Tuesday, July 20, 2010

From war in the ice to the Israeli Navy via a lot of vile crap

    After meeting Bob from Brockley I resolved to finish off at long last the tale of the larger than life character Red Cushing by dealing with his time as a prospective German spy. It didn't last and he ended up in Sachsenhausen where he was a witness to the last days of the life of Yakov Stalin. Alas and Alack, I cannot put my hands on the books I need, Hiho....

    That said it's interesting what you can come across on the internet. Starting off with Archibald Maule Ramsay, a ferocious anti semite who held the dubious distinction of being the only MP to be interned during WWII, proceeding through a number of Holocaust revisionist scumbags I end up at the piece of human shit that goes by the name of Ernst Zundel. I was not aware that he started his odious "literary"career peddling crap about Nazi saucers and Antarctic bases.

    It's amazing how the German Neuschwabenland expedition just before the war, an American exercise (Operation High Jump) just after the war, a tiny British military expedition to Antarctica during in 1943 and the tardy surrender of a few U boats can form the bedrock of such nonsense as the existence of Nazi bases on that (almost but not completely) icy continent.

    However, let me digress onto something truly fascinating and move from the South Pole and Holocaust denying vermin to the North and there was a real little war fought on the ice and on the icy seas. I didn't know until today that the vessel you see below was the first American warship (of sorts) to capture a (soon to be) enemy vessel in WWII



    The Northland was a coastguard cutter, launched in 1927 designed specifically for arctic operation. In 1941 the US took over Greenland. The same month the Northland set out on a two month cruise to assist in the South Greenland Survey Expedition. It was then transferred to the newly formed Northeast Greenland Patrol.

    On 12 September the Northland sighted the Norwegian sealer Buskoe 12 September and sent a boarding party to investigate. Buskoe, which was suspected of sending weather reports and information on Allied shipping to the Germans, was taken to MacKenzie Bay in Greenland, becoming the first American naval capture of WWII(although of course before it formally entered the war).

    The Buskoe's capture led to the discovery of a German radio station further up Greenland coast from Mackenzie Bay. The Northland sent a raiding party captured three Germans, with equipment and code, as well as plans for other radio stations in the far north. The Germans were treated as illegal immigrants....

    Although built for colder conditions, the Northland ended its life in much further waters. After being sold for scrap in 1947 the Northland was renamed Medinat-HaYehudim and was used to transport Jewish refugees to Palestine (but that is a different subject and one that does not reflect on Britain with any credit at all). In 1948 she was renamed Eilat and along with two former Royal Canadian Navy corvettes and a passenger ship formed the nucleus of the infant Israeli Navy under its first commander, Paul Shulman.

    I know I dwelt a little on some utter scumbags at the start but it is tuly amazing what you can come across starting in one place on the internet and seeing where takes you... In this case the destination was fascinating evn if the journey featured some real pieces of slime at the start...Source URL: http://extravagancedeplumes.blogspot.com/2010/07/from-war-in-ice-to-israeli-navy-via-lot.html
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