Two Minnesota divers make Lake Michigan history

By Lora Pabst, Star Tribune

Last update: November 21, 2007 - 10:10 AM

After two local divers, John Janzen and John Scoles, met the last remaining survivor of a 1950s Lake Michigan shipwreck, they knew they had to dive to the site about 370 feet below the surface.

In 2004 at a diving and shipwreck show in Minneapolis, Janzen of Champlin and Scoles of Farmington met Frank Mays, who was 26 when the freighter Carl D. Bradley sank on Nov. 18, 1958.

"For me, it was meeting Frank that really was the inspiration," Janzen said.

This August, Scoles and Janzen retrieved the ship's original bell and replaced it with an honorary bell engraved with the names of the 33 crew members who died. Most of the sailors were from the ship's home port of Rogers City, Mich.

"The main reason we did it is for the family members, hoping it would bring some comfort and closure," Scoles said.

Mays, who now lives in Florida, was one of only two people who survived by clinging to a lifeboat during the storm that claimed the ship. He has gone out on Lake Michigan with Scoles and Janzen on several of their dives, including the most recent one when they retrieved the bell.

"I hadn't seen the bell in 49 years and all of a sudden, it pops up," Mays said. "I thought it would never happen after the Bradley went down."

For the divers, exploring the Carl D. Bradley wreck is not a responsibility they take lightly. Few people have been to the site because of its depth. After seeking permission from Michigan government agencies, Scoles and Janzen became the first divers to reach the stern of the wreck.

"It's easily the most rewarding thing I've done and the most stressful because there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong," Janzen said. "I didn't want to lose the bell because that would be blasphemous. If you drop it, it's gone."

The two divers planned how to retrieve the bell for several months, including creating their own portable battery system to operate the underwater torch needed to detach the bell and doing several practice dives in Wisconsin's Wazee Lake. They did separate dives to remove the original bell and attach the replacement bell.

"The bell is the soul of the ship," Scoles said. "You can't just take the real bell off the ship and not put anything back."

The original bell was given to the Great Lakes Lore Maritime Museum in Rogers City, where the director, David Erickson, restored it and will ring it for the first time at the 50th anniversary of the sinking next year. He said some family members of the Bradley crew still live in Rogers City.

"It's home is here in Rogers City where all the families of the crew members live," he said. "It's 50 years ago, but there are still a lot of them who lost fathers and brothers. It's just like it happened yesterday."

Janzen and Scoles agreed to dive mainly around the outside of the 600-plus-foot ship and enter only a few designated rooms -- out of respect for the crew members' remains likely still in the wreck.

Mays said he is glad other people are interested in preserving the history of the ship. He wrote a book, "If We Make It 'Til Daylight," that documents his experience the night of the shipwreck.

"What happened that night, every detail, is burned in my mind," he said. "I'll never forget it."

He said he was glad that Janzen and Scoles were able to bring up the bell so the crew members' families could have a memorial to the lost sailors.

"It's the ship that time forgot, and it's about time it's brought back into being," Mays said.

Lora Pabst • 612-673-4628

Lora Pabst • lpabst@startribune.com

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