, issued a statement claiming that some of the Fitzgerald family members wanted the bell left where it was; and Fred Shannon, a Flint, Michigan businessman, filed suit in a Michigan court to prevent the final dives and bell retrieval.
Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Glazer dismissed Shannon’s suit on a number of legal grounds including lack of legal standing to show injury if the vessel’s bell was removed and that a Michigan court lacked original jurisdiction over the wreck which lies about 1,000 feet inside Ontario territory some 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point. Farnquist of the GLSHS stated he had letters from the Fitz’s owners and underwriters which supported the bell removal. Since the vessel was never legally abandoned, some admiralty legal experts contended the wreck remains an asset of its original owner, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the company’s underwriters.
Divers returned to the Fitzgerald with a replica bell that was attached to the pilothouse and is engraved with the names of the 29 crewmen who were aboard when the Fitz went down in a violent storm, November 10,1975. On an unseasonably cold and dark July 7, several hundred people gathered on the Carbide Dock in Sault, Michigan for a memorial service at which the bell was rung by those family members present and Coast Guard crewmen
Family members reiterated their wish that there be no more dives made on the Fitzgerald and that it be declared a grave site so that nothing else could be removed. However, Canadian officials attending the ceremony said they did not have the authority to designate the wreckage a grave site or guarantee it would not be visited again.
Minister of intergovernmental affairs for the Ontario provincial government, Dianne Cunningham, said the Canadian government probably would not issue permits for future Fitzgerald dives. Bernice Field, archaeological license officer with the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Citizenship and Recreation stated, “Whoever would want to dive would have to make a darn good proposal with scientific purpose.” Following the ceremonies in Sault, the bell was transported to Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan where it was cleaned and restored.
Slept In Same Room With Bell
According to Ed Mahoney, co-director of the university’s Center for Maritime and Underwater Resource Management, “When we got here Saturday morning, I moved the van to my garage, locked the doors, locked the garage, then put a chain-lock on the garage and still got up every hour to check on it.”
Chemicals were used to remove paint and oxides after the bell was soaked in distilled water. Further cleaning of the bell was done with baking soda; dental tools were used to scrape away corrosion deposits. A research associate, Hawk Tolson, slept in the same room with the bell. No chances were taken that anything could happen to the bell! When the cleaning was completed, the bell was displayed July 14- 21 at the Michigan State University Museum. It was then to be returned to Whitefish Point to be the centerpiece of a permanent memorial to the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society Museum.
If all goes as planned, after 20 years the Fitz will finally be laid to rest.
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