Captain Ernest Michael McSorley, a skilled and seasoned veteran of the Great Lakes, commanded the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on its final voyage in November 1975.
Born the same year as the 1912 Titanic disaster, McSorley worked his way up the ranks from deckhand to the youngest captain on the Great Lakes - and the Fitzgerald was his tenth command.
The largest iron ore carrier on the Great Lakes carried a 26,000-ton load of taconite pellets from Wisconsin toward Detroit.
Winds with the force of a hurricane battered Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975 - fatally flooding and shifting the Fitzgerald's cargo.
In his final radio message, McSorley was hopeful, saying: "We are holding our own."
Moment later, the Fitzgerald was gone - snapping in two on the lake floor near the mouth of Whitefish Bay. McSorley and his crew of 28 never had a chance. Their bodies were never recovered but the ship's bell was eventually retrieved.
