“Telle Est La Guerre” – The Inkerman and Cerisoles: A number of ships have “gone missing” on Lake Superior. The Bannockburn, Lambton, Henry Steinbrenner, Steelvendor, Sunbeam and Merchant are only some of the lost fleet still lurking deep in the Big Lake’s dark and icy depths.

But the most inexplicable loss was that of the French Navy minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, each with French 38 sailors and a Great Lakes pilot aboard. To this day their fate remains one of the inexplicable mysteries of the Great Lakes. They were part of dozen of the tough little vessels built by Canadian Car and Foundry in Port Arthur, Ontario. The pair, plus the minesweeper Sebastopol, left Port Arthur on November 23, 1918 bound for Montreal, before final delivery to France. Somewhere in Lake Superior the Inkerman and Cerisoles disappeared. Desperate searches failed to find the missing warships. No confirmed human remains were ever recovered and what little flotsam was found gave no clues. Accusations of poor construction, shoddy seamanship and collision followed but real evidence was illusionary. French Navy investigations were equally befit of solutions. 2018 marks the centennial of their loss, and perhaps the year the great mystery will finally be solved.

About Frederick Stonehouse: 

Frederick Stonehouse is the author of over thirty books on maritime history many focusing on the Great Lakes including the best selling The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He has been a consultant for both the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada and has been an "on-air" expert for National Geographic and History Channel as well as many regional media productions.

Awards include the 2006 Association for Great Lakes Maritime History Award for Historic Interpretation, Historical Society of Detroit’s 2007 Historian of the Year, 2017 Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society C. Patrick Labadie Special Acknowledgement Award, Northern Michigan University 2014 Distinguished Alumna Award, 2018 “Governor’s Special Tribute” (Michigan) and 2019 Historical Society of Michigan Follo Award.