Dmorris sent me an interesting article yesterday that says researchers have concluded that the Edmund Fitzgerald crashed, not because of human error as the U.S. Coastguard attained, but because of a 50 ft wave that split the ship in half. What is the Edmund Fitzgerald, you ask? Hmmmm, you aint from around these parts, are ya?!

The Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wis., on the evening of Nov. 9, 1975, bound for Zug Island, near Detroit. The next day, it encountered a fierce storm and sank. Twenty-nine lives were lost — the greatest disaster in the history of the Great Lakes. The U.S. Coast Guard concluded that the boat sank because the crew left the cargo hatches open, allowing the holds to fill with water.

In the show “Dive Detectives,” a new series for History Television, a diving team deployed wave-generating technology to simulate the conditions faced by the Edmund Fitzgerald. The tests demonstrate how the force of the freak wave, crashing down on the midsection of the boat — already low in the water because of its heavy cargo — might have caused it to split in two.

If this is true, you know what that means, don’t you? Yup, it means Gordon Lightfoot better be working on some new lyrics:

Lightfoot said the conclusion is “definitive.” Instead of singing “at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,” he’ll sing “at 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then, He said, ‘Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.’ “

Whoa, Lightfoot, let’s not be too hasty about this. I mean, why not give the common folk a shot at creating some new lyrics? Maybe the person with the best new line can get an autographed copy of Summertime Dream. Let’s draw something up in pure Canadian fashion. Yes, let’s put a real Canadian spin on this.

I have a few lines I’d like to share with you. Sure, they might not be as wordy as Lightfoot’s new line, but I happen to think they’re pretty darm special.

Here goes:

“at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,”….”Me and the boys were all loaded on gin…”

“at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,”….”the androgynous crew were all celebrating diversity.”

“at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,”….”But not to worry boys, our healthcare is free.”

“at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,”….”obviously the hatchway wasn’t CSA approved or union made.”

“at 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in,”….”I suppose this is even more proof of the effects of anthropological global warming.”

I can’t see how anyone can possibly come up with anything better than that, but if you feel you have a contribution, I’d love to hear it. Who knows, you just may be writing history. Wow, chew on that thought for a second!

Mitchieville remembers and will never forget all those that sacrificed their lives for our freedom.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

‘For the Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon (1869 – 1943)

**Picture – British Columbia Regiment 1940

The memory of 9/11 is as fresh in my mind now as the morning it happened 8 years ago. We at Mitchieville will never forget, nor will we ever forgive.

Today we think about the victims and the friends and families that lost a loved one on that horrible day. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, may God bless you all.

The anniversary of D-Day is always remembered in the Reginaldson household as my Great-Uncle Felix landed on Juno Beach as part of the second wave on that historic morning in 1944.   I posted about D-Day last year (see here) but haven’t gotten around to telling the story of Felix yet.  I’m not going to post about Felix this year either.  One day I’ll write a post worthy of his sacrifice.  Till then, I’ll leave things be with the inscription my great-grandparents chose for his headstone:

"Your death has left a loneliness the world can never heal"

(Reg visiting Felix, April 2004, Beny-sur-Mer, France)

YouTube Linky Link 

LEST WE FORGET

Canadians will wake up this morning to hear the sad news that one of our nations finest musical talents, guitar great Jeff Healey, passed away yesterday at the young age of 41. The hour is late and this won’t be the definitive post on his career but I have a “Jeff Healey story” to tell that will rival my Avril story.

Back in high school (the late 80’s) his song ‘Angel Eyes’ was a huge international hit. It was around this same time that Jeff made his acting debut playing a wise (and blind) blues man in the otherwise forgettable movie ‘Roadhouse’ with Patrick Swayze. I took a young lass, my first real girlfriend, to see the movie and the song ‘Angel Eyes’ quickly became “our song”. We danced to it at a couple high school dances, listened to it in the car, and I lost my virginity with that song in the background. Ah young love, I went away to work for the summer and returned home to find she had been sleeping with the guy down the road, needless to say we weren’t an item anymore.

Fast forward to the end of high school, I meet and fall in love with the woman destined to be my ex-wife. What song do we first here on our first date together, yup, ‘Angel Eyes’, which of course becomes “our song”. A year later we are going to college in Peterborough and we got tickets to see The Jeff Healey Band live at The Pines in Bridgenorth. The Pines was a great seedy place to see a guy like Jeff Healey, 300 young and drunk good ol’ Ontario kids in a small venue. The show was incredible and I’m telling you he pulled out all the stops. The closing number of course was ‘Angel Eyes’. The future sole occupant of my house gets teary eyed and says “our song, remember the first time we heard our song together”*. I stuttered something in reply but I’m sure you can all guess as to which ‘first time’ I was really remembering.

Whether it be his at his bar in Toronto (where he gave a pre-teen Jimmy Bowskill his first break), on his radio show, or live in concert Jeff Healey was always the consummate gentleman. In recent years he would take his Jazz Wizards band on the road and play with high school jazz\blues bands to help develop students and spread the good word called The Blues. We will never see his like again.

If you never had the pleasure of seeing Jeff play guitar then this clip will give you a glimpse of what you missed:

*we were on our way to Belleville on a date and I was driving my dad’s ‘72 Chrysler Newport, the song was playing on AM800 CJBQ.

*Please see updates at the bottom of this post.

Benazir Bhutto hasn’t been dead 24 hours yet and it appears that the world will never know the whole truth behind her murder. When the news first broke reports had it that she had been shot in the neck and then a suicide bomber detonated and bomb. This morning we were told by the AFP:

The surgeon who treated Benazir Bhutto says she died from a shrapnel wound to the head. Authorities initially said the slain Pakistani opposition leader died from bullet wounds. But Dr. Mussadiq Khan, a surgeon who treated her, said Friday that she died from shrapnel that hit her on the right side of the skull. He also says Bhutto had no heart beat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital and that doctors failed in their efforts to resuscitate her ( link ).

In the fog and confusion after this terrible incident I can accept that there would be some discrepancy between the reported facts. Numerous reports stated that a gunman with a Kalashnikov (AK-47) took aim and fired at Bhutto before blowing himself up. If Bhutto’s surgeon said there was no bullet wound then I can accept that, but now the Interior Ministry has an explanation for her death that it expects us all to believe:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan’s interior ministry said Friday that Benazir Bhutto was killed after smashing her head on her car’s sunroof while trying to duck, and that no bullet or shrapnel was found inside her.

The ministry also said it had intercepted a phone call from a top Al-Qaeda figure congratulating a militant for the attack on her Thursday, and said there was “irrefutable evidence” the group was trying to destabilise the country.

Bhutto’s death after a suicide bomber blew himself up at her campaign rally has plunged this nuclear-armed Islamic nation into turmoil, but the ministry said she would have lived if only she had stayed inside her car.

“If she had not come out of the vehicle, she would have been unhurt, as all the other occupants of the vehicle did not receive any injuries,” ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said. He said the post-mortem on the populist opposition leader, whose funeral earlier Friday was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners, found her mortal wound came when she tried to duck after the bomber attacked.

The bomber also apparently fired three times at her but missed, Cheema said. When she ducked, she hit the lever of the sunroof of the car that was to speed her away from a campaign rally as she was gearing up to contest parliamentary elections set for January 8.

“The lever struck near her right ear and fractured her skull,” Cheema said. “There was no bullet or metal shrapnel found in the injury.”( link)

I doubt I’m the only one who thinks this is total BS. The world of Pakistani politics is murky and dirty. While some people pointed the finger at President Musharraf he had no sane reason to have Bhutto killed. Indeed, Musharraf and Bhutto had a common enemy in the radical Islamists that are trying to control the country. Al Qaeda, specifically Usama bin Laden, had (in their warped minds) good cause to kill her (link) and the world would readily accept that they did this as we all know that Al Qaeda is capable of horrendous crimes.

So what is the world to believe? Do we accept confused first hand accounts, do we accept the word of Bhutto’s attending surgeon, or do we accept the word of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry? Malarkey like the above will not serve the cause of bringing Bhutto’s murders to justice and maybe that is exactly what the Interior Ministry wants.

which can be seen here, clearly shows a man shooting at Benazir Bhutto from point blank range as her vehicle slowly moves forward through the crowd. Momements later we see the explosion, her assailant was no more than a few feet from Bhutto’s vehicle. We can say now without hesitation that the assertion of the Pakistan Interior Ministry that Benazir Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof is without merit. Benazir Bhutto was murdered, when will the Goverment of Pakistan stopping trying to deflect blame on itself and start hunting down the people responsible for this tragedy?

Day 7 of the Week of Death is here and not a moment to soon for some I’m sure. The Week of Death has covered events that have been heartbreaking and tragic but nothing so far compares to the evil depravity and sheer horror of today’s post. The perfect post on today’s topic has already been written by blogging great Skippy Stalin at Enjoy Every Sandwich and he has graciously allowed that post to be re-printed in part here today.

The Rape of Nanking, December 9, 1937

Japan’s unspeakable cruelty toward the Chinese people began with the 1931 invasion and occupation of Manchuria. Indeed, this was the first military exercise that began the long march toward the Second Wo rld War, still two years before Adolf Hitler’s assumption of power in Germany. The full-scale invasion of the world’s most populous nation waited until the fall of 1937. Within a month, the first genocide of the modern era – what has become known as “the rape of Nanking” began.

The use of the word “rape” is not an exercise in alliteration. Once the hapless Chinese military retreated from their imperial capital, the women of Nanking suffered unimaginable indignities. Women were killed in indiscriminate acts of terror and execution, but the large majority died after extended and excruciating gang-rape.

“Surviving Japanese veterans claim that the army had officially outlawed the rape of enemy women,” writes Iris Chang. But “the military policy forbidding rape only encouraged soldiers to kill their victims afterwards.” She cites one soldier’s recollection that “It would be all right if we only raped them. I shouldn’t say all right. But we always stabbed and killed them. Because dead bodies don’t talk … Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman, but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig.” (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 49-50). Kenzo Okamoto, another Japanese soldier, recalled: “From the time of the landing at Hangzhou Bay, we were hungry for women! Officers issued a rough rule: If you mess with a woman, kill her afterwards, but don’t use bayonets or rifle fire. The purpose of this rule was probably to disguise who did the killing. The military code with its punishment of execution was empty words. No one was ever punished. Some officers were even worse than the soldiers.” (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 188)

One eyewitness, Li Ke-hen, reported: “There are so many bodies on the street, victims of group rape and murder. They were all stripped naked, their breasts cut off, leaving a terrible dark brown hole; some of them were bayoneted in the abdomen, with their intestines spilling out alongside them; some had a roll of paper or a piece of wood stuffed in their vaginas” (quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195).

John Rabe, a German (and Nazi) businessman who set up a “Nanking Safety Zone” in the city’s international settlement and thereby saved thousands of Chinese lives, described in his diary the weeks of terror endured by the women of Nanjing. Though young and conventionally attractive women were most at risk, no woman was safe from vicious rape and exploitation (often filmed as souvenirs) and probable murder thereafter.

“Groups of 3 to 10 marauding soldiers would begin by traveling through the city and robbing whatever there was to steal. They would continue by raping the women and girls and killing anything and anyone that offered any resistance, attempted to run away from them or simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were girls under the age of 8 and women over the age of 70 who were raped and then, in the most brutal way possible, knocked down and beat up.” (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 119.) In addition to those killed after the violation, historian David Bergamini notes that “Many immature girls were turned loose in such a manhandled condition that they died a day or two later. … Many young women were simply tied to beds as permanent fixtures accessible to any and all comers. When they became too weepy or too diseased to arouse desire, they were disposed of. In alleys and parks lay the corpses of women who had been dishonored even after death by mutilation and stuffing.” (Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 195.)

Not all of the victims of rape were female. “Chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts in front of laughing Japanese soldiers,” writes Chang. “At least one Chinese man was murdered because he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a woman in the snow. The Japanese also delighted in trying to coerce men who had taken lifetime vows of celibacy to engage in sexual intercourse. … The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest — fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers … those who refused were killed on the spot.” (Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95.)

And this began five years before the Holocaust in Europe. For all of their industrialized barbarity, Hitler’s Nazi war machine never approached the depths of the stomach turning depravity that the Japanese military did nothing at all to hide. In fact, as Mrs. Chang wrote, Japanese officers and enlisted men alike filmed and photographed their conquests for the amusement of their families and friends at home.

Not so the Japanese media, which glorified the atrocities being committed in Nanking. In her book, Chang cites a newspaper article about a contest between two officers about which could behead the most civilians. That article was published alongside a photo of the two grinning criminals with their swords drawn. Japanese civilians on the home islands would read these stories approvingly over breakfast. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese people knew exactly what was being done in their name.

Skippy’s original post can be read in full here . His follow up post which details Japan’s failure to accept responsibility and repent for the numerous crimes against humanity it committed from 1935 – 1945 can be found here . Skippy writes posts that could easily be feature length articles in newspapers or magazines. Please take the time to read them in full.

Most of what Skippy Stalin and I learned of this horrific crime against humanity orignially came from the book “The Rape Of Nanking” by Iris Chang . Haunted by what she learned while in the course of her research on The Rape of Nanking and The Battan Death March, Iris slipped into a deep depression. Tragically, she committed suicide in late 2004 leaving a husband and two young children behind. The story of her will and perseverance has been made into a movie called “IRIS CHANG: The Rape of Nanking” and it premiering this Thursday night, December 13, at 8:00 PM on History Television in both Canada and the United States.

If you want to learn more about The rape of Nanking itself, Princeton Universtiy has an excellent online study that can be found at this link .

Week of Death grand total: 336,339 (best estimate)

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

Thank you for reading!

Two tragedies have occurred in Canada on December 6. The second of these two tragedies, which resulted in the deaths of 14 Canadians, is formally recognized by the Government of Canada by the lowering of flags on all federal buildings. Countless vigils and memorials will be held across the country today. If you want to know more about this tragedy go here . This post is about the first of the two tragedies where 1950 Canadians died and another 9000 were wounded. Outside of Halifax I doubt few Canadians will remember the first tragedy today. Since they won’t, we will. – Reg

The Halifax Explosion, December 6, 1917

As two-thirds of our readers are not from Canada I’m thinking most of you have never heard of the Halifax Explosion before. This one minute vignette by historica.ca below gives a quick backgrounder:

Throughout her history the City of Halifax , Nova Scotia, has been key to the development and growth of Canada. It was hardly an accident that when the city was founded 1749 it was located where it was as the city overlooks a natural harbour called Bedford Basin that is wide, deep, and protected from the ravages of the Atlantic Ocean. With the start of World War One in 1914 the Port of Halifax became a key allied link in the supply of munitions and goods to England.

On any given day dozens upon dozens of ships both big and small, civilian and military, would sail in and out of her harbour. Just after breakfast on the morning of December 6, 1917 two ships, the Mont Blanc and Imo collided in ‘the narrows’ of Halifax Harbour and immediately started to burn. It didn’t take long for the good folks of Halifax to gather around and watch the events in the harbour. Had they known what was in the hold of the Mont Blanc they would have ran for their lives.

The French owned Mont Blanc was sailing in to Halifax after sailing from New York City. In NYC the Mont Blanc was loaded with (amongst other things) benzol, 544,000 kilograms of highly explosive picric acid, and 226,797 kilograms of TNT. After burning for approx 20 minutes the Mont Blanc exploded, instantly evaporating, with the equivalent force of 3kilotons. The explosion was the largest man-made explosion in history to that point and wouldn’t be equalled until the Los Alamos atomic tests in 1945. The City of Halifax was levelled.

The devastation was three fold. First, there was the explosion itself; Second, was the tsunami caused by the explosion; Third (from wiki):

Since the explosion occurred in the winter, the blast caused stoves, lamps and furnaces to tip or spill, spreading fires throughout the devastation, particularly in Halifax’s North End, leaving entire streets on fire. Fuel reserves were high in preparation for the winter. Many people who had survived the blast were trapped in these fires.

Some 1.32 km² (325 acres) of Halifax was destroyed, essentially leaving a 1.6 kilometre (1 mi) radius around the blast site uninhabitable. Many people who had gathered around the ship either to help or watch were amongst those killed in the blast, or were subsequently hit by the resulting tidal wave. Others who had been watching from the windows of their homes and businesses were either killed instantly or severely injured by the flying glass as their windows shattered inwards.

The human casualties are a statistical nightmare: 1950 dead, 9000 wounded, 38 people blinded from flying glass, 1600 houses destroyed – another 12000 damaged leaving 6000 Haligonian’s homeless. I just read tonight that the explosion caused more deaths in Nova Scotia than the war itself. It is hard to tell the story of something so terrible is just one post. For those interested I offer the following linky links: Wikipedia has an excellent page on the Halifax Explosion and the Archives Canada page has a wealth of photographic and newspaper material. CBC Archives has some fantastic silent film footage that was taken shortly after the disaster.

Week of Death total: 33,950 with more to come

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

“The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald .”

She would be 50 years old today:

Fifty years ago today Canada stood at the forefront of the aviation world. The Avro CF-105 Arrow was the fastest and most technologically advanced fighter-interceptor in the world. Her delta wing design took away the breath of the nation. Rather disappointingly for the engineers and pilots of the project it was on this same day that the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into space. While Canada was looking at a jet in Malton, the world was looking up at the stars.

The list of technological first’s that this plane introduced to the world fills a page (see the list below the Arrow specs). For two years she was the pride of the nation. At three-quarters thrust in test flights the CF-105 nearly hit MACH 2. Sighting cost over-runs and little interest from international buyers the Government of Canada cancelled the CF-105 project in 1959.

The cancellation of the Arrow in 1959 and the order to destroy of all the test aircraft was a huge blow the Canadian aeronautics industry. Just as significant was the blow to the national psyche. The cancellation of the Arrow has been a weight on the heart of many Canadians. If out of something bad something good can come about then this would be true for the CF-105 project. From Wikipedia:

“Following the Canadian government’s cancellation of the Avro Arrow project in 1959, CF-105 Chief Aerodynamicist Jim Chamberlin led a team of 25 engineers to NASA’s Space Task Group to become lead engineers, program managers, and heads of engineering in NASA’s manned space programs—Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. This team would eventually grow to 32 Avro engineers and technicians…, Jim Floyd (whose design studies at Hawker Siddeley (Avro Aircraft’s UK parent) on the HSA.1000 SST design studies were ultimately influential in the design of the Concorde).”

Most Canadian’s have come to accept that Canada loss was the world’s gain. Fairly or not, many see the Avro Arrow cancellation as the embodiment of a national dream crushed by a cruel government. The great John Diefebaker, never shy to controversy, defended his decision which can be seen here at the CBC Archives (the archives have a wealth of good stuff there folks, I highly recommend).

Today the few remaining pieces of the CF-105 project can be seen at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa. A myth survives that one of the aircraft escaped the cutting torches and has been hidden from the Government every since (I say she’s hiding in the Madawaska Valley). In reality the Avro Arrow only survives in memory and on the web. This site is arguably the best.

I first saw the YouTube post below last winter and decided then to save it for today. The post takes a 911 call and plays that audio beside TV footage of the Twin Towers burning. I’ve seen this clip 4 or 5 times now and still can’t watch it without welling up. For those Canadians and Americans out there who may have forgotten, this is why we are in Afghanistan. Please watch to the end.

Posted in Mitchieville Remembers, YouTube | Comments Off