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Graveyard of Ships
I stumbled across this while looking to see if the SS Norway was still in service or not. Sadly it has been scrapped. It staretd life as The France and then saw many yrs of service in NCL as The Norway, which was the largest ship ever designated for 100% "cruise service".
I have such mixed feelings about those pics. On the one hand, I'd love to be able to hop on skiff and run around those wrecks, even go on board a few of them. At the same time, I hate to see such a sad end.
I came into Mojave, CA one time and I didn't know there was a boneyard there. It was really hot, you know how the heat comes off the road and plays tricks with your eyes, way off in the distance I saw what looked like a 747. Then another one. Then another one. And I just figured I was hallucinating, but as I got closer I saw all these old aircraft painted in liveries of airlines that don't exist anymore. And I would have loved to just walk around them and take a look, but they don't allow civilians onto the base.
Same thing with the James River ghost fleet. If you get too close to it with your boat, here comes the police to escort you away.
There was a good documentary last night on PBS about the Japanese WWII battleship Yamato. Largest battleship ever built, and they sent it on a suicide run at the approaching US fleet. Ofcourse our airforce intercepted and sent 3,000 sailors to a watery grave. But it never should have happened, the Japanese were "willing and ready to surrender". Vulgar, war mongering Americans. Ooops, wrong thread my bad.
they lost their best pilots on kamikaze runs at the US fleet. It stated in the documentary that the Yamato was to fire upon as much of the US fleet as possible and then ram other ships "in a glorious end" but you say they planned on beaching it. Not trying to pick a fight with you, just wonder which was their actual plan?
You are spot on in re Russia. Most Americans don't understand their viewpoint after WWII. Hitler and Germany no longer a threat, Stalin had very real reasons ot mistrust us and esp Churchill. It was openly discussed that we should turn our guns on the Soviets and wipe the communists out of power.
and their lack of fuel was a very real issue too. The main reason US/Japan became hostile is the US blocked oil shipments due to the Japanese presence in Nanking, China. Japan mistakenly thought the attack on Pearl Harbor would cowe the US into more agreeable terms with them.
Lan, I love all, I serve all......I'm sort of the embodiment of the Hard Rock Cafe....
GL, I'd have to check some of my references to see where exactly, but by beaching the YAMATO it allows her to fight longer, of course. The guns would be used to counter to amphibious invasion of Okinawa. They knew that the U.S. would eventually conquer Okinawa, but their thought was, take as many U.S. servicemen with you as you can. As a sidenote, the YAMATO had a sister-ship, the MUSASHI, and together they were the largest battleships ever built. The MUSASHI was sunk by U.S. carrier-based aircraft at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, the YAMATO was sunk in April 1945. For all the hype about them, neither ship made much of a showing during the war. To their credit, the Japanese, more than the U.S., foresaw the advent of naval warfare revolving around the carrier, not the battleship, and I've often wondered why they even built those two monsters in the first place.
But, you've touched on a sticky subject (you have a proclivity to do that, GL [img]wink.gif[/img] ) and that involves U.S. submarines. As ahead-of-the-curve as the Japanese were when it came to carriers, they were (fortunately) neglectful when it came to subs. They had them, of course, but they played a much smaller role in their overall strategy. And they spent even less time in the area of anti-submarine warfare, something that the U.S. and the Brits excelled at throughout the war and in both oceans.
To this day, U.S. submarine veterans have always felt short-changed by history. Certainly the carriers deserve all the press they received. But there's no shortage of pictures and stories about the battleships, and the fact is that the subs played a far more vital role than the battleships or for that matter any other surface ships after the carriers.
Part of that, undoubtedly, is due to the stealth nature of sub warfare. But, there are those who have argued there are political reasons for this as well. In the history of naval combat, there are three nations who have instituted an offical policy of unrestricted submarine warfare (i.e. subs approaching and sinking unarmed merchant ships w/o warning)- Imperial Germany during WWI, Nazi Germany during WWII, and the U.S. Navy during WWII. Now, as for me personally, I have no problem with that. A war should be fought with one purpose in mind- ending it as soon as possible. One of the primary reasons Japan was in the shape it was in 1944 and 1945 was because U.S. subs had put millions of tons of Japanese cargo on the ocean floor. Fuel, rubber, steel, you name it, not much of it got through (and Japan has comparatively few natural resources). So to me, the men who served on those subs should be honored the same as everyone else.
But....
The Germans were evil for doing that in 1915-16 (that was one of the reasons Wilson aruged we should go to war with them). And the Nazis were evil for doing that in the North Atlantic in the early 1940s. So I guess there is this thought that, how can we condemn the Germans for doing something "evil" that, well, is ok when we do it? And as a result, history has significantly downplayed (and in some cases outright ignored) the accomplishments of our sub-mariners in WWII.
Hollywood was the same way. Most sub movies take place in the Atlantic, the only Pacific ones I can think of off the top of my head are "Run Silent, Run Deep" (in which the enemy are Japanese warships), and "Torpedo Run," which does involve fighting against transport vessel that's carrying U.S. POWs (and still ends with your boy Glen Ford sinking a Japanese carrier).
I think the use of submarines could never escape the stigmata of being "Sneaky, not dignified, cheating..." Psychologically in war you meet your opponent in an open contest of strength, guile is permitted but outright sneakiness is still not considered acceptable. Submarines are basically "cheating at cards". A Napoleonic reference I think is quite applicable. Napoleon realized Europe would never accept the manner in which he took Spain, not in open battle but he tricked them and basically "cheated at cards" as his foreign minister Talleyrand explained it. He broke the rules. He cheated. And somewhere in the military and I think national subconscience, submarines are "cheating".
You know, the Soviets lost well over a million men in 1945 alone (and that's from January to May). Some in the German high-command had tried to feel out Great Britain and the U.S. to see if those two countries would be interested in cease-fire, leaving the Germans to still fight the Soviets. My point being, the Germans in 1945 (even though defeat was inevitable and, other than Hitler, they all knew it) still had a formidable fighting military. That's why the Russians kept coming and launched an all-out assault on Berlin.
In contrast, the Japanese were just plain whipped. It reached a point in the summer of 1945 that the B-29s had their side guns removed to allow more weight for bombs; and the reason they could do this, there were no more Japanese fighters available to intercept them. They had the planes, but they didn't have the pilots or the fuel.
The YAMATO was indeed on a suicide mission because there wasn't enough fuel for the trip home. The plan was to beach her, then use its guns until they ran out of ammo, then blow it up so the U.S. couldn't capture it. As you mention, the U.S. intercepted it before it could reach its final destination. But there were other Japanese warships that were captured after the war at their moorings, they simply had no fuel to go anywhere.
Lew, why do you hate America?
There's a lot of merit to your comments, GL. In fact, that's more or less how the British Admiralty (and Churhill in particular) felt about it. That the use of submarines to attack unarmed merchant ships was "uncivilized" (as if there's anything "civilized" at all about a war).
Of course, the Brits seemed to have no problems with secretly arming some of their merchant ships, nor did they have a problem in using passenger and merchant ships to transport military supplies.
Again, I have no problem with it. I mean, I have an overall problem with war, but once you're at war, you should do everything to end it as soon as possible. I think part of the problem is, we have allowed ourselves to be taught about this great distinction between civilian and military deaths. If you torpedo a warship and send 2,000 men to their deaths, well, that's ok, they're military personnel and they "consented" to it. But if you sink a merchant ship and send 50 civilians to their death, oh crap that's a "war crime."
I never have made that distinction. A soldier/sailor that is killed is still a human being, still leaves behind a family, and it's no less a tragedy than a civilian death. But I would disagree strongly with any American who would suggest that it was a "war crime" what the U-Boats did in the Atlantic, and not feel the same way about our actions in the Pacific.
And I should also point out that the Japanese stubbornly refused to implement ASW even as the losses mounted. U.S. subs would patrol their shipping lanes and have an absolute feast, and the Japanese response was to....well, do nothing. Send 10 ships, hope that half of them make it. Send 10 more next week, hope half of them make it. I do feel for the men who were on those ships because they were on a suicide mission.
By contrast, in the North Atlantic, the allies used convoys, escorts, aircraft (even blimps were utilized, and they actually turned out to be effective sub spotters because of they could go slower than aircraft and obviously had a much longer range). The battle in the Atlantic was a true battle of opposing forces. The sub battles in the Pacific were decidedly one-sided.
Very good observations Lew. I think the Japanese were far more wrapped up in "honor" and "ritual" than any other combatant force in the entire war. They in fact never intended Pearl Harbor to be a "sneak attack". They actually delivered a declaration of war the same morning, but didn't factor into it the time differences and actually attacked before delivering the declaration. And on a sidenote, FDR's Aunt Polly was romantically involved with the Japanese ambassador.
Even to this day, they've never apologized for Pearl Harbor (which, as we discussed on the other thread, I've never felt they owed us one anyway). But they did issue an apology for not delivering the message first. Which, even if the message had been delivered on time, it still would have been 5 minutes after (or, possibly, 55 minutes before) the first planes attacked.
You really do see the things you talked about reflected in their strategy. It cased them to be rigid and unflexible. They believed in offense, in striking and attacking. Conversely, they weren't as practiced in the areas of retreat and evacuation. And they were very narrow-minded in their philosophy. This is demonstrated at Midway- they had a plan of attack, the U.S. would react accordingly, and then the Japanese would follow-up with the death blow. The key to the whole thing working was the U.S reacting exactly as the Japanese believed they would. It never dawned on the IJN that the U.S might not react as planned, and they made no room for contingencies.
Fortunately, the U.S. at Midway (and in other battles as well) did not react the in the anticipated manner and this spelled doom for the IJN. Prior to the war, the U.S. was just as narrow-minded, but to their credit, U.S. naval strategists, once the war started, became far more open-minded when it came to strategy.
You also talked about Stalin in your other post, I wanted to add that it's always important to keep in mind that the Soviets were anything but "allied" with Britain in the 1930s. While England and France were about to go to war with Germany, the Soviets were signing non-aggression treaties with them. It was the Soviet plan all along to eventually invade Germany, but the Germans beat them to the punch and invaded first. Up until the German attack, the Soviets did nothing to help the situation in western Europe. Then one day here comes the Blitzkrieg, and it becomes Please help us, Mr. Churchill.
We're all "allies" for 3 1/2 years, then the Germans surrender and we go back to being enemies for the next 40-50 years.
And not to call out your boy, but as we've discussed before, maybe we wouldn't have had the Cold War had a certain French Emperor put them out of their misery about 130 years prior [img]wink.gif[/img]
You are absolutely right Lew about the failings of Napoleon having a direct impact on the next century. The seeds of WWI and then WWII were really sown in Vienna in 1814-15. Napoleon was the voice of the future, the Allies were the voice of the past, of reactionary despotism. And they were not held together by common goals of European security, but by self interest and keeping the little people in line. I am reading currently (again I might add, probably my 4th run through this book) "Imperial Sunset" which focuses on the aftermath of the Russian retreat to Waterloo. I have been reading about Napoleon since 1992 and no matter how many books I read I cannot move past 1821. Not sure why, just an obsession.
And if I can play Soviet apologist for just a moment here...
I knew that the combined number of American deaths from the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam totaled roughly 1.2M. Gae provided numbers on the Iraq thread for the other wars as well. Adding all those death counts, and heck let's throw in murders as well, and I doubt, since 1787, where we can find over 3 million Americans that have been intentionally killed. But, for our purposes here, let's go with that number. Let's assume that 3 million Americans have been killed in our nation's history either due to war or murder.
OK the Soviets lost between 20 and 30 million between 1941 and 1945. I'll average the two and go with 25 million. Basically, it would be like the entire state of California being killed over a four year period.
Let's put that number into perspective. Take the death toll on September 11 and multiply it by a factor of 6. Now, pretend that many died every day for four years.
Or an even happier thought- out of every 5 male baby boys born in Russia in the year 1923, only 1 made it to see his 22nd birthday and not be killed or wounded.
Americans have no concept of these numbers. I can calculate them, but I can't really conceive them.
Now, let's no kid ourselves here- you can probably attribute more of those deaths to Stalin than you can Hitler (I understand why history has been brutal on Hitler, but it amazes me at the free pass Stalin has gotten).
But my point is, look at the legacy 9/11 left in our lives. Look at how much change it brought. Now imagine if an enemy killed 25 million of us before we defeated it. Don't you think we would want to take some course of action?
Napoleon invaded them, the Kaiser invaded them, and Hitler invaded them. You look at the millions of lives it cost them, and I think by 1945 they'd had enough. I don't blame them for establishing their "iron curtain." I'm not saying it was the moral thing to do, I'm not saying I personally agree with it, but I can understand why they would have wanted it. Hell the Monroe Doctrine (and its legacy) was implemented precisely so we wouldn't have to worry about something like this happening to us.
Now should we have gone after them in the late 1940s? I don't know on what grounds. They hadn't really done anything to us (unlike when our troops fought as part of a coalition against them under the Wilson administration). And absent the use of nukes, I don't know what we would have done to them, considering they outnumbered and outgunned us 3 to 1 (and considering that our powerful navy is rather helpless to do anything in landlocked Eastern Europe). And it wasn't like we were overly worried about the situation in Poland and Czechoslovakia when Hitler was running over them, so why did we care if they were dominated by Moscow?
I'm telling you, I believe the Cold War was inevitable and I never got into blaming one side or another. It never became a hot war (try telling that to the families of the 53,000 dead in Korea and 58,000 in Vietnam)and it finally ended. The west prevailed. And no I wasn't the biggest Reagan fan in the world, but you have to give credit where credit is due.
All good points Lew. You know Stalin was absolutely every bit as much of a psychopath as Hitler was, yet not villified by history in the same manner at all. He used to get bored at the opera and go to the state prison and execute prisoners himself with his sidearm and then go back to his box and watch the rest of the show. He had Ukranians killed by the millions by starvation, he killed returning soldiers lest they contaminate Soviet idealism with Western debauchery. Yeah he was a real sweetheart. Started adult life as a seminary student. But so did Napoleon's police minister Fouche and he was a real teddybear too...
The Stalin thing amazes me. I would be willing to bet that if you polled the world as to who was the worst person ever, Hitler would win in a landslide. And don't get me wrong, I'm not about to exonerate him by any means, but as far as I'm concerned Stalin has to rank as bad (if not far worse). And I say that for two simple reasons- one, Stalin killed more people, and two, he did it over a longer period of time. Hitler was basically in power for 12 years (1933-1945). And, at least he saw his empire defeated before he took his own life.
Stalin was in power for roughly 30 years or so, and he died peacefully in his sleep. And like you said, the horror stories of him seem endless. The reason I said in my post yesterday that I blame him for more deaths than Hitler...in the 1930s, due to his paranoia, Stalin began a massive purge of his high command. Men who had served with him for many years were killed or sent to salt mines in Siberia. There was no coup, just Stalin's fear that there would be one. It's estimated that he purged 2/3 of his high-ranking officers.
While the rest of the world was paying attention to western Europe in 1940, the Soviets launched an invasion of Finland. On paper, the Soviets should have rolled them in about a month. As it turns out, the Finns beat the crap out of them, and they had to agree to a cease-fire (Finland did lose some real estate out of the deal, but at least they weren't conquered). This exposed to the Germans just how weak the Soviet military really was, and a year later here came the German invasion.
Well, when that happens, Stalin brings back all these officers he sent to Siberia and re-ups them to help save the Motherland. But their military was in such poor shape, it took 12-18 months to get things righted. ANd during that time, the Germans absolutely feasted on them, and were it not for the Russian winter, the Germans would surely have seized everything up to and including Moscow.
Then, after the glorious defeat of the Germans, Stalin rewards a lot of his high-ranking officers by forcing them back into "retirement." Why? Because Stalin didn't want to share the glory with anyone else. It was his blundering that almost cost them defeat in the first place, and it's not like any great strategy on his part led to victory. But, the winner gets to write history and so for many years, the official Soviet position was that they survived and conquered the Germans only because of the great leadership of Uncle Joe. And that neither the U.S. nor the Brits helped out, the Soviets basically defeated the Germans on their own.
But again, if Marge Schott had a picture of Stalin on her wall, no one would have cared (probably because no one would even know). I'd love to go to a high school history class and hold up pictures of Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao. I suspect everyone would know Hitler. But I really wonder how many would even be able to identify Joe and Mao, let alone tell us anything about them.
And as far as I'm concerned, they all three deserve at least equal billing. But, history disagrees with me, although I will admit that I once went carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, and I didn't make it with anyone anyhow...
GL-
I know only of the name, what have you got on Minister of Police Fouche?
As an example of how Fouche operated, he voted for the execution of Louis XVI in the Assembly and then was instrumental in the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII in 1814 and again in 1815. Ofcourse he wanted him propped up on his throne with himself as Prime Minister and the Bourbons had little use for him. Upon Napoleon's return from Elba he convinced the current police minister to issue warrants for his arrest and is said to have stated "You save the king, I'll save the monarchy", escaped thru his garden borrowing a ladder from Napoleon's step daughter Hortense whose house shared a garden with her and offered his services to Napoleon. He also sent all of Napoleon's war plans to the Allies as quickly as he could get his hands on them. He died an exile in Trieste and his friends/neighbors included some of Napoleon's brothers and sisters.
So that's where cruise ships go to die. Depressing. [img]frown.gif[/img]
Fouche was a hard-core Jacobin, or Revolutionary who served Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and was ruthless. He maintained "order" by his network of spies during Napoleon's reign, and as Talleyrand once observed when mass arrests were issued, 'To his credit as many of his friends were on the list as his enemies..." But I have several books on the man and he is a real puzzle. Faithful husband and good father, led an exemplary personal life. He saved as many people as he caused to go to prison or have executed, was not vindictive, preferred to coerce offenders back into line rather than punish them. In the end he was a traitor and basically sat on the fence and waited to see who would win before declaring himself. And then continued to work with the losers in secret. No Stalin or Hitler by any means, but also not the kind of person you would want on your Christmas card list either...
Lew, Madame Mao was apparently even worse than her fat little hubby.
Not just cruise ships, Lake, but all kinds of vessels. It's not uncommon for an old Great Lakes vessel to be towed half-way around the world to be broken-up. There's a lot of money in the scrap.
I don't have a problem with it in most cases. But there are certain vessels that should be saved. GL and I have discusssed the UNITED STATES, which is just rotting away at a pier in Philadelphia. I wish someone could do something with it, not necessarily to take it to sea again but you know, a casino, hotel, brothel, something...
Like what they did with the QUEEN MARY in Long Beach.
Yeah, I thought the same thing about the SS United States as far back as the late 1980s, turn it into a floating casino in the Gulf of Mexico based out of Tampa Bay. I'm sure it could be a success. Or a brothel in the far east...
Lake some have been used by Hollywood too, the Il de France was blown up in a movie.
French Line Sailings
Pretty cool link here.
I was surprised to see Disney's Big Red Boat in the graveyard. I knew people that sailed that on family vacations, said it was great. That was just ~10 years ago.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It wasn't supposed to be. Goofy ran it aground there and they just left it...Quote:
Originally posted by LAKE:
I was surprised to see Disney's Big Red Boat in the graveyard. I knew people that sailed that on family vacations, said it was great. That was just ~10 years ago.
Becky, I was basically the "Gopher" of the inland rivers.....
Disney sucks. They made me and Bucky leave for making out in front of they castle. We was only teasing, he is my son afterall! I had one of my boobs hanging out and they said it was "not approprated" behavor or some nonsense. It was ok to feed my kids though when they was growing up! Sons a bitches.
Your jaw would drop, Lake, if you knew how expensive maritime salvage can be. Your vessel will be insured for $X, but just a small amount of damage can rack a big repair bill. However, you have to add in the salvage costs as well, and when you do that it doesn't take long to have a constructive total loss. My experience was on the river, and I used to pay some high bills just for raising boats that were partially submerged, or in something like 15' of water. I never had to pay for a blue water salvage but I know it can fall well into the tens of millions depending on where it is.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I didn't know you was a boat captain! I thought you wasd a nurse or something.Quote:
Originally posted by Lew:
Your jaw would drop, Lake, if you knew how expensive maritime salvage can be. Your vessel will be insured for $X, but just a small amount of damage can rack a big repair bill. However, you have to add in the salvage costs as well, and when you do that it doesn't take long to have a constructive total loss. My experience was on the river, and I used to pay some high bills just for raising boats that were partially submerged, or in something like 15' of water. I never had to pay for a blue water salvage but I know it can fall well into the tens of millions depending on where it is.
<font color="#0000FF" size="1">[ January 25, 2008 01:15 PM: Message edited by: gae ]</font>