Squalid posted:

At times when coal was short they even burned penguins to run the boilers.

Arquinsiel posted:

This is simultaneously a hilarious and terrifying image.

Arquinsiel posted:

Wikipedia says after that he got shot down a few times, so he clearly wasn't in an engineering unit all the time.

quote:

All the members of our delegation, except for Korolev, had been sent to Cuxhaven with the ranks that had been conferred on them. But Korolev, on instructions from Moscow, had been ordered to change into a captain’s uniform with artillery shoulder boards and “cannons.” Apropos of this, Pobedonostsev said that “this artillery captain” provoked considerably more interest among the British intelligence officers who were watching our delegation than General Sokolov, Colonel Pobedonostsev, and the other high-ranking officers. One of the Brits, who spoke excellent Russian, asked Korolev straight out what he did. In accordance with his instructions and his cover story Sergey Pavlovich responded,“You can see that I am an artillery captain.” The Brit remarked, “Your forehead is too high for an artillery captain.What’s more, you clearly weren’t at the front judging by your lack of medals.”Yes, for our intelligence services this disguise was a resounding failure.

The launches at Cuxhaven took place without a hitch. Filling us in on the details, Korolev commented ironically about the complete helplessness of the Brits, who themselves had not participated in the launch preparations at all, being entirely dependent on the German team. It had been impossible to determine the missile trajectories because it was overcast. But the launch made an impression. These missiles were, of course, a far cry from the GIRD rockets that Korolev had
launched with Tikhonravov twelve years previously.

quote:

Two officers entered my office. I immediately recognized the colonel—it was Valentin Petrovich Glushko. The other officer, a lieutenant colonel, introduced himself simply as List. Both wore high quality uniform jackets, well-pressed trousers rather than tunics, jodhpurs, and boots. Glushko smiled slightly and said, “Well, it seems you and I have already met.” Evidently he remembered our meeting in Khimki. Nikolay Pilyugin dropped in and I introduced him as the institute’s chief engineer. I proposed that we all sit down and drink some tea or “something a bit stronger.” But Glushko, without sitting down, apologized and said that he needed emergency automobile assistance. “We were driving from Nordhausen and our car was pulling badly and smoking severely. We were suffocating from the smoke inside.They say that you have some good repair specialists.”

Nikolay Pilyugin went up to the window and announced, “Yes, it’s still smoking. Did you turn the motor off?”

Suddenly in a calm, quiet voice List began to speak. He removed his service cap, revealing a shock of completely gray hair, and sank demonstratively into the armchair.

“Don’t worry.The brake pads of the handbrake are burning out. We drove from Nordhausen with the handbrake engaged.”

Pilyugin and I were flabbergasted.

“Why didn’t you release it?”

“You see, Valentin Petrovich stipulated that if he was at the wheel, I was not to dare suggest anything to him.”

Later we found out that before his arrest in 1938, Grigoriy Nikolayevich List had been the deputy chief designer at the I.V. Stalin Automobile Factory (ZIS) In terms of outward appearance, his manner of speaking and holding himself, List was a typical old generation intellectual. Nevertheless, he understood automobiles in all their subtleties and drove them beautifully. He drove the car from Berlin to Nordhausen. But in Nordhausen, Glushko demanded that the wheel be turned over to him. And this was the result.

Pilyugin and I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or to sympathize. But there was not a trace of indignation or surprise on Glushko’s face. He too sank calmly into his armchair, pulled out a pristine handkerchief, and wiped off his forehead.

I called our repairs department, and after explaining the situation, requested that they quickly replace the Olympia’s handbrake.And that was our first meeting with Glushko at the Institute RABE in Germany.

Nenonen posted:

This Finnish ABC book from 1871 (itself based on a German school book Grammatische Bilder-Fibel zur Schreibe-methode) gives an interesting insight into the mindset of people 150 years ago.

'Soldier shoots a man. Man shoots himself.'


'Boy hits dog with a stick.'
'Man hits horse with a whip.'
'Mother hits child with a cane.'


'Dog bites boy. Dog has bitten the boy.'
'Boy throws dog into lake. Boy has thrown dog into the lake.'

SeanBeansShako posted:

Puts a whole new mental image with the phrase pick up a penguin (chocolate bar in the UK).

Chamale posted:

What was the ratio of dead sailors to dead whales in the 19th century? I've read that in modern times a person dies for every 10,000 barrels of crude oil that are burned. I'd love to see that figure for whale oil.

HEY GUNS posted:

considering you don't have to drive up to the oil well and stab it to death in single combat...

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Calling it "single" combat seems like a disservice to the whales. They can take a bunch of us.

GotLag posted:

On a related note, how much of a hazard was falling shrapnel from AA shells and cartridge cases or bullets from aircraft to civilians beneath who weren't being directly targeted?

lllllllllllllllllll posted:

In videos and images you can see puffs of smoke in the air when ships e.g. used their AA guns in WW2. What are those? Wouldn't the projectile just shoot as far as possible upwards or was it meant to explode at a certain height? If so, how was this achieved? Thanks!

GotLag posted:

On a related note, how much of a hazard was falling shrapnel from AA shells and cartridge cases or bullets from aircraft to civilians beneath who weren't being directly targeted?

GotLag posted:

The Allies had sufficiently advanced electronics in the latter half of the war to introduce radar proximity fuzes that would explode near an object without having to have a time selected before firing.

Fangz posted:

1. Radar doesn't exist.
2. It's easier to stick more engines on to a bomber, and so make a bomber almost arbitrarily fast, whereas a fighter needs to manuever.
3. Once the bomber drops its bombs it gets a lot lighter.
4. Really unrealistic expectations of effective bombing from high altitude.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

5. A gross misunderstanding of the public's potential reaction to city bombing and a nation's desire to fight under those conditions.

P-Mack posted:

Wasn't there also a widespread assumption that the bomber that always gets through would be packing chemical weapons?

FuturePastNow posted:

I've read it was more like 20-50 civilian casualties (of course casualty doesn't mean dead) in Honolulu from US Navy AA shells and fragments falling on the city. This was all officially pinned on Japanese pilots strafing the city, but those guys weren't looking for anything that wasn't battleship shaped. Had the third strike not been called off, though, I imagine it might have killed some civilians (targeting the fuel depots).

feedmegin posted:

Yeah plus extrapolating from eg Guernica. The assumption in the 30s was that strategic bombing would actually be pretty much equivalent to a nuke.

zoux posted:

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Rip the faultless IJN, whose actions made no difference one way or the other as to whether the USN would rain shells over Oahu.

Can you believe these yankees though?

Elyv posted:

The Admiral Kuznetsov is going to retaliate by polluting the world super hard so that all walruses will die

everydayfalls posted:

This actually brings a story my grandmother told of that day into perspective. Her father worked in the harbor and had just gotten off shift when the attack came in. The way she told it he crawled under cars to prevent getting strafed trying to get back. There was never any evidence of the Japanese doing that so I didn’t understand what was going on, but trying not to catch some shrapnel seems like a good reason to be under the cars.

everydayfalls posted:

This actually brings a story my grandmother told of that day into perspective. Her father worked in the harbor and had just gotten off shift when the attack came in. The way she told it he crawled under cars to prevent getting strafed trying to get back. There was never any evidence of the Japanese doing that so I didn’t understand what was going on, but trying not to catch some shrapnel seems like a good reason to be under the cars.

wdarkk posted:

https://twitter.com/PearlHarborAvi/status/707820828751220737?s=20

Don Gato posted:

Honolulu isn't directly next to Pearl Harbor, it's about 10 miles away. Back in the day there would have been even more of an obvious gap between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor/Hickam Air Field as Honolulu was so much smaller. Since he was at the Harbor proper, he definitely was dodging the Japanese planes supressing and causing general chaos, as well as the shrapnel. It was absolute chaos that day.


Edit:


No joke, I worked in a building at JBPHH that still has bullet holes from the attack.