<< MORAL QUESTIONS FACED ~ MAIN ~ PRIORITIES INVERTED >>
FISK REELED IN
Robert Fisk tells of a French submarine sunk in 1941, with the loss of many lives:
The French embassy in Beirut regularly reminds divers that this is a war grave, but the Lebanese still swim inside the hull. The gentle Mediterranean tides rock the vessel from time to time, and the skeletons inside - still in the remnants of their uniforms - rock with it.
They do? After nearly 70 years in the sea? We might be looking at the latest Fiskian exaggeration. Here’s a 2001 interview with a diver who has examined the wreck 300 times:
“What happened to the bodies?” I ask innocently. “They are still there,’’ Walid replies, with a diver’s professional acceptance of death. “There are bones lying around, they’re pretty much covered with sand now, but it’s the crew ... It’s all there, just as it was, along with the crew. There are skeletons, some bones. I found an empty wallet there once and some plastic boots. No names.’‘
That sounds a little more realistic. Click to reveal the identity of Fisk’s fact-checker.
UPDATE. In other Fisk news, he’s a double-generation deathbed dodger:
Edward Fisk was a cantankerous, tough, recalcitrant old man: my father William refused to visit him when he was dying - just as I later refused, foolishly, to visit Bill on his deathbed ...
What a very odd fellow.
UPDATE II. In other unusual British family news, Peter Hitchens reviews Christopher Hitchens.
The canon? There’s still a dead vicar there, or do you mean “cannon”, Robbie, in transcribing your source’s answer? It seems someone needs a proof checker and not just a fact checker and a credulity checker.
And Ronald Reagan’s behemoth battleship? Reagan’s? The last time I checked, the New Jersey and the other battleships of the USN were WW2 vintage that were mothballed for a long time before being returned to active service. So hardly “Reagan’s” creation or personal property.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 06 03 at 10:27 AM • permalinkAlthough ‘poetic’ generally implies some sort of beauty in the writing, whereas Fisk is the master only of aimless leaden turgidity.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2007 06 03 at 10:53 AM • permalinkI hope they’ve declared this wreck a historic war site, commemorating the fact that Les Francais have lost or retreated from every major conflict since the Napoleonic adventures, and that England, the USA, Australia, New Zealand…pretty much the entire anglophone world, plus lots of European people…have stepped up to the mark on France’s behalf. Tawdry little cowards that they are, they’re all now retiring to Tahiti and New Caledonia once they reach pension age, leaving the motherland to the muzzies. (I was in New Callie just last month, and it’s the truth).
“I found one shell as big as a car – I guess it fell off the New Jersey when it was shelling Beirut in 1983.’’
Yes, because we trundle the Volkswagen-size shells across the open deck and then stuff them in the muzzles of the cannon before running them out again by hand. Just like Horatio Hornblower.
Twits. No wonder they can’t read a depth gauge.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 03 at 11:23 AM • permalinkI understand unwary snorkelers have been accosted by the shade of Will Turner…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 06 03 at 11:59 AM • permalinkChristopher Hitchens’ anti-religion tirades rarely rise to the level of teenage rants, but Peter Hitchens seems to interpret “conservatism” as “not doing anything about anything because you might make a mess.” True, a lot of conservatives think that way, but timidity won’t preserve those old-time values.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 06 03 at 12:34 PM • permalinkA 16” shell, less the lightweight ballistic windshield (shatters on impact), is smaller than a man.
The amount of actual explosive in a “High Capacity” 16”/50 shell is about 153.6 lbs, rather less than most car bombs, and certainly not enough to make a hole the size of a football field.
A “shell” the size of a car is most likely a 2000lb bomb, and highly dangerous.
Paco: you know, I was thinking the same things. Maybe they’re like the Mystics and the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 06 03 at 02:31 PM • permalinkFiskie is just confused. He wrote that column after spending a drunken evening gazing into his aquarium and watching this guy.
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 06 03 at 03:10 PM • permalink#17. Yes. This will come as a surprise to some, I guess, but a 16-inch shell is EXACTLY 16 inches in diameter.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 06 03 at 03:11 PM • permalink#7 Ahh, you mentioned New Caledonia. I had a brief holiday there from December 29 to January 6 this year. I think I might have mentioned it once or twice here at Tim’s. Here are some snaps:
Sunday 31/12/06
Monday 1/1/07
Tuesday 2/1/07
Wednesday 3/1/07
Thursday 4/1/07
Friday 5/1/07
Saturday 6/1/07Paco, there was a tropical low off New Caledonia, they thought it might develop into a cyclone - it even brought bad weather and high seas to the Queensland, Australia, coast - there were 35 rescues on the Gold Coast and 2 people drowned on the weekend of the 6-7 January.
The first day, the Saturday and the morning of the Sunday the weather was fine, we didn’t take any snaps ‘cos we thought “We’ll be here for a week, plenty of time to take snaps.”
Sheesh!!Even his fact checker is full of merde’:-
Down at Sarafand – ancient Sarepta for classical scholars – Noshie found a Spitfire during the civil war, its wings and fuselage rusted over and no trace of its pilot......
Spitfires were built out of aircraft grade aluminium, and don’t rust. they may oxidise or corrode in the presence of a suitable corrosive or oxidising agent, neither of which are plentiful in most deserts. I’m sure Biggles would be hanging around his downed kite for forty years waiting for the crash truck to pick him up as well.
#17 & #21 To put it in perspective, I’m looking at new wheels for my car which will have a rim/hub size of about 16”.
Posted by SouthernCrusader on 2007 06 03 at 10:05 PM • permalinkI see that Fisk has been long lunching with another person who tells him all this truly rooly amazing secret stuff.
Glad I don’t have to pick up his plonk bill, must be huge.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 06 03 at 11:48 PM • permalink#28 Kae. Hebrews 13 verse 8 has a good description of your holiday snaps. (If you can’t lay your hands on the family bible, try #8 in this King James Version)
It’s the only quote I know from the Bible and was used for 20 years to describe Qantas flight crew meals.Actually #21 All full-caliber Iowa class main armament projectiles had a bourrelet diameter of 15.977 inches (40.058 cm). Not quite 16 inches.
Posted by Astonished on 2007 06 04 at 04:48 AM • permalink#14 Pixy Misa,
I read both and the only impression I have is that England is all over. I must confess that the this idea is reinforced by my experience from 1991. We landed at Heathrow on a Sunday afternoon and the taxi took us to Russell Square via Hyde Park. On a Sunday afternoon I expected to see a cross-section of London residents out in the Park on a Sunday afternoon. All we saw were Arabs, their covered women and the children. Where was everybody else? And this was ten years before 911. Nothing that has been reported out of UK since has reassured me.
But that’s OK, our next holiday is to Antarctica, and unless the penguins have converted (reverted) to islam we are OK.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
I like this part from the second article:
As for that Vichy French Army in 1941, the Allies won the day and gave the French soldiers the choice of joining the Free French or returning to Vichy France. Virtually the entire French force – at least 37,000 men – chose to return to German-occupied and collaborationist France. I have a photo at home which shows one of their troop ships. The soldiers aboard are grinning at the camera, holding up the French tricolour. On it are woven the words: “Vive Petain’‘.
Weasels.