The steamer Edmund Fitzgerald reportedly never transmitted a distress call shortly before the American ore carrier sank in a violent 1975 storm on eastern Lake Superior, 50 years ago on Nov. 10.
But an obituary posted last spring suggests a Michigan Bell operator in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. may have been the last person to talk to the doomed vessel almost to the point where it plunged to the bottom, 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Whitefish Point.
Barbara Kubont, 73, died in a Chilton, Wisc., care facility in May, but during her career, handling ship-to-shore calls with the phone company, it was written that she answered a distress call from the Fitzgerald shortly before it sank after 7 p.m. that night.
According to the obit, Kubont stayed on the line with those aboard the ship until “contact was lost,” then stayed in contact with the Arthur M. Anderson, a ship that was trailing 10 miles (16 km) behind the Fitzgerald. The Anderson reported the loss of the Fitzgerald to the U.S. Coast Guard in Sault, Mich.
That chilling event, which resulted in the death of 29 sailors, apparently stayed with Kubont for the rest of her life.
“I know it haunted her, but I didn’t really know the details,” said Kelly Ninmer of Chilton, a younger cousin of Kubont.
Ninmer wrote the obituary and often visited Kubont at the care facility during her declining years.
The information Ninmer gathered from that harrowing night in 1975 came from Barbara Haskie, a lifelong friend of Kubont. Both attended Soo High together and graduated from Lake Superior State College before joining Michigan Bell.
Haskie, a Cedarville, Mich., resident now, worked the switchboard at the Michigan Bell office at 1606 Davitt St. and occasionally handled ship-to-shore calls from freighters on Lake Superior.
On the night of the sinking, Haskie wasn’t on shift but was on vacation and was stranded at the Mackinaw Bridge. The span was closed to traffic due to storm waves rolling over the causeway on-ramp.
“But I do remember Barb saying she talked to the Fitzgerald and she talked to the Anderson.”
As to the nature and details of that call, Haskie said her memory is hazy.
“That was 50 years ago and I don’t remember. I remember talking to her about it and remember talking to her (about it) years later and she didn’t want to talk about it. It bothered her.”
As operators, Haskie said they were legally bound to maintain the confidentiality of any conversations. Repeating any communication could lead to jail time and a hefty fine.
Haskie trusts that Kubont stayed on the line with the Fitzgerald up until contact was lost. “I believe that’s true.”
“I do know that she was on for hours. How long she was on with the Fitzgerald compared to how long she was with the Anderson, I really don’t know.”
Haskie knew the experience remained a traumatic one for Kubont and she would reach out to her friend every year on the Fitzgerald anniversary.
“I texted her every year on Nov. 10 and told her I understand, I love you . . . just something.”
Haskie said she never handled a marine call of that nature, but did take other emergency calls, often staying on the line with callers until first responders arrived.
To Chris Gillcrist, director emeritus of the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio, the claim in the obituary provokes many questions.
“I never heard or saw any evidence that has said that the Fitzgerald put out a distress call in what we would call the traditional ‘Mayday.’”
“This is the first time I’m seeing this kind of claim.”
The museum is on the Maumee River on the east side of Toledo, which was regarded as the home port of the Fitzgerald. The vessel was nicknamed the “Toledo Express.”
The facility has a number of Fitzgerald artifacts on display, including one of the ship’s two inflatable life rafts.
“From a historical perspective, you have be skeptical . . . that’s the position you start with,” said Gillcrist. “I’m not saying this didn’t happen, but my next question is why does it take 50 years to come out?”
Distress calls are usually transmitted over an open radio channel and directed at the coast guard, he said. “It’s open to everyone who can hear.”
Unless an audio recording still exists, “how these people (at Michigan Bell) were called (by the Fitzgerald) is beyond me.”
The last known communication from the Fitzgerald, often repeated in books, articles and documentaries, is radio chatter from Fitzgerald captain Ernest McSorley to first mate Morgan Clark on the Arthur M. Anderson: “We are holding our own.”
Gillcrist said there is “no doubt” that the Fitzgerald was in distress that night, having developed a starboard list with the pumps on the fully-loaded vessel not being able to the handle the water it was taking in.
The Fitzgerald was also sailing blindly through the storm without functioning radars. Its captain had reduced speed to allow the trailing Anderson to catch up, a possible sign of looming trouble.
Village Media inquired with the United States Coast Guard if there is any record of a distress signal being sent from the Fitzgerald. The head of media relations in Washington responded the query cannot be answered due to the federal government shutdown.
As the latest major Great Lakes shipwreck – with no survivors or eyewitnesses – the Fitzgerald disaster continues to be shrouded in mystery and remains an ongoing topic of debate.
Theories on the sinking vary from the ship striking a shoal and suffering hull damage, to design flaws and the structural integrity of the ship, to rogue waves during the storm, to faulty hatch covers filling the ship with water and sinking it.
The latter explanation is the suspected cause reached in separate investigations by the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board.
The loss of the Fitzgerald, only a 17-year-old freighter, came as a shock to many in the shipping industry on the lakes. This shock was in part because the advent of technologies like radar and better ship construction after the Second World War had dramatically reduced the number of marine disasters.
“By 1975, people thought they had solved the shipwreck problem,” said Gillcrist.
Though many interesting Fitzgerald-related accounts and observations by former crew, maintenance and shipyard workers have surfaced in recent years, there is nothing that definitively pinpoints the cause of the disaster, he said.
Still, the lessons learned from the Fitzgerald sinking endure today.
For one, said Gillcrist, there are no more “Heavy Weather Harry's,” a generation of lake boat captains that would sail through any weather condition to stay on schedule. McSorley was consider part of that breed, he said.
A new breed of skippers are more cognizant of the power of storms.
But the primary emphasis on this renewed culture of caution within the industry, Gillcrist attributes to Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 ballad of the wreck, which remains in continuous play on classic rock stations.
Former U.S. Lake Carriers Association president George Ryan mentioned the song once in an interview with Gillcrist.
“He said that song kept sailing safe, because people were constantly reminded about the dangers. It has always been uppermost in their minds.”