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Today I Learned....PartII


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It was pretty small on the sub and every bunk taken even practicing "hot bunking"... Everybody had a job... What would the tag-a-long aviator do?

 

We camped out a bunch of years ago on the USS Silversides (Gato Class)...Up in Muskegon, Michigan. With a crew of around 80 (if I recall), I could imagine it tight. They said food would be stored everywhere they could put a box, they would eat their way to more walking room.

 

They'd find something. I know I have an anecdote in a book somewhere around here about how aviators chipped in on patrol after rescue.

 

By the time the aviators got on board, they'd probably eaten enough to have space for him.

 

 

BTW... I think the Siversides holds the distinction for having the first under water surgery. An appendectomy in the galley after diving to avoid a Japanese destroyer. What a bad time time to have appendicitis! The galley was small, I wanna say 12x12 @ most and would serve crew all the time. I can't imagine 80 people crammed on that small boat. Cook got to shower every day, officers every other day and crew every week (I think)... Just imagine hot bunking with the boat's machinist! No room for tall guys either, I am 6'3" & I was banging my head and hanging off the bunks. By the middle of the night I was ready to just go ashore and throw my sleeping bag in snow. The "honeymoon suite" bunk was for the newbs... Right above the torpedo bay.

 

I think it may have been (I'd look that up right now...but Lockwood's book is in another room.) I do know that the first time it was done was a legitimate emergency, but after word got around it became such a common stunt that Admiral Lockwood had issue an order banning it - it basically got to the point that corpsman were being frivolously aggressive in doing it. "This food sucks...I've got a stomach ache." "Must be appendicitis! Strap him down, I'm going in!"

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6/10

Jim Jeffries Freedumb had a rating scale, pretty funny.

That was actually common. Submarines were stationed for "lifeguard" duty before major air strikes. I think the record for aviators saved was something like 23 in a single patrol. And given that submarines didn't usually associate with surface ships much (as all surface ships considered submarines "enemy" first - at least one US sub was certainly lost to US Navy depth charges), those aviators usually stayed on board for a month or more until a friendly port was reached.

On a related note: aircraft carriers always had a destroyer assigned as "plane guard" during flight operations, to fish air crew out of the ocean after a failed takeoff or landing (which wasn't uncommon). As destroyers were small and thus rather spartan, whereas carriers were comparatively large and luxurious, it was standard practice for destroyers to "ransom" pilots back to the carriers for five gallons of ice cream a head (as carriers had ice cream makers on board). So if you want to know how much a trained Navy fighter pilot was worth in World War 2...about $160 worth of Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia, in modern terms.

 

Now you've learned TWO things today.

I had a patient who served on the HMAS Arunta. They loved fishing pilots as they got ice cream. Aussie ships didn't have ice cream!

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They'd find something. I know I have an anecdote in a book somewhere around here about how aviators chipped in on patrol after rescue.

 

By the time the aviators got on board, they'd probably eaten enough to have space for him.

 

 

 

I think it may have been (I'd look that up right now...but Lockwood's book is in another room.) I do know that the first time it was done was a legitimate emergency, but after word got around it became such a common stunt that Admiral Lockwood had issue an order banning it - it basically got to the point that corpsman were being frivolously aggressive in doing it. "This food sucks...I've got a stomach ache." "Must be appendicitis! Strap him down, I'm going in!"

Ha! It WAS the 1940s... Who would resist. Kids straight out of The Depression... Better than being home in Arkansas (or Maine so I am not singling out one part of the Country) and have Uncle Jethro do it!

 

LoL...

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TIL - at garage sales or sales from the trunk of a car, you can get a great find. once a blue moon

 

Diamond ring purchased for $13 as costume jewelry sells for $848K

 

The 26-carat ring was first purchased in the 1980s by an anonymous seller, who bought the jewel at a car boot sale, under the assumption that it was a piece of costume jewelry.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/luxury/car-boot-sale-diamond-ring-sells-for-847k/index.html

Edited by ShadyBillsFan
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Might you have been an accomplice? Surely the statue of limitations has made it safe to come clean. Are you an Ostrich Whisperer?

 

One ostrich couldn't have done it alone. There was a second ostrich behind the grassy knoll.

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And...I knew that too.

Maybe you should start a "things you didn't know thread" and save us all the pages.

 

It would set an all-time record that could never be broken. /dev's "Last Post Wins" thread would be shattered, original post would be the last post!

 

Oh... And the $64,000 Question:

 

What are you two?

 

You don't have to answer. You've already admitted that the answer is yes.

 

:-P :-)

Pfft... He's gotta know that. I can't say why, or I will get banned!

 

;-)

and you're a punctilious chapeau of an anal orifice

 

but we already knew that

LoL... Sorry I missed this.

 

Look above. Unviverse is colliding, /dev and EiL teaming up on DC. Society will end!

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Yep...I even knew that.

 

Bet you didn't know his paternal grandmother's last name was "Schicklgruber." And his father was born out of wedlock as Alois Schicklgruber. It wasn't until he was in his thirties that he legally changed his last name to his step-father's - "Heidler," which somehow became misspelled "Hitler."

 

Can you imagine how different history would be if Adolf was born Adolf Schicklgruber? You think Nazi Germany would ever have happened with crowds of people deliriously screaming "Heil Schicklgruber!" Can you see the liberals today claiming "Trump is Schicklgruber!"

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It's actually a little more complicated, too...Genghis Khan first sent a trade delegation, a caravan full of loot from China. When they got to the first city on the frontier (Otrar), the governor of Otrar - Inalchuq - said "Hey, loot!" and killed the merchants and stole everything. So Genghis, in a display of remarkable patience, sent an embassy to the Shah Mohammed II, asking for Inalchuq's head and the return of the treasure - basically saying "We don't blame you, we're just assuming your underling is being a stupid ****. So take care of him and, hey, no harm, no foul." The Shah Mohammed II responded by beheading two of the envoys, and shaving the head of the third (a grave insult to Mongols of the time) and sending him back with the heads of the other two.

 

To quote a movie: he chose...poorly. Genghis Khan went through Khwarezm like Might Taco and Genny Cream Ale through your intestinal tract. He had Inalchuq killed by pouring molten silver in his eyes and ears - the Mongols never lacked for creative execution ideas. And yes, the Dothraki are modeled on the Mongols. He then destroyed city after city after city in an unbelievable orgy of violence. The region had an irrigation system that was thousands of years old, and supported very large cities (Nishapur, Merv, Balkh, and Herat were easily four of the wealthiest, largest, and most literate cities of the late Middle Ages). After the Mongols were done, that millennia-old irrigation system collapsed literally because there was no one left alive to maintain it.

 

This is considered, by most historians, to mark the invention of the concept of "diplomatic immunity."

 

And the Shah Mohammed II? He basically died of fright while being chased for about a thousand miles by a Mongol army led by Subodai and Jebe.

 

Sounds like a really good story. Any recommended books on it?

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Yep...I even knew that.

 

Bet you didn't know his paternal grandmother's last name was "Schicklgruber." And his father was born out of wedlock as Alois Schicklgruber. It wasn't until he was in his thirties that he legally changed his last name to his step-father's - "Heidler," which somehow became misspelled "Hitler."

 

Can you imagine how different history would be if Adolf was born Adolf Schicklgruber? You think Nazi Germany would ever have happened with crowds of people deliriously screaming "Heil Schicklgruber!" Can you see the liberals today claiming "Trump is Schicklgruber!"

Yes.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. what could possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

What could possibly go wrong?

 

We could be friends?

 

:-)

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Sounds like a really good story. Any recommended books on it?

 

Surprisingly, The Secret History of the Mongols is a very good one. Genghis Khan invented Mongolian writing, then had scribes write a surprisingly honest account of the Mongolian Empire. It's generally very well-thought of for being an honest accounting and not a propaganda device (Genghis might be the only emperor in history that didn't commission a work of propaganda as "history.") \

 

Jeremiah Curtin has some good descriptions of the destruction of Khwarezm, but he's a century old or more, so it's chock full of rough, turgid Victorian prose, and not the easiest read.

 

Hildinger, Warriors of the Steppe, is pretty good, but only devotes a chapter to the Mongols proper (the Mongols were Turkic, so loosely descended from the Scythians and Huns, and last all the way to the Crimean Tatars, Cossacks, and the end of the Manchu dynasty.)

 

Michel Hoang's Genghis Khan is pretty good, but it's originally in French, and I have yet to read an English translation of any French writing that I felt was truly accessible.

 

Those are the three that are on my bookshelf within eyesight right now. I know I've got others, but they're more military history oriented (the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm was the foundation of Russian - and thus by extension German - armored tactics in World War 2), and they're probably in another room somewhere where I was looking something up.

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Surprisingly, The Secret History of the Mongols is a very good one. Genghis Khan invented Mongolian writing, then had scribes write a surprisingly honest account of the Mongolian Empire. It's generally very well-thought of for being an honest accounting and not a propaganda device (Genghis might be the only emperor in history that didn't commission a work of propaganda as "history.") \

 

Jeremiah Curtin has some good descriptions of the destruction of Khwarezm, but he's a century old or more, so it's chock full of rough, turgid Victorian prose, and not the easiest read.

 

Hildinger, Warriors of the Steppe, is pretty good, but only devotes a chapter to the Mongols proper (the Mongols were Turkic, so loosely descended from the Scythians and Huns, and last all the way to the Crimean Tatars, Cossacks, and the end of the Manchu dynasty.)

 

Michel Hoang's Genghis Khan is pretty good, but it's originally in French, and I have yet to read an English translation of any French writing that I felt was truly accessible.

 

Those are the three that are on my bookshelf within eyesight right now. I know I've got others, but they're more military history oriented (the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm was the foundation of Russian - and thus by extension German - armored tactics in World War 2), and they're probably in another room somewhere where I was looking something up.

Have you watched the series "Marco Polo" on Netflix? Its very entertaining and historically accurate depiction of 13th century Mangolia under kublai Khans rule. One of my favorite shows

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Have you watched the series "Marco Polo" on Netflix? Its very entertaining and historically accurate depiction of 13th century Mangolia under kublai Khans rule. One of my favorite shows

 

I have not.

 

But it's historically inaccurate. Mongols didn't ride Arabians, and didn't have weird blocky splices on their recurves.

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TIL you don't mess with a Canadian Sniper

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-record-2-mile-sniper-shot-kills-isis-militant-in-iraq/ar-BBD1Qjl?OCID=ansmsnnews11

 

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away.

 

The 3,450-meter shot, which took about 10 seconds to reach its target, was independently verified by a video camera and other data

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TIL you don't mess with a Canadian Sniper

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-record-2-mile-sniper-shot-kills-isis-militant-in-iraq/ar-BBD1Qjl?OCID=ansmsnnews11

 

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away.

 

The 3,450-meter shot, which took about 10 seconds to reach its target, was independently verified by a video camera and other data

 

Just as a measure of how insane a shot that is: He's hitting a target about the size of a pie plate at two miles, which is an accuracy about four times better than your typical match-grade rifle and ammo available (and about ten times better than your typical military rifle.) And a bullet over that distance will drop about three hundred yards. Which means he's not firing at the target, he's firing at a point a quarter-mile above the target and dropping the bullet onto it.

 

And he probably had to take between five and ten shots, just to get the range and wind deflection.

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