Carl D. Bradley split in two, sank 61 years ago, causing heartache for Michigan town

Updated Nov 17, 2019;Posted Nov 17, 2018



{The picture in the linked news article won't open. This is the same picture, from the Wikipedia entry, SS Carl D. Bradley.}

Once known as "the Queen of the Lakes," the. Bradley broke in two and sank in Lake Michigan during a violent storm on Nov. 18, 1958

By Tanda Gmiter | tgmiter@mlive.com

ROGERS CITY, MI - The Carl D. Bradley may not have had a famous song penned about her demise, but when she broke in two and sank in northern Lake Michigan during gale-force winds on Nov. 18, 1958, it plunged an entire town into grief.

The wreck was a harsh blow to Rogers City, a busy port town on Lake Huron, just 40 miles north of Alpena. Of the 33 men who died in the Bradley’s wreck, 23 were from this town.

When the Bradley went down, it left widows on nearly every street in Rogers City. Fifty-three children became fatherless that night.

Of the wreck’s two survivors, only Frank Mays, now 87, is still alive. In past years, he’s visited local memorial events to tell the tale of what happened when the ship known as “The Queen of the Lakes” saw her stern suddenly sag and split off, spelling doom for the 639-foot freighter.

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So why does the Bradley tend not to stay in the forefront of people's minds like the famous Edmund Fitzgerald, another big freighter that went down in a similar storm in 1975?

“The Edmund Fitzgerald gets lots of attention, because of the Gordon Lightfoot song and the speculation on what caused it to sink. However, the Bradley sinking claimed more lives, featured an unbelievable night of four men clinging to a small raft and the thrilling rescue attempt,” said Eric Gaertner, a news leader for MLive in Grand Rapids who wrote a book about the wreck called “Torn in Two: The True Story of the Carl D. Bradley Sinking and the Challenges for Those Left Behind.”

“While conducting interviews and researching the sinking of the Carl D. Bradley, the thing that struck me was the sheer loss of human life for one small town. An overwhelming majority of the 33 men who died in the tragedy were from Rogers City, a town of about 4,000 at the time. It’s difficult to comprehend that a visitation service inside the local high school gym featured 15 caskets.”

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