Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
LaughMyselfTo
Nov 15, 2012

by XyloJW

Lumberjack Bonanza posted:

Holy loving poo poo.

David Parker Ray, one of the nastier serial killers I've read about, lived outside Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

hitchensgoespop
Oct 22, 2008
I find the whole David Parker Ray story a bit hard to believe.

The first time i read the details it sounded horrific but there's no remains anywhere, no traces of anything in the room that he built and the transcript of that tape he apparently played for people when you read it quickly starts to sound like something a teenager would dream up to shock people.

Also the magic potion he used to give people to induce "amnesia" sounds like horseshit to me and the fact he died before any of this could be questioned in court adds to the confusion in my opinion.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Didn't he get caught because a woman he went after escaped? I'd imagine most serial killers have the minds of teenagers.

hitchensgoespop
Oct 22, 2008
Im not saying he wasn't into some weird and sick poo poo but saying he killed a million people and got away with it due to his magic potions and the fact he would regularly outsmart the FBI just doesn't add up to me.

I guess we will never know.

Which in retrospect, is possibly a good thing.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It does seem like somebody would notice if people started disappearing regularly from his small town of 6,000, and also that one of the people charged as accomplices would take police to at least one of the bodies for a reduced sentence or something.

nonathlon
Jul 9, 2004
And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...
Fresh content: The Monster of Glamis

quote:

“If you could even guess the nature of this castle’s secret,” said Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore, “you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours ...

That awful secret was once the talk of Europe ... The conundrum engaged two generations of high society until, soon after 1900, the secret itself was lost. One version of the story holds that it was so terrible that the 13th Earl’s heir flatly refused to have it revealed to him.

The bulk of the story is scattered across a number of pages, but the story of Thomas Lyon-Bowes and Glamis Castle will give you a start, with more in Smithsonian magazine and elsewhere.

quote:

Glamis castle was a giant, eerie, isolated building, which is saying something for rural Scottish castles. Even many of the Earls who lived there hated the place and would frequently move the family elsewhere, letting the castle fall into a bit of disrepair.

quote:

The mystery was told to the present writer some 60 years ago, when he was a boy, and it made a great impression on him. The story was, and is, that in the Castle of Glamis is a secret chamber. In this chamber is confined a monster, who is the rightful heir to the title and property, but who is so unpresentable that it is necessary to keep him out of sight and out of possession.

The story almost certainly isn't literally true, and probably was stoked up by the dramatic tendencies of Bows-Lyon family. However, it's an interesting story and there are oddities such as the missing grave, actual hidden rooms and an anachronistic protrait.

A Pinball Wizard
Mar 23, 2005

I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands

College Slice

outlier posted:

The story was, and is, that in the Castle of Glamis is a secret chamber. In this chamber is confined a monster, who is the rightful heir to the title and property, but who is so unpresentable that it is necessary to keep him out of sight and out of possession. .[/spoiler]

That was a great Simpsons ep.

Ague Proof
Jun 5, 2014

they told me
I was everything

outlier posted:

Fresh content: The Monster of Glamis

Macbeth lives. :tinfoil:

nonathlon
Jul 9, 2004
And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...

Ague Proof posted:

Macbeth lives. :tinfoil:

That is a kind of cute detail: In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth lives at Glamis Castle, even though it wasn't built until 300 years later.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




outlier posted:

F

The story almost certainly isn't literally true, and probably was stoked up by the dramatic tendencies of Bows-Lyon family. However, it's an interesting story and there are oddities such as the missing grave, actual hidden rooms and an anachronistic protrait.

It also appears in Grant Morrison's the Invisibles:

Grassy Knowles
Apr 4, 2003

"The original Terminator was a gritty fucking AMAZING piece of sci-fi. Gritty fucking rock-hard MURDER!"

Jack Gladney posted:

It does seem like somebody would notice if people started disappearing regularly from his small town of 6,000, and also that one of the people charged as accomplices would take police to at least one of the bodies for a reduced sentence or something.

Truth or Consequences is a poo poo trailer park/truck stop that a lot of transients end up at, and people have a tendency to just up and leave there. My ex used to love true crime shows on Netflix, and I swear every 3rd episode featured the town in some way.

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t
I ran across a youtube of the song "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron" which is a jaunty song and in the youtube's case, a loving pro-click if you want to see the worst slide show someone made to go with the music.

So on a lark, I looked up more on Manfred von Richthofen the infamous Red Baron:

quote:

For decades after World War I, some authors questioned whether Richthofen achieved 80 victories, insisting that his record was exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Some claimed that he took credit for aircraft downed by his squadron or wing.

In fact, Richthofen's victories are unusually well documented. A full list of the aircraft the Red Baron was credited with shooting down was published as early as 1958[60]—with documented RFC/RAF squadron details, aircraft serial numbers, and the identities of Allied airmen killed or captured—73 of the 80 are listed as matching recorded British losses.

A study conducted by British historian Norman Franks with two colleagues, published in Under the Guns of the Red Baron in 1998, reached the same conclusion about the high degree of accuracy of Richthofen's claimed victories. There were also unconfirmed victories that would put his actual total as high as 100 or more.[61]

Man, he was a demon in the air! How did he get to be such a

quote:

After being educated at home he attended a school at Schweidnitz before beginning military training when he was 11


Oh, well, that certainly gives you a leg up. His pre-flight career was a stint in a supply unit, which is about as fun as it sounds. What it led up to (or so legends tell) was a very polite "gently caress this!" to up his chain of command:

quote:

Disappointed and bored at not being able to directly participate in combat, the last straw for Richthofen was an order to transfer to the army's supply branch.

His interest in the Air Service had been aroused by his examination of a German military aircraft behind the lines,[10] and he applied for a transfer to Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (Imperial German Army Air Service), later to be known as the Luftstreitkräfte.

He is supposed to have written in his application for transfer, "I have not gone to war in order to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose."[c]

In spite of this unmilitary attitude, and to his own surprise, his request was granted,[10] and he joined the flying service at the end of May 1915.[11]

:c00lbert: It is said that the very first pair of Aviator sunglasses manifested and landed on the bridge of the Baron's nose upon writing that line. [citation needed]

So, he joined the air service and became a good pilot. He was, of course, a complete professional.

quote:

After his first confirmed victory, Richthofen contacted a jeweller in Berlin and ordered a silver cup engraved with the date and the type of enemy aircraft.[d] He continued this until he had 60 cups, by which time the dwindling supply of silver in blockaded Germany meant that silver cups like this could no longer be supplied. Richthofen discontinued his orders at this stage, rather than accept cups made in pewter or other base metal.

Holy poo poo. At least that's more classy than tea-bagging their plane with his plane.

It is also said the practice of video game achievements was invented at this time. [citation needed]

While recovering from being wounded, he wrote his only book, Der Rote Kampfflieger (The Red Fighter Pilot). Towards the end, he sums up his mindset nicely:

quote:

My father discriminates between a sportsman and a butcher. The latter shoots for fun. When I have shot down an Englishman my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour. Therefore I do not succeed in shooting two Englishmen in succession. If one of them comes down I have the feeling of complete satisfaction. Only much, much later I have overcome my instinct and have become a butcher.

Read that a couple times, let it sink in.

By this time, ol' Manfred was a proven legend:

quote:

By 1918, Richthofen had become such a legend that it was feared that his death would be a blow to the morale of the German people.[38]

Richthofen himself refused to accept a ground job after his wound, stating that the average German soldier had no choice in his duties, and he would therefore continue to fly in combat.[39]

Certainly he had become part of a cult of hero-worship, assiduously encouraged by official propaganda. German propaganda circulated various false rumours, including that the British had raised squadrons specially to hunt down Richthofen, and had offered large rewards and an automatic Victoria Cross to any Allied pilot who shot him down.[40]

Passages from his correspondence indicate he may have at least half-believed some of these stories himself

But, in the end, it was proved he was as mortal as we:

quote:

At the time, the Baron had been pursuing (at very low altitude) a Sopwith Camel piloted by a novice Canadian pilot, Lieutenant Wilfrid "Wop" May of No. 209 Squadron, Royal Air Force.[42] In turn, the Baron was spotted and briefly attacked by a Camel piloted by a school friend (and flight commander) of May's, Canadian Captain Arthur "Roy" Brown, who had to dive steeply at very high speed to intervene, and then had to climb steeply to avoid hitting the ground.[42] Richthofen turned to avoid this attack, and then resumed his pursuit of May

Captain Brown was an all-around good guy - he took new pilots to fly over actual dogfights in progress so they knew what the hell to expect. It's notable that he never lost a pilot under him. By coincidence, he also shares the last name of Charlie Brown, Snoopy's owner. :tinfoil:

quote:

It was almost certainly during this final stage in his pursuit of May that a single .303 bullet hit Richthofen, damaging his heart and lungs so severely that it must have caused a very quick death.[43][44]

In the last seconds of his life, he managed to make a hasty but controlled landing ( 49°55′56″N 2°32′16″E) in a field on a hill near the Bray-Corbie road, just north of the village of Vaux-sur-Somme, in a sector controlled by the Australian Imperial Force (AIF).[42] One witness, Gunner George Ridgway, stated that when he and other Australian soldiers reached the aircraft, Richthofen was still alive but died moments later.[44]

Another eye witness, Sergeant Ted Smout of the Australian Medical Corps, reported that Richthofen's last word was "kaputt".[45][f]

So passed the Red Baron. The RAF officially credited Brown with the killing shot, but it's more likely the shot came from the ground. If anything, it was a team effort putting the Baron in the path of that bullet.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Literally Kermit posted:

I ran across a youtube of the song "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron" which is a jaunty song and in the youtube's case, a loving pro-click if you want to see the worst slide show someone made to go with the music.

So on a lark, I looked up more on Manfred von Richthofen the infamous Red Baron:


Man, he was a demon in the air! How did he get to be such a



Oh, well, that certainly gives you a leg up. His pre-flight career was a stint in a supply unit, which is about as fun as it sounds. What it led up to (or so legends tell) was a very polite "gently caress this!" to up his chain of command:


:c00lbert: It is said that the very first pair of Aviator sunglasses manifested and landed on the bridge of the Baron's nose upon writing that line. [citation needed]

So, he joined the air service and became a good pilot. He was, of course, a complete professional.


Holy poo poo. At least that's more classy than tea-bagging their plane with his plane.

It is also said the practice of video game achievements was invented at this time. [citation needed]

While recovering from being wounded, he wrote his only book, Der Rote Kampfflieger (The Red Fighter Pilot). Towards the end, he sums up his mindset nicely:


Read that a couple times, let it sink in.

By this time, ol' Manfred was a proven legend:


But, in the end, it was proved he was as mortal as we:


Captain Brown was an all-around good guy - he took new pilots to fly over actual dogfights in progress so they knew what the hell to expect. It's notable that he never lost a pilot under him. By coincidence, he also shares the last name of Charlie Brown, Snoopy's owner. :tinfoil:


So passed the Red Baron. The RAF officially credited Brown with the killing shot, but it's more likely the shot came from the ground. If anything, it was a team effort putting the Baron in the path of that bullet.

If he thought a butcher killed for fun, what did a sportsman kill for? Either way, German's lucky he got killed before turning full serial killer.

Creed Reunion Tour
Jul 3, 2007

by Cyrano4747
Grimey Drawer
Imagine if he had survived the war; Germany may have had someone competent to lead the Luftwaffe during WWII.

Crumbletron
Jul 21, 2006



IT'S YOUR BOY JESUS, MANE

Jack Gladney posted:

If he thought a butcher killed for fun, what did a sportsman kill for? Either way, German's lucky he got killed before turning full serial killer.

He probably considered a sportsman the type of person who'd kill an animal cleanly, efficiently and with a minimal amount of pain versus someone who just wants to kill things.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

Crumbletron posted:

He probably considered a sportsman the type of person who'd kill an animal cleanly, efficiently and with a minimal amount of pain

That's what a butcher does. That's a butcher's job.
A sportsman kills because he wants to, for the 'sport' of it.

The Lone Badger has a new favorite as of 00:51 on Oct 11, 2014

BurnBlackJay
May 31, 2011

by Lowtax

The Lone Badger posted:

That's what a butcher does. That's a butcher's job.
A sportsman kills because he wants to, for the 'sport' of it.

its almost like 100 year old crazy serial murderer german isnt 100% sound od mind . . .

Pilchenstein
May 17, 2012

So your plan is for half of us to die?

Hot Rope Guy
I think what he's trying to say is that a sportsman just wants to prove he can kill something, so is satisfied with one kill. A butcher (in the war criminal sense, I'm guessing) just enjoys murder.

InediblePenguin
Sep 27, 2004

I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.
personally i just assumed the german dude had originally been writing in german and possibly had used a word that got TRANSLATED to butcher which did not necessarily, in its original language, mean "literally killing things is literally their job"

Pilchenstein
May 17, 2012

So your plan is for half of us to die?

Hot Rope Guy

InediblePenguin posted:

personally i just assumed the german dude had originally been writing in german and possibly had used a word that got TRANSLATED to butcher which did not necessarily, in its original language, mean "literally killing things is literally their job"
From what little I know of the german language, I wouldn't be surprised if their word for butcher did just translate into "literallykillingthingsisliterallytheirjob". You're probably right though.

slinkimalinki
Jan 17, 2010
Or someone got former and latter mixed up.

GelatinSkeleton
May 31, 2013

The Red Baron was an incredible badass and I'm not sure why anyone would consider him a "serial killer" because anyone he killed would have been a enemy combatant.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

It's because he talks about killing as art and something that gives him half an hour of satisfaction before he feels the need to do it again. He was safe doing supply stuff before he complained about needing to kill and somebody moved him into a plane. There wouldn't have been enough vagrants or prostitutes in Prussia to last him a month after the sort of killing he got used to doing every day.

Zopotantor
Feb 24, 2013

...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Pilchenstein posted:

From what little I know of the german language, I wouldn't be surprised if their word for butcher did just translate into "literallykillingthingsisliterallytheirjob". You're probably right though.

Deutsches Wörterbuch posted:

Metzger
METZGER 1) slaughterer, butcher (see metzgen 3)
[...]

METZGEN 1) as metzeln 1 and metzen 2, kill, cut down [...] 2 also agonize, torture to death [...] 3 usually, as metzeln 2 and metzen 3, craft expression [...]

So yeah.

DryGoods
Apr 26, 2014

Dogs, on the other hand, can connect with that pathos.
How do you deal with a child who just can't follow the rules or is too violent for you? Maybe your kid doesn't want to go to school or decided to run away. The answer for northern Florida for 111 years was the Florida School for Boys.

quote:

From its opening until the 1980s, the Marianna site was an open campus of about 1400 acres without any perimeter fencing. The site was originally divided into two sub-campuses, South Side or "Number 1", for white students, and North Side, or "Number 2", for "colored" students, who were segregated from white students until 1966. A cemetery was located in the North Side, which contains the graves of more than 50 deceased students. In 1990-91, the North Side campus was permanently closed.

In 1929, an 11-room concrete block detention building containing two cells (one for white, and one for black students) was constructed to house incorrigible or violent students. It was eventually nicknamed "The White House". After corporal punishment at the school was abolished in 1968, the building was used for storage. In 2008, in response to the allegations of beatings and torture that took place there, state officials sealed the building in a public ceremony, leaving a memorial plaque, and it has remained empty since that time.

quote:

In 1903, an inspection reported that children at the school were commonly kept in leg irons.

quote:

In 1968, Florida Governor Claude Kirk said, after a visit to the school where he found overcrowding and poor conditions, that "somebody should have blown the whistle a long time ago." At this time, the school housed 564 boys, some for offences as minor as school truancy, running away from home, or "incorrigibility". They ranged in age from ten to sixteen years old. Officially, corporal punishment at the school was banned in August 1968.

quote:

In 1982, an inspection revealed that boys at the school were "hogtied and kept in isolation for weeks at a time", and the ACLU filed a lawsuit over this and similar mistreatment. By this time, the school was housing 105 boys aged thirteen to twenty-one. Lawsuits concerning the school led to federal control of Florida's juvenile justice system from 1987 onward.

In 1985, it emerged that young ex-inmates of the school, sentenced to jail terms for crimes committed while there, had subsequently been the victims of torture at the Jackson County jail. The method of torture was for the prison guards to handcuff the teenagers and then hang them from the bars of their cells, sometimes for over an hour. The guards stated that their superiors approved the practice and that it was routine.

quote:

Following revelations from former inmates who had been incarcerated at the school in the 1950s and 1960s, who described themselves as "The White House Boys", the school was the subject of an extensive special report, For Their Own Good, published by the St. Petersburg Times in 2009. Allegations focusing on the 1960s included claims that one room was used for whipping white boys and another for black boys. The whippings were carried out with a 3-foot-long belt made of leather and metal and were thorough enough that the recipients' underwear became embedded in their skin. One inmate said that the punishments were severe but justified; another claimed that he had seen a boy trapped in a running laundry dryer at the school and suspected the boy was killed.

One former inmate claimed that he was punished in the white house eleven times, receiving a total of over 250 lashes. Others alleged that they were whipped until they lost consciousness and that the punishments were made harsher for boys that cried. Some former inmates also claimed that there was a "rape room" at the school where they were sexually abused. The complainants said that some of the victims were as young as nine years old.[


I was reminded of the School lately because of this article. The University of South Florida has been trying to investigate the buried boys at the site for some time now, and it's only been since last year that they were given full access to exhume all the graves. This boy's casket was given to his family and they buried it in Philadelphia.

quote:

From 1900 to 1952, according to a court document, 100 boys died there, but only about half were buried on the reform institution’s grounds. Others were shipped home to their families.

Curry, 17, became part of that tally in 1925 when he died “under suspicious circumstances while escaping Dozier twenty-nine days after arriving,” says the court order permitting his exhumation this week.
The coroner at the time ruled Curry’s manner of death was unknown. The ledger entry at the Dozier school said he was “killed on RR Bridge Chattahoochee, Fla.” Another document at Old Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia says he was “killed by train.” No one from Dozier ever reported his death to the state.

He was returned in a casket to his family, who, in turn, buried him in Philadelphia. Or so the family thought.

It wasn’t until a state investigation beginning in 2008 that Curry’s death certificate was found at Dozier. It said he died of a crushed skull from an “unknown cause.”

And it wasn’t until Tuesday, when University of South Florida anthropologists who have been working to unearth and identify remains on the former campus visited Philadelphia with Pennsylvania authorities, that the family learned Curry wasn’t in the casket — no bones, no clothing, no sign of him at all.

“Wood. Layers of pieces of wood,” said anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, explaining what she and her team found in the casket. “It was completely filled with wooden planks.”

AlbieQuirky
Oct 9, 2012

Just me and my 🌊dragon🐉 hanging out
The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman is an awesome fantasy/horror novel about von Richthofen if he were a vampire as well as a ruthless flying ace. Newman quotes from von Richthofen's letters, &c.

Khazar-khum
Oct 22, 2008

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
2nd Battalion

GelatinSkeleton posted:

The Red Baron was an incredible badass and I'm not sure why anyone would consider him a "serial killer" because anyone he killed would have been a enemy combatant.

This.

The idea that anyone in a war is a 'serial killer' because they killed the enemy is ludicrous.

Hermann Goering, the eventual head of the Luftwaffe under Hitler, flew with von Richtofen as a member of the Flying Circus. Friends and relatives of the Red Baron said he would not have liked Hitler, and might even have done as his cousins did and moved to Colorado.

slinkimalinki
Jan 17, 2010

DryGoods posted:

How do you deal with a child who just can't follow the rules or is too violent for you? Maybe your kid doesn't want to go to school or decided to run away. The answer for northern Florida for 111 years was the Florida School for Boys.



Another option was to give them a lobotomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dully

Neo_Crimson
Aug 15, 2011

"Is that your final dandy?"

Khazar-khum posted:

This.

The idea that anyone in a war is a 'serial killer' because they killed the enemy is ludicrous.

Killing enemy combatants in war is one thing, but the Baron took a strange and excessive amount of glee out of it (ordering trophies of every kill, the hunter/butcher thing). Was he a serial killer? No, but his mindset is still pretty disturbing and who knows what he would have done in peacetime.

Syd Midnight
Sep 23, 2005

Neo_Crimson posted:

Killing enemy combatants in war is one thing, but the Baron took a strange and excessive amount of glee out of it (ordering trophies of every kill, the hunter/butcher thing). Was he a serial killer? No, but his mindset is still pretty disturbing and who knows what he would have done in peacetime.
It doesn't seem that out of place compared to the memoirs of other fighter pilots. Remember that he was comparing his combat to that of freakin World War One, which was considered mechanized slaughter then as now. He saw himself as a hunter going one on one against extremely dangerous prey. You have to view him in the context of not just war, but a (then) unique and (occasionally) anachronistically chivalrous form of fighting, often between aristocrats who knew or knew of each other, that was more akin to jousting knights than trench warfare. It's an odd mindset, but "he must have been a psychopath" is an unfair and inaccurate simplification. In peacetime he would have gone boar hunting instead, that's part of where his "nobles risking their lives to go on a challenging hunt because honor and testosterone" mindset came from. He was into personal duels, not faceless slaughter. It's a snobby upper class thing I guess.

While on the subject, the movie "Red Baron" from a few years back was alright, although it totally butchers a lot of historical facts it had the best looking WW1 dogfights I've ever seen. I got that movie just to watch the fight scenes over and over while skipping the rest, like it was a Matrix sequel. (The Dogfights! episode on WW1 is also solid gold because it'd be unbelievable if it was fiction, especially the battle between a dozen British aces and a God of War named Werner Voss.)

One last non-wiki derail, I just had to share this disturbing "bombing Japan" anecdote I dug up from a B-29 commander on the bombing of Osaka:

quote:

By the time our group was over the target, most of the others had dropped their incendiary bombs and the firestorm was raging with huge thermal thunderheads boiling up all around. After one of our crews dropped their bombs, they hit one of the huge thermals which threw their airplane up from 5000 to 12,000 feet. The pilot completed a barrel roll and, when he got full control of the airplane, it was at 4000 feet and going 480 miles an hour. It got back to Tinian all right but we had to change the wings which looked like washboards!
Now that kind of warfare that Richthofen, or anyone, would consider "butchery".

Syd Midnight has a new favorite as of 02:05 on Oct 13, 2014

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Neo_Crimson posted:

Killing enemy combatants in war is one thing, but the Baron took a strange and excessive amount of glee out of it (ordering trophies of every kill, the hunter/butcher thing). Was he a serial killer? No, but his mindset is still pretty disturbing and who knows what he would have done in peacetime.

Probably be insanely bored and insanely popular. He was the Red Baron.

I did highlight the unsettling parts of his life, but remember he was a professional soldier who started his military education at the age of 11.

His over-eagerness to see combat rather than serve in the (much safer) supply unit was not uncommon, because of honor, glory, etc was the thing to fight and die for back then. Problem was, warfare was changing from "line up in a line and shoot at the enemy's firing line" to "let's gas the mother fuckers" or "let's spy on the enemy's movement using flying crate technology that some guys invented barely a decade ago". A lot of old romantic notions of war got an even harsher dose of reality.

His trophy thing seems like something a crazy person might do, but from his point of view it was probably less "I killed again today" and more a "I'm still alive HEH."

Or maybe he was just an rear end in a top hat, I dunno. It is kind of disrespectful to call him a "serial killer" because he flew combat missions on behalf of his country in a time of war.

Grim Up North
Dec 12, 2011

InediblePenguin posted:

personally i just assumed the german dude had originally been writing in german and possibly had used a word that got TRANSLATED to butcher which did not necessarily, in its original language, mean "literally killing things is literally their job"

Yep.

I just looked up the original:

quote:

Mein Vater macht einen Unterschied zwischen einem Jäger (Weidmann) und einem Schießer, dem es nur Spaß macht, zu schießen.

"Schießer" is a weird word to use here because it just means "shooter" - as in "he who shoots", but in military/hunting/shooting context you would use "Schütze". So I guess he is trying to discriminate between "good" hunters - who in Germany feel obligated to "Hege" i.e. taking care of the wildlife (over)population - and "mindless" "shooters" who shoot just to shoot. In the next sentences he criticizes "shooters" and says that they don't bother to check where the game - or the Englishman - has fallen.

So yeah, don't try to interpret too much when reading a translation.

Bobby Digital
Sep 4, 2009

Goddamn. More like Werner Boss.

Khazar-khum
Oct 22, 2008

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
2nd Battalion

RevSyd posted:

While on the subject, the movie "Red Baron" from a few years back was alright, although it totally butchers a lot of historical facts it had the best looking WW1 dogfights I've ever seen. I got that movie just to watch the fight scenes over and over while skipping the rest, like it was a Matrix sequel. (The Dogfights! episode on WW1 is also solid gold because it'd be unbelievable if it was fiction, especially the battle between a dozen British aces and a God of War named Werner Voss.)

Werner Voss was a longtime friend of von Richtofen's. He was specifically picked for the Flying Circus. He was also Jewish, a factor that may have played into the Baron's family and friends saying they doubted he would have gotten along with Hitler.

Richtofen got into the habit of cutting serial numbers from his kills whenever possible, as the German High Command had become rather picky and difficult about properly assigning victories to its airmen.

duckmaster
Sep 13, 2004
Mr and Mrs Duck go and stay in a nice hotel.

One night they call room service for some condoms as things are heating up.

The guy arrives and says "do you want me to put it on your bill"

Mr Duck says "what kind of pervert do you think I am?!

QUACK QUACK

RevSyd posted:

It doesn't seem that out of place compared to the memoirs of other fighter pilots. Remember that he was comparing his combat to that of freakin World War One, which was considered mechanized slaughter then as now. He saw himself as a hunter going one on one against extremely dangerous prey. You have to view him in the context of not just war, but a (then) unique and (occasionally) anachronistically chivalrous form of fighting, often between aristocrats who knew or knew of each other, that was more akin to jousting knights than trench warfare. It's an odd mindset, but "he must have been a psychopath" is an unfair and inaccurate simplification. In peacetime he would have gone boar hunting instead, that's part of where his "nobles risking their lives to go on a challenging hunt because honor and testosterone" mindset came from. He was into personal duels, not faceless slaughter. It's a snobby upper class thing I guess.

Actually this idea (at least in the RFC and later RAF) that pilots were aristocrats mainly comes from movies in the 50s and 60s. Class war was still prevailing in the movie business so all the posh upper class actors got the pilot parts, helped along by the fact that their accents were more palatable for an international market. The reality was extremely different; in the British armed forces the Navy was considered the "senior service" and the aristocrats would go there. Those that joined the Army would join Guards/Cavalry regiments, then the infantry regiments would fight over the best officers and the guff would be shunted into signals or logistics or so on. The RFC was a very junior part of the military structure (it didn't become its own service until 1918) and it was not at the time considered honourable to be sneaking around in a machine in the sky shooting at the backs of your enemy.

The RFC looked for pilots who had some level of mechanical aptitude (they were chronically underfunded and pilots were often their own mechanics) had a sense of danger (life expectancy was ridiculously low) and weren't likely to get bored sitting at an airfield in the middle of nowhere for weeks at a time. They also quite liked recruits who had some level of military training, mainly because they didn't have time to teach them to march or who to salute. These recruits tended to be from the working classes and often men/officers in the army who had got their rank by merit but had no chance of advancing because of who their daddy was.


If we look at Britains top WW1 fighter aces, in no particular order:

George McElroy - 47 kills. An Irishman who joined the infantry as a motorcycle courier and was injured by mustard gas. Joined the RFC as his health prevented him going back to the infantry. Due to the Armys disgraceful reluctance to promote officers based on merit rather than class the highest rank he achieved was temporary Captain. This despite the fact he won the Distinguished Flying Cross twice and the Military Cross three times.

Albert Ball - 44 kills. An Englishman who joined the infantry in the ranks, but he'd gone to a half decent school and they were desperate for officers so they made him a 2nd Lieutenant a few months later. They couldn't possibly have an officer who hadn't been to university or gone fox hunting actually leading troops (the horror!) so they sent him to a training batallion. Spent almost his entire salary learning to fly privately before qualifying and joining the RFC. He also didn't get past temporary Captain despite winning the Victoria Cross.

Tom Hazell - 43 kills. Another Irishman who joined the infantry. He also went to a decent school so took a commission in another regiment before joining the RFC. This one managed to become a Squadron Leader (Major)!

Mick Mannock - 61 kills. His father was a corporal in the Army and he himself was working as a telephone engineer in Turkey when war broke out. He was interned but repatriated in 1915 where he joined the Royal Engineers. Transferred to the RFC a year later and died an acting Major, but they had to bump him up a bit because he won the VC twice.

James McCudden - 57 kills. Left school aged 14 to work for the post office before enlisting in the Royal Engineers as a Sapper (private) aged 16. Taught himself flight theory and mechanics, mostly out of books, before joining the RFC. He got to Major as well but he did get seven medals for gallantry including the VC.


Infact you have to go to Geoffrey Hilton Bowman in 11th place before you even find a pilot who went to university. The highest ace who could be described as upper class is Arthur Percival Foley Rhys-Davids who is in 19th place with 27 kills (including Werner Voss).

Don't know if the German pilots tended to be from the upper echelons but the British certainly weren't. It was a very similar story for WW2 as well.

joneseyjnr2002
Jun 18, 2013
You forgot the British aces James Bigglesworth and Algernon Lacey.

God I loved those books as a kid.

Chas McGill
Oct 29, 2010

loves Fat Philippe
It's interesting how the list of WWII aces is absolutely dominated by the Luftwaffe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_flying_aces/.

They were sent out time and time again until they were killed or injured rather than being rotated to train cadets like the RAF pilots. I guess it was something of a necessity given the imbalance in numbers between the forces.

duckmaster posted:

The highest ace who could be described as upper class is Arthur Percival Foley Rhys-Davids
What a name.

Chas McGill has a new favorite as of 13:23 on Oct 13, 2014

Dissapointed Owl
Jan 30, 2008

You wrote me a letter,
and this is how it went:

duckmaster posted:

Actually this idea (at least in the RFC and later RAF) that pilots were aristocrats mainly comes from movies in the 50s and 60s. Class war was still prevailing in the movie business so all the posh upper class actors got the pilot parts, helped along by the fact that their accents were more palatable for an international market. The reality was extremely different; in the British armed forces the Navy was considered the "senior service" and the aristocrats would go there. Those that joined the Army would join Guards/Cavalry regiments, then the infantry regiments would fight over the best officers and the guff would be shunted into signals or logistics or so on. The RFC was a very junior part of the military structure (it didn't become its own service until 1918) and it was not at the time considered honourable to be sneaking around in a machine in the sky shooting at the backs of your enemy.

The RFC looked for pilots who had some level of mechanical aptitude (they were chronically underfunded and pilots were often their own mechanics) had a sense of danger (life expectancy was ridiculously low) and weren't likely to get bored sitting at an airfield in the middle of nowhere for weeks at a time. They also quite liked recruits who had some level of military training, mainly because they didn't have time to teach them to march or who to salute. These recruits tended to be from the working classes and often men/officers in the army who had got their rank by merit but had no chance of advancing because of who their daddy was.


If we look at Britains top WW1 fighter aces, in no particular order:

George McElroy - 47 kills. An Irishman who joined the infantry as a motorcycle courier and was injured by mustard gas. Joined the RFC as his health prevented him going back to the infantry. Due to the Armys disgraceful reluctance to promote officers based on merit rather than class the highest rank he achieved was temporary Captain. This despite the fact he won the Distinguished Flying Cross twice and the Military Cross three times.

Albert Ball - 44 kills. An Englishman who joined the infantry in the ranks, but he'd gone to a half decent school and they were desperate for officers so they made him a 2nd Lieutenant a few months later. They couldn't possibly have an officer who hadn't been to university or gone fox hunting actually leading troops (the horror!) so they sent him to a training batallion. Spent almost his entire salary learning to fly privately before qualifying and joining the RFC. He also didn't get past temporary Captain despite winning the Victoria Cross.

Tom Hazell - 43 kills. Another Irishman who joined the infantry. He also went to a decent school so took a commission in another regiment before joining the RFC. This one managed to become a Squadron Leader (Major)!

Mick Mannock - 61 kills. His father was a corporal in the Army and he himself was working as a telephone engineer in Turkey when war broke out. He was interned but repatriated in 1915 where he joined the Royal Engineers. Transferred to the RFC a year later and died an acting Major, but they had to bump him up a bit because he won the VC twice.

James McCudden - 57 kills. Left school aged 14 to work for the post office before enlisting in the Royal Engineers as a Sapper (private) aged 16. Taught himself flight theory and mechanics, mostly out of books, before joining the RFC. He got to Major as well but he did get seven medals for gallantry including the VC.


Infact you have to go to Geoffrey Hilton Bowman in 11th place before you even find a pilot who went to university. The highest ace who could be described as upper class is Arthur Percival Foley Rhys-Davids who is in 19th place with 27 kills (including Werner Voss).

Don't know if the German pilots tended to be from the upper echelons but the British certainly weren't. It was a very similar story for WW2 as well.

All I want to know is: how accurate a depiction was Rik Mayall's flying ace character in Blackadder Goes Forth?

Josef K. Sourdust
Jul 16, 2014

"To be quite frank, Platinum sucks at making games. Vanquish was terrible and Metal Gear Rising: Revengance was so boring it put me to sleep."

Semantic question: can you be a serial killer if you cannot see the person you kill? I mean, I know biplane pilots sometimes got close enough to see the enemy's face but generally they were killing at a distance. Surely the killing is destroying/disabling the aircraft rather than actually killing the opponent (for example, a plane with 2 crewmen would could only as 1 "kill", right?) so it isn't killing in the normal sense. Though I suppose most of the kills were actually fatal.
What about a sniper? And what about the staff at death camps? Aren't they simply sanctioned killers (some of them psychotic) rather than classic serial killers?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Dingleberry Jones
Jun 2, 2008
If I'm posting a new thread, it means there is a thread already posted and I failed at using the forum search correctly

DryGoods posted:

School for Boys stuff

How is it that a family gets a casket filled with a family member, and buries it without even bothering to look inside?

"When you deliver it, just bring it directly to the cemetery. You'll recognize us. We'll be the ones standing beside a hole. Just throw the casket in. We don't want to see the body. At all."

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply