DISASTERS: The Death of the Bradley

November is the cruelest month on the Great Lakes. The icy winds from the north meet the warm, moist air from the south—and the clash brings wild gales that have torn apart scores of ships, killed thousands of people. Last week the 16,000 ton (d.w.t.), 623-ft. limestone carrier Carl D. Bradley died in Lake Michigan’s cruel November.

There were 35 on board the Bradley as she steamed out of Gary, Ind. on Lake Michigan after unloading 12,000 tons of limestone. The Bradley was heading north on choppy seas, bound for home port, the little (pop. 4,000) town of Rogers City. Mich., on Lake Huron’s western shore. The crewmen had an edge of eagerness, they were anxious to make Rogers City: 26 of them lived there.

“Mayday, Mayday.” The storm warnings that flew Lake Michigan’s length changed that night into “whole gale” warnings. Winds from the southwest gathered speed, rose to 40, 50, then 60 m.p.h. The Bradley beat its way through the mounting waves into the next day and the dusk. By then, the heavy seas were surging with 30-ft. waves, smashing at the 31-year-old vessel. In the pilot house. First Mate Elmer Fleming, 43, heard a thud. He spun around and looked toward the stern. The vessel was sagging aft of midships. Fleming made for the radiotelephone and cried:

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! Carl D. Bradley breaking up and going down twelve miles southwest of Gull Island . . . Any ships please come . . . Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, May , . .

“Grab Life Jackets!” Rimmed on the lake shores were radio operators who heard the call, heard the voice of Captain Roland Bryan shouting:

Run! Grab life jackets! Get the jackets!

Coast Guard stations and ships snapped radio messages back and forth. Into the roily seas steamed rescue ships, and overhead, battering its way into the swirling winds, flew a Coast Guard plane. In Rogers City, the local radio operator got the Mayday flash. The awful word spread throughout the town. Terror-torn women clustered around radios; the wife of Wheelsman Joe Krawczak looked fearfully at the faces of her six small children.

“Don’t Go to Sleep.” The Bradley snapped like a stick. A few minutes later, as seamen in the forward part of the vessel pulled on their jackets and fought toward the rails, the stricken craft rolled over. First Mate Fleming and Deck Watchman Frank Mays pulled themselves onto a 4-by-8-ft. raft, began shouting to the others. “The sea was so great that men were hidden,” said Fleming later. “We saw someone near and shouted him over to us.” It was Deck Watchman Gary Strzelecki.

The Bradley died in the mad sea. Cries of struggling sailors grew fainter; the buoy flares were snuffed out. The three men on the raft spotted Deck Hand Dennis Meredith and pulled him aboard. They found five flares and a sea anchor inside the hatch of the raft. It was more than an hour later that they saw a rescue ship, the German motor vessel Christian Sartori. Fleming shot four flares, but the Sartori did not see them. Still the rescue ship, rolling as much as 50°, plunged toward the raft.

A gigantic wave swept the men into the water. They fought their way back aboard. The Sartori’s searchlight swept over the raft, but flashed away again. As the ship came closer, Fleming frantically tore at his last flare. At first, he could not get through the protective casing. He chewed at it, got it open—but it would not ignite. The Sartori moved on.

The bursting seas were cold—40°—and the air above the water was even colder. The men huddled together, breathed warmth onto each other’s bodies. Fleming directed Mays and Strzelecki to hold on to each other as he put his arm around Meredith, scantily dressed and near freezing. Fleming kept telling him:

Don’t go to sleep; don’t go to sleep. Once you go to sleep, you’re lost. Move your legs. Come on, you can do it.

Hours into Minutes. But Meredith could not move. The others began counting to one another, talking of the moment when they would be rescued. Dawn became an excruciating hope. Yet Fleming was glad that he could not see his watch:

I didn’t want to see how long it was till dawn. I was afraid that all the hours that must have passed were maybe only minutes.

They were indeed mere minutes. It was about 11:30 p.m. when the biggest wave crested. Straight up into the air went the raft, and into the sea once more the men were flung. Mays got back first, then Strzelecki, and then Fleming. They called for Meredith, but they heard nothing, saw nothing.

Now they redoubled their efforts to keep awake. Strzelecki grew weaker. Pleaded Fleming:

Come on, come on. Don’t go to sleep! If you go to sleep, you know what happens! Stay awake! You can’t give up! Not now! Not now! It won’t be long! Just hang on, man, keep awake!

The waves began to subside, and the men lay face down. Fleming felt ice in his eyes, on his back, in his hair. The three exchanged nonsensical gibberish. Then Mays prayed. But Strzelecki slipped from the raft, clinging weakly to the side. The others, too spent to pull him aboard, held him for more than an hour. Strzelecki sobbed:

I want to go for a swim. Let me go. I want to go for a swim.

And he slipped away.

Thanksgiving. The first light broke into the dirty black sky hours later. Mays thought he saw a sea gull. He looked again, saw the flashing lights of a Coast Guard twin-engined amphibian Albatross. The men tried to get up, to signal the plane, but in a moment it was gone. The raft drifted on. As the clouds broke before the sun. Fleming and Mays looked at their watches: 8:40. Then they looked at each other: their eyes were puffed, their faces red, their lips swollen, their hands cut and bruised. Yet, somehow, now that daylight had come, they were no longer afraid.

Ahead, just then, they saw land: High Island, a small square bump in the lake. Slowly, the raft drifted toward it. Fleming turned around: behind, bearing down on them, was a ship. They were spotted. It was the Coast Guard tender Sundew. They cried: “It’s coming! It’s coming!” It was about 15 hours after the Bradley had gone down when they sank to their knees in thanksgiving for their own survival—and in mourning for the 33 men of the Bradley who had died on Lake Michigan in November’s seas.