The Carl D Bradley

[Magelk]

An article in the St. Paul paper, just thought everyone would be interested.

Jim

[FMT]

Nice article.
Here is a link that doesn't ask you to register first:

[LKunze]

Really? The link just brought up a registration page for me. ???

[FMT]

Sorry - that link worked before. Guess you just have to find the story manually under this link:

oh well.
T

[Magelk]

I guess this is the route I should have gone.

Posted on Mon, Aug. 02, 2004



I M A G E S

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOHN SCOLES AND JOHN JANZEN
Even the paint on the pilothouse looks fresh, so well preserved is the Carl D. Bradley at the bottom of Lake Michigan. The 638-foot limestone freighter had a 35-man crew. Only two survived the wreck.



After the dive last month, John Scoles, 35, of Farmington, left, and John Janzen, 36, of Andover posed on the deck of the Little Alexandria.





Diving into the past

Two Twin Cities men are the first to explore in detail a shipwreck 370 feet deep in Lake Michigan that killed all but two crewmen in 1958.

BY AMY MAYRON

Pioneer Press


Imagine diving 370 feet to the bottom of Lake Michigan in total darkness and then suddenly a giant freighter pops out at you, so well preserved that the paint on the 46-year-old wreck looks fresh.

That's exactly what local divers, John Janzen and John Scoles, saw in July when they fulfilled a two-year goal of exploring the Carl D. Bradley.

At first their stomachs fluttered at the excitement of seeing a part of the ship that no other diver had seen before.

But soon their thoughts turned to the history of the ship and how 33 of 35 crewmen died after the ship broke in half and quickly sank in a vicious November storm in 1958.

"The first thing I thought of was how Frank Mays felt as the ship was sinking underneath him," said Scoles, 35, of Farmington. "I got an eerie feeling."

The sinking of the Bradley was one of the most dramatic disasters and rescue operations on the Great Lakes. The entire country was riveted to the story when radio stations and ham radio operators all around Lake Michigan heard the call for help on the evening of Nov. 18, 1958: "Mayday! Mayday! This is the Carl D. Bradley. We are 12 miles southwest of Gull Island. We are breaking in two and sinking. Any ships in the area, please come to our aid."

The man who called the Mayday, first mate Elmer Fleming, and deck watch Frank Mays were the only two to survive. They clung to a life raft for 15 hours while being tossed in 30- to 40-foot waves, 65-mph winds and 40-degree weather. Mays is the only living survivor; Fleming died in 1969.

Dives offend some victims' relatives, who say shipwreck exploration is like disturbing a grave. But Mays isn't offended; he's fascinated by it. Janzen e-mailed him last week about the dive, and Mays said he was anxious to see the video.

Mays took a look at the ship in 1995 from a submarine. He was down for less than a half-hour and could see very little, but it comforted him to glimpse the ship in serenity — in contrast to the last image he had of it as it violently sank.

"I find it very interesting to see her lying on the bottom so peacefully," Mays said last week from his home in Florida. "To me, it was like going to the graveyard to visit a gravesite. Some feel it's like going inside a grave."

THE SHIP IS LOST

The loss of the Carl D. Bradley and most of its crew had so many dramatic elements that the story carried across the United States.

All but 10 of the 33 men who died were from Rogers City, Mich., a small town on the northern end of the Lower Peninsula. The town united in the hours after the Mayday, and the country rallied around it.

Eighteen bodies were recovered in massive search efforts. Fifteen were never found.

Four ships went to the Bradley's rescue. One was four miles away when the Mayday went out. It took two hours to traverse the stormy waters, a trip that would normally take 15 minutes.

The Bradley, torn open by huge waves, was long gone. Four men clutching a raft, their fingers in the small spaces between its wooden slats, saw the ship approach and rejoiced that they would be rescued.

But the crew didn't see them. The ship turned away.

Mays had retrieved the raft from behind the pilothouse when the Bradley ripped apart. The bow lurched forward, throwing him and the raft off the ship. By the time Mays managed to find the raft in the dark waters and pull himself onto it, the bow was gone.

He and the three other men who made it to the raft marveled as the stern bobbed in the water, fully lighted as if nothing had happened.

Then finally it tipped and began to sink. The boilers exploded, and the back half of the 638-foot limestone freighter burned briefly before it submerged completely.

The four men heard yelling around them but couldn't see anyone else. Two of the men on the raft wouldn't make it through the night.

THE DIVE

'This wreck was the first time I was thinking about the deaths," said Janzen, 36, of Andover, who has explored dozens of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. He said he normally doesn't feel emotional about shipwrecks. He simply enjoys the accomplishment of exploring them successfully.

The Great Lakes harbor thousands of shipwrecks, making them a hotbed for diving expeditions. Numerous shipwreck societies and museums are devoted to preserving the ruins and oral histories of the boats.

Two years ago Janzen and Scoles were looking for a new adventure. Wanting to see something that no other diver had seen, they started training for the Bradley — an extremely complicated dive more than a football field below the surface.

One other person had ventured down to it, a man who dived to the bow, at about 320 feet, in 2001. He did what is called a "bounce dive" — going down for only a few minutes before having to return to the surface because of a limited air supply.

Janzen and Scoles are the first divers to explore the stern. Using rebreathers — equipment that recycles divers' breath — they could spend more time underwater with fewer air tanks. Each of them carried about $15,000 to $20,000 worth of equipment on the dive.

During their two years of training for the Bradley, they conducted more than 30 dives at 300 feet in Lake Wazee, Wis., to practice and troubleshoot.

A dive that deep is considered so dangerous it's difficult to even hire a charter boat. It took the local team a year just to find a captain who would take them to the Lake Michigan wreckage.

Scoles videotaped the dive. The men were impressed at how well preserved the ship was. Landing at the ship's smokestack, they saw life rings, an ax and spotlights before swimming to the rear, where they saw clearly the name of the ship.

They hope to go down a few more times to make a complete video exploration of the Bradley, including inside the cabins. Mays said he would like to go on Lake Michigan with them and wait at the surface while they dive. Although it's unethical and illegal to remove anything from a sunken ship, items can be taken if survivors or their families give permission.

Mays said he had 50-cent pieces in a jar in his cabin and he would like Janzen and Scoles to retrieve them for him.

There aren't too many divers who are certified or who want to spend the time and money to go to that kind of depth.

"I think it's pretty neat to be the first on the stern," said Ken Merryman, one of the founders of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society, who himself intends to explore a newly found turn-of-the-century wooden steamer in Lake Superior near Two Harbors, Minn.

"Part of (the allure of diving) is being the first on the wreck. That's why we hunt."