P-3 Edmund Fitzgerald, Capt. Darrell Meets Ric Mixter, Conclusion

Añadido: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]He is a good voice in all of this to really put some framing on what was going on. You know, this captain made bad calls and Bquette doesn't pull any punches on that.

[00:00:09]>> But he said he heard on the radio him telling uh Captain Cooper, I got to throttle back.

[00:00:15]>> Is that because anybody else hear this?

[00:00:18]I don't know.

[00:00:18]>> I don't know. When he was talking to Pquette heard him over saying that to to uh the Anderson supposedly that's what Pquette said is in his book. I understand what he said.

[00:00:28]>> Yeah. And I, you know, to me, I don't I can't because it's something he heard and nobody else has endorsed to say it was heard. Or did it show up in the Coast Guard report is important.

[00:00:35]>> They never even called him to the w the to witness.

[00:00:38]>> What is that about? I I don't know. I mean, they didn't call the cook either.

[00:00:42]And and Jim Wilson told me, "Well, he's a cook. He's just, you know, he doesn't."

[00:00:46]>> Red was pretty uh knowledgeable. He heard a lot of things.

[00:00:50]>> One of the greatest interviews next to my 1913 survivor, the Wheelman, that went down, you know, on the HP Hog. the greatest interviews I've had the honor to do. So, and Bergner tragically was killed in a car accident, you know, which again, if you want to be a conspira, yeah, a conspiracy theorist would say, >> boy, he was shooting his mouth off, but I don't believe in ghosts or gold or anything, you know. To me, it's it's about trying to get to the facts and Red was very upset because he brought many of those guys on the Fitzgerald. And it wasn't a hard sell. I mean, this ship had air conditioning. It was outfitted beautifully. It was a flagship.

[00:01:23]everybody wanted to get on that boat.

[00:01:25]Um, but he doesn't pull any punches when it comes to what he saw physically saw with his own eyes and and it's discounted by so many people and we and we we bring up, you know, all this other nonsense about rocks being found and um, you know, invisible uh, waves that never happened. There's a big wave. There's probably two big waves, but there weren't three sisters the way people describe.

[00:01:47]>> You getting a copy of that? Is there a way for you?

[00:01:49]>> Absolutely. I'd love to have a copy of that. Oh, with your research, I'm honored to share anything I have.

[00:01:53]>> Are you writing a new book in the works or >> I I've got a book right now. Well, I just finished Howling Winds, which is all about dogs on shipwrecks. And I'm now writing Soul Survivors. It's called Last Witness.

[00:02:03]>> The presentation, which you saw, that was an excellent presentation. And was that your idea? The whole Cuz I knew about Everybody knows about Dennis Hail and the Morell, but you did the d deep dive into soul survivors reaching back in the 1800s. I didn't know there was so many. Well, if you think there's 25,000 people that lost their lives on the Great Lakes, it's kind of amazing there's only about 20 that were soul survivors. I mean, they they didn't get a lot of press. A lot of them wouldn't talk. So, if a newspaper guy or later television people or radio can't get access, there's no story, right? You can't really write much. So, a lot of that stuff vanishes to time. But I'm lucky enough to to cross um this the story beyond just the shipwreck and go into some of the dynamics, who owned the boat, what was happening in the world.

[00:02:45]And that's what a good historian does and what you guys do so well is making it fit into the the bigger picture. And every time I get people asking me questions about what you guys talk about and it is the highlight um for me to be able to chat about these things because you bring up different parts and you explore them. You don't say this is true or this isn't. And it it's just an honor to be part of your research too.

[00:03:08]>> Did you know Frank May?

[00:03:09]>> Oh yeah.

[00:03:10]>> Of the Bradley.

[00:03:10]>> Oh, I dove I dove Yeah. We brought him back to go dive the Bradley. I'm the one that helped find the Bradley.

[00:03:15]>> I'm so angry at myself that I didn't take the opportunity to sit down with Dennis Hail andor Frank Maize.

[00:03:22]>> I not only interviewed Maize, I interviewed Buma who ran US Steel at the time because they were getting a raw deal too. A lot of these bluecollar theories of how the shipping companies are forcing people to go out and do this is bull. The crew would never, especially on the Fitzgerald, Ogo Bay Norton didn't want to lose $8 million worth of ship. two amazing captains and 27 other crew members that were highly trained for a belly full of rocks. No, you know this nonsense that the shipping company somehow pushed to do this.

[00:03:53]Mixurly was doing good and so was Pulzer for that matter. All the crew captains before risked a lot of things pushing cargo through to break records. And of course the beneficiary is the steel companies in Oggo Bay Norton. But I don't think for a second they sat there going you know excellent let's ruin the ship you know and push it till it ends.

[00:04:12]And the Bradley is a classic example of uh Captain Bryant knew that that ship had problems. It was rotted through and he could have stopped. He knew the storm was happening when he left Gary unloaded and sadly everybody paid the price. But they knew the Fitzgerald had problems, too.

[00:04:27]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:04:28]>> Do you think it was going to go to the shipyard that that winter? And >> yeah, it wasn't going to be lengthened.

[00:04:33]They had plans drawn up. In fact, if you go to the m um the library at Superior, the plans are there for the extensioning. They were going to lengthen that boat and eventually she probably would have gotten a crane like everybody else. But, um, Fitzgerald, I I think it it was the, you know, it was a beautiful ship. Everybody loved it. It >> was I've been on it. Yeah. Beautiful boat is right. It was beautiful. It's a tragedy, but we should also not just remember the crew, but celebrate what this meant. This is a 200-year legacy of building ships on the Detroit River.

[00:05:02]This is building from the British building warships to the Fitzgerald, which was really near the end. The Homer and the Jackson came out after that and we were done.

[00:05:09]>> You talking specifically Zug Island?

[00:05:11]>> I'm No, I'm talking all of the river because we even Edund Fitzgerald's uncle built another Edund Fitzgerald that sank in November. um uh went down with all six crew members off of Longpoint. So, this legacy goes way back to even sailing vessels and that's what needs to be c celebrated the mecca of ship building from the St. Clair to the Detroit River and remember the fact that these people these men and women that would you know build the ships that would sail the ships there was a woman cook on the first run of the Fitzgerald when it went out. So, women were on board that boat too and the crews that built them took their time. And they they told me right to my face, "We knew men and women would be on these boats.

[00:05:50]We did not build a piece of crap. I mean, we built a good boat." And they did. It just they never thought that people would run it as hard as Pulsar and Msurley did.

[00:05:59]>> There's one thing that stands out to me since we started doing these videos on the fits and the Great Lakes is how much fascination there is about the Great Lakes and the shipping industry, not just in America, but across the globe.

[00:06:12]>> I couldn't believe it. As the history man, you bring this to people that the stories beyond the fits. The Fitz is a wonderful catalyst that should allow people to start looking into 13 storm, look into the 1940 storm, which was twice the the furosity.

[00:06:27]>> The 1872 storm.

[00:06:28]>> That's right. Oh my gosh. Another amazing storm. No, in 1835. I mean, there's all kinds of incredible 1852 big gales that came in that unfortunately we don't have a lot of good reporting on, but the Fitzgerald should be our launch to that. Not the end all be all of of the ships on the Great Lakes. Let's remember the 25,000 other people who've died. The 12,000 other ships that didn't have a song from Gordon Lightoot.

[00:06:53]>> Yes. That you can dive on if you like.

[00:06:54]You know, >> every one of them we can dive. The only one we can't in the United States is the Arizona. And guess what? 7 million people go to see that every year. They walk over the top of it and nobody bats an eye. Everybody goes to the 9/11 plane crash site to remember. And we remember at the site where the buildings were crashed into, too. Grave sites are important. It's where we remember. And yes, we should be solemn about it. I've been to the Holocaust museums. Should we erase all that stuff? No, we must remember that. And the Fitz is the same way. Should we be able to dive it?

[00:07:27]Absolutely. Go down there with respect.

[00:07:29]I'll never go back to the site where I know that body is. Why would I? We already stopped that notion that Lake Superior doesn't give up. It's dead and we'll never go back there again. And I'm not looking for other bodies. I'm looking for what happened. And it's out of curiosity, not out of some silliness that I'll save lives or do something from it. I'm just curious. And that's what human beings do. That's why every show on TV right now is CSI. How many shows do we have about murder investigation? I mean there's every show on channel is and it's because of our curiosity and we shouldn't hide from that and if it hurts somebody's feelings yes we should keep that in mind but we shouldn't just quit doing it because you know or worse change the song lyrics of your song >> how long is it going to take for this tide to turn I mean I know it is already up to someone >> the loudest voices and they were very important voices on the Fitzgerald have passed um Ruth and Cheryl were amazing advocates but not always on target for the way it should have been handled and those voices are quiet now. And in many ways, Cheryl's got a a son that is taking up that too and I respect that.

[00:08:34]But, um, they also have to look at us, too. You can't just take something on one side and say, "I lost a loved one, and this is this is the end of a bigger picture." And, uh, there's a lot more people that stand behind. We should go look and look, you know, >> an investigation sides both sides of the coin is what an investigation is supposed to be.

[00:08:51]>> As a television reporter, that's what I do. didn't go and call the families after car crashes or fires and say, "How will this make you feel?"

[00:08:57]>> Isn't that what Fred Shannon was doing as a as a former police officer? I don't think he went specific. He certainly didn't specifically look for a body. I know better than that.

[00:09:05]>> And and I'd love to take full credit for that, you know, as a as a team. But the truth is a young man went out there and we got lost. So much of our compass was going like this. So to pretend that somehow we did this thorough investigation.

[00:09:16]>> You hear what he just said?

[00:09:17]>> Carl Nerd, captain of the Middletown, said the same thing on what that his compass was just spin. Yeah.

[00:09:23]>> Yeah. So, think about going down in a submarine. I'm trying to find places and mapping things on the bottom and they come up with this detailed map that Fred had and I'm like, "How did you do that?"

[00:09:33]If you don't know what direction your sub's going, you don't know the distance between these things. So, until we go down with sonar, highdefinition sonar, and map everything out and get exact coordinates for where the ship is, what way it lies, I'm not even convinced it's on course. I'm taking the Coast Guard's word for that. I don't know anybody that's measured it.

[00:09:52]>> Can Canada are they allowed to move that demarcation line and prove it's all in?

[00:09:56]>> I don't think so.

[00:09:57]>> I don't think so either.

[00:09:58]>> I don't I don't think they do it. And the other part is will they enforce it?

[00:10:02]And I know you guys um have covered this. They have three wrecks that you can't dive. The Hamilton and Scourge are two from the War of 1812 that sank in a big storm and they said you cannot dive it and the city of Hamilton took it over and they basically said you can't go.

[00:10:17]Even qualified archaeologists have said, "This is too important. There's cannons or skeletons on this, we should do a photoggramometry of the model so that we have um before the zebras and the quagles destroy it. We should have something there." And they all like, "Well, you need $5 million worth of insurance." They keep raising it up to where you can't do it. So, what do divers do? They go diving dive it anyways. And what does the Canadian government do? Nothing. They have a big bark and everybody talks about how if you ride over the top of it, they'll arrest you. But they've done nothing to the divers who've published, they've been there on those two ships. And I think with the Fitzgerald, they don't have an underwater archaeologist. They haven't since 2011. The ministry, it's important to them, but it is not a priority to them. So I think you're going to see pretty much it's gonna it's going to come back.

[00:11:04]>> How would they know if somebody takes their boat over with a size scan sonar or how who they got?

[00:11:10]>> It comes down to ethics. Now, you know, for our museum, we've got the tools.

[00:11:13]We've been within 5 miles of it because we've found shipwrecks out that way, but the ethics are we are very, very much attached as a museum to the family members. And if this upsets them, it won't be done. If there's ever a concise movement and I'm one of the very few on the board that says, "Let's go back." In fact, to the detriment that where people want me removed from the board, I think at one point we'll have family members that'll say, "I'd like to know more about this." and it'll be farther removed from somebody who might have actually remembered them.

[00:11:43]>> The Fitzgerald belongs to the world now thanks to I think to Gordon.

[00:11:48]>> Thank you for putting it that way. But I would never be so bold as to say the family members get less of a voice. They don't. They should be loved and they should be remembered and Gordon Lightoot did the most amazing thing for them.

[00:11:59]They get that where 25,000 other people don't. Maize looked at me from the Bradley and he said they get all the love and the attention on the Fitzgerald families and we get nothing. So, you know, I I to me that resonates and I will always go for the other shipwrecks, too. And that's my Fitzgerald is this much. I've got, you know, 5,000 other shipwrecks I've done stories on. So, it the Fitzgerald's very important to me.

[00:12:22]It's dear to me, but I'll be very happy to be a little ways away from it after 50, you know, 40 lectures last year and probably 10 more this year.

[00:12:30]>> Are you one of the last final remaining humans that actually doveled on the Fitzgerald? Are there any left?

[00:12:36]>> No, there's several. In fact, yeah, if you think about it, um, uh, Cleia went down, um, Tom Farnquist, Jean Cornin from the museum that, um, >> is here.

[00:12:46]>> Yeah, he is. Would be great. Um, Larry Elliot, who was, uh, with ABC 12. Yeah.

[00:12:51]Um, a lot of the guys from the Canadian Navy, they went down several times. Emry Kristoff, I think, did eight dives on the Fitzgerald, and all of that footage, I don't think, has ever come to light.

[00:13:01]So, this is high definition stuff that he went down. Is that footage going to re remain under lock and keys till the end of time?

[00:13:08]>> Well, the good highlight stuff I know the museum has because um Cory shares it with all of the stations that want to documentaries. So, Emry's work even after his death is being shared with people, but not all of it. I don't think that every bit of it from every dive was recorded. I don't see a log book to that either. So, >> is there a chance that those two Navy divers that went down, is there any chance at all that they could have got in there and got that log book? No, they weren't Navy. Um, there's a lot of people who don't believe that those two divers did it. And it's it's sus suspect in many ways. If you dive down there to do this and don't take a picture of it and then go and tell the newspapers you all did it, I think there's reason to be suspect on it. They also made it very hard on us divers. We started the fire by going down and finding a body and recording it. And that made the families upset. But when divers could now do it without $70,000, they could go down and do it on on open circuit scuba and rebreathers. This opened it up to the families saying nobody's going back. And when Whitefish went over it with sonar, that was the the end. Ruth and Cheryl weren't going to have that. So it got completely shut down. And that's where we saw the divers do the most damage.

[00:14:16]Whether they did it or not, they did the most damage because now it made it accessible to people who maybe don't have the wherewithal to do it or maybe the ethics about taking it. I don't think they took the log books. They they went down, they touched the shipwreck, they only had 4 minutes down there and then they had uh hours to come back up to decompress.

[00:14:34]>> Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the morale and the Bradley's log book was able to be brought up.

[00:14:38]>> They were the years Cedarville's log book did something. It actually told us that the captain never slowed down. So that it was something. Morelss were freezedried and preserved. Nothing was in there. Um the diary from the captain on the 1913 ship, McConi, was on Regina.

[00:14:55]His diary came ashore. Nothing written.

[00:14:57]When you're in a big storm, you don't go, "Let's put this in the log book of what's happening right now. What vents are missing right now?" I don't think it'll help us to get the log book, sadly.

[00:15:06]>> Do you think they're still down or there?

[00:15:08]>> Oh, they're there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they're preserved and they're inside the drawer. you know, the ceiling fell down and it obscured everything. So, you'd have to physically go inside, but we have technology now that could do it. Is it worth it, though? Again, you know, and would we find a body inside that pilot house? I think we definitely >> probably down flushed down the back staircase is my guess.

[00:15:28]>> Absolutely.

[00:15:28]>> I can see that in my mind's right now.

[00:15:30]>> It the violence of that impact with the bottom was terrifying. And to see the damage that's there and how it's all plowed to the side, the port side of the the the ship. It hit with a great force there and everything's all scattered in there.

[00:15:43]>> Amazing. Just amazing.

[00:15:46]>> I am so proud to be able to finally meet you in person.

[00:15:49]>> It's been too long is what I say.

[00:15:51]>> I I Well, we went to White Fish Point. I thought I'd see you there. Oh, yeah. I hear you're down in Toledo with my brother.

[00:15:56]>> Oh my gosh. White White Fish is the place I'll avoid. You'll never see me at bell ringings. And I told them at at Toledo, I I'll only ring the bell for all of the sailors lost because it's hypocritical for me to go and touch that bell when I'm critical of the the team on the Fitzgerald. I respect them. Their stories I want to preserve, but the truth is it's been done so well. It's not within my purview to to spend a lot of time on that. There's so much more that should Who was the guy that found it in an airplane? You know, nobody knew this. I thought that would be my chapter and that's what I did. Who were the pilots that were in the submarines? What did they do? That to me is important.

[00:16:34]But the new book by Bacon kind of rehashes a lot of what we saw from was it Boyer that did the original Gail's a November book. He he got access to the widow of Mick Surley and stuff. He had the best book and I thought why redo that you know my stuff is the stuff that exists today and the dives that we've done and especially the chapter with Fred Shannon which I think continues to be blaspheied for what he did and what his intentions were because of Ruth and Cheryl who just hated him so much and fed this stuff into a system um that I don't think was fair and uh and his legacy certainly was tarnished but um he didn't deserve a lot of that. Can I get a copy of that of that video?

[00:17:15]>> Guaranteed. Yeah. If you have the book, I'll give you a book, too. Yeah.

[00:17:17]>> Yeah. I No, I I love >> you know, after listening to your lectures this week, uh you inspired me to volunteer on the William Mather.

[00:17:24]>> Stop. That is the best compliment I've ever gotten. That is >> cuz you're right. It's funny. I went there last summer and the the one tour guide I was hanging out with the whole time and she's like, "You you have we need you here. You have to volunteer.

[00:17:37]We're really struggling." Mather is tough because it's this the the bastard stepchild of that science museum. They took it over and thank God they did. But every time I go on there, it's a ghost.

[00:17:48]Nobody's there.

[00:17:49]>> How about the family members? I don't know. My my aunt got 600 bucks.

[00:17:53]>> Do you know what they tried to do? They tried to pay off some of their cars and they're like$8 or $7,000, but then the officers were all going to get $100,000.

[00:18:01]And that's when uh the cook uh Burger comes out and says, "Bullshit. These guy, I put them on this boat. I want them to get some money. They came up with a much better settlement. Although I think Frank May's got 58,000 there.

[00:18:13]But you there's people who spill coffee on their legs at McDonald's >> and get a million.

[00:18:17]>> Yeah. So what we're seeing now is, you know, and they all suddenly they should have went to trial. They should have known that they had a good case and they would have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from the shipping