Blows Up While On Convoy Duty! The Coast Guard cutter Escanaba, shown here in Lake Michigan while she was on duty in those waters, sank after an explosion ripped her amidships while on convoy duty in the Atlantic, the navy announced in Washington Friday. 6/19/1943
I recently received the picture with the caption printed above about the Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba. After doing some research I found the story to be one of the lingering mysteries of World War II, the strange fate of the USS Escanaba.
There are countless stories of the bravery and daring of those in the U.S. Coast Guard. Their basic mission is to protect the boundary waters of the United States. Occasionally they get called away from that specific duty when the need presents itself. World War II was just such a time. The USS Escanaba was just such a ship.
Lake Michigan and World War II
The USS Escanaba spent most of its time patrolling the waters of Lake Michigan. It was built in Bay City by the Defoe Shipbuilding company. The Escanaba was intended for ice breaking, law enforcement, and maritime search and rescue. Its home port was Grand Haven, Michigan. At the time, Escanaba was one of the busiest ports on Lake Michigan and the ship was named in honor of that city. The Escanaba performed several rescues of ship’s crews in distress on Lake Michigan.
USS Escanaba ice breaking on Lake Michigan before WWII.
During World War II, convoys of ships carrying supplies and ammunition crossed the Atlantic regularly. Many ships were ordered to protect these convoys at all costs. The USS Escanaba was called out of the Great Lakes to accompany and protect the ships of the supply convoys.
During this time, the Germans were filling the waters of the Atlantic with what were known as the “Wolfpacks,” groups of submarines that were attacking and sinking most ships they came across that weren’t allied with the Nazis. They had no discretion whether they were civilian ships or military. They sank them both. The wolfpacks fed on convoys.
Greenland Patrol and the USS Dorchester
The USS Escanaba was assigned to what was known as the Greenland Patrol. They would escort convoy headed through the North Atlantic. The cutter had been refitted with weaponry in Boston, such as depth charges for combatting the U-2 submarines. The Escanaba claimed to have sunk 3 subs during its time on escort.
This painting by Robert Lavin depicts the Escanaba rescuing the survivors of the USS Dorchester.
Coast Guard ships are known for their daring rescues and the USS Escanaba did its part. In February of 1943, they rescued the survivors from the USS Dorchester. The Dorchester was the victim of a submarine torpedo and sank in the icy February water. Many of the survivors were so cold that they couldn’t hang onto ropes or pull themselves up a ladder. Members of the crew of the Escanaba became for the first time, rescue swimmers who went into the water themselves to pull survivors onboard! It is the first documented use of “rescue swimmers.” They wore special survival suits and tied debilitated victims to ropes to be pulled aboard. They rescued 133 people that day. Out of the 50 they initially thought were dead, only 12 died. The others revived when they got warm.
Many of them were awarded medals for their actions and the rubber suit retrieval method invented by one of the Escanaba’s crew members, Lt. Robert Prause Jr. gained praise and the method earned a permanent place in cold water rescues.
USS Escanaba Mystery
Unfortunately, on June 10th, that same year, the USS Escanaba was blown to pieces. The ship was escorting another convoy in the North Atlantic when it suddenly burst into a ball of fire. It happened so fast, that they bever got off a distress signal. In a moment, the ship and crew were gone. Other ships in the convoy that saw it said that there was no sound. First ships arrived on the scene within 10 minutes. Only two survivors were found and one dead, the aforementioned Lt. Prause Jr. (It could be said that Lt. Prause posthumously went on to save countless lives with his cold-water suit invention.) The only reason the two survived is that their clothing had frozen to floating debris and prevented them from sinking to the bottom like the rest of their crew mates. 13 officers and 92 crewmen died that day.
Some of the crewmen from the USS Escanaba near the time of the explosion. Heroes all.
Theories
No one knows what caused the USS Escanaba to explode. Naturally, the predominant theory is that it was a victim of a German submarine. But, none were found in the area and torpedo explosions make a lot of noise. Another theory is that it hit an underwater mine. Thousands of these were used in World War II. The last theory is that something went wrong with the ship itself. The possibility that something happened on board that caused an accident could have happened since they had different kinds of explosives aboard such as depth charges.
Whatever happened, it remains a mystery and probably always will. The 105 heroes that went down with the Escanaba will always be remembered for their valiant efforts to help people and save lives.
A schooner barge is being loaded up with cargo at the Escanaba, Michigan coal dock.
Historical Photos – Escanaba, Michigan – Lake Michigan’s Northern Port.
Escanaba was founded as a northern port city in 1863. It established itself as a link to the Marquette Range iron ore. Iron was shipped from Marquette by railroad to Escanaba. The route saved time shipping from Marquette through the recently established Soo Locks and then downbound through the St. Mary’s into the upper Great Lakes. During the Civil War, this became a main supply point for the union army thirsty for iron ore to produce weapons and ammunition.
An unidentified man sits along the edge of the Escanaba River near one of the local rock formations.
Escanaba was founded upon an early Ojibwa village. The name “Escanaba” came from an Anishinaabe word meaning “Land of the Red Buck.” It is easy to understand why a tribe would have settled there with the large bay, the Escanaba River providing an abundance of fish. The bays De Noc (Big and little) are a reference to the tribe of Noquet that flourished there.
From the beginning, Escanaba thrived as a port and as a city. It’s strategic importance for shipping and commerce can’t be understated. As mining increased across the U.P. with mines opening in Iron Mountain, Iron River and Crystal Falls, all began shipping their ore out of Escanaba.
Added to this, the logging boom began. The timber resources from the surrounding area were rich. Like other parts of the U.P, the timber of the west end was thick and ripe for harvesting. The Escanaba River was a perfect artery for floating the logs to Lake Michigan.
The Sand Point Lighthouse in Escanaba was essential for shipping and marking the port in bad weather.
With the fast growing shipping, it was deemed necessary that a lighthouse should be placed in Escanaba. The Sand Point Lighthouse has shown since 1868 and it was lit by a woman. It warned mariners of a sand bar that was at the entrance to Escanaba Harbor. Construction began on Sand Point in 1864 and the first lightkeeper was named John Terry. He oversaw the construction and prepared the lighthouse for occupation along with his wife, Mary. Just before the light was supposed to be lit, John Terry died. Sand Point was scheduled to begin its beacon on May 13, 1868. Mary Terry made sure that happened and took over for her husband. She was officially appointed lightkeeper making her one of the very first women lightkeepers on the Great Lakes. Mary would serve until 1888 when she was killed in a freak fire in the lighthouse. Mrs. Terry would become one of several women who would faithfully serve in the Lighthouse Service.
A street view of Escanaba with the trolley running down the middle of Ludington Street.
Escanaba grew to over 3,000 in the 1880’s. The population has grown to over 15,000 at its peak and is around 12,000 today. It remains a thriving community and is one of the Upper Peninsula’s larger cities. It is still an active port. At one time, the docks of Escanaba were frequented by a pirate named “roaring” Captain Dan Seavey. He would raid ships and then sell the captured cargo wherever he could. (More on Dan Seavey)
Out for an afternoon drive in Escanaba. The people are unidentified.
The picture above is for a personalized postcard sent in 1917 taken in Escanaba. They had this picture taken to show off their new automobile. It was a new thing then and it appears they bought the best one they could find. Scarves are wrapped, the top is down and a cruise along Bay de Noc is warranted. There are no names on this to identify anyone other than the person it was sent to in Detroit.
Smelting is an early season sport. Thousands of the fish would run up the streams every spring. These ladies are all ready to scoop them out.
Though Escanaba is a working town, the Paper mill and a college keeps the city thriving. It is also a tourist destination with legendary fishing in Lake Michigan, local lakes and streams. There is a place for any kind of outdoor recreation no matter what the preference.
A dog sled race in Downtown Escanaba breaks up a long winter with some fun.
Even winter has its appeal here. Though wind coming off Lake Michigan can be brutal, winter activities are a part of the culture. Skiing, sledding, and ice fishing on Bay de Noc have been an ingrained part of the culture.
A historical photo of the Tilden House boarding house. It no longer stands.
Escanaba has had an eventful history and continues forward into the future of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Below is an entry from the book Yooper Ale Trails and the text is by Jon Stott. (Used with permission.) Read on or listen to the audiobook segment available from Audible.com or iTunes
Hereford and Hops, a historical landmark in the city of Escanaba.
One of the Escanaba area’s finest, Hereford and Hops is the first brewery to start brewing in the Upper Peninsula and the first to have “grill your own steak” capabilities. It is housed in an old building that used to be Escanaba’s busiest hotel with 80 rooms! This old building was known to have served bootleggers and gangsters during prohibition. There was even a speakeasy in the basement! Though it is currently closed, the speakeasy still exists in the basement of the old building. A flood in 2020 caused so much damage that they are still working to get it back to usable standards. Located not far from the waterfront, it would have been easy to smuggle booze in.
Originally the Delta Hotel, built in 1912, finished in 1914, it was intended to be the grandest hotel Escanaba could offer. At a cost of $100,000 (2.75 million today), it was constructed with that aim in mind. At the time though there more than 35 hotels and rooming houses already in town, it was felt that a truly grand place was needed, something with more than 30 rooms and a place that would redefine Escanaba’s sky line. It became exactly that. It was the tallest building in town at five stories. William McKinley, a Speaker of the Illinois Assembly at the time, attended the Grand Opening. It became the place to be for the wealthy and elite in Escanaba.
The Delta Hotel around 1917 after it first opened in Escanaba, Michigan. Notice the old cars around the building.
In 1930, the hotel changed hands to C.J. Burns. He established a bar and lounge in the basement called C.J.’s. This was right after prohibition was declared making this one of the few speakeasys, to survive to this day. (Though currently closed due to damages, they hope to get it up and running once again.) People came from all over the world to the hotel including cruise passengers, industrial moguls, and gangsters. Al Capone’s fingers stretched well into the U.P. and supplied some of C.J.’s booze. There is a tradition of alcohol here that goes back 100 years.
There is an interesting story that in the early days, Colonel Sanders sold his chicken recipe to the Delta. Before Sanders began KFC, as we know it today, he tried to sell his recipe for chicken to restaurants around the country. There was no thought to restaurant chains then, only selling his special recipe. At one time, and the document has disappeared, there was a copy of the agreement between Sanders and the hotel restaurant. It supposedly featured an early picture of Sanders on the contract and his signature giving them permission to use it. As the tale goes, the restaurant was the only one around to have that recipe at the time.
Now, with the brewpub, the tradition continues, but with a much quieter and relaxing atmosphere. H&H revels in its historic past, now on the register of National Historical Places. Historical pictures and artifacts adorn the walls. Though its focus is Beef and Beer, their menu is extensive. The Elk Burger is awesome. Going to Hereford and Hops is a step back into time when Escanaba was flourishing and grand style was in fashion. It is not just about great food and beer, it is also about the history within these walls that still speak if you listen hard enough.
Text below by Jon Stott.
The bar at Hereford and Hops in Escanaba surrounds itself with its and Escanaba’s history.
It was a ten-minute drive along M-35—past the end of the airport runway, the Escanaba golf course, the public and Catholic high schools to Ludington Avenue, Escanaba’s main street, and then east along Ludington—to the next stop on this ale trail: a building of double historical importance. Built in 1914 as a luxury hotel, the Delta Hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places and is home to Hereford & Hops Steakhouse and Brewpub, the Upper Peninsula’s first craft brewery. Since the late 1990s, I’d been enjoying lunch here during my annual day trips to the city known as the center of the UP’s “banana belt.” On one of my visits, I’d sampled my first Upper Peninsula version of Kolsch, a German-style beer that was relatively unknown across the United States at that time but has since become very popular among craft beer drinkers.
I first met the owner of Hereford & Hops, the late Don Moody, in 2017, when I arrived to do an interview with brewer Mike Sattem. Mike was brewing and while we were waiting, Don showed me around the brewpub, which occupies most of the first floor of the building (the upper floors house apartments). At the front was the seven-barrel brewhouse, visible behind the floor-to-ceiling plate glass panels that formed one of the walls beside an elegant, full-service bar. Next to the bar was a cozy pub area that had a pool table, oversized easy chairs and a sofa, a gas fireplace, and, above it, one of the establishment’s four TVs. A formal dining room, featuring tables set with white cloths and a fully-restored player grand piano, was behind the pub area, and, next to it, a large grill where patrons could cook their own steaks. Past the grill was a room nicknamed “The Other Grill,” a Mongolian grill where patrons filled bowls with ingredients that would be handed to a chef to be grilled.
Grill your own steak is one of the things Hereford and Hops is known for. The beef is locally raised.
Many years ago, Don, a native of Kankakee, Illinois, and his wife and young family spent summers in Rock, a small community north of Escanaba. “We had a small farm. I decided to raise Hereford cattle at the farm, and we moved to the UP permanently.” He and a neighbor purchased the Delta Hotel building and, when, in 1992, the Michigan Government changed its liquor laws to allow brewpubs, they decided to build one. He also took a crash course in brewing. In the months after the December 1994 opening, the idea of grilling your own steak and drinking beer brewed on premises became so popular that there were lineups of people waiting to get in: locals, day-trippers from as far away as Marquette and Green Bay, and, in the summer, tourists, including an increasing number of beer tourists.
The back dining room at H&H. The windows throw a blue cast in the room in the day. Beautiful area.
One of the people who had worked on the renovations of the Delta Hotel in the early 1990 was Mike Sattem, a recent high school graduate. “I never thought it would happen,” he said as he joined Don Mooney and me in the dining room. “Now here we are, twenty-five years later, two people who’d had no experience brewing, an owner and a head brewer.” After Hereford & Hops had opened, Mike began hanging around John Malchow, who’d taken over from Moody as the brewer, picking up as much information he could about the brewing process. He apprenticed in the brewery of a sister restaurant in Wausau, Wisconsin and was part of the brewing team that won three World Beer Cup and two Great American Beer Festival medals. When Malchow moved on, Mike returned to Escanaba and has been there since, making him, along with Derek “Chumley” Anderson of Vierling Restaurant and Marquette Harbor Brewery and Lark Ludlow of Tahquamenon Falls Brewery, the longest-serving brewers in the UP.
Brewing beer is a fine art. This is the brewing equipment room at H&H.
click on image for audiobook
When I met Mike Sattem again in 2022, the beer list included many of the styles I recognized from my earlier visits. There had been some changes, Mike noted. He now often brewed lesser-known styles, including the growingly popular sour beers, which he said he stored in a different part of the brewery’s basement to prevent any contamination. He also has lowered the alcohol percentage of most of the beers as patrons’ tastes evolved. “Most people enjoy something that complements their food, not something over the top.” But he also noted that as people’s familiarity with craft beers evolved, they were more accepting of hoppy beers.
“When we started out, we developed Whitetail as a gentle beer, but people thought it was too hoppy.” Whitetail Golden Ale (ABV 4.7 percent) is one of Hereford & Hops’ flagship beers. A gold medal winner at the World Beer Cup, it has a light-to-medium malt body and a crisp hop finish that has earthy, pine, and citrus notes. Another beer designed for novice drinkers of craft beer is the very low ABV Bluegrass Wheat Ale (ABV 3.1 percent), a blueberry-flavored ale that uses lemongrass instead of hops. This unusual ingredient provides ginger and lemon flavors that balance the fairly unassertive two-row barley and wheat malts and complement the hint of blueberries.
This is the main lounge/bar dining area. It even has a pool table.
Cleary Irish Red Ale (ABV 4.8 percent), winner of a Great American Beer Festival bronze medal, and Blackbird Oatmeal Stout (ABV 6.1 percent), winner of a World Beer Cup bronze, are two of Hereford & Hops darker brews. Cleary Red is a medium-bodied amber given a malty sweetness by the caramel malts and touch of candy apple-flavoring. The stout is a medium- to full-bodied version of the style given a silky, creamy texture by the oats, and roasted and coffee notes by the dark malts. Redemption IPA originally started at 5.5 percent ABV, but, Sattem told me, “I gradually ramped up the ABV to 7.5 percent as people’s palates developed. Medium-to full-bodied, it has an array of hops, including Simcoe, Cascade, and Amarillo, that contribute citrus, earthy, piney, spicy, and floral notes to complement the malty backbone. The Kolsch (no ABV available) is light-bodied, crisp, and clean-finishing. It follows the German recipe as closely as possible and is a refreshing, almost lager-like drink.
It’s not just a burger, It’s an Elk Burger with serious onion rings. Nothing mundane at Hereford and Hops. Great Food.
I’d visited the brewhouse on my previous trip, but asked Mike if we could tour it again. “I’ve just finished cleaning everything, including the windows. People are much more worried,” he added, “if all the equipment isn’t clean, the beer will be no good.” Between the mash tun and brew kettle hung a sign that I remembered from my earlier visit. “Blessed is the mother who gives birth to a brewer.” Mike laughed and told me that, although his mother is proud of him, she doesn’t drink any alcohol. I remarked that I was sure that many, many of the people who had enjoyed his beer had probably blessed her.
UPDATE: The Hereford and Hops changed hands in July of 2024. Though they plan to continue as always, it will be interesting to see how the place evolves with new owners.
CJ’s Lounge, the one-time Speakeasy, is closed because of flood damage. It could take years to repair.
For more information like this, please check out our book “Yooper Ale Trails” by Mikel B. Classen and Jon C. Stott.
Native Americans fishing the St. Mary’s River near Sault Ste. Marie.
Fishing has always been a part of basic human survival. Plain and simple, fish are great to eat. Around the world people use fish as a major source of their diet, but, the squirmy things are an awful lot of fun to catch. Fishing here in the U.P., like many places, is ingrained into the culture and as fishing moved from a necessity to a sport, it became even more so.
Fishermen line the Soo Locks as a ship locks through.
Fishing is one of those things that has never changed over the years. You can add all the technology you want to it, but when it comes down to basics, it’s still a stick, a string, and a worm.
When the smelt ran, everybody came out. Dip your net in and it was full of fish.
Of course there are different kinds of fishing, as the picture above illustrates. Smelt dipping was a spring rite of passage for many here in north country. The rivers would be lined with campfires, waiting for the smelt to run. When they finally did, the streams would be full.
Brook Trout fishing on a beaver pond on the backwaters of the Hurricane River. This guy is pretty dapper for being back here.
I’ve always been a fan of Brook Trout fishing. If you are doing it right, it is incredible excersize, but I have to admit that there is nothing as good as pan fried fresh caught Brook Trout.
Fishing the rapids at the St. Mary’s River has been a long tradition. These two are having a great time.
Fishing is a connection to our past. It is something we have in common with our ancestors going back to prehistoric times. It strikes a chord within us that gives a feeling of peace and when the day has success we feel excited and elated. Our fishing experiences stay with us forever. What can be better than that?
