Sinking of the Carl D Bradley

A storm can break more than a ship; it can test a town’s faith and rewrite a company’s story. We take you from the birth of the Carl D. Bradley as the pride of the Great Lakes limestone trade to a November night when the “Queen of the Lakes” snapped in two and sent an entire community into mourning. With vivid scene-setting and clear-eyed analysis, we explore how an aging flagship, quiet cracks, and a last-minute order to chase one more load intersected with thirty-foot waves—and why two sailors clinging to a small raft became the sole voices of what really happened.

We dig into the Bradley’s engineering—turboelectric drive, self-unloading gear, and icebreaking muscle—and the economic engine it fed for U.S. Steel and Rogers City. Then we step through the timeline: unreported groundings, hairline fractures amidships, reassuring inspections, and the decisive shift from the Wisconsin coast toward open water. The breakup comes fast: a thud, power severed, a bow capsizing under its crane, boilers exploding in cold water. Rescue efforts surge across the gale, led by the cutter Sundew, yielding two survivors, eighteen recovered, and fifteen forever missing—numbers that still echo through families and streets tied to the lake.

Controversy anchors the story’s second half. Was it poor judgment or a hidden structural failure? We contrast the Marine Board’s seamanship critique with the Coast Guard commandant’s rebuttal, and examine corporate secrecy around early wreck footage. Decades later, an ROV confirms what survivor Frank Mays claimed from the start: the hull lay in two pieces on the bottom. From there we pull out the lessons—lifeboat launch design, better life jackets and flares, and the deeper cultural shift from inspection checkboxes to real maintenance and reporting. It’s a maritime history, a forensic case, and a human tale of resilience, responsibility, and the price paid when margins replace margins of safety.

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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/

Transcript

Setting The Great Lakes Stage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Great Lakes are great for a reason. These giant bodies of water are more ocean than lake. Large enough you're not able to see from one shore to the other, along with violent storms that can push out waves as large as thirty feet high, which has often been the bane of the robust shipping industry that has built up along the nearly ten thousand miles of coastline. The Great Lakes have claimed many a ship, like the Carl D. Bradley that split in half before sinking to the bottom of Lake Michigan. So what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's A Disaster. One quick announcement before we get into it. Lunarfall Audio, who has been helping produce the show and making it sound a hell of a lot better than I normally could have my own, is on vacation for the next couple of weeks, so might sound a little bit off the next couple weeks, but they will be back and helping out. Tonight we're diving into the Great Lakes and looking at the sinking of the ore freighter, the Carl D. Bradley, in 1958. And tonight's episode is brought to you by Habitat for Penguins. Habitat for Penguins has started a fundraiser to raise$1 trillion to build a penguin habitat on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. With your small donation of$799.95, you'll receive a one-inch stuffed lottles plushie, along with that warm fuzzy feeling you get of helping out homeless penguins. Plus, are the Great Lakes really that great if they don't have any penguins? Make the Great Lakes great again with penguins. In 1912, the Bradley Transportation Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, was founded to manage a fleet of limestone freighters on the Great Lakes. Limestone being used to remove impurities from steel when it's made, made it pretty damn important to the whole process. Another of U.S. Steel's companies, the Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company, ran the world's largest limestone quarry outside of Rogers City, Michigan. So with owning both of these companies, they needed a large fleet of lake freighters to haul it to keep the blast furnaces running. In 1923, the keel was laid down for haul number 797 at the American Shipbuilding Company in Lorraine, Ohio. She was being built to meet the demands of an incredibly profitable contract with the cement company in Gary, Indiana. It would also end up serving as the company's flagship, meaning the accommodations on board were better than any other ship and would often host company executives on its trips. She was 639 feet long with a beam of 65 feet. She was longer than any other ship by at least 7 feet and powered by two Foster Wheeler high pressure water tube boilers running a turboelectric drive that generated up to 4,800 shaft horsepower, making it twice as powerful as anything else working the Great Lakes, and it would hold the title of Queen of the Lake for 22 years. It was a self-unloading ship, which meant it carried a large crane that made it possible to unload its smaller ports without any land-based assistance. This ship was so big compared to the others at the time, it would typically be the first ship out at the beginning of the shipping season and used as an icebreaker through the Straits of Mackinac so that smaller ships would be able to get out of port. The four peak was filled with concrete so it could break the ice on the way to Indiana, and then it was off to the Lorraine shipyard for replacement of broken plates before starting her season. Emma Bradley, the wife of Carl D. Bradley, who was the head of the Bradley Company, christened the ship with a bottle of calcite water from the Bradley Quarry in Roger City instead of normal champagne. And old Carl here either had a hell of an ego or a bunch of ass kissers working for him, since this was the second ship to be named after him. The first Carl D. Bradley, launched in nineteen seventeen, was renamed the SS Irvin L Climber and remained in service until nineteen ninety. And since the second one is on this show, maybe they shouldn't have changed. The new Carl D. Bradley launched on july twenty eighth, nineteen twenty seven and was based out of Rogers City, Michigan, where most of her crew was from. Rogers City was very much linked with the shipping industry. Everyone in town either worked on the ships or knew someone who did, whether it be a brother or a cousin or a neighbor, somebody. Shipping was big business and everyone was tied to it somehow. In 1929, the Carl D. Bradley set a record for the largest limestone cargo ever carried on the lakes at 18,144 tons. And just for reference, it would take something like 300 rail cars to haul that much limestone. The Carl D. Bradley had a highly successful career for nearly three decades, becoming one of the most recognizable freighters working the Great Lakes before eventually being overshadowed by the Wilfred Sykes in 1949. Even with the loss of its title of Queen of the Lakes, the Carl D pushed on, still hauling limestone for U.S. steel, a little older and a little rustier, well, a lot rustier, but still sailing on. On April 14th, 1958, the Bradley Transportation Company hit a pretty significant milestone. Across its entire fleet, there was not a single injury that resulted in a loss of man hours for a thousand days, and they had never lost a ship in over 40 years of shipping, which is great, but as it always seems to be, nothing bad ever happening leads to complacency, and complacency leads to bad shit happening. Safety starts to slip, and maintenance not quite held up to the same standards. That being said, being the company's flagship, she was held to a higher standard, always with a fresh coat of paint to keep it looking its best. But the ship was getting old quick, pushed to the limits over and over again. The Carl D was one of the busiest freighters in the fleet and one of the most productive. Then April 3rd, 1956 happened. A collision with the MV White Rose at Southeast Bend on the St. Clair River. Nothing major, but it would require being dry docked in Chicago for repairs in May of 1957. During repairs, several hairline fractures, some as long as six feet, were discovered in the underbody amidship. The bad spots were cut out and patched up before being sent back out after the Coast Guard put their stamp of approval on it. On February 26, 1958, the Carl D was issued a new certificate of endorsement after an inspection by Lloyd's Register of Shipping, and on April 17th that year, she passed an annual inspection by the United States Coast Guard, which deemed her seaworthy. After her dry docking in May 57, the Carl D. Bradley had struck bottom on at least two occasions. The first time in the spring of 1958 while leaving Cedarville, Michigan, the grounding caused damage to the number one water bottom on the port side, just behind the collision bulkhead. The damage was small enough that the company deemed no repair was necessary. Then, in early November, she once again struck bottom while turning at Cedarville, damaging her number seven water bottom on the port side, causing a 14-inch fracture, which was repaired by the company's maintenance team in Calsite. And of course, they never bothered to report either of these incidents to the Coast Guard. The Carl D would undergo one final safety inspection by the Coast Guard on October 30th, 1958. During this inspection, the crew carried out a fire drill and a boat drill. The crew lowered the number two lifeboat and demonstrated rowing, all to the inspector's satisfaction. The captain also noted that repairs made during her previous dry docking were holding up well. The Bradley passed the inspection and was allowed to complete the last few runs of the 58th season. There, however, was plans for an extensive overhaul of her cargo holds, bulkheads, and tank tops, totaling roughly$800,000 worth of work while at dry dock during the winter season. Among the crew that ran the ship, there was a common joke that the Bradley was held together with nothing but rust, and whenever the freighter encountered rough weather, they got used to hearing the sounds of rivets popping as the hull bent and twisted with the waves. The sailors would then go about picking up the busted rivets by the bucketful after they'd bounced around the ship like ping pong balls after a storm. The Carl D completed the final planned cargo carrying voyage of the 58th season on november seventeenth, dropping off a load of crushed limestone in Gary, Indiana. All that was left was a quick voyage north to Manatawak for the winter layup and some much needed restoration work. Without any sort of cargo, they took on 9,000 gallons of water in the Balast tanks for stability before leaving Gary at ten PM, and they left right into some shit weather. Winds were hitting thirty five miles per hour as they left port and a rough November gale was expected as two storm systems were about to merge over the Great Lakes. The Carl D hugged the coast of Wisconsin on the way north. They made it an hour outside of Manitawak when U.S. Steel ordered the Carl D to sail to Calsite, Michigan to pick up a last minute load of stone. Never mind the shit weather, it's fine. The 58th season had been slow and much of the Bradley fleet sat idle for months. So the owners were quick to jump on the chance to make some more money before the season's end. So they had to turn around and head into the worst of the growing storm as they aimed for Michigan. Not the worst conditions the ship had faced, but not something anyone wanted to do, especially when you're already so damn close to home. Captain Bryan ordered the galley to make an early dinner around 4 PM, giving them time to secure and tie down the ship in preparation for the storm. No one was concerned about the storm coming, they were all just eager to get it done with and go home. Forty three year old first mate Elmer Fleming walked from the aft deck to the pilot house despite the rough seas causing the ship to roll slightly. Below decks, twenty six year old deck watchman Frank Mays checked the pump beneath the hold, not seeing any more water than normal from the leaky rusted ship. Nor did he see anything else out of the ordinary. Back on the bridge, Fleming relieved the captain of his watch before radioing Kalsite that they were twelve nautical miles southwest of Gull Island with an ETA of about two in the morning. But then the shit hit the fan. A loud thud rang out from somewhere amidship. Fleming and the captain turned to watch the entire aft end of the ship sagging dangerously. The thirty one year old freighter was breaking up and falling apart. The captain slammed the throttles to all stop before sounding the general alarm and then sounding abandoned ship on the ship's whistle. Fleming turned to the radio to make a desperate mayday call. His desperate plea for help was cut short when the power lines connecting the bow and the stern snapped. Since he didn't have a life jacket, he rushed out of the pilot house to run down the two decks to his cabin to get one. Below deck, Mays heard the thud and figured it would probably be a good idea to head up and see exactly what was going on. He stopped to look in horror as he saw the ship had ripped itself in two near the middle. After seeing this, he quickly ran to start untying the only life raft available. As the ship tears itself apart, the buoyancy of her bow and stern sections change. The stern with the heavy engine and boilers low in the hull would maintain its center of gravity for a time and remain on an even keel, but the bow with its heavy crane immediately became top heavy without the stern to anchor it and began to tilt dangerously to port. On deck, Fleming sees the captain and another crewman clinging to the starboard railing climbing forward. They were rushing to get as high and as far away as the water as possible. However, the self unloading crane dips into the water before the entire forward section capsized, dumping the men into the lake. They swam hard for the surface, coming up near a raft that had been tossed into the stormy waters. Mays and Fleming swam to the raft, but Captain Bryan was nowhere in sight. Deckhands Dennis Meredith and Gary Strezeleck were able to find their way to the raft when they were plunged into the raging lake waters. They turned to watch the aft section go under, watching in morbid fascination as they were able to see straight into the cargo hold. Sailors desperately ran across the deck, trying to launch one of the ship's lifeboats right up until the railing slipped below the rough waters of Lake Michigan. As the ship sank, the boilers hit the cold water, causing a massive explosion to rock the crippled ship as it dropped below in a haze of fire and steam. The four men on the raft were left alone on Lake Michigan as the storm raged around them. Winds rocked the tiny raft and tossed it about like a rag doll. The life draft's tiny anchor didn't do them much good in the face of the storm. Once it was ripped loose, the ride became even more violent. Time and time again, they were thrown from the raft only to have to swim back and climb back on, every time making them just a little bit weaker and stealing their body heat. Nearby a German freighter, the Christine Sartori, had seen the stricken Carl D. Bradley and was struggling against the storm to reach it to lend aid. It took over an hour just to reach the spot four miles away where the Bradley sank. They scanned the waters in hopes of saving any sailors they could. In the life breath, they had used two flares in hopes to be seen in the storm. When they saw the Sartori within less than a mile of them, they pulled out their last flare and tried to ignite it, but it failed. The flare had gotten too wet, so they could only scream and wave their arms as the freighter passed them. They had just missed being spotted by its searchlight when the raft dipped behind a wave. After the Sartori steamed away, hope dimmed on the small raft. One large wave crashed into them and overturned the raft, sending all four men plunging back into the water. Gary, Elmer, and Frank all managed to pull themselves back on, but Dennis, already barely awake, was only able to cling to the side. The other men were far too weak to pull him up. After a few hours passed, Elmer realized that Dennis's face was in the water. He pulled his head up out of the water only to realize that he was already gone. He lifted his arms from the raft and let him float away. Dennis' body was never found. Hypothermia soon began setting in for the other three men. Gary was the first to begin slipping in and out of consciousness. Frank and Elmer did their best to keep him alert, but just before daybreak, Gary began mumbling about swimming to shore, convinced he could make it. They tried to stop him, but he pushed his way off the raft and began swimming away, leaving Frank Mays and Elmer Fleming alone on the raft as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon. The moment the Bradleys made a call echoed over the radio, life saving stations in the area began organizing search and rescue efforts. The storm and area of the sinking made things difficult. The station at Plum Island sent out a thirty six foot boat, but the crew was unable to make any way in the storm and was forced to shelter near Washington Island. At the Coast Guard station in Charlevaux, the one hundred eighty foot cutter Sundu was the best equipped vessel in the area to mount a search. But much of her crew was on shore leave at the time. But Captain Harold Mouth managed to have it ready to sail within an hour of receiving the distress call and arrived on the scene at ten forty PM to join the Satori in the search for survivors. The Coast Guard cutter Hollyhock from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, arrived on the scene at one hundred thirty. Relatives of the Bradley's crew rushed to the Coast Guard station in Charleau, knowing that the survivors would be brought there first. But any hope of locating any of the Bradley's crew dimmed as the night turned to mourning. Captain Muth knew all too well that it was unlikely anyone, even in a proper lifeboat, could survive the night in these conditions. Standing near him on the bridge was watchman Richard Sellison, scanning the horizon through his binoculars when he waved to get the captain's attention. He had spotted something bobbing in the water. It was there they saw the small raft with two men come into view. The Sundew was brought alongside to offer some protection. Crew began to climb down cargo nets and gently stepped on the raft, securing lines to their ship before lifting the two barely conscious men onto the deck of the Sundew. Both men were soon brought back to full consciousness and insisted that the Sundew remain in the area and keep up the search for survivors rather than sailing them back to shore for full medical care. The search continued as more and more ships joined in. Just after 1 PM, another vessel, the TransOntario, spotted someone in the water floating on his back. It was Gary, somehow still alive after spending hours in the water. He was brought on board, but he was barely clinging to life. They tried to airlift him by helicopter to a hospital, but as soon as the helicopter arrived to take him aboard, Gary passed away on the Trans Ontario. The search continued, but now the Sundew and other ships only found bodies. Not long after picking up Frank and Elmer, a helicopter spotted an overturned lifeboat. They raced to investigate, but when they found the boat, it looked like it had never been used. It had likely broke free from the ship when it sank. In total, eighteen bodies were recovered, fifteen were never found. In addition to the bodies picked up, they found a number of life jackets that were fastened but empty, which meant that men wearing them had slipped out of them sometime in the night. Roger City, Michigan, being so tightly linked to the Carl D. Bradley and shipping in general, was hit hard by the sinking. Twenty three women were widowed and fifty-three children lost their fathers. Two unborn babies would never meet their dad. Frank Mays and Elmer Fleming would go on to make full recoveries and share their stories. An investigation by the Coast Guard Marine Board was quickly launched. Their findings concluded that the Bradley sank from excessive hogging stresses and concluded that Captain Bryan exercised poor judgment when he decided to leave the protected coast of Wisconsin and sail into the open lake during the storm. They then issued a series of recommendations, including changes to make it easier to launch lifeboats in an emergency, additional life rafts and flares, and life jackets that included straps and collars to support the neck. But both Elmer and Frank were adamant that the Bradley split in two. Their claims were widely accepted and the commandant of the United States Coast Guard, Vice Admiral AC Richmond, issued his own report contradicting the Marine Board's findings. He concluded that Captain Bryan did not exercise poor judgment and based on reports that the ship was riding fine in the storm, did not take any extra risks. Instead, the Bradley sank after breaking out due to an undetected structural weakness or defect. So the controversy over what exactly happened continued on. If the Bradley sank in the storm due to poor seamanship, the accident could be considered an act of God, which meant US Steel was not liable at all. But if the ship had broken apart, they would be at fault for operating an unsafe and shitty ship. Less than one year later, in 1959, the United States Army Corps of Engineers located the wreck using Sonar, five miles northwest of Boulder Reef, just south of Gaul Island. U.S. Steel quickly commissioned a survey of the wreck using underwater cameras. The murky footage produced by the The expedition appeared to show the Bradley resting on the lake bed intact, supporting their claims that the tragedy was an act of God. But the survey was conducted in secrecy without any sort of witnesses overseeing the job. But we all know a major corporation would never do something sneaky like lie about something to cover their S's. But hey, a settlement was reached a little over a year after the accident in which US Steel would give$1.2 million that would be divided amongst the victims' families. So see, definitely not bad guys. They were quick to pay out a poultry settlement and definitely didn't leave many families in a dire financial situation after losing their only source of income. Frank Mays was dead set about what he had witnessed that night. In 1995, he joined an expedition that sought to dive the wreck once again and finally prove that the Bradley indeed broke apart. But poor visibility made it impossible to verify. During this dive though, Frank was able to place a plaque on the wreck to honor his fellow crewmen. Unable to give up, they would try again. In 1997, the same team sent an ROV to examine the wreck. Finally, they were able to observe the break in her hull, exactly where Frank and Elmer described it. Frank would later write, I saw it go down in two pieces on the surface, and now I've seen it in two pieces on the bottom of Lake Michigan. Frank Mays lived long enough to share his story with the world. He wrote a book about that night and spoke frequently about the sinking. He, however, passed away in 2021. And that was the sinking of the Carl D. Bradley. Thanks for listening, and if you liked the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice. And you can reach out to the show at histories of disaster at gmail.com with questions, comments, or suggestions. As well as following the show on social media like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. And share the episode. Your friends will love it. And while you're out there, peg a penguin, sail a boat, chase that dream, live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye. Free audio postproduction by Alphonic.com