Posted on 10/17/2023 5:45:02 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Badly constructed and designed Thetis founders during first dive trial, June 1939. His Majesty's Government (Chamerlaine, Conservative) lets the crew and guests drown, but saves the ship.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
For a supposedly enlightened monarchy/nation, the Brits can be rather profligate with military personnel... but they are just subjects, eh, what? Right, then! Stiff upper lip and all.
Also among the latest examples: Corrupt Ukraine money laundering and DoD bioweapons labs associated with Obama/Biden Admin, Kerry, McCain, Romney, Blinken, Nuland, Pyatt, Graham, etc, etc.
“For a supposedly enlightened monarchy/nation, the Brits can be rather profligate with military personnel..”
The slaughter of their own troops during WWI comes to mind. The first mass murderer of the 20th century was Douglas Haig.
True dat.
Press gangs and brutal punishment come to mind from Lord Nelson’s time.
The MV Struma went down with 800 on board, including refugees and crew, and it wasn’t even a British ship, torpedoed after the British hauled it out to the middle of the Black Sea. Couldn’t allow anyone to disembark, for fear they might somehow make it from Turkey to Mandatory Palestine.
Britannia ruled the waves, all right.
“””The MV Struma went down with 800 on board, including refugees and crew, and it wasn’t even a British ship, torpedoed after the British hauled it out to the middle of the Black Sea. Couldn’t allow anyone to disembark, for fear they might somehow make it from Turkey to Mandatory Palestine.
Britannia ruled the waves, all right.”””
Wiki says that Turkey towed it into the black Sea and that a Russian sub sank it.
Hint: It wasn't the US Navy
The CSS Hunley, built in Alabama, was the first submarine to sink an enemy ship (1864). The problem is that all lives on board the submarine were lost both on that mission (some say that was unrelated, some say that damage from that battle caused the sinking shortly after) and in prior missions.
Wiki says that Turkey towed it into the black Sea and that a Russian sub sank it.
The Soviets were equal-opportunity ship sinkers (e.g., Wilhelm Gustloff).
While smaller in scale, the attack on the MV Austri ( http://www.warsailors.com/homefleetsingles/austri.html ) is a fairly well documented nautical example of how ordinary people are reduced to mere collateral damage once governments disagree on who gets what and they have carte blanche.
The British though didn’t tow the ship or sink it.
That other poster seemed to say the British did what was actually done by Muslims and Russians.
I was not familiar with that event.
So Eden kept his hands clean. Turkey refused to take the refugees and towed it out there because of British pressure. It was not seaworthy by any stretch. As for the identity of the sub, it’s pure speculation, though the Soviets are likely. Nobody would stand up and brag about such a deed.
“””The MV Struma went down with 800 on board, including refugees and crew, and it wasn’t even a British ship, torpedoed after the British hauled it out to the middle of the Black Sea. Couldn’t allow anyone to disembark, for fear they might somehow make it from Turkey to Mandatory Palestine. Britannia ruled the waves, all right.”””
Don’t tell blatant lies.
“Despite weeks of work by Turkish engineers, the engine would not start. The Turkish authorities abandoned the ship in the Black Sea, about 10 miles north of the Bosphorus, where she drifted helplessly.
On the morning of 24 February there was a huge explosion, and the ship sank. Many years later it was revealed that the ship had been torpedoed by the Shchuka-class Soviet submarine Shch-213”
“For many years, there were competing theories about the explosion that sank Struma. In 1964, a German historian discovered that Shch-213 had fired a torpedo, which sank the ship. That was later confirmed from several other Soviet sources. The submarine had been acting under secret orders to sink all neutral and enemy shipping entering the Black Sea to reduce the flow of strategic material to Nazi Germany.”
Lieutenant George: Great Scott sir, you mean, you mean the moment's finally arrived for us to give Harry Hun a darned good British style thrashing, six of the best, trousers down?
Captain Blackadder: If you mean, "Are we all going to get killed?" Yes. Clearly, Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.
Having been a submarine sailor we all knew of the possibility of not coming back up once we dove. The way we had the courage to keep doing our job was to practice, drill, drill drill. When we were in port we practiced in mock up submarine compartments with ice cold water flooding the compartment to stop the flooding, fix the leaks and pump out the water. Over and over again to make sure we could do it when it was real. We all hated it but were glad we knew how to handle emergencies.
When surface craft sailors go to sea they are responsible for a small portion of emergency procedures. Submarine sailors get qualified when they learn enough about the entire boat to help save it in an emergency. When you see a submarine with a “Dolphin” pin you know he has completed “qualifying” on at least one boat. Every time you go to a new boat you start all over qualifying for that boat, although much of what you learned on a previous boat(s) will transfer to the new one.
God bless those who continue to work below the sea, it is an unnatural job but has to be done.
“Don’t tell blatant lies.”
“Despite weeks of work by Turkish engineers, the engine would not start. The Turkish authorities abandoned the ship in the Black Sea, about 10 miles north of the Bosphorus, where she drifted helplessly.”
First, how did it get 10 miles north of the Bosphorus from its moorings in Istanbul. Wouldn’t it be the thing to do to allow the passengers and crew off at Istanbul if the engine didn’t work? Towing it with all on board into the Black Sea and then abandoning it was a death sentence for the passenger AND the crew!
“On the morning of 24 February there was a huge explosion, and the ship sank. Many years later it was revealed that the ship had been torpedoed by the Shchuka-class Soviet submarine Shch-213”
Let me guess. After those “many years,” the Captain and chief exec of the Shch-213 were no longer alive, were in Gulag, or could not be identified.
“ In 1964, a German historian discovered that Shch-213 had fired a torpedo, which sank the ship. That was later confirmed from several other Soviet sources. The submarine had been acting under secret orders to sink all neutral and enemy shipping entering the Black Sea to reduce the flow of strategic material to Nazi Germany.”
Oh, I see. A ship dead in the water, without even the engine power necessary to steer, let alone survive a gale, was going to bring strategic material to Nazi German.
I’m telling “blatant lies,” then? This smacks of a cover-up.
The British were strictly enforcing their White Paper, which Churchill spoke out against vociferously before he became PM, then quietly signed as PM, because they were worried about riling the Arabs, so they did not want Jewish refugees in Mandatory Palestine, and leaned on neutral countries such as Switzerland and Turkey not to admit them, but were not up to committing blatant murder themselves. But photography and all that.
So in 1942, they arranged for the Struma to be towed by Turkey into a place where they would be targeted by Russia, and nobody was “able” to discover that it was Russia until 1964, when those responsible were long gone.
It didn’t work, though. The Arabs in Iraq were “riled” enough that same year, that the Grand Mufti came to Iraq and incited an insurrection that threatened to cut off Britain’s oil supply, and could have cost them the war, sunken Struma or not. The insurrection failed, so instead they had a pogrom in Baghdad, 800 Jews murdered and thrown in a mass grave, while the British watched passively, happy to still have their oil, without which, in fairness, they would have lost.
Another example of British enlightened colonial rule, or as Churchill put it, feeding your neighbors to the crocodile in the hopes that he might eat you last, whether that crocodile is the briny deep or rioting Arabs, so long as the food of choice is Jews in a state of defenselessness.
Now where were these “blatant lies” I’m supposedly telling again?
“””Now where were these “blatant lies” I’m supposedly telling again?”””
Your blatant lie is right where you put it. “””The MV Struma went down with 800 on board, including refugees and crew, and it wasn’t even a British ship, torpedoed after the British hauled it out to the middle of the Black Sea. Couldn’t allow anyone to disembark, for fear they might somehow make it from Turkey to Mandatory Palestine. Britannia ruled the waves, all right.”””
Here is the truth: Turkey towed it into the black Sea and a Russian sub sank it.
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