General Norman Schwartzkopf remembered that as a boy on the Jersey shore in 1942 he could see the oil tankers burning offshore from the U-Boot attacks.
And I haven't thought about this in years, but as a kid on the Jersey beaches in the 1960's occasionally I'd encounter black sticky bands in the beach sand close to the waters edge. It wasn't until years later I realized they were the oil residue from ships sunk by U-Boots 25 years earlier.
It's been said that the two most hated vessels in maritime history are the Viking longship and the German U-Boot. Nothing else comes close.
Miningman Dark days of WWII Jan. 1942 Fate of a Lady Ship
Dark days of WWII Jan. 1942 Fate of a Lady Ship
The Canadian steam passenger ship Lady Hawkins was sunk by a U-66 about 260 nautical miles from the coast of the States. Another Canadian steam merchant Cornwallis was sunk by U-1230 a lot closer to the coast of US in 1944. I believe the War Department was really triggered. Cruising on a civilian ship in Atlantic or the Far East during WWII was no other than a suicide mission. Even a battleship like The HMS Prince of Wales didn't have a chance.
Homo sapiens never failed to kill each other; generation after generation, just like all the creatures you can find in the Amazon jungle; but at least no creatures would know how to nuke their own planet.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Thank You.
MiningmanYes and I believe there was an extensive coverup and news suppression of the events at that time.
It didn't work. Many of the sinkings were clearly visible to large numbers of people on the shore. Very obvious that not only was our coastal shipping, particular oil shipping, an eay target but that there was little we could do about it ... not only in the short run but indefinitely, at that time.
One has only to look at the history of oil trains in these years to understand just what a spectacular amount of workaround was necessary ... just to avoid something that perhaps should have been easily foreseen, resulting from little more than expedience on our part.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 'chosen' answer to the I'll Never Go Hungry Again repercussions turned out to be pipeline construction (with all the associated dismal lags and delays). And who am I to say this was a wrong answer... ?
Yes and I believe there was an extensive coverup and news suppression of the events at that time. The allied loss of ships and men was staggering. That's were the loose lips sink ships campaign started.
"Operation Drumbeat" or, "Paukenslag", right after the opening of hostilities between the United States and Nazi Germany. U-Boot men called it "The Second Happy Time", the US Navy was powerless to stop the U-Boot onslaught, there was almost nothing in the way of Navy assets on the East Coast.
It was so bad that Navy blimp crews had to raid all the hardware and sporting goods stores in the area of the Lakehurst NJ Naval Air Station for small arms, especially rifles.
Imagine a Navy blimp making a pass over a U-Boot with the aircrew banging away with Winchesters like a Hollywood western! It happened.
Needless to say the situation didn't last, but while it did a lot of ships and men were lost.
I adored Harry Chapin. Saw his performance at the O'keefe Centre in Toronto just days before his untimely death. No disrespect intended whatsoever.
Even drove down the 30,000 pounds of bananas hill into Scanton, Pa. just to do it. Of course Scranton is a Mecca for us steamfans and that was part of it.
MiningmanPerhaps we have shifted more suitably to phrases like 'Year of the Rat' , or ' Year of the Monkey'. Certainly describes things better.
We don't have a creature to describe what kind of year this one has been!
One of my pet peeves is people starting to say "accross" the world. A lot of people died to prove that the world is R O U N D!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
MiningmanCue Harry Chapin.
That's not funny!
Firelock-- Perhaps we have shifted more suitably to phrases like 'Year of the Rat' , or ' Year of the Monkey'. Certainly describes things better.
Yes, all the formal this and that in those documents and all the very distinguished very important people listed and it's really all about bananas!
Outside of the listed requirement for "Accomadations for 100 First Class passengers ( see above mentioned very important people ) the only thing they specifically denote is bananas.
Cue Harry Chapin.
Remember that recent Photo of the Day with the 2 CB&Q steam locomotives thundering by, rods blurred, white smoke and steam billowing far into the atmosphere, heck you could feel the shaking just by looking at the picture and it's all about bananas.
Bananas rule! Who knew?
Fascinating.
Doesn anyone use that classy phrase "The year of our Lord..." anymore, or is it just politically incorrect to do so?
I think the trade agreement necessitating construction of the Lady Ships ultimately causes the existence of the brand name "Canadian National Steamships."
Thanks to Mike for this great information.
Yep, that's "Atomic Annie" all right, a 280mm (11 inch) bore artillery piece. Twenty like it were produced. Later developments of nuclear artillery shells for eight inch and 155mm (6 inch) caliber guns made a big, unwieldy unit like "Annie" obsolete.
Firelock76low-yield (low kiloton or less than a kiloton) nuclear weapons made for battlefield use
One step below artillery fired weapons like the 15kt (about the same yield as the little boy) Upshot-Knothole test Grable of 1953:
Thanks Penny and Firelock
Mike just sent me this!
Midland Mike, thanks for that Halifax link! I couldn't be happier to be wrong!
Miningman, and other who may be unfamiliar with the term, "tactical nuke" is what us military guys, present and former, call low-yield (low kiloton or less than a kiloton) nuclear weapons made for battlefield use. Capable of being delivered by aircraft or in some cases by artillery their postulated use would have been to stop a Soviet "blitz" into Western Europe if all else failed.
Goes without saying they've never been used anywhere by anyone. And even using them might have opened a "Pandora's Box" of horror no-one might have imagined.
And it's a safe bet any country with a nuclear capability has them.
https://www.eater.com/2018/9/24/17887660/grape-nuts-cereal-ice-cream-flavor-history-explainer-recipe
My favorite cereal hasn't been made in years:
Never tried mixing it with ice cream. Never had pregnancy cravings either which is how many of these improbable combinations get started!
So you think the Grapenut ice cream is simply the Post cereal added to ice cream? Maybe so, but would it not be Grape Nuts in italics and perhaps identified as Post Grape Nuts? I dunno, maybe not.
Yes Post Grape Nuts is still available from time to time as is the Grape Nuts Flakes. They have a small dedicated following and I'm sure most of us have tried it at least once. Even my dog gives up after a while and that's with milk!
I'm trying to imagine it in ice cream. Maybe just a wee bit of the Grape Nuts here and there or sprinkled on the top.
Now I got to try it out. Sprinkle on top of vanilla, yes? Or no, mix it in?
It has been more than a few years since I ate any GrapeNuts--the cereal was, indeed, quite crunchy. There was, also, GrapeNuts Flakes--perhaps more enjoyable if your teeth were not up to crunching GrapeNuts. However, as I remember, the Flakes did not have the same ingredients as the Nuts had.
Johnny
MiningmanSept 9 menu lists 'grapenuts ice cream'....not sure what that is but it sounds crunchy.
GrapeNuts was, and I think still may be, a Post breakfast cereal. "Crunch" is kind of an understatement for its mouth feel; I'm tempted to quote the old Playboy review of Laphroaig single-malt: "it takes a verra determined laddie to get that stoof doon"...
I'd suspect 'GrapeNuts ice cream' would be like a tortoni on steroids. You'd certainly have your fiber, though.
Check out these Menu's. We can imagine. Sept 9 menu lists 'grapenuts ice cream'....not sure what that is but it sounds crunchy. Does anyone still offer this?
Yes it's a complicated thing. People use the word cheaper everyday as in "it's cheaper this way" or "it's cheaper to produce" , "cheaper to buy" so much so it has become a normal part of everyday conversation.
Cheaper means poorly made, poorly constructed, inferior quality, not meant to last. I use the word 'less expensive' if it applies as it gives a comparison. It denotes efficiency and smart application to offer a service or product with less expense. Not cheapness.
Life had a nice pace to it. The rat race and cheapness became the order of the day. Things went too fast. We lost too much and we disposed of much what was solid, so much of the fabric of society, so much what was built and was normal and necessary. Now we have the .1%, a far smaller and shrinking middle class, whom exist to serve only the .1% at their whim. This was planned, this was marketed, this was sold to all.
The Pennsy is gone, S1 is scrapped along with 100,000 rebuilt perfectly fine, many new, steam locomotives so we were told they were "war weary", streetcar lines were tore up, Packers are no more as are so many diverse car companies, the CMSt.P&P is obliterated off the planet, competition was eliminated and we squeeze into sardine cans with people wearing their pyjamas, delays the norm, and mayhem at the terminals along with extra everything costs that are usary yet most folks defend that!, a generation has turned their back on Capitalism because it did/does nothing for them.
It's cheaper all right. Big time.
Miningman Nice boat Penny. What a beauty. I'm sure I have seen the SS City of Cleveland at some point in Port Dover as a kid. Distinctly remember it was a big deal when the "big boat from Cleveland" visited on special occasions.
Nice boat Penny. What a beauty.
I'm sure I have seen the SS City of Cleveland at some point in Port Dover as a kid. Distinctly remember it was a big deal when the "big boat from Cleveland" visited on special occasions.
I like the length of the grand stair and the atrium of SS City of Cleveland which brought natural light deep inside the ship. Bright sunlight always makes objects look fresh and lively. If only I could still have the chance to traveling by big steamboat and steam train on the same trip.....
Miningman Also .. Jones 1945- Thanks for the SS Normandie clip. That is just stupendous. It reflects a whole culture and a nation. What I would give to spend 24 hours in the day. Think I would have trouble just breathing! So we lost our magnificent ships, our Steamship lines, the look to the future of steam with all what we have been discussing, many of our stations, sleeping and dining car services to everywhere, fully functional extensive Interurban and streetcar services everywhere, the great names of our railroads and our trains, and so on, all under the banner of progress and expediency. What a load of crap!
Also .. Jones 1945- Thanks for the SS Normandie clip. That is just stupendous. It reflects a whole culture and a nation. What I would give to spend 24 hours in the day. Think I would have trouble just breathing!
So we lost our magnificent ships, our Steamship lines, the look to the future of steam with all what we have been discussing, many of our stations, sleeping and dining car services to everywhere, fully functional extensive Interurban and streetcar services everywhere, the great names of our railroads and our trains, and so on, all under the banner of progress and expediency. What a load of crap!
You are very welcome, Vince. I am glad to see that more and more videos from the past being uploaded on different platforms including YouTube.
I totally agree with you that the human race missed a lot of great things in the past 100 years. If the concept of planned obsolescence is part of this so-called progress, I would rather be stuck in the 1930s forever! I love innovative ideas and everything that I think it is beautiful. But, unfortunately, for me, I am never a big friend of contemporary design and style. I am glad to see human rights were improved in some countries (Yes, only a handful of them); I can see some very amazing contemporary designs being created. But usually, only 10% (or less) of them could be my cup of tea.
Firelock76From what I've read there's no buildings on the Halifax waterfront that date from before December 6th 1917. Absolutely none.
The explosion happened off the north part of Halifax. Closer to downtown there are a number of older buildings along the waterfront in an area called the Historic Properties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_Properties_(Halifax)
Wow. Never heard that "tactical nuke" reference before. They discovered the hard way what ammonium nitrate and fuel oil brought together is all about. That is still what we use underground for blasting, nicknamed 'Anfo' by everyone. Colour coded by country too... USA uses green beads, we use pink.
From the Noronic article " at one time there were more people asleep on boats on the Great Lakes than on any ocean in the world".
So we lost our magnificient ships, our Steamship lines, the look to the future of steam with all what we have been discussing, many of our stations, sleeping and dining car services to everywhere, fully functional extensive Interurban and streetcar services everywhere, the great names of our railroads and our trains, and so on, all under the banner of progress and expediency. What a load of crap!
I suppose next someone is going to tell me that Gov't mandated food guidelines have in no way contributed to obesity and diabetes epidemics and that we are all so much healthier now. People aren't dropping dead of heart attacks at 58 or 63 anymore because someone figured out that childrens aspirin will save your sorry butt.
Pennsylvania Station is gone, the indestructible Pennsylvania RailRoad is gone, the mighty New York Central is gone, ... where is the Lackawanna and the Lehigh Valley? The Minneapolis and St Louis? The Monon? The Pacific Electric? Did we suffer a North America wide nuclear attack? What hath God wrought!!!
Jones1945 NDG FYI. ' S S Noronic. ' This definitely did not help the Steamship business. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xlMwXPVspis/VqaB_Z73WDI/AAAAAAAAMnM/MylOtSk35QM/s1600/SSNoronicfire1949-URBANTO-user-Goldie.JPG http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/worst-disaster-in-history-of-city.html The fire on SS Noronic was horrific! But compared to what happened to SS Mont-Blanc in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on December 6, 1917 aka Halifax Explosion, it wasn't the worst case. https://jgburdette.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/collision-in-the-narrows-halifax-explosion/comment-page-2/
NDG FYI. ' S S Noronic. ' This definitely did not help the Steamship business. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xlMwXPVspis/VqaB_Z73WDI/AAAAAAAAMnM/MylOtSk35QM/s1600/SSNoronicfire1949-URBANTO-user-Goldie.JPG http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/worst-disaster-in-history-of-city.html
The fire on SS Noronic was horrific! But compared to what happened to SS Mont-Blanc in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on December 6, 1917 aka Halifax Explosion, it wasn't the worst case.
https://jgburdette.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/collision-in-the-narrows-halifax-explosion/comment-page-2/
From what I've read there's no buildings on the Halifax waterfront that date from before December 6th 1917. Absolutely none.
The Mont Blanc explosion's been compared to what we'd call today a "tactical nuke."
Some good stuff here too: https://www.cruiselinehistory.com/ss-city-of-cleveland-on-a-labor-day-cruise-in-1947/ Search "great lakes" on the main page for more articles. Site is by one of the writers from "The Love Boat".
These are really nice.., from Mike .. luv the bananas picture, also great article Last thread.
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