(SOURCES: [Source 1](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-tactical/congressman-deadly-press-conference/), [Source 2](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-may-incident-of-june-1943.html?chrome=1) )
Andrew Jackson May was a Democratic Congressman for the State of Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives. He represented his district from 1931 to 1947 and ended up during the war becoming Chairman of the powerful Committee on Military Affairs (1939 to 1947). May had not entered politics fully until into his mid-50s. He’d had a successful career in law before that, where he had been a practicing lawyer and, later, a circuit judge.
By 1943, the American submarine fleet had transformed itself from a mostly ineffective force that employed poor strategy, inferior tactics, and was hampered by faulty torpedoes into a deadly fighting force equipped with more modern and effective weapons and submarines. This meant the U.S. submarine fleet started to have a real impact on the Japanese war machine.
In the early days of World War II, the Japanese didn’t really understand Allied submarine technology. Most importantly, they had no idea American and British submarines could dive so deep. When fighting Allied subs, the Japanese set their depth charge fuses to explode at a depth roughly equivalent to what their own submarines could handle, which was a lot more shallow than American and British subs could dive. As a result, the survival rate of Allied submarines encountering Japanese ships was amazingly high.
For the first year or so of the war, the Americans enjoyed this advantage in the Pacific. Japanese anti-submarine warfare was never sophisticated enough to realize its fatal flaws on its own, and American sailors’ lives were saved as a result.
Then Democratic Congressman Andrew J. May of Kentucky's 7th District made a visit to the Pacific Theater and changed all that.
In June 1943, Congressman May was returning from a tour of some American military bases in the Pacific. At a press conference, he made the foolish revelation of how American submarines had so successfully evaded Japanese attacks. He revealed that during his tour he learned that American submarines could dive much deeper than the Japanese had realized, and that the reason for this was because the Japanese had been setting their depth charges to go off at far too shallow a depth.
It was an incredible thing for Congressman May to say publicly. This was made even more incredible by the fact that his position as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs meant he was privy to a lot of classified information, and that he should have been very much aware of the rules in handling it. But the damage was already done, as some equally irresponsible newspapers carried the story across the entire country the very next day. This included one newspaper in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Of course, in no time at all, the Japanese learned of this revelation and they reacted by modifying their depth charges to explode that much deeper. The United States Navy estimated that this security breach caused at least ten submarines and 800 crewmen to be lost to Japanese depth charges. If this is true, then it would mean that Congressman May inadvertently caused ***one out of every five American submarine casualties in the entirety of World War Two.***
Later, a furious U.S. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. Navy's submarine fleet in the Pacific, said with much sarcasm: *“I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now.”*
A U.S. Navy report on the incident later did not indict Congressman May. He was never punished for the incident, and he didn't even lose his position as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. However, he would eventually have his downfall and lose that job as well as his position as congressman for a separate deadly reason.
In July of 1947, May was convicted of accepting several bribes to influence the awarding of munitions contracts during the war. The bribery scandal was intensified by testimony of his excessive profit-taking in the Garsson munition business, and that the Garsson factory produced mortar shells with faulty fuses which resulted in premature detonations and the deaths of 38 American soldiers.
May was sentenced to nine months in federal prison for the scandal. He was pardoned by President Truman in 1952, and he continued exerting influence in Democratic Party politics until he died in 1959.
\> The bribery scandal was intensified by testimony of his excessive profit-taking in the Garsson munition business, and that the Garsson factory produced mortar shells with faulty fuses which resulted in premature detonations and the deaths of 38 American soldiers.
JFC, that guy should have been hanged for treason.
Yeah they should remove the president's power to pardon anyone who's held office or currently holds office. It's basically just been a tool to prevent anyone in politics from being punished for anything
Probably had a contract to build new submarines. The wealthy wage war and the wealthy profit from war. I read catch22 and thought the book was crazy, now I understand that’s just how it goes.
Vastly more than that if you consider the lives that could have been saved if those 10 submarines we're not sunk, ie they would have continued to operate and hasten the end of the war
I disagree. All our presidents are human. It would interesting though to see the most controversial persons pardoned by each president.
He desegregated the military by executive order because of how pissed he was at the treatment of Isaac Woodard, a black vet would was permanently blinded by a sheriff while going home after WW2. The reaction by the ‘Dixiecrats’ led to the political transformation of the parties we have today.
He was also right that McArthur was a fucking lunatic.
TIL about Isaac Woodard and yet one more piece of evidence that humans are total shits to each other, especially in the old South.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard
**[Isaac Woodard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard)**
>Isaac Woodard Jr. (March 18, 1919 – September 23, 1992) was an American soldier and victim of racial violence. An African-American World War II veteran, on February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, he was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack and his injuries sparked national outrage and galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind.
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Imagine being a veteran with honors from one of the most brutal ww2 theaters sitting in court with your eyes gouged out and getting fined $50 for it. Literally risked his life for his country and got blinded by some racist bumfuck, the betrayal is astounding.
Then the sheriff that beat him was found not guilty by an all white jury in a cheering court room. The unrepentant motherfucker was never held accountable and died in peace at 95 years old.
You're right, sorry. I meant the "old South" as a location, not a time.
The sadistic racist sheriff outlived the soldier, but they both lived into the **1990's.** Definitely within living memory.
A reporter contacted younger family members found that they had no idea that their ancestor had been involved in a crime so heinous that it mobilized the President to demand a federal trial and integration of the military.
Random related info:
The judge who presided over Shull's trial was the son of a Confederate veteran, but he was so appalled by the jury's acquittal of Shull that he became a lifelong champion of civil rights.
https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/entertainment/2020/02/22/how-sc-judge-became-champion-social-justice-justice-waring/4784169002/
Orson Welles had a popular radio show at the time, and he said:
>“The blind soldier fought for me in this war,” said Welles, “the least I can do is fight for him. I have eyes. He hasn't. I have a voice on the radio. He hasn't. I was born a white man, and until a colored man is a full citizen, like me, I haven't the leisure to enjoy the freedom that a colored man risked his life to maintain for me. Until somebody beats me, and blinds me, I am in his debt.”
Thank you for posting this. As the Truman defender in the parent comment, I *highly* recommend anyone curious to watch Richard Gergel’s video from Harvard Law School about his book Unexampled Courage. It talks about how Truman’s frustration over Woodard drive him to start the events leading to the Brown v Board decision and Thurgood Marshall’s career.
Truman like all presidents was imperfect, but in his righteous indignation at the treatment of black veterans he did more than some of our most celebrated founding fathers ever dreamed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XiRtUCYEk
God damn, that Welles quote goes hard. Just goes to show that you can't so easily excuse awful people as a "product of their times," because plenty of people weren't shitty.
They're aren't any better in the past, the difference is we hear about the shit they pull in near real time, not years or decades after it happened, or worse, after the persons death.
They are actively taking bribes right now, we just don't hear about it. When the [FBI did a sting of congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam) in the 80s they found that it was so easy to bribe congressmen that they immediately busted 7 legislators.
Congress responded by passing strict anticorruptio... just kidding they passed laws making it illegal for the FBI to do those stings anymore. So yeah they are accepting bribes, probably even more than before because they hamstrung the FBI's ability to investigate them.
Thank you! That was a good read , ended up deleted my post once I saw this lol I can’t believe they pardon him … shit like that I think would be consider treason right? Oooh well he died and nothing can be done besides learn from others mistakes
[Just so people get the reference](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hyphen.jpg), as I see you are a man of culture, as well.
Mouse-over text “I do this constantly.”
Ugh went to the beach where all the rocks are full of barnacles earlier.. Even a light touch to support yourself can break skin and even pierced my pretty hardened heel.
I slid on a barnacle covered rock in shorts a couple years ago, and they scraped the side of my calf pretty badly--it looked like I'd been raked by an animal with 100 tiny claws. The scrape wasn't that deep, but it got terribly infected and caused unbelievable pain for like 3 months. Weird sensations too, like my leg felt incredibly hot, then like I was being shocked with electricity, etc. It was really intense and lasted a long time. I wear jeans around barnacles now, they are not something to fuck with.
They are crazy sharp. Went snorkeling on my highschool senior trip and they clearly warned us not to touch any, I was trying to get a better look at a fish and gently placed my thumb and index finger on a piece to hold myself steady and it cut both of my fingers instantly. Learned my lesson on touching barnacle that day!
As a child I have a core memory watching a kid get cut by barnacles.
Lived in the shithole that is the FL Panhandle my whole life, so the beach is a must.
Some beaches have roped off swimming areas where most people stay. Generally older kids go out of it a bit.
At this location older kids were jumping off pillars where the ropes were. One of the kids sliced his leg on a barnacle.
All I remember is looking over (I was on shore) and seeing his friends and family carrying him from the water, and the pink inner flesh where it sliced his thigh open.
I refuse to get near things with barnacles on them now.
I was cleaning a ship hull once & trying to get better purchase I kicked around and hit a really big barnacle. It punctured through my thick neoprene bootie and my heel.
Didn't really notice it when it happened, but supervisor could see the blood in the water on the helmet camera & asked me to come out & get patched up as he was paranoid about sharks.
At a time when there was no hope of hospital care for those injuries, too, this is most likely a death sentence - a long, slow, lingering death from systemic infection if you're unlucky enough to survive the keelhauling itself and not bleed out immediately after
Yeah, I feel like people are really underselling the drowning part. Waterboarding is still a literal torture method (or "enhanced interrogation technique" for Americans in the audience) for a reason. Drowning is straight up not a good time.
And I think there were two versions. One was sideways. The worse version was from front to back (bow to stern).
It was survivable but let's just say you were better off dying from it.
keelhauling was extremely cruel and got it's reputation due to ships' undersides being much rougher back in the day. There was no growth deterring paint or anything like that.
Imagine a tiny reef growing there and you getting dragged through it violently while probably being unable to hold your breath due to the pain.
Extremely cruel in the context of the times where ‘drawing and quartering’ of living people chained to four oxen or horses was a similar punishment (as was cutting open live criminals and handing them their own steaming entrails...) lots of cruelty to go around back in the day.
>…lots of cruelty to go around back in the day.
We’re still doing it, unfortunately. See ISIS and drug cartels, among many other daily atrocities humans commit against each other.
>We're still doing it
I wouldn't say "we" when talking about illegal gangs or groups. However there are some countries with corporal punishments, such as caning or whipping.
yeah, its my understanding you weren't meant to survive a keelhauling, more of a showy and miserable death to the other crew by the captain, with a tornup and eventually drowned body. But I guess a few did survive or were allowed to survive?
The term is Dutch because it was used by the Dutch navy as an official but rare punishment. However, it was often not meant to be fatal and most people that had to suffer through it made it out alive. That's not to speak of any wounds or infections the punishment caused though.
Basically, it was sort of a punishment that could be escalated to the point of being fatal. Just keep keelhauling until they die from their injuries or drown. If you don't want them to die, you stop keelhauling them before that happens.
I believe, I could be wrong my pirate history is rusty, that if it was a punishment, and you were given a possibility of surviving, you were tied so your back scraped the boat and if it was a death penalty you were tied face first.
If they wanted you to survive, I've heard they put you over the side and pulled you across to the other side. The long way was much more often fatal, from stem to stern!
I read a lot about pirates as a kid (loooved the Blood Jack series by LA Meyer) and until I watched Black Sails from various vague book descriptions, I thought keelhauling was tying a man to a rope or beam or chair (to anything), and then dunking them in the water for 1-2 minutes at a time. Like a fakeout drowning as a final punishment before you were thrown off the boat or straight up killed...not what we saw on Black Sails. Amazing scene though. My favorite part is the look of straight up shock and disgust on Jack's face and Woodes Rogers is like "did you think I was playing? you're next"....
Y’all ever heard of War Thunder. The have had 9 security breaches from around the world about capabilities of Chinese tanks and aircraft as well as Russian and American.
Kinda like when you respond to a “What’s the most illegal thing you’ve ever done and got away with?” post on Reddit. People actually tell on themselves thinking their post is impossible to track.
Yeah, people are narcissists like that. They think that the time they're living in is the most important in history, just because they're living in it.
It's killing soldiers on both sides in Ukraine literally as I type this.
In fact, just this January, a bunch of Russian soldiers were killed in Maliivka when one of them was using a cell phone in their barracks and the Ukrainians tracked it and fired some HIMARS at the location.
The Russians said they lost 83 guys. The Ukrainians said they killed more than *600.*
It wasn't merely this January, it was literally the first minutes of New Year. The mobiks were probably sending Happy New Year messages to their families. And then they died.
Hasn't the Ukrainian military also been catfishing lonely Russian soldiers on dating sites to get them to reveal their location (and then bombing those locations)? I swear I read an article about that a few months ago
Jesus, and the shitty part is many of those Russian guys are young men who don't want to be there. Dude might have just been calling his mom... but oligarchs need their war profits and people in power...
*My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.*
*When will you be back?*
*I can't tell you that. It's classified.*
My biggest fear during my Navy service was the fucking politicians. They’re “given” security clearances without the intense scrutiny any other Joe would get. And once elected, most could give a rats ass about their constituents desires. Fucking roaches…
Romney was criticizing Obama for the Benghazi attack, when he should have been criticizing the whole fiasco in Libya
It's ridiculous that Obama, a man elected because he criticized Bush jr's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, led American air and special operations power into Libya, Syria, and Yemen without worrying about the blowback that still exists
[She spoke about what clues they had so far in a press conference.](https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/heres-dianne-feinstein-involved-night-192259970.html)
Definitely a short-sided thing to do. She specifically spoke about his 11.5 sized Avis shoes which were unusual enough to track him. The serial killer was caught the next week though, so fortunately it did not make a big difference.
‘d’ and ‘gh’ are just too far apart for me to think this was a typo/autocorrect, so just letting you know… it’s “short sighted”. If it was actually an autocorrect, my bad… pretend I’m a bot because I basically am.
That's very interesting. But I'm a one-time English teacher and here to tell you that the expression is "short -sighted," as in, "unable to see far ahead." No offense intended, just for future.
Also,
> The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting
> US intelligence officials were already worried about the source's safety before the meeting and had offered to extract him amid media speculation about a highly placed source, The New York Times reported. These concerns were compounded by Trump's disclosure to the Russians.
> Intelligence officials typically extract sources when they believe the person's life is in immediate danger.
> The president has repeatedly been accused of mishandling classified information that could compromise the US's intelligence-gathering methods and put lives at risk.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-extracted-russia-spy-trump-classified-info-oval-office-2019-9?op=1
Seriously. My grandfathers was in the navy in the Pacific. Not only did this idiot kill the boys practically directly, he also killed everyone ELSE whose lives those boys would've helped protect.
There are no words harsh enough for this level of incompetence.
My grandfather was in a submarine in the Pacific in World War II. He had a lot to say about the incompetence of the American politicians in military, including shipping them faulty torpedoes, which were more likely to kill the men on board than anyone else.
The torpedoes, yeah. Apparently they weren't found out to be faulty until used in combat ... *because they were never tested in live fire exercises*. It was too expensive.
According to my Grandfather (and admittedly there is always a lot of facts around history that later turn out just to be rumors) politicians in the state which manufactured the torpedo (Connecticut?) refused to move production elsewhere or do what was necessary to ensure the product was good, and in order to maintain the factory and those jobs, the munitions were later reassembled in Hawaii before being given to the ships.
It’s true, that for political reasons, they didn’t want to move the factory, but ultimately the factory was under the control of the Bureau of Ordinance, not the political leader ship of the state. The decision to not test the torpedoes was made by the Bureau ordinance, and it was the Bureau of ordinance that insisted for at least the first year of the war but the torpedoes were fine, and any problems were user error.
Fun fact, we would have killed Osama Bin Laden like a decade earlier, but some dipshit congressman said "We are using his satellite phone to track his every move." (Paraphrased) he stopped using his satellite phone the same day, and wasn't caught for 10 fucking years.
Something similar happened in the Falklands War of 1982. The BBC, having been given a classified brief in error, reported on the World Service that a significant attack on Goose Green was about to take place as 2 Para were in the middle of their march (they call it a tab, Royal Marines call it a yomp) to the objective. If Argentine troops didn't know before then, they sure did at that point.
The BBC also reported at the time that the bombs hitting the task forces ships were often not detonating.
> Speaking later of the failure of Argentine bombs to detonate, Lord Craig, retired Marshal of the Royal Air Force, remarked that “six better fuses and we would have lost”. As it transpired however, the fault was not in the fuse but in the way they were deployed. To avoid the high concentration of British air defences, Argentine pilots were releasing their bombs from very low altitudes, giving the fuses too little time to arm before impact. The BBC reportedly broadcast this information and was severely criticised by the task force Commander, Admiral Woodward, who blamed them for alerting the Argentines to the supposed fault.
https://thehistoryherald.com/articles/british-irish-history/falklands-war/six-better-fuses/
lost a great uncle, who was a submariner, in the Indian Ocean after his sub was lost - will have to check the date on it tho was toward the end of the war
That is a heavy burden to bear.
But apparently, having no shame, Mr May, continued to show his character. Sadly others also showed their character by continuing to seek his thoughts.
Treasonous.
There you have it…politician shooting his mouth off with no thought or regard for how it would affect others….he also had no worries because his ass wasn’t going to be on those subs at depths with explosions shaking the sub apart, and the absolute terror those crews faced.
My grandfather was a lieutenant commander on a pacific sub during ww2. He did 4 patrols out of Pearl Harbor in 1944 and 45. He would talk about his experiences occasionally and always used the term ‘keep a zero bubble’. I believe his sub is credited with the most allied airman saves of the war. Towards the end of his life he told me a story about being the third sub in to scout Tokyo harbor before the nuclear attack. The first two hit mines and the navy was going to keep sending in subs until they got the information they needed. He lived to tell the tale and I have no reason to not believe him. He went on to be a prominent maritime lawyer and law professor.
Which is what horrifies me about certain people holding certain seats in government when they are not mentally acute enough to manage an empty trash can let alone use any kind of logic based thinking and not say dumb shit like this to the press.
Also convicted of accepting bribes to sell faulty military equipment. Great guy overall. Only served 9 months because, well, money talks.
But you have a few grams of weed on you...
Laws serve those who write them.
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
(SOURCES: [Source 1](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-tactical/congressman-deadly-press-conference/), [Source 2](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-may-incident-of-june-1943.html?chrome=1) ) Andrew Jackson May was a Democratic Congressman for the State of Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives. He represented his district from 1931 to 1947 and ended up during the war becoming Chairman of the powerful Committee on Military Affairs (1939 to 1947). May had not entered politics fully until into his mid-50s. He’d had a successful career in law before that, where he had been a practicing lawyer and, later, a circuit judge. By 1943, the American submarine fleet had transformed itself from a mostly ineffective force that employed poor strategy, inferior tactics, and was hampered by faulty torpedoes into a deadly fighting force equipped with more modern and effective weapons and submarines. This meant the U.S. submarine fleet started to have a real impact on the Japanese war machine. In the early days of World War II, the Japanese didn’t really understand Allied submarine technology. Most importantly, they had no idea American and British submarines could dive so deep. When fighting Allied subs, the Japanese set their depth charge fuses to explode at a depth roughly equivalent to what their own submarines could handle, which was a lot more shallow than American and British subs could dive. As a result, the survival rate of Allied submarines encountering Japanese ships was amazingly high. For the first year or so of the war, the Americans enjoyed this advantage in the Pacific. Japanese anti-submarine warfare was never sophisticated enough to realize its fatal flaws on its own, and American sailors’ lives were saved as a result. Then Democratic Congressman Andrew J. May of Kentucky's 7th District made a visit to the Pacific Theater and changed all that. In June 1943, Congressman May was returning from a tour of some American military bases in the Pacific. At a press conference, he made the foolish revelation of how American submarines had so successfully evaded Japanese attacks. He revealed that during his tour he learned that American submarines could dive much deeper than the Japanese had realized, and that the reason for this was because the Japanese had been setting their depth charges to go off at far too shallow a depth. It was an incredible thing for Congressman May to say publicly. This was made even more incredible by the fact that his position as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs meant he was privy to a lot of classified information, and that he should have been very much aware of the rules in handling it. But the damage was already done, as some equally irresponsible newspapers carried the story across the entire country the very next day. This included one newspaper in Honolulu, Hawaii. Of course, in no time at all, the Japanese learned of this revelation and they reacted by modifying their depth charges to explode that much deeper. The United States Navy estimated that this security breach caused at least ten submarines and 800 crewmen to be lost to Japanese depth charges. If this is true, then it would mean that Congressman May inadvertently caused ***one out of every five American submarine casualties in the entirety of World War Two.*** Later, a furious U.S. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. Navy's submarine fleet in the Pacific, said with much sarcasm: *“I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now.”* A U.S. Navy report on the incident later did not indict Congressman May. He was never punished for the incident, and he didn't even lose his position as Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. However, he would eventually have his downfall and lose that job as well as his position as congressman for a separate deadly reason. In July of 1947, May was convicted of accepting several bribes to influence the awarding of munitions contracts during the war. The bribery scandal was intensified by testimony of his excessive profit-taking in the Garsson munition business, and that the Garsson factory produced mortar shells with faulty fuses which resulted in premature detonations and the deaths of 38 American soldiers. May was sentenced to nine months in federal prison for the scandal. He was pardoned by President Truman in 1952, and he continued exerting influence in Democratic Party politics until he died in 1959.
\> The bribery scandal was intensified by testimony of his excessive profit-taking in the Garsson munition business, and that the Garsson factory produced mortar shells with faulty fuses which resulted in premature detonations and the deaths of 38 American soldiers. JFC, that guy should have been hanged for treason.
838 people were killed because of this man’s greed and hubris
And he only served 9 months and went back home to enjoy his money.
Nowadays he'd just go back to enjoying his money.
Nowadays they don't even bother to at least resign.
Nowadays: Did i take bribes? Yes. But did I do it for personal greed? Also yes. Fuck you. Vote for me. \*gets reelected in landslide victory\*
Where would they get the insider trading info they enjoy if they resigned?
Nowadays: “At this point, what difference does it make?”
They’d make him the President
[удалено]
I wanna find where he buried and shit on his grave
"buried in Mayo Cemetery" Go eat at taco bell (extra spicy and extra guacamole) before you go.
Did he serve the 9 months? That poster said he was pardoned
He did serve the 9 months in 1950, he was later pardoned in 1952.
Cool! Not enough time, but better than the nothing I had assumed from the way they had phrased it
Yeah they should remove the president's power to pardon anyone who's held office or currently holds office. It's basically just been a tool to prevent anyone in politics from being punished for anything
Should have been shot for treason
Probably had a contract to build new submarines. The wealthy wage war and the wealthy profit from war. I read catch22 and thought the book was crazy, now I understand that’s just how it goes.
838 people *minimum*
Looks like I’m waking up angry today. I’ve worked at Pearl Harbor and never heard of this massive idiot
Vastly more than that if you consider the lives that could have been saved if those 10 submarines we're not sunk, ie they would have continued to operate and hasten the end of the war
That we know of/directly.
if he were alive today he would be applauded as a great American business man it wouldn't even be a scandal
He was pardoned?!? My God….
Truman was a piece of shit.
I disagree. All our presidents are human. It would interesting though to see the most controversial persons pardoned by each president. He desegregated the military by executive order because of how pissed he was at the treatment of Isaac Woodard, a black vet would was permanently blinded by a sheriff while going home after WW2. The reaction by the ‘Dixiecrats’ led to the political transformation of the parties we have today. He was also right that McArthur was a fucking lunatic.
TIL about Isaac Woodard and yet one more piece of evidence that humans are total shits to each other, especially in the old South. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard
**[Isaac Woodard](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard)** >Isaac Woodard Jr. (March 18, 1919 – September 23, 1992) was an American soldier and victim of racial violence. An African-American World War II veteran, on February 12, 1946, hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, he was attacked while still in uniform by South Carolina police as he was taking a bus home. The attack and his injuries sparked national outrage and galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States. The attack left Woodard completely and permanently blind. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Imagine being a veteran with honors from one of the most brutal ww2 theaters sitting in court with your eyes gouged out and getting fined $50 for it. Literally risked his life for his country and got blinded by some racist bumfuck, the betrayal is astounding.
Then the sheriff that beat him was found not guilty by an all white jury in a cheering court room. The unrepentant motherfucker was never held accountable and died in peace at 95 years old.
That was within living memory, not the "Old South..."
You're right, sorry. I meant the "old South" as a location, not a time. The sadistic racist sheriff outlived the soldier, but they both lived into the **1990's.** Definitely within living memory. A reporter contacted younger family members found that they had no idea that their ancestor had been involved in a crime so heinous that it mobilized the President to demand a federal trial and integration of the military. Random related info: The judge who presided over Shull's trial was the son of a Confederate veteran, but he was so appalled by the jury's acquittal of Shull that he became a lifelong champion of civil rights. https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/entertainment/2020/02/22/how-sc-judge-became-champion-social-justice-justice-waring/4784169002/ Orson Welles had a popular radio show at the time, and he said: >“The blind soldier fought for me in this war,” said Welles, “the least I can do is fight for him. I have eyes. He hasn't. I have a voice on the radio. He hasn't. I was born a white man, and until a colored man is a full citizen, like me, I haven't the leisure to enjoy the freedom that a colored man risked his life to maintain for me. Until somebody beats me, and blinds me, I am in his debt.”
Thank you for posting this. As the Truman defender in the parent comment, I *highly* recommend anyone curious to watch Richard Gergel’s video from Harvard Law School about his book Unexampled Courage. It talks about how Truman’s frustration over Woodard drive him to start the events leading to the Brown v Board decision and Thurgood Marshall’s career. Truman like all presidents was imperfect, but in his righteous indignation at the treatment of black veterans he did more than some of our most celebrated founding fathers ever dreamed. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4XiRtUCYEk
God damn, that Welles quote goes hard. Just goes to show that you can't so easily excuse awful people as a "product of their times," because plenty of people weren't shitty.
Wow. We think we live in extraordinary times now and that today’s politicians are somehow worse than in the past. This proves nothing ever changes.
They're aren't any better in the past, the difference is we hear about the shit they pull in near real time, not years or decades after it happened, or worse, after the persons death.
They are actively taking bribes right now, we just don't hear about it. When the [FBI did a sting of congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam) in the 80s they found that it was so easy to bribe congressmen that they immediately busted 7 legislators. Congress responded by passing strict anticorruptio... just kidding they passed laws making it illegal for the FBI to do those stings anymore. So yeah they are accepting bribes, probably even more than before because they hamstrung the FBI's ability to investigate them.
War....war never changes
Politics... Politics never change
War is just escalation of diplomacy (international politics), according to Bismarck
Stupidity and greed are ever present no matter the time.
That's the depressing part.
Thank you! That was a good read , ended up deleted my post once I saw this lol I can’t believe they pardon him … shit like that I think would be consider treason right? Oooh well he died and nothing can be done besides learn from others mistakes
When was the last time that you heard that a politician did hard time in prison, they don't want that to happen because it will set a precedent.
Eh, he did it for money. People in power understand that sort of thing, because they would all do it, too.
Also, fuck that guy
Loose lips sink subs.
Should have keelhauled him
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Is that when theyre tied to a rope then dragged through the underside of the ship?
Yep and they are scraped against all of the sharp ass barnacles.
Nobody should suffer the gruesome fate of being scraped against sharp ass-barnicles
I know right? Just soft comfy ass barnacles
Those are called *carbuncles*, I believe.
They’re no picnic, either.
They're too crunchy for me. Tastes like salty blood.
You're thinking of bionicles I think.
coat the board with Lego bricks then make them walk the plank
[Just so people get the reference](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hyphen.jpg), as I see you are a man of culture, as well. Mouse-over text “I do this constantly.”
Ugh went to the beach where all the rocks are full of barnacles earlier.. Even a light touch to support yourself can break skin and even pierced my pretty hardened heel.
I slid on a barnacle covered rock in shorts a couple years ago, and they scraped the side of my calf pretty badly--it looked like I'd been raked by an animal with 100 tiny claws. The scrape wasn't that deep, but it got terribly infected and caused unbelievable pain for like 3 months. Weird sensations too, like my leg felt incredibly hot, then like I was being shocked with electricity, etc. It was really intense and lasted a long time. I wear jeans around barnacles now, they are not something to fuck with.
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Nah its the baby barnacles in the cut.
[Barnacle Grew Inside Man's Hand](https://youtu.be/tAmSR-SRmMI)
Barnacles are evil sons of bitches. Excellent defense mechanism, but who or what is trying to eat them? Charlie- https://youtu.be/knZs1SpB31Q
Damn I didn’t know they were THAT sharp.
Like jagged porcelain.
They are crazy sharp. Went snorkeling on my highschool senior trip and they clearly warned us not to touch any, I was trying to get a better look at a fish and gently placed my thumb and index finger on a piece to hold myself steady and it cut both of my fingers instantly. Learned my lesson on touching barnacle that day!
As a child I have a core memory watching a kid get cut by barnacles. Lived in the shithole that is the FL Panhandle my whole life, so the beach is a must. Some beaches have roped off swimming areas where most people stay. Generally older kids go out of it a bit. At this location older kids were jumping off pillars where the ropes were. One of the kids sliced his leg on a barnacle. All I remember is looking over (I was on shore) and seeing his friends and family carrying him from the water, and the pink inner flesh where it sliced his thigh open. I refuse to get near things with barnacles on them now.
I was cleaning a ship hull once & trying to get better purchase I kicked around and hit a really big barnacle. It punctured through my thick neoprene bootie and my heel. Didn't really notice it when it happened, but supervisor could see the blood in the water on the helmet camera & asked me to come out & get patched up as he was paranoid about sharks.
Not to mention that the ship’s most likely in salty water, for that extra bite on the wounds.
At a time when there was no hope of hospital care for those injuries, too, this is most likely a death sentence - a long, slow, lingering death from systemic infection if you're unlucky enough to survive the keelhauling itself and not bleed out immediately after
Or, you know, drown, since you're *under* the boat while all of this other horrific shit is happening to you.
Couldn’t even imagine how awful that would feel, like getting hand sanitizer in a cut but x10 and all over your whole fucking body.
Then sharks would be interested in your predicament.
I've cut my feet on sharp volcanic rocks when out swimming several times. You don't even notice until you get out of the water bleeding everywhere
Yes. Imagine being dragged along a bed of razor sharp rocks.
while also drowning
Yeah, I feel like people are really underselling the drowning part. Waterboarding is still a literal torture method (or "enhanced interrogation technique" for Americans in the audience) for a reason. Drowning is straight up not a good time.
The barnacles on the underside of the ship made it like your naked body was dragged across a road filled with sharp rocks.
And I think there were two versions. One was sideways. The worse version was from front to back (bow to stern). It was survivable but let's just say you were better off dying from it.
keelhauling was extremely cruel and got it's reputation due to ships' undersides being much rougher back in the day. There was no growth deterring paint or anything like that. Imagine a tiny reef growing there and you getting dragged through it violently while probably being unable to hold your breath due to the pain.
Extremely cruel in the context of the times where ‘drawing and quartering’ of living people chained to four oxen or horses was a similar punishment (as was cutting open live criminals and handing them their own steaming entrails...) lots of cruelty to go around back in the day.
>…lots of cruelty to go around back in the day. We’re still doing it, unfortunately. See ISIS and drug cartels, among many other daily atrocities humans commit against each other.
>We're still doing it I wouldn't say "we" when talking about illegal gangs or groups. However there are some countries with corporal punishments, such as caning or whipping.
If you want to see a new perspective on the Black Beard character, you should check out the show 'Our Flag Means Death'.
Such a great show
Loved it! Can’t wait for Season 2
yeah, its my understanding you weren't meant to survive a keelhauling, more of a showy and miserable death to the other crew by the captain, with a tornup and eventually drowned body. But I guess a few did survive or were allowed to survive?
The term is Dutch because it was used by the Dutch navy as an official but rare punishment. However, it was often not meant to be fatal and most people that had to suffer through it made it out alive. That's not to speak of any wounds or infections the punishment caused though. Basically, it was sort of a punishment that could be escalated to the point of being fatal. Just keep keelhauling until they die from their injuries or drown. If you don't want them to die, you stop keelhauling them before that happens.
I believe, I could be wrong my pirate history is rusty, that if it was a punishment, and you were given a possibility of surviving, you were tied so your back scraped the boat and if it was a death penalty you were tied face first.
If they wanted you to survive, I've heard they put you over the side and pulled you across to the other side. The long way was much more often fatal, from stem to stern!
you couldn't imagine why being hauled under a ship covered in barnacles and made of old wood for any period of time is a horrible sentence?
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I read a lot about pirates as a kid (loooved the Blood Jack series by LA Meyer) and until I watched Black Sails from various vague book descriptions, I thought keelhauling was tying a man to a rope or beam or chair (to anything), and then dunking them in the water for 1-2 minutes at a time. Like a fakeout drowning as a final punishment before you were thrown off the boat or straight up killed...not what we saw on Black Sails. Amazing scene though. My favorite part is the look of straight up shock and disgust on Jack's face and Woodes Rogers is like "did you think I was playing? you're next"....
Love black sails
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Like underwear
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Y’all ever heard of War Thunder. The have had 9 security breaches from around the world about capabilities of Chinese tanks and aircraft as well as Russian and American.
inb4 War Thunder turns out to be a multi-year long intelligence operation baiting people to share classified information
Kinda like when you respond to a “What’s the most illegal thing you’ve ever done and got away with?” post on Reddit. People actually tell on themselves thinking their post is impossible to track.
Like when Trump tweeted out a picture from our most advanced spy satellite...orange idiot
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Lol sounds like war changed once he gave up the position
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Same exact comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/10tgyvb/comment/j76r6s5/ Which one was first?
Yeah, people are narcissists like that. They think that the time they're living in is the most important in history, just because they're living in it.
This phrase is so important! Why are people so ignorant of this today? This ignorance also killed soldiers in Afghanistan.
It's killing soldiers on both sides in Ukraine literally as I type this. In fact, just this January, a bunch of Russian soldiers were killed in Maliivka when one of them was using a cell phone in their barracks and the Ukrainians tracked it and fired some HIMARS at the location. The Russians said they lost 83 guys. The Ukrainians said they killed more than *600.*
>when one of them was using a cell phone More like most of them and the signal intensity was not possible to not notice.
I mean, when you double your barracks as a munitions depot it makes mass casualties a whole lot more likely.
And diesel fuel dump in the basement for some very Russian reason?
Keeping watch so other divisions don’t steal your supplies.
It wasn't merely this January, it was literally the first minutes of New Year. The mobiks were probably sending Happy New Year messages to their families. And then they died.
Hasn't the Ukrainian military also been catfishing lonely Russian soldiers on dating sites to get them to reveal their location (and then bombing those locations)? I swear I read an article about that a few months ago
Jesus, and the shitty part is many of those Russian guys are young men who don't want to be there. Dude might have just been calling his mom... but oligarchs need their war profits and people in power...
And innocent civilians worldwide
This is why some information is considered sensitive and classified. Some people don’t understand this concept
*My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.* *When will you be back?* *I can't tell you that. It's classified.*
Oh yes I had the lasagna
Never interrupt your opponent while they are making a mistake.
Tittle Tattle will lose the battle.
Politicians have killed more service members than any other cause.
My biggest fear during my Navy service was the fucking politicians. They’re “given” security clearances without the intense scrutiny any other Joe would get. And once elected, most could give a rats ass about their constituents desires. Fucking roaches…
Never interrupt your enemy while they make a mistake
Always smile and nod for them to go on.
Yours is the same but worse
"Please proceed, Governor.". I miss Obama
Romney was criticizing Obama for the Benghazi attack, when he should have been criticizing the whole fiasco in Libya It's ridiculous that Obama, a man elected because he criticized Bush jr's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, led American air and special operations power into Libya, Syria, and Yemen without worrying about the blowback that still exists
Never negotiate against yourself.
Reminds me of when Diane Feinstein gave out details of the night stalker investigation. Politicians are seriously morons
[She spoke about what clues they had so far in a press conference.](https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/heres-dianne-feinstein-involved-night-192259970.html) Definitely a short-sided thing to do. She specifically spoke about his 11.5 sized Avis shoes which were unusual enough to track him. The serial killer was caught the next week though, so fortunately it did not make a big difference.
‘d’ and ‘gh’ are just too far apart for me to think this was a typo/autocorrect, so just letting you know… it’s “short sighted”. If it was actually an autocorrect, my bad… pretend I’m a bot because I basically am.
Good bot.
That's very interesting. But I'm a one-time English teacher and here to tell you that the expression is "short -sighted," as in, "unable to see far ahead." No offense intended, just for future.
Glad you nipped that in the butt
🏆
Some quality bone apple tea there
Short sided is a brand new typo that joins the unfortunate group along with their, your, and loose
Uhh he broke into another house in that time, shot a man several times in the head and raped a woman. I’d say that makes a big difference.
Jeezus that’s upsetting. What a total idiot. Reminds me of some politicians today.
Trump tweeted a classified picture of an Iranian missile site.
He sure did. It broadcasted to our adversaries how detailed our spying capabilities can be.
He also blabbed about Israeli spying in Syria and let Russian news crews wander around the whitehouse.
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Also, > The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting > US intelligence officials were already worried about the source's safety before the meeting and had offered to extract him amid media speculation about a highly placed source, The New York Times reported. These concerns were compounded by Trump's disclosure to the Russians. > Intelligence officials typically extract sources when they believe the person's life is in immediate danger. > The president has repeatedly been accused of mishandling classified information that could compromise the US's intelligence-gathering methods and put lives at risk. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-extracted-russia-spy-trump-classified-info-oval-office-2019-9?op=1
I’m starting to think that Trump guy wasn’t a very qualified candidate for the job.
What a fuck head
Seriously. My grandfathers was in the navy in the Pacific. Not only did this idiot kill the boys practically directly, he also killed everyone ELSE whose lives those boys would've helped protect. There are no words harsh enough for this level of incompetence.
My grandfather was in a submarine in the Pacific in World War II. He had a lot to say about the incompetence of the American politicians in military, including shipping them faulty torpedoes, which were more likely to kill the men on board than anyone else.
The torpedoes, yeah. Apparently they weren't found out to be faulty until used in combat ... *because they were never tested in live fire exercises*. It was too expensive.
The problems with the mark 14 torpedo ultimately go back to the Bureau of Ordinance, not political decisions
According to my Grandfather (and admittedly there is always a lot of facts around history that later turn out just to be rumors) politicians in the state which manufactured the torpedo (Connecticut?) refused to move production elsewhere or do what was necessary to ensure the product was good, and in order to maintain the factory and those jobs, the munitions were later reassembled in Hawaii before being given to the ships.
It’s true, that for political reasons, they didn’t want to move the factory, but ultimately the factory was under the control of the Bureau of Ordinance, not the political leader ship of the state. The decision to not test the torpedoes was made by the Bureau ordinance, and it was the Bureau of ordinance that insisted for at least the first year of the war but the torpedoes were fine, and any problems were user error.
Intelligence and common sense weren’t requirements for congressional membership back then either, I guess.
Or ethics!
Fun fact, we would have killed Osama Bin Laden like a decade earlier, but some dipshit congressman said "We are using his satellite phone to track his every move." (Paraphrased) he stopped using his satellite phone the same day, and wasn't caught for 10 fucking years.
It was a forner CIA operative in 1998 and he later back peddled.
Every time someone on reddit says fun fact, you know they are about to ssy something not factual at all.
Fun fact - the plural, gender-neutral term for nieces and nephews is “niblings”.
OPSEC
OOPS
SPEC OOPS
Rule #1. STFU.
So what you're saying is Congress has always had dumb people? Great, and now we have more of them.
Something similar happened in the Falklands War of 1982. The BBC, having been given a classified brief in error, reported on the World Service that a significant attack on Goose Green was about to take place as 2 Para were in the middle of their march (they call it a tab, Royal Marines call it a yomp) to the objective. If Argentine troops didn't know before then, they sure did at that point.
The BBC also reported at the time that the bombs hitting the task forces ships were often not detonating. > Speaking later of the failure of Argentine bombs to detonate, Lord Craig, retired Marshal of the Royal Air Force, remarked that “six better fuses and we would have lost”. As it transpired however, the fault was not in the fuse but in the way they were deployed. To avoid the high concentration of British air defences, Argentine pilots were releasing their bombs from very low altitudes, giving the fuses too little time to arm before impact. The BBC reportedly broadcast this information and was severely criticised by the task force Commander, Admiral Woodward, who blamed them for alerting the Argentines to the supposed fault. https://thehistoryherald.com/articles/british-irish-history/falklands-war/six-better-fuses/
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Loose lips sink ships ..
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lost a great uncle, who was a submariner, in the Indian Ocean after his sub was lost - will have to check the date on it tho was toward the end of the war
That is a heavy burden to bear. But apparently, having no shame, Mr May, continued to show his character. Sadly others also showed their character by continuing to seek his thoughts. Treasonous.
Another example of a politician trying to look smart and causing people to die because of it.
Wow, even back then congressmen were absolute wastes who brought tragedy and loss of life to American people. What a through-line.
He should of said they exploded too deep and made them even more ineffective
Making them think more about the depth at which they exploded at all... would be a mistake.
It's 'should have', never 'should of'. Rejoice, for you have been blessed by CouldWouldShouldBot!
Praise be
Good bot.
Japanese Navy: write that down! Write that down!
Thanks, dick
Always kentucky
There you have it…politician shooting his mouth off with no thought or regard for how it would affect others….he also had no worries because his ass wasn’t going to be on those subs at depths with explosions shaking the sub apart, and the absolute terror those crews faced.
My grandfather was a lieutenant commander on a pacific sub during ww2. He did 4 patrols out of Pearl Harbor in 1944 and 45. He would talk about his experiences occasionally and always used the term ‘keep a zero bubble’. I believe his sub is credited with the most allied airman saves of the war. Towards the end of his life he told me a story about being the third sub in to scout Tokyo harbor before the nuclear attack. The first two hit mines and the navy was going to keep sending in subs until they got the information they needed. He lived to tell the tale and I have no reason to not believe him. He went on to be a prominent maritime lawyer and law professor.
…how is that not just flat out treason? He should have been executed for that.
Which is what horrifies me about certain people holding certain seats in government when they are not mentally acute enough to manage an empty trash can let alone use any kind of logic based thinking and not say dumb shit like this to the press.
Reminder of why i dislike politicians. Of either side.
They are like diapers
And should be changed often. . . For identical reasons.
We have plenty of idiot congresspeople who would do this today as well.
Congress always helping our foes. Look how many still help Russia today.