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THE ARMISTICE DAY STORM OF 1940 WILLIAM B DAVOCK June 28, 1938 Taylor photo, Peter B. Worden Sr. Collection Steel bulk freighter (U.S.204121) built in 1907 at St. Clair, Michigan by Great Lakes Engineering Works (Hull#26) for the Vulcan Steamship Company: 420 X 52 X 23; 4,468 gross tons. Sank November 11, 1940 off Pentwater, Michigan during the Armistice Day Storm. November 11, 1990 marked the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Armistice Day storm which began twenty-seven years to the day after the Great Storm of 1913. Although much has been written about the storm, your editors have recently come across 4 scrapbook containing 1940 marine columns from The Cleveland Plain Dealer. These columns were written by Jewell R. Dean, and contained much information regarding the -Armistice~ Day Storm. Combined with other sources, we thought we would commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of this storm with information from these 1940 columns, highlighting a storm which has gone down as one of the warst Storms ever to take place on the Great Lakes. Good seasonal weather, slow coal shipments, and a booming steel industry combined to make October, 1940, a record month for iron ore shipments. During October 10,601,127 gross tons of ore were loaded for delivery 44-5-2 down the Lakes. This total easily beat the previous best total of 9,337,618 gross tons delivered in 1926. The entire ore fleet was in service on Friday, November 1, 1940, with the exception of two Pittsburgh Steamship Company barges, the JOHN A ROEBLING, and the JOHN FRITZ, which were laid up in Toledo. The weather began to change during the last week-of October.There were storm warnings on Lakes Michigan and Superior on October 28-29 and vessels were anchored at Detour and the Straits of Mackinac waiting for weather. There was fog and rain on the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers which was causing vessel delays. On November 5, the Tomlinson steamer SPARTA was aground in Lake Superior, one hundred feet off Grand Portal Point, fourteen miles east of Munising. She was driven ashore during a sixty-five mile per hour northwest gale. The increasingly violent _ weather reached record proportions the CG following week.