In regard to the wreck of the S.S. Novadoc, the story is essentially the same - a routine shipment turned disastrous as hurricane-force winds barreled across Lake Michigan, rendering the ship at the mercy of a once-in-a-lifetime blizzard.
The Novadoc was making a routine shipment of petroleum coke (a coal-like substance) from Chicago to Port Alfred, Quebec, and she was “light” as it embarked on the first leg of the journey from Montreal to Chicago. She was the youngest and smallest ship of the three freighters, narrow and compact, built to traverse the St. Lawrence River and the Welland Canal. She was an English-built ship made for the Canadian Commonwealth, one of a pack of several near-identical ships (many helpfully ending in the suffix “-doc.”)
Despite her light load and small size - either through divine providence or sheer luck - 17 of the Novadoc’s 19-man crew survived the wreck, providing testimony from the storm’s devastation and their harrowing rescue.
Once the storm began, Captain Donald Steip directed the crew to turn the ship to shore so that they might find shelter at port. As they neared the coast, the waves proved too perilous to navigate the shoreline. Attempts were made to turn the ship and ride out the storm. Just as the larger freighters were tossed by the waves, so too was the 235-foot-long Novadoc as she was washed closer and closer to shore. After the second futile attempt to course-correct, Steip ordered that the crew don their lifebelts and shelter in the enclosed wheelhouse, all preparing for the ship’s inevitable collision.
When the ship ran aground on one of the sandbanks offshore of Juniper Beach, just south of Pentwater, she broke in two pieces. But the collision was a relief to the crew, as now the ship was beached and wouldn’t be swept out again into the tumultuous Lake. The crew of the Novadoc huddled together in the wheelhouse and awaited rescue. Surely the lighthouse keeper at Little Sable Point had seen them. There were cabins just offshore, and Pentwater had a Coast Guard station, so someone must know that a ship had run aground. It was only a matter of time until their saviors arrived. Right?
The crew would be rescued after 36 hours without food or water and only a small fire fueled by wooden furniture to keep them warm.
The issue was not that the Novadoc’s wreck went unnoticed, but that, due to poor planning and weather conditions, the U.S. Coast Guard aborted several different rescue attempts and failed to reach them. An alarm was raised almost immediately to Ludington’s station by Little Sable Point lighthouse’s William Krull. Pentwater, though the closer station, did not have a motorized surfboat, so the decision was made to transport one in from Grand Haven via pull-behind trailer. Once the surf was deemed manageable, attempts were made to get the surfboat over the dunes at Juniper Beach and then again down via the Pentwater Channel, where the boat got stuck in the mud. At no time was a vessel brought in from the Ludington Station, though the Grand Haven surfboat was manned by Ludington Coast Guard crew. Before you ask, yes, an investigation was made into this parade of ineptitude.
Thankfully, the Coast Guard was not the only one knowledgeable of the wreck. If you’ll remember the piece on Juniper Beach from back in May, Willard Gebhart spotted the Novadoc 300 yards offshore while checking the damage to his family’s vacation cottage. To the crew’s surprise, by Tuesday evening, a substantial crowd had formed on the beach. Cars were parked on the sand, and upwards of a hundred people wrapped themselves in their winter coats to observe the wreckage.
Much of the firsthand accounts come from Lloyd Belcher and Howard Goldsmith. They were some of the youngest members of the crew, and their stories were recorded by Brendon Baillod and Ric Mixter in the early 2000s. Belcher spoke of how the crew tried to signal their survival to the onlookers and the crowd's assurances that they were not forgotten. Some Oceana County residents even stayed up with the crew through the night. According to Belcher, “Every once in a while at night [the crowd] would flash their car lights, and that meant something to us…”
On Wednesday morning, Nov. 13, the people of Oceana were sick of waiting for the Coast Guard. The fish tug Three Brothers II set out from Pentwater, passing the Coast Guard surfboat stuck in the mud, who rudely refused the tug’s help. The three-man crew of Clyde Cross, Gustave Fisher and Joe Fountain braved the waves and went back and forth between the ship and shore, bearing loads of crew members to safety, warm food and rum.
The Novadoc suffered only two casualties, both cooks. Joseph DeShaw and Philip Flavin were reportedly washed overboard as the ship ran aground. Only one body was recovered.
As ice encrusted the wreck of the Novadoc, thousands of Minnesotan turkeys also frozen alive by the storm were sold for Thanksgiving dinners, heavily discounted. The fish tugs Indian and Richard H., and the motor cruiser Nancy Jane were all reported lost, along with their passengers and crew. Lake Michigan was the only Great Lake to report casualties on the water. As the Novadoc rusted and broke down, the National Weather Bureau expanded their number of manned stations throughout the Midwest to ensure another storm would not pass underestimated.
Today, the Novadoc is a popular diving location, and one can find plenty of diving videos on YouTube, alongside 8mm film footage showing the wrecked Novadoc, battered by the waves, a film that circulated in newsreels across the country. It was not unlike the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, taken just days before, an unexpected preamble to one of the most devastating storms to hit the Great Lakes in the modern age. In total, 154 lives were lost.
