PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird - The Something Awful Forums

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The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

Pharnakes: Aug 14, 2009

What it comes down to I suppose is I feel that it would be far more meaningful an achievement for me to save someone's life (or even try and fail) than "just" climb a mountain, no matter how much money I have invested in the attempt, even if it is the tallest one in the world. But then I suppose people with that kind of an attitude aren't going to be up Everest in the first place.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:30

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# ? May 17, 2024 00:18

Leon Einstein: Feb 6, 2012; I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

What is it about Everest that generates such terrible opinions? Yeah, let's close off anything that might result in death and cover the world in bubble wrap too.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:30

Atmus: Mar 8, 2002

I want there to be a pressurized helicopter/blimp/whatever service to the summit, so I can just fly up there in shorts and a tee shirt and do cartwheels or dance a jig and the fly back down when I get cold or tired.

I don't actually want to be on top of Everest ever, but the sheer anger that such an act would generate would be magical.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:37

Leon Einstein: Feb 6, 2012; I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

That's not possible unfortunately.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:42

BattleMaster: Aug 14, 2000

I think Everest works okay as flypaper for middle managers.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:44

Basebf555: Feb 29, 2008; The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!; Fun Shoe

Leon Einstein posted:

What is it about Everest that generates such terrible opinions? Yeah, let's close off anything that might result in death and cover the world in bubble wrap too.

Yes, this is exactly what I said. Precisely.

Most other stuff that's dangerous at least allows for rescue. loving space astronauts are able to be rescued for godsakes.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 18:49

Leon Einstein: Feb 6, 2012; I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

Basebf555 posted:

Yes, this is exactly what I said. Precisely.

Most other stuff that's dangerous at least allows for rescue. loving space astronauts are able to be rescued for godsakes.

Perhaps there is the illusion of contingency plans for astronaut rescues, but the Challenger and Columbia tragedies show otherwise. Those accidents weren't out of the blue; they were foreseen and nothing was done.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 19:24

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Leon Einstein posted:

What is it about Everest that generates such terrible opinions? Yeah, let's close off anything that might result in death and cover the world in bubble wrap too.

The kind of turds driven to do it for no particular reason would be furious, and that would be delicious. Sane people don't give a poo poo if they can't climb a mountain.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 19:24

Furnok Dorn: Mar 30, 2004; SOCIALLY WORTHLESS SHUT-IN NERD

Basebf555 posted:

Yes, this is exactly what I said. Precisely.

Most other stuff that's dangerous at least allows for rescue. loving space astronauts are able to be rescued for godsakes.

yeah, underwater astronauts are out of luck

# ? Feb 26, 2015 19:26

Jeherrin: Jun 7, 2012

I think it's quite telling that while the opinions of armchair adventurers are often "H'oh boy, y'all are sociopathic for walking past these people!" the opinion of climbers is the direct opposite; one presumes that having been exposed to The Real Thing� informs their opinions.

Hell, Joe Simpson stood up to the flak that Simon Yates got for cutting the rope in Touching The Void, going as far as to say that that he, Joe, and any other climber would have done the same thing. That didn't seem to do much to placate those who seem willing to point fingers from the safety of their front stoop.

Content: The submarine Nautilus. Nope, not the Jules Verne one, but pretty close: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_O-12_(SS-73)

Basically, an Australian adventurer and explorer decides, in 1931, that he's going to take a submarine under the Arctic Ice to the North Pole. With backing from a newsgroup, he acquires an utter poo poo-heap of a submarine, a decommissioned O-class boat. It's fitted with all sorts of fancy gadgetry, and they cross the Atlantic, where it breaks down and they have to be towed. They limp up to Spitzbergen weeks too late in the season, allow one day for repairs, and then head for the ice. There's rumours of sabotage when the aft horizontal planes go missing, meaning they can't dive under the ice.

So Wilkins, the leader, decides to flood the dive chambers and ram the ice until the thing slides underneath because, apparently, doing this in a leaking sub that's plagued by mechanical issues in a completely inaccessible environment with no hope of rescue is, like, no big deal.

There's a docu about it from ABC called Voyage of the Nautilus, worth watching. Footage of the underside of sea ice always makes me feel pretty claustrophobic.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 19:36

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

ok mountain chat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilson

quote:

Maurice Wilson MC (21 April 1898 � 1934) was a British soldier, mystic, mountaineer and aviator who is known for his ill-fated attempt to climb Mount Everest alone in 1934.

The idea of climbing Everest came to Wilson while he was recuperating in the Black Forest. Inspired by press cuttings about the 1924 British expedition and the upcoming Houston Everest Flight, he became convinced that fasting and prayer would enable him to succeed where George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had failed, which would prove to the world the power of his beliefs. He clearly saw this as part of his vocation, describing climbing Everest as "the job I've been given to do".[10] He formed a plan to fly a small aeroplane to Tibet, crash-land it on the upper slopes of Everest, and walk to the summit. It was a bold plan; a solo flight half way across the world would have been a significant undertaking for the best aviators of the day, while no mountaineer of the time would have contemplated a solo ascent of Everest � a feat which was not to be achieved until 1980. A practical problem was posed by the fact that Wilson knew nothing about either flying or mountaineering, so he set out to learn these.

Wilson purchased a three-year-old Gipsy Moth, which he christened Ever Wrest, and set about learning the rudiments of flying. He was a poor student who took twice the average length of time to gain his pilot's licence, and was told by his instructor that he would never reach India. However, he did obtain his licence, and the scepticism of his peers only increased his determination � he told his instructor that he would reach Everest, or die in the attempt.

His preparation for the mountaineering challenge that lay ahead was even worse than his preparation for the flight. He bought no specialist equipment and made no attempt to learn technical mountaineering skills, such as the use of an ice axe and crampons. Instead, he spent just five weeks walking around the modest hills of Snowdonia and the Lake District before he declared himself ready.

Wilson planned to depart for Tibet in April 1933, but was delayed when he crashed Ever Wrest in a field near Bradford. He was unhurt, but the crash caused damage to the plane which would take three weeks to repair, and added significantly to the press attention he was receiving. It also attracted the attention of the Air Ministry, which forbade him from making his flight.

Ignoring the Air Ministry's ban, Wilson finally set off on 21 May, and remarkably, and in spite of the best efforts of the British government, he succeeded in reaching India two weeks later. On his arrival in Cairo his permission to fly over Persia had been withdrawn. Undeterred he flew on to Bahrain, where he was refused permission to refuel on the orders of the British consulate, which explained as all the easterly airstrips within his aircraft's range were in Persia, he could not be allowed to continue. He was allowed to refuel when he agreed to retrace his route and return to Britain, but once airborne he turned his plane towards India. The airstrip at Gwadar, the most westerly in India, was not actually within his aircraft's range, but almost precisely at its limit; after nine hours in the air Wilson arrived with his fuel gauge reading zero.[15] Having arrived safely in India he continued across the country, but his flight ended in Lalbalu when the authorities reiterated that he would not be allowed to fly over Nepal, and impounded his plane to prevent him from trying.

After trying and failing to get permission to enter Tibet on foot, Wilson spent the winter in Darjeeling fasting and planning an illicit journey to the base of Everest. By chance he met three Sherpas; Tewang, Rinzing and Tsering, all of whom had worked as porters on the 1933 Everest expedition led by Hugh Ruttledge, and who were willing to accompany him.

On 21 March 1934, Wilson and his three companions slipped out of Darjeeling disguised as Buddhist monks. Wilson pretended to be deaf and dumb and in weak health to avoid suspicion. They reached the Rongbuk Monastery on 14 April, where he was warmly received and given access to the equipment left behind by Ruttledge's expedition. However, he stayed only two days before setting off alone for Everest itself.

Most of what is known about Wilson's activities on the mountain itself come from his diary, which was recovered the following year and is now stored in the Alpine Club archives. Completely inexperienced in glacier travel, Wilson found the trek up the Rongbuk Glacier extremely difficult and constantly lost his bearing and had to retrace his steps. He showed his lack of experience when he found a pair of crampons at an old camp, which would have helped him tremendously, but threw them away. After five days and in worsening weather he was still two miles short of Ruttledge's Camp III below the North Col. He wrote in his diary "It's the weather that's beaten me � what damned bad luck" and began a gruelling four-day retreat down the glacier. He arrived back at the monastery exhausted, snowblind and in great pain from his war-wounds and a badly twisted ankle.

It took eighteen days for Wilson to recover from his ordeal, yet he set forth again on 12 May, this time taking Tewand and Rinzing with him. With the Sherpas' knowledge of the glacier they made quicker progress and in three days they reached Camp III near the base of the slopes below the North Col. Confined to camp for several days by bad weather, Wilson considered possible routes by which he could climb the icy slopes above, and made a telling comment in his diary.

Not taking short cut to Camp V as at first intended as should have to cut my own road up the ice and that's no good when there is already a hand rope and steps (if still there) to Camp IV.

The next day he began a further attempt to reach the col. After four days of slow progress and camping on exposed ledges, he was defeated by a forty foot ice wall at around 22,700 ft which had stretched Frank Smythe to his limit in 1933. On his return the Sherpas pleaded with him to return with them to the monastery, but he refused. Whether he still believed that he could climb the mountain, or whether he continued merely because he was now resigned to his fate, and preferred death to the humiliation of an unsuccessful return to Britain, has been hotly debated. Writing in his diary "this will be a last effort, and I feel successful"[19] he set out for the last time on 29 May, alone. Too weak to attempt the Col that day, he camped at its base, a few hundred yards from where the Sherpas were camped. The next day he stayed in bed. His last diary entry was dated 31 May, and read simply "Off again, gorgeous day".

When he did not return from his last attempt, Tewand and Rinzing left the mountain. They reached Kalimpong in late July, giving the world the first news of Wilson's death.

Rich idiots were trying to conquer Everest before it had even been conquered.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 19:52

Basebf555: Feb 29, 2008; The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!; Fun Shoe

Leon Einstein posted:

Perhaps there is the illusion of contingency plans for astronaut rescues, but the Challenger and Columbia tragedies show otherwise. Those accidents weren't out of the blue; they were foreseen and nothing was done.

Climbing Everest is pure recreation at this point, there's no new discovery to be made there. There are countless reasons why it's in our best interest as a species to continue to go into space regardless of the danger.

When people walk by a dying person and continue climbing, they are doing so because they value getting to the top over another human life, regardless of whether or not it was possible to actually rescue the person. That's the problem with the heavy investment it takes to climb Everest, when somebody gets killed bungee jumping or something like that nobody has any problem packing it up and going home for the day. People who have a significant chunk of their life savings invested in Everest are usually showing up there in the wrong mindset from the start.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 20:06

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

Basebf555 posted:

When people walk by a dying person and continue climbing, they are doing so because they value getting to the top over another human life, regardless of whether or not it was possible to actually rescue the person. That's the problem with the heavy investment it takes to climb Everest, when somebody gets killed bungee jumping or something like that nobody has any problem packing it up and going home for the day. People who have a significant chunk of their life savings invested in Everest are usually showing up there in the wrong mindset from the start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_K2_disaster

quote:

At 8 a.m. climbers were finally advancing through the Bottleneck. Dren Mandić, from the Serbian team, decided to attend to his oxygen system and so unclipped from the rope to let other climbers pass. Mandić lost his balance and fell, bumping into Cecilie Skog of the Norwegian team. She was still clipped to the rope and was only knocked over. Mandić fell over 100 m down the bottleneck. Some climbers claimed that he was still moving after the fall. People in Camp IV saw the fall and sent a group to help recover his injured or dead body. Swede Fredrik Str�ng stated he took command of the recovery operation.

When Str�ng reached the body, Serbian climbers Predrag Zagorac and Iso Planic and their HAP Mohammed Hussein had already arrived. They had found no pulse and judging by the severity of his injuries, Mandić was pronounced dead. The Serbian climbers decided to lower the body down to Camp IV and Str�ng assisted them.

quote:

By 8:30 p.m. the darkness had enveloped K2. Members of the Norwegian group � including Lars Flat� Nessa and Skog, who had both summited two hours after Zerain � had almost negotiated the traverse leading to the Bottleneck when a serac (a large block of glacial ice) broke off from above. As it fell, it cut all the fixed lines and took with it Rolf Bae, who had abandoned the ascent only 100 m below the summit but had waited for his wife, Skog. Nessa and Skog continued descending without the fixed lines and managed to reach Camp IV during the night.

As a result of the serac fall, the descent through the Bottleneck became more technical. Chunks of ice lay scattered around the route, and the mountaineers above were stranded in darkness in the death zone above 8000 meters. Since the climbers had planned for the fixed lines, they were not carrying additional ropes and fall protection devices, forcing the climbers to "free solo" the descent through the notorious Bottleneck. According to team Norit's Dutch mountaineer Wilco van Rooijen, panic broke out among the climbers waiting above the Bottleneck. Some tried to descend in the darkness, while others decided to bivouac and wait until morning before descending.

quote:

Pemba Gyalje, a Sherpa mountaineer who years earlier had been a support climber on Everest but was now a full climbing member on the Norit team, descended in the darkness without fixed ropes and reached Camp IV before midnight. Sherpa Chhiring Dorje also free-soloed the Bottleneck with "little" Pasang Lama (who had been stranded without an ice axe) secured to his harness. "I can just about imagine how you might pull it off," writes Ed Viesturs in K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain. "You kick each foot in solid, plant the axe, then tell the other guy to kick with his own feet and punch holds with his hands. Don't move until he's secure. Still, if Pasang had come off [i.e. 'fallen'], he probably would have taken Chhiring with him. Talk about selfless!"

quote:

Two members of the South Korean expedition, Kim Jae-soo and Go Mi-Young, also managed to navigate the bottleneck in the dark, although the latter had to be helped by two Sherpas from the Korean B team, Chhiring Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote, who were supposed to summit the next morning. The men had climbed up around midnight with food and oxygen and found Go Mi-Young stranded somewhere in the Bottleneck, unsure of which route she had to take. They guided her down safely.

quote:

The rescue efforts started in the base camp as a group was sent upwards with ropes to help those still stuck in the Bottleneck. The group included Sherpas Tsering Bhote and "big" Pasang Bhote, who had previously helped Go Mi-Young down the Bottleneck and now went to search for their relative Jumik Bhote. Jumik was left stranded with the remaining climbers of the Korean expedition somewhere above the Bottleneck.

Later, van Rooijen reached the remaining Korean climbers (Confortola claims one of them was Kyeong-Hyo Park) and their guide Jumik Bhote. The men were tangled in several ropes and had clearly been hanging there, some upside down and bloodied, through the night. But they were all alive. It is unclear if the men were the victims of a second serac fall, an avalanche or perhaps a regular fall leaving them tangled in the ropes. Some sources mention only two Koreans and Jumik Bhote, whilst other reports indicate three remaining Koreans (one near death). It could be that this was the event Confortola had witnessed during the bivouac the previous night, while it could also be that this was the second object Tsering Bhote and "big" Pasang Bhote saw falling off the mountain�there is little direct evidence to clearly confirm either possibility. Van Rooijen handed Jumik Bhote his spare pair of gloves, but was unable to help them any more. He claims Jumik Bhote informed him a rescue mission was under way from Camp IV. Van Rooijen decided to continue descending.

Confortola and McDonnell reached the Korean group later in the morning. They worked for several hours trying to free them. It is unclear what happened next. Confortola claims McDonnell, after working with Confortola for at least 1.5 hours, suddenly climbed back up the mountain, leaving him with the three stranded men. Confortola assumed McDonnell had succumbed to high-altitude sickness and was growing delusional, believing he had to climb back up. Left alone, Confortola did all he could for Jumik Bhote, giving him his own equipment. They had managed to get the Koreans back into at least a comfortable position, though they were still entangled. Confortola says he was able to radio with Tsering Bhote and "big" Pasang Bhote who were on their way up to rescue the men. Confortola, having spent at least three hours with the entangled men, was exhausted and chose to continue down.

quote:

Just after noon, Tsering Bhote and "big" Pasang Bhote had reached the bottom of the Bottleneck. There they found Confortola crawling on his hands and feet. The two Sherpas radioed Gyalje and van de Gevel to come up for Confortola so that they could continue the search for their relative Jumik Bhote and the Koreans. "Big" Pasang Bhote later radioed Gyalje that he had met Jumik Bhote and two members of the Korean expedition just above the bottleneck�apparently they were freed after all.

quote:

Minutes after "big" Pasang Bhote had radioed in the news that he had found his relative Jumik Bhote and two Koreans, another avalanche or serac fall struck. It swept away the four men. Tsering Bhote, who had climbed more slowly than fellow rescuer "big" Pasang Bhote, had not yet reached the top of the Bottleneck. He survived the avalanche, as did Gyalje and Confortola at the bottom of the Bottleneck. The death toll had now risen to eleven.

tl;dr
Several independent teams of climbers are attempting to summit K2. A delay due to a climber falling to his death and fellow climbers attending to his body before recovering it, in the death zone, meant climbers began to descend in darkness. A freak avalanche cut off the "bottleneck" and some dug in for the night whilst some tried to descend through it without fixed ropes. Two men tied themselves to each other and shared an ice axe. Two South Koreans were helped through by Sherpas who climbed up to them with food and oxygen. At first light a rescue operation was launched, into the death zone. More Koreans were found by one descending climber, who gave one of the men his spare gloves and carried on when he was told they were being rescued. Two of the rescue team members reached the Koreans, freed them (in the death zone) and began to descend before being struck by another avalanche and killed.

Scary and unnerving. And fits the derail!

Jeherrin posted:

I think it's quite telling that while the opinions of armchair adventurers are often "H'oh boy, y'all are sociopathic for walking past these people!" the opinion of climbers is the direct opposite; one presumes that having been exposed to The Real Thing™ informs their opinions.

I don't really care for the opinion of a hedge fund manager at Base Camp, tbh.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 20:45

Leon Einstein: Feb 6, 2012; I must win every thread in GBS. I don't care how much banal semantic quibbling and shitty posts it takes.

I still think anyone making moral judgments about leaving people on a mountain is stupid.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 20:57

Basebf555: Feb 29, 2008; The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!; Fun Shoe

Leon Einstein posted:

I still think anyone making moral judgments about leaving people on a mountain is stupid.

I'm not necessarily judging the decisions some climbers are forced to make up there to protect their own lives, I'm saying the decision should be taken out of their hands because nobody should be up there anymore. Close it down.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 20:59

Pharnakes: Aug 14, 2009

Leon Einstein posted:

I still think anyone making moral judgments about leaving people on a mountain is stupid.

It's not about saying well I can try to save you and maybe we both die, or I can try to save myself. It's quite fair enough to choose yourself in that situation. It's about choosing between trying to save somebody or trying to get to the top Everest. If you are coming down with your own resources stretched to the breaking point and you find someone in distress, I don't think anyone would judge you if you just kept going.

But if you find somebody when you are going up and you choose to use your extra oxygen and time to get to the summit rather than turning around and trying to help the guy, then yes I think you are a lovely person.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:05

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

Basebf555 posted:

When people walk by a dying person and continue climbing, they are doing so because they value getting to the top over another human life, regardless of whether or not it was possible to actually rescue the person.

While you are right in that for some, possibly even most of the recreational climbers, the financial investment is a factor, I guarantee you it's only a small one. Even inexperienced climbers get it drilled into their head that attempting to rescue a dying cohort, especially above the Death Zone, is not only really likely to fail, it's even more likely to end up with TWO people dead now. Unless they're fam, there's really no point--everyone's aware of the risks, and responsible for their own health and well-being past a certain point. If you push past your limits and die, welp.

Consider that the sherpas don't even consider any heroics. poo poo, they're the ones who drill "don't be a hero" into everyone's heads.

There's lots of situations closer to home where this kind of decision needs to be made too, and it's often a traumatic or fatal one:
David Allen Kirwan dies rescuing his dog from a Yellowstone hot spring
Seven members of a family dying one after another trying to rescue each other from an industrial pig-poo poo septic tank
And any number of examples of fatal rescue attempts in confined spaces

So yeah, a grip of climbers probably do got their mind on their money and vice versa, but it's way way way more than that.

edit: all this applies regardless if you're going up or down. It's about more than how many resources you still have on you or how fresh you are--it's the fact that being up there, even on the well-worn and beaten paths, is already so arduous and treacherous that by the time you reach the part of the mountain where you might find someone dying on the side of the path, you stand a good chance of injuring yourself or dying just trying to get to them, or especially in trying to help a dying person down a mountain. Especially at the parts where you'd need to lower them down a sheer cliff face.

Has anyone here tried to lift a limp person? If you have, then let's picture ideal conditions at sea level--and let's say you're lucky and you have a friend that's equally altruistic and that's willing to help you carry this dying person. You, your friend, and the expectant are all wearing/carrying your climbing gear, and you have to move him let's say a few city blocks.

Even without gear and poo poo I'd be fuckin dying

Now imagine doing this on Everest, where you'll probably be the only dummy running out waving an oxygen bottle yelling "stiff upper lip chum, I'm here to rescue you!" so you now have to try and carry/drag this other dying idiot all the way down Mount Everest

so... yeah.

Son of Thunderbeast has a new favorite as of 21:32 on Feb 26, 2015

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:22

Basebf555: Feb 29, 2008; The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!; Fun Shoe

I just don't know any other recreational activities where its every man for themselves, and deaths are expected and part of the deal when you sign up. I guess cave-diving but I feel the same way about that; caves deemed dangerous enough by experts should be closed permanently to the public.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:31

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."

Leon Einstein posted:

I still think anyone making moral judgments about leaving people on a mountain ~~is stupid.~~ should be posting on this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3694151

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:32

Solice Kirsk: Jun 1, 2004; .

Well, we'll probably never know what we'll really do in that situation so who cares. Rich people die on a mountain when other rich people don't or can't save them. It's just a lovely situation.

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:32

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

Solice Kirsk posted:

Well, we'll probably never know what we'll really do in that situation so who cares. Rich people die on a mountain when other rich people don't or can't save them. It's just a lovely situation.

Rich people dying is never a lovely situation. :v:

:v:

# ? Feb 26, 2015 21:40

Wasabi the J: Jan 23, 2008; MOM WAS RIGHT

Son of Thunderbeast posted:

Has anyone here tried to lift a limp person? If you have, then let's picture ideal conditions at sea level--and let's say you're lucky and you have a friend that's equally altruistic and that's willing to help you carry this dying person. You, your friend, and the expectant are all wearing/carrying your climbing gear, and you have to move him let's say a few city blocks.

Even without gear and poo poo I'd be fuckin dying

Now imagine doing this on Everest, where you'll probably be the only dummy running out waving an oxygen bottle yelling "stiff upper lip chum, I'm here to rescue you!" so you now have to try and carry/drag this other dying idiot all the way down Mount Everest

so... yeah.

You forgot the part where sometimes you try to help that idiot down, and their brain is so starved of oxygen, they literally try to fist fight you.

Basebf555 posted:

I just don't know any other recreational activities where its every man for themselves, and deaths are expected and part of the deal when you sign up. I guess cave-diving but I feel the same way about that; caves deemed dangerous enough by experts should be closed permanently to the public.

Yeah, but in every recreational activity where there is a serious chance of harm to others or self, you have certifying regulatory bodies to at least attempt to make sure you're not going to kill someone doing it; e.g. PADI, auto racing sanctioning bodies, USPA, FAA, etc.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 00:01

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

Son of Thunderbeast posted:

Now imagine doing this on Everest, where you'll probably be the only dummy running out waving an oxygen bottle yelling "stiff upper lip chum, I'm here to rescue you!" so you now have to try and carry/drag this other dying idiot all the way down Mount Everest

I live in Scotland and all the climbers I know volunteer for mountain rescue. If someone goes missing on Ben Nevis (the highest mountain, and even that's just a foothill by world standards) there'll be several hundred climbers attacking it from every direction within the hour. Every single mountain rescue team on the planet is presumably made up of experienced mountaineers. If their chances of success are so low and chances of death so high, why the gently caress are they volunteering?

The problem isn't that climbers are sociopaths who ignore people dying so they can "bag another summit" or whatever. It's a problem unique to Everest and on other mountains you just don't get climbers stepping over corpses in their blind desire to climb another big hill. Anyone who walks up Everest can legitimately call themselves a mountaineer but paying $25,000 doesn't give you the skills or experience, let alone the mental or moral experience, to fully deserve that title. And yet these rich kids who essentially get dragged up the easy peaks before returning to Silicon Valley to sell off another chunk of Microsoft think they're the moral high ground (hehe) when it comes to deciding whether or not you should let other climbers die so you can complete your own summit.

The simple fact of the matter is that mountaineers attacking harder peaks than Everest tend to help one another out, even going so far as to risk their own lives to save someone elses. Because for that type of mountaineer the mountain is their enemy and has to be defeated and their fellow climbers are their comrades. For the majority of commerical climbers on Everest their fellow climbers are an enemy getting in the way and they're the ones to be defeated.

quote:

Has anyone here tried to lift a limp person? If you have, then let's picture ideal conditions at sea level--and let's say you're lucky and you have a friend that's equally altruistic and that's willing to help you carry this dying person. You, your friend, and the expectant are all wearing/carrying your climbing gear, and you have to move him let's say a few city blocks.

In 2012 an Israeli climber came across an American, 1000ft from the summit. He picked him up and carried him off.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 01:28

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

duckmaster posted:

It's a problem unique to Everest

Yes, but that's primarily because Everest is so high that the atmosphere becomes unsurvivable past a certain point. There is some rich entitled bullshit at work, sure, my point is it doesn't matter anywhere near as much as matters of simple survival. Everest's size is the reason why you can't have rescue teams of hundreds of volunteers crawling over it for rescue missions--the hurdles are insanely higher for Everest past a certain elevation than any other mountain on earth.

quote:

The simple fact of the matter is that mountaineers attacking harder peaks than Everest tend to help one another out, even going so far as to risk their own lives to save someone elses. Because for that type of mountaineer the mountain is their enemy and has to be defeated and their fellow climbers are their comrades. For the majority of commerical climbers on Everest their fellow climbers are an enemy getting in the way and they're the ones to be defeated.

This is totally true though, and definitely a factor! I'm just saying it's not as big of one as some folks in this thread are making it out to be.

quote:

In 2012 an Israeli climber came across an American, 1000ft from the summit. He picked him up and carried him off.

Well good for him; he's an extremely good-hearted, fit, and prepared dude

# ? Feb 27, 2015 03:09

Phobophilia: Apr 26, 2008; by Hand Knit

So what it comes down is that Everest is full of lowest-common denominator climbers, who would be completely incompetent to carry out some kind of rescue.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 06:07

canyoneer: Sep 13, 2005; I only have canyoneyes for you

Phobophilia posted:

So what it comes down is that Everest is full of lowest-common denominator climbers, who would be completely incompetent to carry out some kind of rescue.

ding ding ding.
If your own sherpas aren't able to rescue you, you're probably totally boned.

Thing about submarines, if your sub sinks, you either die right away or suffocate gradually over the course of a few days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-141%29
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/27/world/none-of-us-can-get-out-kursk-sailor-wrote.html

Or, if you're in a Russian sub, you suffocate while your own navy declines offers to help from three other nearby navies who have the equipment, crew and expertise to rescue you. Matter of national pride.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 07:25

KozmoNaut: Apr 23, 2008; Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle

Kursk wasn't just a tragedy, it was a goddamn travesty of how to handle naval accidents.

It happened at only 100 meters, that's well within the range of routine submarine rescue methods.

KozmoNaut has a new favorite as of 10:56 on Feb 27, 2015

# ? Feb 27, 2015 10:51

Kimmalah: Nov 14, 2005; Basically just a baby in a trenchcoat.

Phobophilia posted:

So what it comes down is that Everest is full of lowest-common denominator climbers, who would be completely incompetent to carry out some kind of rescue.

Pretty much. As I understand Everest is a pretty simple climb from a technical standpoint and the only reason people flock to it is because "TALLEST!!" :byodood:

:byodood:

So you mix people too stubborn to admit that maybe they shouldn't climb this thing and companies willing to guide them regardless. For a prime example, there's GBS Everest thread favorite Shriya Shah�Klorfine.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 11:46

Literally Kermit: Mar 4, 2012; t

^^^ case in point. She's the yellow-suited lady who photoshopped herself onto wheelchair accessible mountains then died on Everest because it loving hates lazy photoshops above all else.

This is extremely awesome as far as derails go, and I definitely encourage everyone to check out the new 2015 Everest Death Pool thread. 2014 was one of my favorite threads ever.

I don't even want the derail to end; I want it to spread to every other thread, just everyone clamoring for Mt Everest to literally eat the rich lining up to die in one of the most expensive ways possible. Mother Nature needs this one, guys.

Literally Kermit has a new favorite as of 20:10 on Feb 27, 2015

# ? Feb 27, 2015 20:01

Wasabi the J: Jan 23, 2008; MOM WAS RIGHT

Literally Kermit posted:

^^^ case in point. She's the yellow-suited lady who photoshopped herself onto wheelchair accessible mountains then died on Everest because it loving hates lazy photoshops above all else.

This is extremely awesome as far as derails go, and I definitely encourage everyone to check out the new 2015 Everest Death Pool thread. 2014 was one of my favorite threads ever.

I don't even want the derail to end; I want it to spread to every other thread, just everyone clamoring for Mt Everest to literally eat the rich lining up to die in one of the most expensive ways possible. Mother Nature needs this one, guys.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3694151

# ? Feb 27, 2015 20:10

Imagined: Feb 2, 2007

Here's a low key scare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk-alkali_syndrome

Basically if you take "too much" calcium (but no-one knows how much is too much for any one person) you might or might not develop this, destroy your kidneys, and die. Usually seen by people who take a lot of Tums antacids or calcium supplements.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 21:59

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Lets talk about something terrible!

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-remains-of-lady-be-good/

quote:

In early November, 1958, a British oil exploration team was flying over North Africa's harsh Libyan Desert when they stumbled across something unexpected... the wreckage of a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) plane from World War 2. A ground crew eventually located the site, where a quick inspection of the remains identified it as a B-24D Liberator called the Lady Be Good, an Allied bomber that had disappeared following a bombing run in Italy in 1943. When she failed to return to base, the USAAF conducted a search, ultimately presuming that the Lady and her crew perished in the Mediterranean Sea after becoming disoriented.

The British oil surveyors found that the desert environment had preserved the aircraft's hardware astonishingly well; the plane's 50 caliber machine guns still operated at the pull of the trigger, the radio was in working condition, one of the engines was still functional, and there were still containers filled with water on board. But the remains of the crew were nowhere to be seen.

It took the US military over a year before they took the sighting seriously, but eventually they dispatched a search operation which scoured the desert for the remains of the crew. The search teams found several improvised arrow markers at varying distances to the northwest-- one made of boots, others made from parachutes weighed down with rocks-- but the markers stopped at the edge of the vast, shifting sea of sand known as Calanscio. The group was unsuccessful in finding any further trace of the crew.

The Lady Be Good had been crewed by nine men:

1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton, Pilot
2d Lieutenant Robert F. Toner, Copilot
2d Lieutenant Dp Hays, Navigator
2d Lieutenant John S. Woravka, Bombardier
Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger, Flight Engineer
Technical Sergeant Robert E. LaMotte, Radio Operator
Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley, Gunner & Assistant Flight Engineer
Staff Sergeant Vernon L. Moore, Gunner & Assistant Radio Operator
Staff Sergeant Samuel R. Adams, Gunner

The official search was eventually called off on account of equipment problems from the harsh environment. But quite by accident, all but one of the crew were located during the year of 1960, over sixteen years after the Lady had disappeared into the desolation. Combined with the findings from the crash site, the clues found with the remains of the crew told the story of men's final days.

The April 4th, 1943 bombing run on Naples had been the first call to action for Lady Be Good and her crew. That afternoon they launched from the Benina air strip in the city of Soluch in Libya. They departed amidst a sandstorm which incapacitated two other bombers in the flight group, forcing them to return to base. Lady's engines ingested some of the airborne sand as well, but seemed to be running normally, so Lieutenant Hatton opted not abort the mission. En route to the target, the aircraft was buffeted by severe winds that pushed her off course and further away from the bomber group, forcing numerous course corrections on the way to Naples. By the time they neared the target, the other Liberators had long since come and gone, and visibility was reportedly poor. So the pilot turned back, dumping their bombs into the Mediterranean Sea.

The last contact from the crew of Lady Be Good was a radio transmission from her pilot, William Hatton: "My ADF has malfunctioned. Please give me a QDM." This indicated that his position-finding equipment had failed, and due to the thick cloud cover he had become disoriented. For reasons unknown, Lt. Hatton never received a response to this request for a position report, but it has been suggested that the radio tower suspected a German trick. Later, in the darkness, the distinct droning sound of a B-24 emanated from the clouds over Benina airport. Flares were launched to signal the bomber, but the engine sound passed overhead, and faded into the distance.

Realizing that they were hopelessly disoriented, several members of the Lady's crew made notations in their logs indicating that they had become lost. A notepad belonging to bombardier Lt. John Woravka revealed one side of a written conversation, probably penciled so their pilot wouldn't hear them over the intercom. It suggests that there may have been some disagreement in the cockpit:

"What's he beeching (bitching) about?"
"What's going to happen?"
"Are we going home?"

Running dangerously low on fuel and probably believing they were over the Mediterranean Sea, the nine men donned parachutes and ditched the aircraft to take their chances. It's likely that the men were surprised when their boots hit sand rather than water. Using revolvers and flare guns, the seven scattered survivors managed to find one another in the desert. They decided to get underway immediately, knowing that the unforgiving Libyan desert reached daytime temperatures of up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lady Be Good flew on through the dark night, slowly descending to crash-land sixteen miles from the men's gathering place. Not realizing that their plane and its supply of food and water were a scant sixteen miles away, the men estimated that travelling northwest would bring them back to the airbase in Soluch. They set out on foot with what supplies they carried. By their calculations, they were no more than 100 miles from the base. In reality, the distance was over 400 miles.

When the plane's wreckage was located in 1958, desert survival experts predicted that the airmen could only have moved up to thirty miles on foot, particularly considering the fact that they were unprepared for the unforgiving desert environment. Much to the amazement of investigators, the remains of the first group of men were found about eighty miles north of the wreck. A British oil survey team discovered the five bodies, closely grouped together in an area strewn with personal effects such as wallets, flashlights, pieces of parachutes, flight jackets, first-aid kits, and most importantly, the diary of Lieutenant Robert Toner which described his final eight days with a sober brevity:

" Sunday, Apr. 4, 1943
Naples--28 places--things pretty well mixed up--got lost returning, out of gas, jumped, landed in desert at 2:00 in morning. no one badly hurt, cant find John, all others present.

Monday 5
Start walking N.W., still no John. a few rations, 1/2 canteen of water, 1 cap full per day. Sun fairly warm. Good breeze from N.W. Nite very cold. no sleep. Rested & walked.

Tuesday 6
Rested at 11:30, sun very warm. no breeze, spent P.M. in hell, no planes, etc. rested until 5:00 P.M. Walked & rested all nite. 15 min on, 5 off.

Wednesday, Apr. 7, 1943
Same routine, everyone getting weak, cant get very far, prayers all the time, again P.M. very warm, hell. Can't sleep. everyone sore from ground.

Thursday 8
Hit Sand Dunes, very miserable, good wind but continuous blowing of sand, every[one] now very weak, thought Sam & Moore were all done. La Motte eyes are gone, everyone else's eyes are bad. Still going N.W."

On 9 April, Lieutenants Hatton, Toner, Hays and Sergeants Adams and LaMotte ended their trek, too exhausted to continue. Sergeants Shelley, Moore and Ripslinger continued northward in search of help. There was no further written record for the three men who departed, but with negligible water, no food, and temperatures as high as 130 degrees, the misery of their last few days is difficult to imagine. Lieutenant Toner continued to keep his diary as they waited:

" Friday 9
Shelly [sic], Rip, Moore separate & try to go for help, rest of us all very weak, eyes bad, not any travel, all want to die. still very little water. nites are about 35, good n wind, no shelter, 1 parachute left.

Saturday, Apr. 10, 1943
Still having prayer meetings for help. No sign of anything, a couple of birds; good wind from N. --Really weak now, cant walk. pains all over, still all want to die. Nites very cold. no sleep.

Sunday 11
Still waiting for help, still praying. eyes bad, lost all our wgt. aching all over, could make it if we had water; just enough left to put our tongues to, have hope for help very soon, no rest, still same place.

Monday 12
No help yet, very cold nite"

The entry from Monday, April 12 was the last, written in thick pencil lines.

Of the three men who continued on, the remains of two were eventually found; Staff Sergeant Guy E. Shelley was discovered twenty-one miles north of his five crewmates, and Technical Sergeant Harold J. Ripslinger may have been the last to fall, having crossed an incredible 109 miles of open desert. Radio operator Moore has never been located.

Later that year, the remains of the bombardier, 2nd Lt. Woravka, were found a few miles from the crash site. His parachute was still attached but appeared to have malfunctioned during evacuation, causing him to fall to his death. Under the circumstances, he was probably the most fortunate of his crew.

When they set out after evacuation, had the survivors trekked southeast towards the wreckage of Lady Be Good, they would have greatly increased their chances of survival by retrieving the food and water stored there, and using the radio to call for help. But they had no way to know how far Lady had glided before landfall. And had their emergency maps included the area where they bailed out, they might have realized the severity of their predicament, and instead headed for an oasis to the south. Good fortune certainly did not favor the crew of Lady Be Good on her first-- and last-- battle mission. But the toughness of the crew is unquestionable, surviving days of marching across unforgiving desert with only a half-canteen of water to share between them.

The remains of the eight crewmembers which were found were all returned to the United States. Today the wreckage of the plane is stored in a compound in Libya, but many of the crew's personal effects and a few parts from the plane are on display at the Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia.

# ? Feb 27, 2015 23:30

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."

From the dry to the wet. The Mystery of the Flannan Isles lighthouse, 1900:

"Wikipedia" posted:

On 15 December 1900, the steamer Archtor on passage from Philadelphia to Leith passed the islands in poor weather and noted that the light was not operational. The island lighthouse was manned by a three-man team (Thomas Marshall, James Ducat, and Donald MacArthur), with a rotating fourth man spending time on shore. The relief vessel, the lighthouse tender Hesperus, was unable to set out on a routine visit from Lewis planned for 20 December due to adverse weather and did not arrive until noon on Boxing Day (26 December).[6] On arrival, the crew and relief keeper found that the flagstaff was bare of its flag, none of the usual provision boxes had been left on the landing stage for re-stocking, and more ominously, none of the lighthouse keepers were there to welcome them ashore. Jim Harvie, captain of the Hesperus, gave a strident blast on his whistle and set off a distress flare, but no reply was forthcoming.

A boat was launched and Joseph Moore, the relief keeper, was put ashore alone. He found the entrance gate to the compound and main door both closed, the beds unmade, and the clock stopped. Returning to the landing stage with this grim news, he then went back up to the lighthouse with the Hesperus's second-mate and a seaman. A further search revealed that the lamps were cleaned and refilled. A set of oilskins was found, suggesting that one of the keepers had left the lighthouse without them, which was surprising considering the severity of the weather on the date of the last entry in the lighthouse log. The only sign of anything amiss in the lighthouse was an overturned chair by the kitchen table. Of the keepers there was no sign, neither inside the lighthouse nor anywhere on the island.[17][6]

Moore and three volunteer seamen were left to attend the light and the Hesperus returned to the shore station at Breasclete. Captain Harvie sent a telegram to the Northern Lighthouse Board dated 26 December 1900, stating:

A dreadful accident has happened at the Flannans. The three keepers, Ducat, Marshall and the Occasional have disappeared from the Island... The clocks were stopped and other signs indicated that the accident must have happened about a week ago. Poor fellows they must have been blown over the cliffs or drowned trying to secure a crane or something like that.[6][17]

The men remaining on the island scoured every corner for clues as to the fate of the keepers. At the east landing everything was intact, but the west landing provided considerable evidence of damage caused by recent storms. A box at 33 metres (108 ft) above sea level had been broken and its contents strewn about; iron railings were bent over, the iron railway by the path was wrenched out of its concrete, and a rock weighing more than a ton had been displaced above that. On top of the cliff at more than 60 metres (200 ft) above sea level, turf had been ripped away as far as 10 metres (33 ft) from the cliff edge. The missing keepers had kept their log until 9 a.m. on 15 December, however, and their entries made it clear that the damage had occurred before the disappearance of the writers.[6][18]

Sounds like the work of our recently scientifically-discovered friend The Freak Wave. 30m waves have been recorded so that could have been the cause of the breakage but why would all three men leave the lighthouse together without oilskins in heavy rain? :iiam:

:iiam:

And what about the what about the disturbance 60m above sea level?

Celebrated in ballad and poem, this would become the basis for a Doctor Who adventure (Tom Baker era).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannan_Isles#Mystery_of_1900

Josef K. Sourdust has a new favorite as of 00:57 on Feb 28, 2015

# ? Feb 28, 2015 00:54

HelloIAmYourHeart: Dec 29, 2008; Fallen Rib

The Lady Be Good and the Flannan Isles are both episodes of the Futility Closet podcast (episodes 41 and 15, respectively) if you'd like more info in audio form. Greg Ross does his own research from primary and secondary sources, so there's usually something in his shows that I haven't heard before, even on topics I've read about.

# ? Feb 28, 2015 02:20

-Zydeco-: Nov 12, 2007

Read recently about two Russian guys who may well have prevented all out nuclear war during the cold war. Twice.
Vasili Arkhipov in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Stanislav Petrov in 1983 when the Soviet missile detection system had a false detection.

# ? Feb 28, 2015 05:51

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."

Dyatlov Pass: Finished DEAD MOUNTAIN by Eichar and it's very good. As someone itt said, the narrative jumps about a bit and spends a fair amount of time with the narrator encountering characters and obstacles in his investigation but that is a pretty standard writing technique. He is thorough and includes a lot of photos. He seems to tie up most of the loose ends in a logical way. His solution is (with the support and assistance of scientists) wind over the nearby ridge created infrasound waves which induced panic and nausea in the group. Vibration may have suggested to them an earthquake or avalanche. They cut the tent to escape and ran away. Dispersed in the dark, they died of hypothermia or sustained life threatening injuries by falling into a ravine. That last chapter where he describes the sequence of that night and how they all died is really powerful and sad.

The only thing that isn't tied up is the final photo, which may have only been an accidental exposure.

Two confusing points: I read the camera was set up on a tripod when found. Eichar doesn't mention that. Was it set up or not? If it was set up, that meant they were photoing the landscape/sky at night (because you wouldn't leave it set up overnight).

And the lights are dismissed as not having been seen on the night of 1-2 Feb. Yet elsewhere Eichar says there were no testing facilities of bases nearby and he doesn't attempt to explain the lights.

Thoughts?

# ? Mar 1, 2015 11:17

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

I'm not sure who's more incompetent here, the Nazis or the FBI?

http://www.damninteresting.com/operation-pastorius/

quote:

Just after midnight on the morning of June 13, 1942, twenty-one-year-old coastguardsman John Cullen was beginning his foot patrol along the coast of Long Island, New York. Although this particular stretch of beach was considered a likely target for enemy landing parties, the young Seaman was the sole line of defense on that foggy night; and his only weapon, a trusty flashlight, was proving ineffective against the smothering haze. As Cullen approached a dune on the beach, the shape of a man suddenly appeared before him. Momentarily startled, he called out for the shape to identify itself.

"We�re fishermen from Southampton," a voice responded. A middle-aged man emerged from the soupy fog, and continued, "We�ve run ashore." This sounded plausible to Cullen, so he invited the fisherman and his crew to stay the night at the nearby Coast Guard station. The offer appeared to agitate the man, and he refused. �We don�t have a fishing license,� he explained.

Just as Cullen's suspicions began to grow, a second figure appeared over the dune and shouted something in German. The man in front of Cullen spun around, yelling, �You drat fool! Go back to the others!� Then he turned back to Cullen with an intensity in his expression that left the Seaman paralyzed�for he was now almost certain that he was alone on the beach with a party of Nazi spies.

The German agent stood close, and hissed, "Do you have a mother? A father?" As Cullen nodded, he continued, "Well, I wouldn�t want to have to kill you." He held out a wad of cash. "Forget about this, take this money, and go have a good time." Cullen, realizing this might be his only chance to walk away alive, decided to accept. As he reached for the roll of bills, the man suddenly lunged forward and seized Cullen�s flashlight. He then pointed the light toward his own face. �Do you know me?� he asked.

�No sir, I never saw you before in my life.�

�My name is George John Davis. Take a good look at me. You�ll be meeting me in East Hampton sometime.� With that, he released his grip on the flashlight and the money, and disappeared back into the fog. The shocked coastguardsman took a few hesitant paces backward, then whirled around and set off at a run for the Coast Guard station to inform his superiors that their fears had been realized.

Cullen�s suspicion was correct, but the man he�d confronted was no hardened military commander. His real name was George John Dasch, a waiter and dishwasher who�d come to the attention of the German High Command for the time he�d spent living in America before the war. He and a team of three similarly inexperienced agents had been given several weeks of intense training at a secret farm near Berlin before being ushered onto a U-boat bound for the US coast. Their mission, led by Dasch, was to sabotage America�s manufacturing and transport sector, and to terrorize the country�s civilian population. It would be known as Operation Pastorius.

The evening's events had already damaged Dasch�s tenuous hold on the group. Unbeknownst to Seaman John Cullen, two armed sailors had been crouched in the darkness during the conversation on the beach, awaiting the signal to attack. The landing party had been left with standing orders to kill anyone who confronted them during the landing. But Dasch had chosen to let the man go, and his assurances that he had �buffaloed� the coastguardsman did not convince his men. After some nervous arguing back and forth, the saboteurs finished burying their supplies in the sand, and set out for the nearby Long Island Railroad Station.

In the meantime, John Cullen reached the Coast Guard post and breathlessly recited what he�d seen, handing over the bribe money as evidence. Though skeptical, and concerned about raising a false alarm, his superiors agreed to send out an armed patrol to investigate. They were led back to the site by Cullen, where any doubts were quickly dispelled; in the pre-dawn light, the men could see the outline of a German submarine dislodging itself from a sandbar just offshore. Once it had gone, a quick search of the area revealed a series of small crates buried under a shallow layer of sand. Inside were large quantities of explosives, detonation equipment, Nazi uniforms, and quality German liquor.

Once the news reached FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover around noon, his excitement could hardly be contained. As Attorney General Francis Biddle later recalled, �All of Edgar Hoover�s imaginative and restless energy was stirred into prompt and effective action. He was determined to catch them all before any sabotage took place.�

Here at last was a chance for Hoover to prove his organization�s value to the war effort. But the situation was delicate; making the story public would put every American citizen on the lookout for the Germans, but it would also alert the suspects to the hunt and might cause public hysteria�not to mention considerable embarrassment for Hoover and his Bureau if the search should fail. It was therefore decided that a media blackout be imposed. Quietly, with only the most professional degree of panic, the FBI began the largest manhunt in its history.

By this time, the four would-be terrorists were settled in New York City, preparing for their task from the comfort of fancy hotels and fine restaurants. They had $84,000 in mission funds to enjoy�equivalent to over $1 million today�and in the great melting pot of New York City their German accents raised nary an eyebrow. They remained completely unaware that their essential supplies had already been confiscated and that the entire might of the FBI was secretly on the lookout for them.

But George John Dasch, the group�s daring leader, had a secret of his own. The day after the landing he called Ernst Peter Burger, the most guarded and disciplined member of the team, into the upper-storey hotel room the two men shared. He walked over to the window and opened it wide.

�You and I are going to have a talk,� Dasch said, �And if we disagree, only one of us will walk out that door�the other will fly out this window.�

He then revealed the truth to Burger: he had no intention of going through with the mission. He hated the Nazis, and he wanted Burger on his side when he turned the entire plot over to the FBI. Burger smiled. Having spent seventeen months in a Nazi concentration camp, his own feelings for the party were less than warm. He, too had been planning to betray the mission. They were agreed.

The two men were uncertain how best to proceed with their plan. They were reluctant to contact the authorities, having been told by their handlers that the Nazis had infiltrated the FBI. Eventually, Dasch concluded that their best option was an anonymous phone call to test the waters and arrange for further contact. He called the FBI�s New York Field Office, and after several transfers was put in touch with a special agent. Identifying himself as �Pastorius,� the name of the mission, Dasch carefully recited his story. Then, ominously, the man on the other end of the line hung up. Dasch was stricken with panic. Had he just exposed himself to a Nazi spy? Had the call been traced?

In fact, he had been speaking to the office�s �nut desk,� the post responsible for fielding calls from Cleopatra and the wolf-man. In the midst of the most important case in the Bureau�s history, the agent on duty had dismissed their only lead as a prank.

Shaken but not discouraged, Dasch ordered Burger to stay put and keep an eye on the other men while he headed for Washington D.C. to set things straight. The morning of June 19, a week after his landing at Long Island, Dasch stepped into the FBI�s headquarters carrying a briefcase. He explained who he was and asked to speak with Director Hoover.

The agents in the building, however, were too busy catching spies to be bothered with every crackpot off the street who happened to know classified details about secret Nazi landings. Dasch was bounced from office to office until finally Assistant Director D.M. Ladd, the agent in charge of the manhunt, agreed to humor him with five minutes of his time. Dasch angrily repeated his story, only to find himself greeted once again with patronizing nods and glances toward the door. Fed up at last, he lifted the briefcase he had been carrying, tore open its straps, and dumped the entire $84,000 of mission funds onto the Assistant Director�s desk. Ladd blinked with astonishment and began to reconsider Dasch�s claims.

For the next week, Dasch was the subject of an intense interrogation, and he happily revealed all he knew. His operation, he explained, was just the first of a long series of sabotage missions planned by the Germans to cripple the American war effort. They were scheduled to land every six weeks, with the second team expected imminently. Dasch exposed the targets he had been instructed to hit as well as the methods he had been trained to use. He revealed key information about German war production, plans, and equipment. He turned over a handkerchief upon which the names of local contacts had been written in invisible ink�although Dasch, who had snoozed his way through spy school, couldn�t remember how to reveal it. Most important of all, Dasch disclosed the locations of his three accomplices and their aliases, taking care to note Burger�s role in the defection.

The three men who had landed with Dasch were quickly located using the information he�d supplied. Dasch knew little about the second four-man team, but with the help of his handkerchief contacts�which the FBI�s lab quickly discovered could be revealed by ammonia fumes�they were soon tracked down and arrested. Just two weeks after the first landing, and without a single attempt at sabotage, all eight men were in custody.

Hoover broke the media blackout on the evening of June 27. Across the nation, American citizens were astonished to wake up to front-page headlines declaring �U-BOATS LAND SPIES; EIGHT SIEZED BY FBI.� But it wasn�t the story known to those on the inside. Hoover reasoned that letting the truth be known now would do nothing to discourage the Germans from making further sabotage attempts. It was better to perpetuate the myth of an invincible FBI that had halted the plot through its own ingenuity and all-seeing eye�a story that also happened to fit nicely into Hoover�s personal agenda.

At his press conference, Hoover therefore made no mention of the defection of Dasch, or indeed of any details on how the case was broken. He opted instead to praise the brilliance and efficiency of his FBI. �The detective work of the century,� Hoover called it, referring perhaps to agent Ladd�s astute observation of $84,000 cash bouncing off of his forehead. Further details, he explained, would have to wait until after the war. The unsatisfied press room erupted with speculations about elite FBI agents infiltrating the Gestapo and the High Command. Hoover refused to confirm any such wild theories, but his triple-eyebrow raises, exaggerated winks, and menacing cackles encouraged the reporters to adopt their own conclusions.

With the last of his accomplices rounded up, it was time at last for Dasch to get his due. On July 3, his contacts at the FBI greeted him with smiles and handcuffs, and tossed him into a cell alongside his men. It was not the response Dasch had been expecting, but the arresting agents assured him it was little more than a formality. If he just went along with it, he was told, J. Edgar Hoover would ensure that he received a presidential pardon within 6 months.

Hoover had indeed already spoken to President Roosevelt about the arrest, but his conversation had nothing to do with advocating Dasch�s release. The president was given an account similar to the one furnished to the press, with no mention of Dasch or Burger�s role in the investigation. According to Hoover, Dasch had been �apprehended� two days after his accomplices; and the arrest had been made in New York, not Washington, implying that the arrest of the subordinates had led to the capture of their leader rather than the other way around. Hoover�s revisions to the story may have had something to do with the river of letters and telegrams later received by the president urging him to award the FBI Director with the Congressional Medal of Honor. As it turned out, the majority of these messages came from the FBI�s own Crime Records Division, the office just a few doors down from Hoover's. The campaign, however, was unsuccessful.
Explosive supplies recovered from the landing beach
Explosive supplies recovered from the landing beach

Whether Operation Pastorius�s slapdash team of blue-collar workers and government pencil-pushers ever posed much of a threat is somewhat debatable. At the time of their capture, most of the saboteurs were too busy visiting gambling establishments and prostitutes to be planning any major acts of sabotage. Several were reuniting with family they�d left behind in America, while another had met up with an old girlfriend and was in the process of planning his wedding. The German High Command had perhaps misjudged the wisdom of sending naturalized citizens to attack their own adopted country. Nevertheless, the only concern of the US government was in reassuring its citizens and sending a powerful message to the Nazis. Since the men hadn�t actually committed any crime, a normal court could sentence them to at most a few years in prison�or even acquit them entirely. To President Roosevelt, this was unacceptable. In a memorandum sent to Attorney General Biddle, he wrote: �Surely they are as guilty as it is possible to be and it seems to me that the death penalty is almost obligatory.� A military tribunal, he felt, was the only way to ensure this outcome. �I won�t give them up,� he told Biddle, �I won�t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus.�

He would find no objections among the American populace. As shown in polls and editorials across the country, the general public was overwhelmingly in favor of execution for all eight terrorists. A letter printed in one newspaper called for the men to be fed to Gargantua, the Ringling Brothers� famous giant circus gorilla.

Within a month of the initial landing at Long Island, the eight saboteurs were put before a closed-door US military tribunal�the first to be assembled since the days of the Civil War. It was presided over by a panel of seven generals; there would be no jury, no press, and no appeal. During the trial, none of the defendants denied their involvement with the plot, instead claiming that they were forced into the mission by the Nazis, or that they had joined as a means to escape from Germany. Due to his unique circumstances, Dasch was defended separately. His counsel argued competently in his favor, noting that the case would never have been broken without him, that the FBI had promised him his freedom, and that he clearly had been planning to betray the mission from the start. Not only had he disobeyed orders by sparing coastguardsman Cullen, he had also deliberately revealed his face and assigned name�George John Davis�to the man.
Explosive delay devices disguised as pens, submitted as evidence
Explosive delay devices disguised as pens, submitted as evidence

After 16 days in session and two rejected constitutional appeals from the defense, both sides had said their piece. A verdict was signed and sent directly to the president, who was to be the final arbiter of the sentencing. It was unanimous: the Germans, all eight of them, were guilty. The recommended sentence was death.

It was only upon reading the transcript of the trial that Roosevelt learned how Hoover had misled him. Regardless, it apparently didn�t shake the foundation of his opinion on the case. At the urging of defense counsel, FDR gave only enough ground to commute Dasch's sentence to 30 years of hard labor, and Burger's to life. George John Dasch, a man who had envisioned himself being welcomed as a hero by the American people and perhaps earning his own Medal of Honor, would instead spend what was likely to be the rest of his life in prison. His six accomplices were not so fortunate. Five days after the trial�s end, they were marched to the electric chair in alphabetical order. Within two months of landing in America, the men had been captured, charged, tried, and executed. The official verdict of the tribunal wouldn�t be released for another three months.

Dasch and Burger were locked away in a federal penitentiary, their true story only known to a handful of military and government officials. But as ethically suspect as J. Edgar Hoover�s deception may have been, his cover-up worked. Hitler was infuriated at the news of his men�s capture, and he refused to risk another submarine for further missions. Just as he had intended, Hoover effectively stopped any attempts at German sabotage for the remainder of the war.

Burger and Dasch�s stories didn�t end in prison. After the Allied victory in Europe, the documents pertaining to their case were released to the public despite the strenuous objections of J. Edgar Hoover. With the truth out in the open, and after a further three years of squirming, President Harry S. Truman finally agreed to commute the two men�s sentences. Having spent six years in federal prison, they were released and deported to Germany.

The consequences of the 1942 Nazi sabotage plot remain very much present today. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States government approved the use of military tribunals to try captured terrorist suspects. The major precedent for these tribunals is the case of Ex parte Quirin�the trial of George John Dasch and his seven Nazi agents. Their hastily assembled tribunal will also be looked to as the model for any future prosecution of "unlawful combatants."

Stepping off the plane onto German soil, Dasch and Burger found themselves two men without a home: criminals in America and traitors in Germany. Burger turned against his former commander, publicly blaming him for the entire debacle before disappearing several years later. For his part, Dasch refused to run; he spent the rest of his life campaigning for acceptance in Germany and for a chance to return to America. He never received either. Dasch died in Germany in 1992, still awaiting the pardon promised him by J. Edgar Hoover half a century earlier.

Edit: FDR comes off pretty badly too �I won�t give them up,� he told Biddle, �I won�t hand them over to any United States marshal armed with a writ of habeas corpus.�

Nckdictator has a new favorite as of 19:46 on Mar 2, 2015

# ? Mar 2, 2015 16:34

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

Nckdictator posted:

I'm no sure who's more incompetent here, the Nazis or the FBI?

http://www.damninteresting.com/operation-pastorius/

Everything I've read about J Edgar Hoover has made him come across as one of the worst human beings the United States government has ever employed. Guy was a motherfucker, and he wasn't even a particularly competent or efficient motherfucker either.

# ? Mar 2, 2015 18:15

Terrible Opinions: Oct 18, 2013

His main claim to fame was inventing modern CSI through untreated OCD.

# ? Mar 2, 2015 18:39

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# ? May 17, 2024 00:18

Centripetal Horse: Nov 22, 2009; Fuck money, get GBS

This could have bought you a half a tank of gas, lmfao -
Love, gromdul

Nckdictator posted:

I'm no sure who's more incompetent here, the Nazis or the FBI?
http://www.damninteresting.com/operation-pastorius/

Surprisingly, it's not obvious which group is more evil, either.

I have a super-right-wing friend who likes to accuse me of being "not patriotic." When he says that, I think of poo poo like this, and handing out bogus vaccines to people in the Middle East, and holding people endlessly in torture camps without charges, and Jim Crow, and a two-hundred-year string of broken treaties and marginalization of native peoples, and sick citizens being denied necessary health care, and endless attempts to dismantle unions and environmental regulations while rolling back advances in workers' rights, and our constant need to be sticking our guns in the faces of people all over the world, and for-profit prisons successfully lobbying to lock up more people for longer for lesser crimes, and segregated proms still being a thing in the shitholier regions of the nation, and the fact that we never seem to learn anything from any of this poo poo, and all I can say is, "You're loving right I'm not."

# ? Mar 2, 2015 19:38

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