1 CSS Hunley Sinkings
The CSS Hunley, a Confederate submarine that became the first combat submarine to sink a warship, itself sank three times, killing her entire crew each time.
2. The U.S. Army used a program known as CHASE (Cut Holes And Sink ‘Em) in the 1960s to dispose of banned chemical weapons and munitions. They loaded the chemicals onto a ship, which they then purposely sank in the ocean.
3. In 1628, the Swedish warship Vasa, hailed as the most spectacular warship ever built, sank only 20 minutes into its maiden voyage, sailing less than a single nautical mile. Archaeologists found it was built asymmetrically. Workers used four rulers; two were based on Swedish feet with 12 inches, and the other two used Amsterdam feet with 11 inches.
4. In 2014, the South Korean passenger ferry MV Sewol sank, killing 306 people. Investigators later discovered that the crew’s safety training received only a budget of $2, which they used to purchase a paper certificate instead.
5. In 1998, a South Korean fishing net literally trapped a North Korean espionage submarine. As the South Korean navy towed it to port, the submarine sank. Upon salvage, they discovered that five of the nine-member crew had been executed and four had committed suicide.
6 Rainbow Warrior Bombing
In 1985, the French foreign intelligence service bombed and sank the Greenpeace vessel named Rainbow Warrior while it was moored in Auckland, New Zealand. The vessel was planning to disrupt a French nuclear test.
7. In 1914, two years after the Titanic sank, the Empress of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, losing 68.5% of all passengers, which was 0.5% more than the Titanic. World War I buried the event in the papers. The Empress took only 14 minutes to fully sink and still rests “structurally complete” under 40 meters of water.
8. When the Titanic sank in 1912, a designer was on board. The decision overruled his original design, which included features like a double hull, more watertight compartments, and twice as many lifeboats. He spent his final moments evacuating passengers, and no one ever recovered his body.
9. In 1942, as Japanese torpedoes slowly sank the USS Lexington, then the second-largest aircraft carrier in the Navy’s arsenal, the crew abandoned ship. However, they did not leave before breaking into the freezer and eating all the ice cream.
10. In 2020, a Venezuelan naval vessel clashed with a Portuguese cruise ship and lost. After opening fire, the Venezuelan patrol boat rammed the RCGS Resolute, a five-star ice-strengthened expedition cruise ship, and subsequently sank. The Resolute suffered only superficial damage.
11 Felicity Ace Disaster
In 2022, Felicity Ace, a 60,000-ton cargo ship, sank while transporting new vehicles from Germany to the United States, sending 4,000 luxury cars, including Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley models, to the bottom of the ocean.
12. In 1969, the American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans collided with an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea at 3:00 a.m. because the commanding officer was asleep and left two inexperienced lieutenants in charge. The ship turned the wrong way, collided, and sank, killing 74 people.
13. The MS Estonia ferry sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994. It was one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters of the 20th century, leaving the ship and 852 passengers at the bottom of the sea. It is illegal to dive to it.
14. In 1820, an 80-ton sperm whale attacked and sank the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts. This marine accident attracted international attention and inspired Herman Melville to write his famous 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
15. Edgar Allan Poe penned a tale about four crewmen who became lost at sea and began to consume the cabin boy named Richard Parker. Forty-six years later, an English yacht sank, and the remaining four survivors in a lifeboat turned to eating the cabin boy, who was also named Richard Parker, after he fell ill.
16 USS Scorpion Nuclear Torpedoes
Two MK 45 nuclear torpedoes, each with a W34 11-kiloton nuclear warhead, lie on the ocean floor with the remains of the USS Scorpion nuclear-powered submarine, which sank in 1968.
17. In 1968, four submarines sank mysteriously. In January, an Israeli sub vanished, and four days later, a French sub vanished without a trace. In March, a Soviet sub exploded and sank, and in May, a US sub also exploded and sank. All their causes remain officially unknown.
18. In 1991, the cruise ship Oceanos sank. The crew abandoned the ship, leaving the passengers behind. Guitarist Moss Hills radioed for help and directed the rescue operation, saving everyone on board.
19. During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, Allied planes sank 12 Japanese ships and killed over 3,000 enemy soldiers. This marine accident in 1943 eliminated any hope of a Japanese invasion of Australia. Tokyo announced two weeks later that they would teach all Japanese soldiers to swim.
20. During World War II, the Japanese battleship Mutsu suddenly exploded at anchor and sank. The Japanese navy conducted an investigation and determined that a disgruntled crewman’s suicide was likely the cause of the sinking.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 USS Oriskany Fire Incident
During the USS Oriskany fire, a sailor accidentally ignited a magnesium flare and, in a panic, tossed it back into a locker filled with 250 flares. This resulted in the deaths of 44 people, injuries to 156 others, and the near sinking of the aircraft carrier.
22. In 2004, a rented double-decker party barge carrying 60 people capsized and sank in front of Hippie Hollow, a nude park in Austin, Texas, when the passengers on board gathered on one side of the barge.
23. The S.S. Eastland, a small steamer, sank after being filled with so many lifeboats in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster that it became unstable. This marine accident led to the deaths of 844 people.
24. In 1961, an 11-year-old girl survived four days on a 2-foot by 5-foot raft after her family’s murder and the sinking of the boat she was on. She went years without knowing for sure who killed them.
25. The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968-69, saw nine participants. Four retired before leaving the Atlantic Ocean, one retired after Cape Horn, one sank, one committed suicide, one abandoned the race, and only one completed it.
RE: Fact #15 (Edgar Allan Poe Prediction) – This story is giving me the creeps. Seriously, I’m freaking out.
RE: Fact #24 (Girl’s Raft Survival) – So, I’m not finding where it says she spent years unsure about who actually killed them.
Okay, this fact is totally clickbaity, like seriously, it’s bad. The little girl and one other person survived the boat crash, but the other person killed himself soon after finding out the girl was alive. There’s no mystery here, just sadness. Come on, FactRepublic, we can do better than this!
RE: Fact #23 (S.S. Eastland Sinking) – This whole thing was nuts! The boat was just sitting there, docked, and it still crashed. It’s totally messed up – bad design and not enough rules, that’s what caused the whole thing.
RE: Fact #1 (CSS Hunley Sinkings) – So, not everyone died each time, just the last two times. Three people actually made it out of the initial sinking. It’s a pretty weird story though, right?
You know, it’s actually pretty cool when a sub sinks, as long as it doesn’t go overboard.
You know what’s really crazy? The guy who invented the submarine, H L Hunley, went down with it the second time it sank! He’s actually on that list of inventors who died because of their own inventions.
You know, Marie Curie is on the list. It’s crazy, she had no idea her inventions were actually hurting her!
RE: Fact #3 (Vasa Warship Sinking) – You know, it’s kind of a bad omen to boast about a boat before it even sets sail.
It’s funny, nobody ever seems to mention the boats that had a perfectly smooth first trip. It’s always the ones that hit a snag!
Poseidon just cracks up at humans who think they’re all that.
And then, bam! They give you a bunch of awesome new spots to fish!
RE: Fact #13 (MS Estonia Ferry Disaster) – The title is kinda weird, it makes it sound like the people are actually living in the boat underwater!
They’re being all secretive about it, so maybe it’s actually true.
You know that whole “Schrödinger’s Cat” thing? Well, imagine it with a boat. That’s “Schrödinger’s Boat” for ya!
Yeah, they totally built a whole city there called Rapture.
“Rupture” would totally fit better, don’t you think?
RE: Fact #26 (SS Badger State Disaster) – I was just thinking… do you think more people got taken out by birds than sharks during that sinking? Crazy, right?
RE: Fact #43 (SMS Seydlitz Sinking) – Okay, so this ship got sunk the first time by the Germans. They didn’t want the Allies getting their hands on it.
Then they tried to raise it, but something went wrong and it went down again, taking a bunch of their stuff with it.
The third time, well, the boss, Ernest Cox, was on vacation. They were supposed to raise the ship while he was there for pictures, but he wasn’t. So, he made them sink it and raise it again just to show them who was boss!
RE: Fact #41 (Costa Concordia Sinking) – Man, I’m feeling old! I remember all this happening on the news, like it was yesterday.
RE: Fact #47 (Modern Ghost Ships) – Some of these boats are just one-person jobs. So it’s totally understandable if someone gets tossed overboard during a storm and there’s nobody to help.
So the real creepy stuff isn’t the other stuff, it’s this:
Imagine this – April 2007, a boat called the SV Kaz II, about 40 feet long, sets sail. They’re seen passing by this island, George Point, later that day. But then, the boat’s GPS data shows it just drifting around. They find it a few days later, near the Great Barrier Reef, way out at sea. The engine’s running, the laptop’s on, the radio and GPS are working, and even a meal is set out. But the three guys who were supposed to be on it? Gone. They found some of their stuff, like life jackets, but no sign of them. They searched for a while, but decided it was too late for the guys to be alive. The coroner thought maybe they just fell overboard.
You ever heard of those creepy stories where a group of friends rent a boat, go out sailing, jump in for a swim, and then when the last one gets back in, someone asks, “Hey, did anyone put the ladder down?”
RE: Fact #28 (Cap Trafalgar Disguise) – This would totally be a war crime these days, right?
Countries used to be able to arm merchant or passenger ships to make them warships. I think that’s not allowed anymore, right? I’m pretty sure I read that on FactRepublic.
RE: Fact #14 (Essex Whale Attack) – You know, “prey rebels against predator” would make a killer movie with a powerful message. But, let’s be honest, when we’re the ones doing the hunting, it kinda feels like a tragedy, right?
RE: Fact #31 (Chinese Destroyer Explosion) – You know, it’s best to let people go on a Friday. Makes sense, right? Don’t do it when they’re in a position to cause trouble.
RE: Fact #29 (Kim Wall Submarine Case) – You wouldn’t have missed all the news about that whole thing last year, right? With the investigation and the trial going on, it was everywhere.
RE: Fact #14 (Essex Whale Attack) – So, losing the ship was just the start of their problems. They figured, “Hey, let’s just row across the whole South Pacific!” They were so scared of those cannibals on that nearby island, they ended up eating each other instead. Talk about a bad situation!
RE: Fact #47 (Modern Ghost Ships) – Any ideas why this happens? It’s totally wild!
The latest one looked like it got smashed up pretty good. Maybe that’s why the crew freaked out and bailed, but we have no idea what they ran into.
Wait, so nobody ever found the crew? Like, no radio calls or anything? Not a single clue about what happened to them?
It’s an old saying that, “The best lifeboat is the one you’re already on?” Well, that’s true. You don’t jump ship unless you absolutely have to.
I wonder who got scared and why? It’s a shame we can’t just rewind and see what happened, like they do with those black box things on planes.
It’s pretty straightforward, right? The 2021 case with the pirates and human trafficking.
I’ve heard stories about ships getting battered in storms and the crew jumping ship before it goes down, but then somehow the ship stays afloat. Crazy, right? But then the folks on the little lifeboat don’t make it.
Alright, forget this. If everyone else jumps ship, I’m staying put. If the whole thing goes down, those in the lifeboats are probably toast anyway. If we make it, I’m the only one left. And if the lifeboat gets away and we don’t, well, I’ll be remembered as the hero who went down with the ship for a minute.
I think this is why the captain never jumps ship.
RE: Fact #22 (Hippie Hollow Barge Accident) – That’s when you know you’re a real hit! I totally made that boat go down. 😎
Everyone talks about Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships? Ever wonder what happened to the body that sank one?
You know what they say… keep your mouth shut, or you’ll get us in trouble!
RE: Fact #22 (Hippie Hollow Barge Accident) – Years ago, I used to hang out there with my girlfriend. I’d never seen so many middle-aged guys in slow boats with binoculars before. These huge party boats would cruise past us, too. One guy had a tripod with, like, a 600mm lens and was yelling at everyone to squat down so he could take a picture.
RE: Fact #1 (CSS Hunley Sinkings) – Whoa, I didn’t know submarines were that old! Mind blown. Thanks for sending me down the wikipedia rabbit hole, I’m going to be reading about this for hours.
So, back in the 1890s, submarines were still a long way off. They needed a decent underwater motor, some good batteries, and a weapon that wouldn’t blow up the crew. Turns out a self-propelled torpedo was the answer!
You won’t believe this, but the Americans had a super early submarine way back in the Revolutionary War, like, 1775!
So, they chucked all our tea in the harbor, right? You think those rebels used it to power their submarines?!
Yeah, it was called The Turtle. Sadly, it didn’t do any damage and went down during a British attack at the Battle of Fort Lee in 1776. It wasn’t even used, it sank while being moved on a boat.
RE: Fact #7 (Empress of Ireland Sinking) – So I went to this museum in Pointe-au-Père this summer, and let me tell you, it was super interesting! It’s close to where I grew up, but I never knew about this stuff. They totally didn’t teach it in school!
Turns out, this whole thing happened just a few days before the war started, so people kinda stopped caring right away…
RE: Fact #8 (Titanic Designer’s Fate) – Man, I wish they’d just built the whole thing out of lifeboats!
RE: Fact #4 (MV Sewol Ferry Tragedy) – You should totally check out Brick Immortar’s two-part YouTube doc on the Sewol tragedy. It’s wild that the ferry owner still hasn’t been punished. It makes me so mad!
Yeah, that documentary really digs into everything. Not just the accident itself and how messed up the crew was, but also how the government was involved, messing with the rescue efforts and covering things up. It even shows how the whole thing sparked a huge protest.
RE: Fact #45 (Titanic Prediction Novel) – You know who wrote that book?
Homer Simpson.
Wait, wasn’t he the one who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey? Duh!
RE: Fact #45 (Titanic Prediction Novel) – Remember that thing on Beyond Belief? They said it was true, and I was totally blown away! 🤯
RE: Fact #11 (Felicity Ace Disaster) – “The ocean’s got better cars than all of us, and it doesn’t even use them! Talk about a flex.”
My Jeep’s still got some life in it!
RE: Fact #19 (Battle of Bismarck Sea) – So, after the battle, things got a little messy. First, on March 7th, General MacArthur put out this statement saying the American air force had sunk like twenty-two Japanese ships. But people were skeptical about that number – it seemed a bit too high – and everyone got caught up arguing about it instead of celebrating the big win.
Then, in another case of MacArthur trying to take all the glory, he and General Kenney (who was in charge of the air force) completely ignored the Australian air force in their reports. It was like, ‘If there’s one American at a battle the Aussies fought, it’s an American victory!’ This whole self-promotion thing was starting to really annoy the Aussies.
RE: Fact #48 (SS Baychimo Ghost Ship) – The MV Joyita is a pretty famous ghost ship from the Pacific.
So, it was on its way from Samoa to Tokelau when it hit a storm and started taking on water. Everyone panicked and jumped into the lifeboats. But, the lifeboats and all the people just disappeared.
A few weeks later, the Joyita showed up in Fiji, completely empty. Turns out, the ship was practically unsinkable because it had tons of cork to keep it afloat – it was used to transport refrigerated goods.
Think about it, everyone on board would have been fine if they just stayed on the ship. Crazy, right?
Honestly, I’d be terrified to be crammed into one of those tiny little lifeboats during a storm. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
An old salt told me, “The only time you want to be in a little lifeboat is when you’re too high to step over the side!”
RE: Fact #44 (HMHS Britannic Wreck) – So Brittanic was getting finished up when the Titanic thing happened. They added some extra safety stuff, like way more lifeboats on these big fancy davits. But she never actually carried any passengers because World War I broke out and they turned her into a hospital ship. She was headed to Gallipoli when she hit a German mine and went down way faster than Titanic. Apparently, some of the watertight doors were left open, they were speeding towards an island for too long, and they had tons of portholes open for air. No soldiers were hurt though.
The whole evacuation went pretty smoothly, the only people who died were from a couple lifeboats that got sucked into the still-spinning propeller. One of the survivors was Violet Jessop. She was a White Star Line stewardess who became a nurse. She survived the Titanic sinking and was also on the Olympic when it hit a ship called the HMS Hawke. Talk about a lucky (or unlucky) lady!
She was on the Olympic, then survived the Titanic, and then was on the Brittanic! Can you believe she even had to jump out of her lifeboat during the Brittanic sinking because it was getting pulled into the propeller? Seriously, talk about a wild ride! And after all that, she kept working on ships for another 30 years. I don’t know about you, but I think I would’ve found a different line of work after all that.
Nah, she’s good. But sailing with her… that’s a whole other story.
RE: Fact #1 (CSS Hunley Sinkings) – Shouldn’t submarines go down?
RE: Fact #11 (Felicity Ace Disaster) – You know Matt Farah? I used to follow him on Twitter. He ordered this Porsche and had to wait forever for it to arrive. He was tweeting updates the whole time, even using a tracking app to show where the ship was. Then, the worst happened – he watched the whole thing sink live on his phone! It was a real bummer.
RE: Fact #15 (Edgar Allan Poe Prediction) – You know, it’s kind of funny how the tiger in Life of Pi is named Richard Parker. It’s not just a random name!
“Man, I’d love some tiger meat. Wait, what if it’s Richard Parker reincarnated? That’s messed up! You think if you keep eating him, he’ll just keep coming back as something bigger and scarier until it finally gets you?”
Yeah, he’ll probably just end up as a bunch of flowers, you know?
RE: Fact #36 (Louis de Jaucourt Manuscript) – Okay, guys, are we getting this? Just saying, it’s a good idea to save a copy of everything, just in case.
RE: Fact #37 (Deepest Shipwreck: Suzuya) – Hey, you rich folks! I built a submarine out of a Nintendo 64 and an oil drum. Wanna take a ride? It’s gonna cost you a cool hundred grand, but you wouldn’t want to miss out!
Let’s hang out and chill for a bit, you know, just relax and take a break. No pressure on how long, we can just chill for as long as we want!
RE: Fact #25 (Golden Globe Race 1968–69) – So, this sailor who killed himself, turns out he was faking his location and basically making up where he was going. It’s a pretty wild story, even though it’s sad. You can find it on Wikipedia if you’re interested.
Hey, you know that new YouTube channel amglimpse? They did this awesome video about “The Disturbing Tale of the Race Around the World,” and it’s definitely one of my faves.
RE: Fact #44 (HMHS Britannic Wreck) – Good to see they finally fixed that whole “snap in half while sinking” issue.
RE: Fact #38 (U-507 Brazil Incident) – Brazil wasn’t just there in name only during the war. They actually sent troops to fight in Italy from September 1944 to May 1945. Their navy and air force also helped out in the Battle of the Atlantic from the middle of 1942 until the end of the war. In the eight months they were fighting in Italy, the Brazilians captured a bunch of Axis prisoners – over 20,000 in total! They were the only South American country to send ground troops overseas during World War II, and sadly, they lost almost 1,000 men.
RE: Fact #12 (USS Frank E. Evans Collision) – I was just thinking, what’s the deal with calling a ship a “destroyer”? They expect it to, like, destroy everything? Reminds me of what my grandpa used to say: “When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” He’d probably say the same thing about a destroyer – they think it can take on any ship, any time.
RE: Fact #20 (Japanese Battleship Mutsu) – Yeah, it’s easy to see how they’d try to make it seem like the ships or ammo weren’t the problem, and that it was just some enemy attack.
You know, I think a suicidal crew member would be a bigger hit to morale than any of the other things you mentioned. It would really mess with everyone on board.
It’s a bit of both. The higher-ups would have spun the tale to keep the rest of the crew in check.
RE: Fact #16 (USS Scorpion Nuclear Torpedoes) – Nah, probably just scrap metal by now, huh?
Okay, so the Navy keeps checking up on the Scorpion wreck, right? They wanna make sure the wreckage hasn’t been messed with and that nothing radioactive from the sub’s reactor or those nuclear weapons has leaked out. They’ve never really shown anyone what they find, except for a few pictures taken by some deep-sea explorers back in ’68 and ’85. The last pics were taken by this guy Robert Ballard and his team of ocean scientists using a fancy submersible called Alvin. Apparently, the Navy secretly let him borrow Alvin to check out the Scorpion and the Thresher wrecks. In exchange, Ballard, who was actually a Navy officer, was allowed to use Alvin to look for the Titanic!
Since the Scorpion wreck is kinda radioactive, the Navy has had to publish some info about how they’re checking out the water, sediment, and sea life around it. They wanna make sure the wreck isn’t messing up the deep-sea environment. They put out a report every year about their environmental monitoring for all their nuclear-powered boats and ships. It’s all pretty technical, but they say the wreck itself is pretty contained and they haven’t found any extra radiation outside of it. They think the nuclear fuel is still intact, and they haven’t found any uranium levels above what they’d expect from those old nuclear weapon tests. Plus, the two nuclear torpedoes that were lost when the Scorpion went down seem stable too. The plutonium and uranium cores of those weapons probably turned into this heavy, super-dense stuff after the crash. They’re still stuck in the torpedo room. Even if they did get out, they’d sink right to the bottom of the sea because they’re so heavy.
Huh, that’s weird. I wonder why they’re not trying to fix it. It’s definitely going to crash eventually, you know?
RE: Fact #39 (German U-boats Terror) – The attacks were a total disaster because, for months, the U.S. just ignored the problem and acted like nothing was happening. They could have done basic things, like escorting ships together with planes and turning off the lights on the East Coast at night, but they just dragged their feet.
RE: Fact #12 (USS Frank E. Evans Collision) – Hey, so as a former Naval Officer, this whole thing is pretty messed up, but I gotta admit, it’s also super interesting.
The Captain sleeping at 3am? Totally normal when the ship isn’t doing anything crazy, right? They were just steaming in formation, which is pretty chill, and the Captain had told the watch team to wake him up if anything big happened. But the carrier told them to change position, and the watch officers just didn’t bother the Captain. That’s like, the biggest thing they messed up. They should have woken him!
Of course, it’s never just one thing. The watch officers, apparently, were super green. One of them had flunked the exam to stand watch and the other had never even been on a ship before. I was shocked to read that on factrepublic.
Now, I wasn’t in the Navy back in the 60s, so things might have been different, but nowadays, the bridge crew is usually set up like this:
You’ve got the Officer of the Deck, who’s basically the boss of the bridge. They’re responsible for the ship’s course, all the maneuvers, and keeping everything on schedule. They have to be really trusted by the Captain, and they have to know the ship like the back of their hand.
Then there’s the Junior Officer of the Deck, who helps out and learns the ropes. They’re like an apprentice, basically.
Next, you’ve got the Conning Officer, who’s super focused on the ship’s exact course and speed. They tell the Helmsman, who’s an enlisted sailor, how to adjust the ship’s direction.
The Quartermaster of the Watch is the Navigator’s guy. They keep track of the chart, tell the Officer of the Deck where they should go, and help keep everything safe.
And the Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch is in charge of the lookouts, who are keeping an eye out for anything around the ship. They also make announcements over the loudspeaker.
Plus, you’ve got the engineering crew, who keep an eye on the engines and let the Officer of the Deck know if there are any problems. And then there’s the Combat Systems watch team, who are basically watching the radar and making sure nothing gets too close.
So, here’s the thing: how do you have a Lieutenant who couldn’t pass the exam standing watch, along with another Lieutenant who’s totally new to this? What kind of exam did they fail anyway? It seems pretty clear that their lack of experience played a big role in what happened.
There are tons of other questions, too, but I’m out of time. It’s just so wild!
RE: Fact #17 (1968 Submarine Mysteries) – Guess what? The movie Yellow Submarine came out in the UK on July 17, 1968.
RE: Fact #6 (Rainbow Warrior Bombing) – So, if I recall correctly, the Rainbow Warrior was basically hanging out in this French testing zone, trying to stop them from messing around with underwater nukes. Well, the French weren’t too happy about that, so they sent some guys to sneak up on the boat while it was docked in New Zealand and stick some bombs on it. When they blew it up, they ended up killing a photographer and sinking the whole thing! The guys who planted the bombs, they were frogmen, right? Well, the New Zealand cops caught them trying to swim away. They kept those French guys locked up for like a year and a half, but the French started messing with New Zealand’s trade and all that, so they eventually let them go.
RE: Fact #9 (USS Lexington Abandonment) – My buddy used to fly for the Navy. He’d always joke that he was the second most important guy on the carrier, after the guy in charge of keeping the ice cream machine running! He flew tankers, you know, the ones that refuel other planes in the air.
RE: Fact #34 (Samoan Crisis Cyclone) – I thought it was funny how the British warship just hung around for months, watching the whole thing. It was like they were the game admins, bored with the stalemate between the two sides. Then, they were like, “This is taking forever! Let’s just end it,” and BAM! They wiped them both out!
RE: Fact #47 (Modern Ghost Ships) – Okay, so one night I got hammered. I don’t remember much, but apparently I decided to take my little boat out on the pond. I guess I was standing up to pee and fell right in! Instead of climbing back on, I just swam to shore, still drunk as a skunk.
The next morning, my wife goes outside to find me, and all she sees is the boat. She totally freaked out, thinking I’d drowned! She searched everywhere for me, and thank goodness she found me passed out on the pavilion just before she called the cops. She gave me a big hug and smacked me awake because she was just so relieved I was alive.
That’s my “ghost ship” story, haha!
It’s a bummer, but I’ve heard this happens a lot. People go to pee in the river, lake, whatever, and they trip and fall in. They drown, and because everyone’s drunk, nobody really notices until it’s too late. Super sad, honestly.
RE: Fact #12 (USS Frank E. Evans Collision) – So, the Australian aircraft carrier was the HMAS Melbourne, which was around from 1955 to 1982. Sadly, she had two really bad crashes. One of them was with the HMAS Voyager, and that was a real tragedy, killing 82 people on the evening of February 10, 1964.
Wait, seriously? Twice?! And Australia had aircraft carriers? That’s wild! I never knew that.
Seriously? We’ve got the whole shebang – an army, a navy, a flag, the works! What’s so surprising?
You won’t believe this, but I found out a while back that Australia had the fourth biggest navy in the world during WWII, with a whopping 330 ships!
RE: Fact #33 (Battle off Samar Heroism) – Okay, so just because you’re not exactly best buds with someone, doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate what they’ve done.
RE: Fact #21 (USS Oriskany Fire Incident) – Hey, listen up! If you’ve got something that’s flammable and it catches fire, don’t go tossing it into a pile of other things that are made to burn. You’ll just make things a whole lot worse.
Got it, thanks! I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m freaking out.
RE: Fact #25 (Golden Globe Race 1968–69) – You gotta check out this awesome book called “A Voyage for Madmen” by Peter Nichols. It’s about this crazy guy who used to just jump off the front of his boat while it was sailing and then climb back on using ropes! Talk about insane, right?
RE: Fact #2 (CHASE Disposal Program) – So that’s that, problem solved!
RE: Fact #17 (1968 Submarine Mysteries) – Did you leave the screen door open?
RE: Fact #10 (Venezuelan Naval Clash) – “You know, I thought it was pretty cool when it was called Hanseatic for a bit. The Hanseatic League was like this mega-corporation back in the day – they were so powerful they even beat up real navies and got crazy good trade deals!”
RE: Fact #18 (Oceanos Rescue Operation) – So, what happened to the captain and crew after all that? Did they get in trouble or anything?
People were really mad at Captain Yiannis Avranas. They said he left hundreds of passengers behind with just the ship’s singers and dancers to help them get off. Avranas said he had to get off the ship first to organize a rescue, and then he oversaw everything from a helicopter. He even said, ‘When I tell everyone to get off the ship, it doesn’t matter when I leave. It’s for everyone! If some people want to stay, they can stay.’
Turns out, a bunch of Greek investigators thought Avranas and some of his officers were to blame for how everything went down. But, here’s the thing – he never got in trouble. He’s still a captain today!
Seriously, it’s so funny. You’d think people would just get up and leave when things get serious, but they just sit there! I mean, you’d think with all the fire alarms going off, people would scramble to get out, but it’s like they’re glued to their chairs.
It’s kind of a good thing though, right? It just shows how safe our lives are. Most of us go years without having to worry about danger. But it also shows how easily we forget how to handle emergencies. One second it’s a fire alarm, and the next it’s a life-or-death situation.
RE: Fact #19 (Battle of Bismarck Sea) – So, a few years back, I went fishing with some buddies. One of them, let’s call him Bob, had never fished before, never even been on a boat. He was a little jittery as we headed out. Bob told the captain that he couldn’t swim. The captain just said, “No worries, just stay on the boat!”
RE: Fact #41 (Costa Concordia Sinking) – Schettino would have gotten away with a much easier sentence if he hadn’t just bailed. It was seriously dumb, I mean, it wasn’t like they were in the middle of nowhere. He just needed to stay on the bridge and handle things.
RE: Fact #24 (Girl’s Raft Survival) – This is so messed up. A family of five, plus the captain and his wife (making seven total), chartered a boat to the Bahamas. This was the captain’s sixth wife, and he was a real creep. He decided to kill her to get the insurance money, and he probably did it right there on the boat with everyone watching! The captain killed the parents and at least one of the kids, then sunk the ship to try and cover it up. He took the youngest kid with him, but the poor thing drowned before they were found. The captain just claimed he found the kid like that, but everyone knew it was a lie.
The oldest kid managed to get on a little raft and escape. The captain couldn’t go back to finish her off because his dinghy drifted away. She was out there for four days, almost dying with no food or water. Luckily, someone found her.
The captain was caught a few days later and tried to lie his way out, but they figured out he was guilty. Apparently, he might have done this before with another one of his ex-wives and her mom. Facing the consequences, he killed himself with a razor blade. What a messed up story!
Dude, thanks for writing this up!
I’m even slower than you, seriously. I had to read your summary twice before I finally got that the captain and the father were actually four different people.
LOL 😂
RE: Fact #27 (Sultana Disaster) – Yeah, the boiler blew up. Total disaster. You should definitely check out the Eastland next on your “holy crap, maritime disasters” list!
RE: Fact #35 (USS Susan B. Anthony Rescue) – You know, it kinda makes more sense to say the ship hit the mine, right? 😉
RE: Fact #9 (USS Lexington Abandonment) – “So, ten years later, during the Korean War, General Puller tried to tell the Pentagon that ice cream was for wimps. He thought the troops would be tougher if they had beer and whiskey instead. But the Pentagon said, ‘Nope! Ice cream’s staying on the menu, at least three times a week.'”
They say that ice cream really boosted the morale of American troops in the Pacific during World War II. Apparently, it even bummed out the Japanese top brass so bad they felt like they were already defeated! The US Navy got wind of how much ice cream meant to their guys, so they turned a whole tanker into an ice cream factory! They wanted to make sure there was enough ice cream for everyone, no matter where they were fighting. Word on the street is the Japanese Navy was totally blown away when they figured this out. Not only were they hurting for everything, from ships and fuel to guns and tanks, but now they knew the Americans had so much stuff to spare that they could make ice cream for their troops! Talk about being outmatched!
You know, I was reading something on Wikipedia the other day, and this crazy thing stuck with me. Apparently during World War 2, the only way to get American soldiers to actually take prisoners instead of just shooting any surrendering Japanese was to promise them ice cream and three days off. Can you believe it? Ice cream is seriously our secret weapon!
Yeah, there was a good reason they just shot ’em. It was pretty common for them to fake being dead or surrender, just to blow themselves up later. Even if it was only a few times, it made everyone so paranoid that they couldn’t risk it. So, they just took ’em out.
But hey, anything for ice cream, right?
RE: Fact #27 (Sultana Disaster) – Okay, so the Titanic wasn’t just some random boat that went down. It was the biggest, most fancy ship around, and everyone thought it was impossible to sink because of all its fancy tech. Then BAM, it goes down before it even finished its first trip! Now imagine all the big names today, like Zendaya, Taylor Swift, all the Kardashians and Jenners, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos – basically every famous person you can think of – packed onto a ship and then it sinks in the freezing North Atlantic. No chance of survival, right? That’s why the Titanic was such a big deal. It wasn’t just a tragedy, it was a massive historical event. Plus, the fact that all the rich people and their dogs got saved while everyone else basically drowned made people think about social class and even changed how ships are built. If something like that happened today, it would be a huge deal too!
RE: Fact #32 (Nuclear Submarine Collisions) – It’s like these nuclear subs are designed to play hide-and-seek underwater, sneaking up on each other without anyone knowing.
RE: Fact #8 (Titanic Designer’s Fate) – You’d think anyone who saw that movie would know, right? I can totally picture Victor Garber standing there in front of that clock.
It’s crazy to think that movie came out 19 years ago! There are college kids now who weren’t even born when it hit theaters. Makes you wonder how many people on factrepublic have actually seen it.
So, here’s the thing: that’s exactly what he was doing in his final moments.
Apparently, John Stewart, a worker on the ship, was the last person to see Andrews around 2:10 a.m., just ten minutes before the Titanic went down. He was all alone in the fancy smoking room for first-class passengers, staring at a painting of Plymouth Harbor above the fireplace. He had his arms crossed and his life jacket was just sitting on a table nearby. The painting showed the entrance to Plymouth Sound, which was supposed to be one of the stops on the Titanic’s return trip.
RE: Fact #3 (Vasa Warship Sinking) – Get this, she wasn’t even built until over 300 years after she supposedly went down! Now she’s sitting in a museum, and people can actually walk around on her decks! Talk about a wild story, huh?
RE: Fact #19 (Battle of Bismarck Sea) – It’s actually pretty funny. Marines wear nametapes on their butts because back in WWII, we were so good at, you know, going under, that they needed an easy way to identify the bodies. Makes sense, right?
So, in boot camp, there were like eight or nine guys who couldn’t swim when it was time for the 50-meter swim test. One dude totally flipped out! He was like, “Why should I learn to swim? I’m gonna be safe on the ship!” Well, guess what? He didn’t graduate with the rest of us.