(WWJ) - This Thursday marks anniversary of the best known disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping as bells toll "29 times" and candles light up in remembrance of the Edmund Fitzgerald's ill-fated journey through a November storm 47 years ago.
And while most believe the last lines of the somber story were completed after the sunken freighter's bell was recovered from the depths of Lake Superior in 1995, author and journalist Ric Mixter told WWJ's Erin Vee that there is a wealth of information many don't know highlighted in his new book, “Tattletale Sounds.”
"There's 30 things in this book that haven't been published before and really the highlight is the personalities behind the people who built the ship near Detroit, the people who sailed on the vessel — I interviewed three 3rd Mates that sailed and got off obviously before the tragic ending — and I also was very, very interested in all the expeditions, the technology and even the people involved finding it."
In his new book, Mixter expands on the rescue efforts of the SS Arthur M. Anderson, the cargo ship most famous for being the first vessel to come to the aid of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
"Bernie Cooper is a hero," Mixter told Vee. "I would say in all the history, over 300 years of history on the Great Lakes, he has to be the most famous captain of all. And that's because he was asked by the Coast Guard, when they realized they couldn't get a boat out there in time, if he would turn around and go back into the storm that he knew killed 29 guys and sank a very modern freighter."
Cooper only did only one broadcast interview about ship's vain search for survivors that Mixter was able to find through the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society achieves.
"It really paid light into a guy where, yes he is a hero, but a reluctant hero," Mixter said. "...It really paints a different picture than what I think most people have read or have seen."
The book also delves into six expeditions carried out to explore the ship, one of which was attended by Mixter in 1994.
"Delta expedition was a little yellow submarine and I was the third dive so I actually got to see the Edmund Fitzgerald and spend over an hour on the bottom looking at both pieces and going through much of the things I just read about," Mixter explained.
The author described the experience as a "roller coaster" ride of emotions as everything from excitement to crushing sadness was felt on the trip, which included the discovery of a missing crewman's partly decomposed body outside the ship on the lake's bottom.
Up until then, it was believed that all missing crewmen were entombed within the wreckage of the the 729-foot ore carrier.
"Really, I think, no one has felt the impact of that being a gravesite more than us because we were there and our crew actually witnessed it and recorded it," Mixter added.
The author said many people, including the U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Government, did not expect the crew to find anything at the shipwreck site that hadn't been documented before. The area had previously been combed over by experts and explorers, such as the famous French oceanographer Jean Michel Cousteau.
"It kind of leads the implication that we did a better job," Mixter said. "I think we did find things that no one else has logged."
Outside of the 29 sailors who lost their lives on the ship during the November gale, Mixter also reflects on the lives changed and lost while building the mighty ship prior to it ever sailing on the Great Lakes.
Mixter said to hear from the men who poured their lives into working on the Edmund Fitzgerald fleshed out the bookends to the maritime disaster.
"That to me is really interesting. It's really those personalities and each one of them that had input about what the ship was."
A further revelation eludes to how the Edmund Fitzgerald may not be in Canadian waters like authorities say, which would open up the site to potentially uncontrolled exploration, a fear that many families of victim's share.
All this information and more about the Great Lake's most famous shipwreck are fleshed out within the pages of “Tattletale Sounds."
This Nov. 10, many will gather to honor the memory of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald while the bell chimes twenty-nine times for each sailor lost on that fateful voyage.
“There are so many secrets that have yet to come to the surface”, Mixter says, “I’ve been lucky to find such amazing people who have shared their personal experience with the legendary ship.”
“Tattletale Sounds” is available online at many maritime museums or at Mixter’s website www.shipwreckpodcast.com .