The Gales of November, John U. Bacon. Liveright (ISBN: 9781324094647) 2025.

Summary: A new history of the Edmund Fitzgerald, its final voyage, crew and captain, and the possible reasons for its sinking.

Fifty years ago today, sometime after 7:10 pm on November 10, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 530 feet of water in Lake Superior, just fifteen miles from the safety of Whitefish Bay. At the time, the ship was contending with winds up to 100 miles per hour and waves of 25 feet or more.

When the Fitzgerald sank, I was a college senior, pressing toward graduation. It was only later that the sinking became part of the fabric of my life. It began with Gordon Lightfoot’s song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. This haunting song captured the awesome forces of a storm on Lake Superior and a tragedy that took “the pride of the American side” and her 29 men to a watery grave where they remain to this day.

In 1977, not long after the sinking, we moved to Toledo, the home port of the Fitzgerald and her captain. We began to understand the integral role of these ships to the manufacturing economy of the lower Great Lakes. More significantly, we met people who knew crew members who had died. The tragedy became real. During summers, I worked at a camp at the eastern end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. That afforded opportunities to spot freighters on Lake Huron, and see them up close, passing through the Soo Locks. It made one wonder what it must have taken to sink one of these massive ships.

John U. Bacon, in The Gales of November, explores all this history in careful detail, brought to life with profiles of Captain McSorley and the other 28 men who made up his crew. First of all, he acquaints us with the history of shipping on Lake Superior. He describes the conditions, including historic storms and sinkings that make the lake a fearsome place in bad weather. After people who have worked on ocean-going ships sailed Superior in such conditions, they said they’d take the ocean any time.

However, there were huge rewards for shipping companies transporting iron ore to mills and factories. Bacon describes the pressures to carry extra tonnage and reduce transit time. He explains “the Plimsoll line,” the point above which you could not load a ship without compromising navigational safety. There were ways to cheat this that McSorley and other captains used. On the final voyage, Fitzgerald may have been carrying 4000 tons more than it was designed for.

The Fitzgerald was the “pride of the American side,” the largest ship of her time. Not only that, she was equipped with the latest gear and elegantly appointed. Her food was better than most fine restaurants. But there were questions about her construction and the novel method of welding the hull together. The ship “flexed” as it navigated waves more than other ships. Also, the double hull construction with ballast tanks created a vulnerability if part of the hull breached and ballast tanks filled on an already loaded ship.

Much of the book details the final voyage, its last of the season and final trip for Captain McSorley, and several others who were retiring. McSorley was often considered the best captain with the best crew on the best ship. He was the one you wanted as captain in a storm. From an unseasonably balmy departure, we learn of increasingly worrisome weather forecasts as two systems barreled toward a collision on the Fitzgerald’s final path. The Fitzgerald was sailing in tandem with a sister ship, the Arthur M. Anderson.

Much of our record of the unfolding tragedy is captured in the communication between the two captains. It began with the captains deciding on a northerly route to shelter from some of the winds. But it required passing Caribou Island and the Six Fathom Shoal, inaccurately charted on the maps McSorley was using. It was after passing these that McSorley reported a list that continued to worsen. His radars went out and they depended on the Anderson for navigation. Then, at 7:10 pm, asked how they were making out, McSorley said, “We are holding our own.” Subsequently, the Anderson lost radar and radio contact with the Fitzgerald.

Bacon describes the heroic efforts to search for the ship and survivors, especially the decision of the Anderson to turn around and go out amid the raging storm, an example of the sailor’s code: “We have to go out but we don’t have to come back.” And he offers an account of the impact of the sinking on “the wives, and the sons, and the daughters.”

Perhaps most fascinating is his account of Gordon Lightfoot’s song. Lightfoot was a sailor on the lakes. Bacon describes the writing of the song and Lightfoot’s reluctance to record it. He was concerned about looking like he was taking advantage of the tragedy. We learn how the first take is the one we hear, and how much it meant to the families of victims.

Finally, Bacon explores possible causes without reaching a definitive conclusion. He tends to rule out the unsecured hatch theory. He notes the safety measures put into effect after the sinking. There have been no sinking of commercial vessels in the fifty years since.

Bacon offers a riveting account of the Edmund Fitzgerald. His interviews with surviving former crewmen help us envision what life on the ship was like. His account of McSorley reveals the fine line between superior competence and the gambles that put the ship at risk. He helps us understand the tradeoffs of hauling capacity and navigability of these unusual ships. The narrative builds up our sense of the approach of the impending tragedy. Yet I found myself rooting that somehow, in this telling, the Fitzgerald would make those final fifteen miles.

Overall, I was impressed with the research that went into this book. However a friend pointed out a small error on page 17. Bacon writes of William Henry Harrison creating the United States Weather Bureau in 1890. William Henry Harrison died in office in 1841. That president’s grandson, Benjamin Harrison was president at the time. It’s a mistake I could have made that I hope is corrected in future printings. However, it makes no material difference to the story Bacon tells that honors the crew that went down that fateful night, fifty years ago.