Of the three freighters lost on Armistice Day of 1940, the SS William B. Davock was the largest (at 420 feet long) and suffered the greatest loss of life (all 33 crew members). Not only that, but for nearly 42 years the final resting place of the wreck remained a mystery, alleviating none of the questions asked by owners and grieving families - how and why did she wreck?
The Davock’s primary route was an efficient one. It would pick up coal from Erie, Pennsylvania, which would be deposited at various ports throughout the Great Lakes, before retrieving iron ore from Lake Superior ports, such as Duluth and Marquette. This iron ore would then be transported to steel mills such as in Chicago and all the way back to Erie, where the cycle would start again.
It was well-fit for such work, initially built in 1907 to withstand loads of 7,200 tons and then later reconstructed in the early 1920s to meet climbing demands as the Rust Belt states launched into an age of industrialization. The Davock was at the height of technological advancement as well, as she was one of the first freighters to be outfitted with wireless telegraph communications.
Because of this, she was the first ship to document a wreck report while on the Great Lakes after passing through the debris field of the car ferry Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 on Lake Erie in December 1908. Lost in a winter storm, the Marquette & Bessemer wreck remains lost to this day. In 1929, the Davock received a radio direction finder after a storm on Lake Superior spawned rogue waves, which damaged the ship’s wheelhouse and swept overboard two crew members, who unfortunately perished. Two years later, the Davock received her radio transmitter.
How about one more ill-fated omen for the road? The Davock had four near-identical sister ships. Of those four, half were lost - the Davock and the SS John Mitchell, lost in 1911. The John Mitchell was struck in a heavy fog by another freighter, the SS William Henry Mack. While a majority of the crew and passengers survived, three sailors lost their lives jumping overboard before being sucked back into the sinking ship. She is now just one of many shipwrecks in the veritable graveyard of Whitefish Point, discovered in 1972 (the same year her sister, the Davock, was found) lying upside down.
To be fair, many of these occurrences where the Davock brushed death and wreckage are commonplace in an industry such as Great Lakes shipping, but try explaining that to a superstitious seaman.
On Nov. 8, 1940, the Davock picked up her usual load of coal in Pennsylvania, with Chicago her final destination. She radioed frequently to shore as she traversed through Lakes Erie and Huron, reaching the Straits of Mackinac by the afternoon of Nov. 10. At 7:28 a.m., the Davock radioed shore to update them of the relatively mild weather and inform them that they estimated to reach Chicago the following morning at 1 a.m. At that point, she was just west of Ludington. While this was her last radio transmission, the Davock did not enter the storm alone. A half hour earlier, she was joined on her route by the SS Henry Steinbrenner, and they travelled together until they were near Muskegon, when the storm obscured all visual contact between the two.
The two ships had a two-and-a-half-hour warning before the storm hit at 1:30 p.m., per a broadcast weather report. Sometime in between the broadcast at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., the Davock’s radio must have become inoperative, as the Steinbrenner attempted multiple times to contact the Davock ahead of the oncoming storm with no response. Before losing visual contact at 2 p.m., the crew of Steinbrenner saw the Davock bearing east, likely to seek shelter in Grand Haven, particularly imperative if they were without a working radio.
That was the last time anyone saw the Davock before her wreck was discovered in 1972 by a group of Milwaukee-based divers searching specifically for her. Despite not being far from the wreck of the Anna C. Minch, the Davock’s wreck was in far deeper and less visible waters, which had concealed her for decades. The cause of sinking was obvious—she’d capsized and was found lying upside down on the floor of Lake Michigan.
Once the ship was finally discovered, its allure diminished, leading to very few divers visiting it. Those who remained curious struggled to examine the upside-down hull due to the treacherous deep water and murky conditions that made finding a way inside difficult. Improved technology and the presence of zebra mussels in the lake water solved the mystery 40 years later.
In 2014, the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association led a study of the wreck and concluded that the rudder had broken and one of the propellers was damaged. With the catastrophic disabling of both the ship’s steering and forward propulsion, the Davock would have had no way to face the storm, let alone traverse to safety. Brenden Baillod’s valuable book, "Ghosts of the Oceana Coast," puts forward an additional factor that could have contributed to the ship’s capsizing. Many of the ships that (barely) weathered the storm reported their ships’ surfaces being encased in layers of ice, which would have added considerable weight.
So the likely scenario is that the Davock cannot accelerate, cannot steer and ice is weighing down the ship above the waterline, counterbalancing the ballast in the hull. It would only take one large wave hitting her sideways to capsize her for good.
Regardless of what exactly took place, the 33 crew were clearly preparing to abandon the ship. A launched lifeboat was found south of Ludington, along with the bodies of 16 crewmen wearing life jackets. While the capsizing and sinking would have been near-instantaneous, it's likely the ship was disabled for hours, battered endlessly by the storm and unable to call out for help.
The bodies of three crewmen could not be identified and are resting (hopefully in peace) at Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington.
