The Tragic Loss of the Daniel J. Morrell
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2024
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Early on the morning of November 29th, 1966, the 60-year-old Daniel J. Morrell split in two while fighting a storm on Lake Huron. 8 minutes later, most of her crew were thrown to the mercy of the Great Lakes. Only one man survived.
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Sources:
Torn in Two by Michael Schumacher: amzn.to/3IXnbqC
Shipwrecked: Reflections By Dennis Hale: amzn.to/3J09Y0h
Ships and Men of the Great Lakes by Dwight Boyer amzn.to/3J04se0
www.freep.com/picture-gallery...
www.fleming-billman.com/notic...
www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/2...
www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DC...
Music sourced from Epidemic Sound (www.epidemicsound.com/referra...)
Video sources:
catalog.archives.gov/
www.loc.gov/
archive.org/details/prelinger
www.pond5.com/
Chapters:
00:00 The Daniel J. Morrell
2:48 Chapter 1: 60 Years
6:33 Chapter 2: Missing the Boat
9:25 Chapter 3: Two Captains and the Witch of November
15:16 Chapter 4: 8 Minutes
20:02 Chapter 5: Sisters in the Storm
22:21 Chapter 6: A Peacoat Over a Life Jacket
30:23 Chapter 7: Looking Back
Disclaimer: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with my links, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue providing free high-quality historical content.
Thank you for watching! This is one of the most emotionally intense stories I've ever covered on this channel. I'm glad to be able to share it with all of you.
Thank you for another great story. Keep up the good work, we so enjoy your films ❤
This was a perfect one for Easter Day! 💙⚓💦 Keep it up - you make a difference 🌷🐇 I'm from Wisconsin & The Great Lakes and the plant the farmer is showcasing is our Northern Tobacco grown for chew & cigar binding although he's smoking Southern Tobacco 😆 we also had the same chickens & cattle you show, awww. As a kid, I used to stand on the desolate shore and pump my arm asking these big lake freighters to blow their horns - and they would!!! BAAAAAAAAAAAW!!! 😻 This is my dad's first Easter in Heaven and this episode was also perfect for that as I'm headed back to Lake Superior from Alaska to visit his grave for the first time💕 He was a Tobacco farmer and his other biz was named after Lake Superior ⚓ I remember as a kid my mom wouldn't let us go near the shore because the water was so cold and said only my dad could go down because he wanted to wash his hair. So I carefully watched him, wondering why it was so dangerous, and he came back saying it was very cold!!! Happy Easter! 🌎
I once made love on a boat
Great video but the captions got out of sync a little ways in
@@lordcantiismyname Fixed! 🥴
The last run of the season was so often the last run period, really shows how violent these November gales can be. And yet every year more had to sail off again late on the season, for a last run ordered by men in suits safe in their offices. Tragic.
Reminds me of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Very true
yeah and the "investigation" sounded like it only involved the structural integrity of the ship. completely ignoring the lack of moral integrity of its owners
I only live a few miles from the wreck and when the water is clear enough, if you drive your boat over it you can see the ere shadow from the surface, kinda bone chilling.
Very spooky!
Is it diving spot?
Ahhh, the one "benefit" of the Zebra Muscle - the invasive "bottom of the food chain" in/on/of our Great Lakes.
Really glad to see the great lakes shipwrecks getting their time in the spotlight. I grew up in a family of divers who spent lots of time searching Lake Huron for undiscovered wrecks in the 80's and early 90's. I met Dennis several times and can attest to his harrowing story. I believe he wrote a book called "Sole Survivor" that is a very good read. My Mother was pregnant with me while diving the bow of the Morrell. So I guess I've been there too. Great video!
Cool story, thanks!
Yes technically you’ve been to the wreck! V cool
Your mom didn’t know it, but she became a submarine in that moment 😂
I cannot emphasize enough how flawless the presentation of this story is: the footage, music, narration and transitions create the eeriest vibe and elevates the feelings of dread and loss in a way that I've seen few achieve on this platform. Incredible work
Yes, I agree! This man makes excellent videos. They really draw you into the story and the plight of these men weighs heavily on your heart. He's an excellent story teller!
I was just thinking the same thing, very well said. The presentation of this man's stories are phenomenal and some of the best on the platform, and most definitely the best in this genre.
Please do a video on the francisco morazan it’s wrecked off of south manitou island in make Michigan
Wonderfully stated, sir!
Excellent Job, I was fortunate enough to hear the story from Mr Hale when he was curator at the Ashtabula Maritime and Surface Transportation Museum. Truly sad and inspirational.
Wow. I can't imagine hearing his first hand account...what an amazing man.
I cannot imagine the horror Dennis Hale went through. And having to live the rest of his life knowing all his other shipmates didn’t make it as well.
Between this and the Carl D. Bradley, these Great Lakes cargo ships seemed like they had a major design flaw.
Yeah, the owners and their greed
@@MrGoesBoomTouché, sir!
Those late season runs in the storms is what did many of them in, not just the Bradley and the Morrel, the great storm of 1913 sank 9 ships and damaged or destroyed 40 more. Also consider the strain these boats were under, loading and unloading cargo on pretty much a weekly basis for 9 months out of the year, plus scraping docks, and pushing through the notoriously bad weather of the lakes can take its toll, especially as they age. The Bradley was 31 years old when it split, and the Daniel J Morrell was 60. As for Dennis Hale, he went through something no being should ever have to endure, and he deserved every last handshake of respect he ever received after 38 hours on that dinky little life raft.
Not to mention what the crew on the Edmund Fitzgerald must've gone through in their last moments. Obviously all of those men were lost, and whatever happened must've been immediate and catastrophic due to there being no mayday call, but it must've been horrible.
The techniques used to quickly make steel before 1948 led the steel to be notoriously brittle. Combined with the fact that freshwater reacts much more violently and brutally than saltwater to storms, and it's a perfect combination for the worst possible outcomes.
The Daniel J Morrell is something straight out of my nightmares. One of my biggest (and most irrational fears) is to be on a large vessel that is breaking up in deep water. I don’t know why, but the larger the vessel the more it fills me with dread. It would scare the absolute bejesus out of me to wake up to see such a large vessel torn in half. I can only imagine the horror of seeing the stern still travelling on to its doom like a ghost ship. I was half expecting to hear that he saw his crew mates staring back at him in silent horror.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours...
That neckbeard is going to haunt my dreams.
‘the larger the vessel the more it feels me with dread.’ Maybe it’s because larger ships are more likely to survive storms, so for a storm to break up a large ship it has to be very powerful.
@@tomfields3682 Many have claimed that it is, *was*, His love that brought them through those very same minutes that turned into hours for them, waves of water or not, and that His love never disappeared nor disappears and definitely did not cause the tragedy, whatever situation they were in.
@@lt1nut It's all a matter of perspective. The all-knowing and all-powerful God knew the ship would be wrecked with the rest dead, but did nothing to prevent any of the tragedy. If you willingly did the same to your children you'd be called a horrible monster, not a 'loving' parent. So God could have prevented this but didn't, and the only conclusion I can come to is that either He didn't care, or that perhaps He isn't the all-knowing or all-seeing omnipotent figure we attribute Him to being. So whatever His reasons for this occurring are, He is responsible for it all and there's no point in praising Him for the saving of one among the many He callously let die. It's not a nice or pleasant perspective to have, only the unvarnished truth. Do with it what you will.
I have seen that photo of Daniel J. Morrell (the guy) a few times. Never noticed the neckbeard until you pointed it out. Good Lord. 🤣
His wife let him go out looking like that. I bet she hated him.
@@grmpEqweer 😂
I couldn't imagine being on a ship & having it snap in two and sink. then jumping into freezing water not knowing if help would come in time.
I was lucky enough hear Mr. Hale tell his story in person at the Minnesota History Center in the mid-1990s. He was quite a character.
I was a young sailor, serving aboard the USCGC Mackinaw at the time. We were removing stranded crewmen from the grounded German freighter “NORDMEER” in Thunder Bay (off Alpena, Michigan) when ordered to assist in the search for the Morrell. I manned a searchlight for part of the night and can tell you, the seas were horrendous… black, windblown, raging… with blankets of fog. Rest in Peace, mariners.
I served on the USS numbnutz one we rounded cape horn and faced 2 cyclones and a typhoon that merged onto a super cyclone typhoon with 200ft waves the numbnutz only survive because the crews training and that captains prayer
I get so sad when a "big old boat" is sold for scrap. I smiled when you said she broke away and sank. I thought it was a more fitting end for her. Great video, please keep up the excellent work.
Yes, watching the Manistee, Ojibway, and Crapo get ripped apart in Port Colborne over the last 2 years has made me cry more than once.
So sad. The greed. Bigger bigger, longer. More more more.
One glance at that thing and one could see that it was going to break in two. Those poor man......
Yes, cooperate greed was a death sentence for many over the years, as for the ship... there are much worse examples, like the 1000 footers of today.
And yet many didn't. It's all about the weather they were ordered to sail through.
@@randomlyentertaining8287they are bulk carriers one of the weakest ship design, metal box with thin walls, oil tankers are much tougher they have many inner walls
I cry every time I hear Dennis’ telling of what the afterlife might have been like. So much love, all timeless, lost people you know all together… But then to come back to reality… What a gut punch.
I have been a subscriber since the start of your big boat documentary content and the start of you making UA-cam a serious career, and I feel like this is one of the best pieces of work you have created. I never comment on anything, but I feel you should really be proud of yourself. I hope you continue making great documentaries far into the future!
I was born 60 miles from where this ship sunk. Heard this story 1000 times, you sir told it perfectly.
Very well done. I almost feel guilty watching these mini-docs of tragedies, but I do like the stories of survival and overcoming odds.
This is such sad story. The dangers these men lived with just to make a living is unspeakable. Thank you for honouring and memorializing them in this way. Wonderful video and I am totally captivated by the footage you include. Great job!
Another excellent video, thank you for telling their story so well and keeping the memory of Dennis Hale and the men who lost their lives on the Daniel J. Morrell alive. God bless all their souls. May they rest in peace. May perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of the faithful departed through the Mercy of God rest in peace, Amen.
Great narration and information. You put so much into the backstories of the people involved in the story, many videos just give facts and figures without even showing the faces of the people involved. Thanks for your fine work in keeping the memories and history alive.
OMG, BOB! I am a mess after watching this! I had prepared a smart ass comment when I saw your ad for your sponsor, but there's no way I can leave it now. Tears are still in my eyes. This is possibly your best vid yet! Thank you so much for this and for all you do!
That neck beard needs its own video
It is a greater wreck than all the ships featured on this channel combined. 😅
As usual those greedy individuals thinking only of themselves cost the lives of others. Let's hope "The Doc" will teach them otherwise wherever they are.!
Few stories I've heard are as painfully heartbreaking as Dennis Hale's. You told it so well in this video. I was hoping you'd do a video on the Morrell and you exceeded my expectations !
Spectacular storytelling man bravo!
You've done a wonderful job telling a sad story, thank you once again. Take care, keep safe.
A truly harrowing story, but beautifully told. Amazing production!
Your research and presentation are consistently thorough/in depth and well presented. I was delighted to see a new one this morning (the Easter Bunny came!)
Many thanks for all your great content.
As a Michigander who grew up within spitting distance of ore boats, I love your channel.
Incredible. Amazing story. I grew up in Michigan but know so little about shipping on the Great Lakes. You have an amazing narrative voice. I wish you the best and hope your channel continues to grow.
Great presentation. Thank you for posting.
The lifeboats weren't _entirely_ useless. If that lifeboat hadn't been there, Dennis Hale wouldn't have survived.
But yeah, they definitely needed some cold weather gear stored on them and other stuff like that.
The newer lake boats, like the MV Mark W. Barker, have the same sort of rapid-launching, fully-enclosed lifeboats as their oceangoing counterparts, something that would have seemed like the stuff of science fiction to the crew of the Daniel J. Morrell.
Rest easy Dennis. Hope your soul found peace after all the hell you lived with. Your crew was glad you made it.
Always excellent, detailed and compassionate. I can't afford to support the channel financially, but I hope that my supportive words go some way to compensate.
I am grateful to have met Dennis Hale at a museum in Ashtabula Ohio in the early 2000s. He recounted his story to us firsthand . Afterward, we bought his book Sole Survivor. It was amazing to hear of his ordeal from the person who experienced it.
I looked for the book on Amazon, and to my surprise they list the date of publication as January 1, 1709!!!
Excellent, and I do mean EXCELLENT presentation, with great video footage that hasn't been used over and over again. Not knocking the work of others, and unique footage can be hard to come by. Your in-depth presentation gave me a different perspective than the one I have developed over the years. Thank you for your hard work!
RIP❤ your survival was a miracle🎉 think of love❤
Great work BoB. RIP to all those brave souls and condolences to their families.
Wow!! I am blown away! that was one of the most emotional videos I have seen, spent 30 years in Coast Guard, although I was an aviator my heart goes out to those who serve at sea!! Thank you for sharing this emotional tale
What a story so sad to watch what a bloke to survive those conditions rip 🙏
wow, that out of body experience he went through was just incredible!
Your gift at story telling is impeccable. This is a fascinating one. The desperation and loneliness of Hale, cursing God for his horrific situation...so raw, so real...you really did an amazing job on this. I almost cried. 🌹⚓
That footage of split house and superior though...... I've been to that exact spot and I can tell you that the lake seems as if it is unsurvivable in a boat,ship, whatever! When lake superior gets angry, I wouldn't want to be out there. The great lakes are really something
Well done once again, and thanks as always.
Thanks for sharing this with us @BigOldBoats. Wonderful video
How do you build something so long not expecting it to hog or sag??
His story of his count of seeing his dead relatives and seeing heaven or the after life was surreal. Thank you for sharing this
I’m amazed at the pictures from the turn of the century. Clothing styles have completely changed, but the basic shape of the freighters has remained unchanged (mostly)
Very nice production/presentation. Good to see so much original historic footage rather than the usual cgi that many others use. Thanks.
Incredible, I was in tears by the end of the video, very well done !!!
Another amazing job, thank you!!
A very good rendition of this story.
Such a tragic, but beautiful survival story. You're absolutely one of my favorite UA-cam channels. Thank you for your dedication. 💯
“One last load”. It’s always one last load.
Thank you for another great video. Just discovered your channel and loving it!
Oh my goodness! This one made me cry. So sad😢 May they all rest in peace
Interesting account of Dennis Hale's near-death experience. Thank you for telling his story.
Long time fan of the channel and just want to say you have the perfect voice for these fascinating documentaries. Love learning so much from your videos!
The section at 27:50 was so beautifully done
Fantastic watch and very insightful. Thanks for the upload from Scotland ❤
Thanks for the video, it was great!
You…..are one HECK of a storyteller. I’m glad I subscribed sone time ago.
Hello. I really love your channel. Love the history and incredible stories. This one in particular really got to me. What an experience for that man. I'm am so glad to know of it. Thank you so much. Bless you.
Beautiful video - thank you!
Excellent work, yet again!
The wreck of the Townsend lies very near the wreck of the Titanic on the bottom of the Atlantic as she broke in two while being towed to Spain for scrapping.
I have to say that I welled up with tears when you recalled Dennis Hale's time on the raft, Truly an amazing story of Human Resolve and fortitude against all odds.
Amazing story. Loved the vintage footage and your soundtrack
Great video
Thank You
It’s always the last run…
Superb as usual. Thanks.
Great show as usual
very good video. Thank you for sharing. I live south of Sandusky, the great lakes are in my blood.
outstanding episode one of your best😊
Any ship that’s 60 years old and lasted the lakes that long was a great design.
Survivor guilt is a huge part of stress in the psychologically assaulted. I interviewed an uncle who had spent time as a prisoner of war for assignments. About the last thing he said was “how come I got to live when so many of my mates died”? That was 50 years after the event.
A beautiful presentation!
great story telling! awesome
What a story! God bless them all!
Well done. Thanks
I actually met him at the Cleveland boat show one year! It was a one on one conversation he told me the whole story! At the time I didn’t know who he was! But after I thanked him for sharing his life story he was a great person god rest his soul
Outstanding job!
Late that night the Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw out of Cheboygan Michigan, was recalled to rescue the German ship Nordmeer, which had gone aground a week before. We had gone down there to take off the crew, but left a salvage crew of 8 so no one could claim it as abandon. The storm that blasted across Lake Huron was pounding it, and had broken it in half - there was a 6-8 foot break on the deck forward of the bridge - and the crew was in great danger of ending up being swept off the shoal it was grounded on. I was the quartermaster of the mid watch (12am - 4am), and we were taking huge rolls. We had to tack going down as the troughs were parallel to the shore. The Mackinaw was 75 feet wide - like a football cut in half length wise - and could take tremendous rolls that would capsize narrower ships, but the CO, Capt George Winstein, knew that trying to stay in the troughs all the way there was too dangerous even for us. When we changed course we took 45 degree rolls (NOT a sea story). Sometime during the watch we heard someone begin repeatedly calling for the Morrell, but got no responses. Then the call was for anyone who might have seen it. Again, no response. Our goal was to get to the Nordmeer to rescue the salvage crew, and as the calls continued with no response, we on the bridge just looked at each other, pretty much knowing what that meant. With the last minute help from a CG helicopter we got the 8 men off and took them to shore. We then immediately pulled out to go look for the Morrell. Eventually we heard the Mr Hale had been found, and our orders were to begin looking for any others or debris, of which we found none. Eventually we were cut loose and sailed back to Cheboygan. The next week we were sent out again to search the lake floor for wreckage using our depth finder. Eventually it was found. After I got out of the CG I spent ten years as a long haul trucker, a really adventurous life in those days before regulations tightened up and way before electronic surveillance of trucks, but that night of the Nordmeer and Morrell 58 years ago still sits in my memory like it just happened. Many thanks to this site for telling the story.
With compliments, I lost time watching this very excellent presentation. Subscribed, liked (obviously), and shared. After hearing that a ship had broken in two and the stern was missing...but then, it rose up again, with the lights still on, above the bow for a moment...that had me hooked. I could almost imagine that. Terrifying stuff.
I admit to a certain degree of thalassophobia. It likely has something to do with the fact that I joined the Army, from a family of bubble-head sailors.
I appreciate the work you put into telling the stories of these sailors. The story of Dennis Hale and the horror he lived through sticks in my head a lot and I could not even begin to imagine what it felt like for the rest of the crew, especially those trapped on the stern as it galloped off into the night. It's a story that deserves to be told, and something that should not have been allowed to happen in the first place if the companies would just let their ships stay in port until the weather calmed down...
I'm not sure what happened but the subtitles from 2:50 to about 4:00, and again at 6:55 through 11:25 do not match the audio - it looks like the subtitles for the chapters got mixed up and they kind of went all over the place, like they glitched in the upload process or something. Even with that aside - I really do appreciate that you include subtitles for your videos and they read so much nicer than the auto-generated ones! Thank you for all the work you do!
You bring history to light and to life.
Great job, Brad.
Wow . Great video
Thank you for sharing. Ever since i first heard about Dennis’ story I’ve wanted to read more. What a terrible time he had to endure. But yet his story inspires me that no matter how bad things can be you can always come out on top. Recently I got his book and cannot wait to read it! Are you going to do a video on the Henry Steinbrenner?
Weird hearing my city name dropped so many times. Greetings from Windsor!
Almost every one of these tragedies involving Great Lakes freighters involves having to do one more run at the end of the shipping season. This is a recurring theme. No wonder so many are lost in late November.
Beautifully done⚓️
This is one of the best you’ve done.
These brave poor men what sorrow they had to go through God speed may they rest in peace with our father in heaven 🙏❤️😞
Happy Easter, great job as always putting everything together. I agree that people need to be kind to one another. I'm 53, and when i was growing up, people respected one another, i blame technology for distancing people from life.
That crew member Hall, i can relate to the near death thing, twice as a kid i nearly died from anaphylactic shock, and i was blue both time's my mom raced me to the ER, the dr. said i was lucky, but i say it was the grace of G-d. I nearly died 12 year's ago, and it was a miracle that i am here, and a lot goes through your mind, especially when it's you that is trying to end it. G-d bless.
Ashtabula Harbor just had the Cyahoga catch on fire while it was docked up for repairs. It's been there for awhile. My son and I look at from point park with binoculars while eating burgers. After-school routine 😊
*excited bearded dragon head bops* NEW BIG OLD BOATSSSSSSS
Atheists and scientists and skeptics and all of those people can say whatever they want. I am beyond utterly convinced that what Hale saw was the real deal. "Doc" was an angel that came to him to give him the strength to survive and to let him know how much he was loved.
Desolution
Well done. 👍
4:00 Re: the neckbeard, his wife must have HATED him to let him go out looking like that.