September 5th, 102 Years Ago.

[Fouro]

On 2nd Sept 1914, the submarine U-21 was approaching the Firth of Forth on the lookout for Leith bound merchantmen to sink. Suddenly a British warship appeared in her periscope. It was the cruiser HMS Pathfinder. One single torpedo from U-21sufficed, striking Pathfinder in the area below her magazine. The German torpedo started a fire which exploded Pathfinder's ammunition supply, sending her swiftly to a watery grave along with her crew of 268. There were only 11 survivors.
This was the first U-Boat success and the HMS Pathfinder had the unhappy distinction of being the first ship ever to be sunk by a torpedo fired by a submarine.
HMS Pathfinder built by Cammell Laird was sunk off St Abbs Head, Berwickshire in Scotland on September 5th 1914, by the U-21, commanded by Lt Otto Hersing.
Makes me feel very sad writing this thread.

FOURO.

[happy daze john in oz]

War is war and enemy ships sending enemy ships of war to a watery grave is common place. But Germany and japan went far beyond the realms of normal warfare when they began to attack merchant ships. Manned by civilians who had no way of fighting back. To my mind a cowardly way of warfare if we must fight at all. But WW2 was the first major war in which civilains suffered as much as thsoe fighting.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Manned by civilians who had no way of fighting back. To my mind a cowardly way of warfare if we must fight at all. But WW2 was the first major war in which civilains suffered as much as thsoe fighting.

Alas John civilians have always borne the brunt of any war, we only think it was WWII because that is the one that affected ourselves the most, but Hannibal the Hun wiped out millions of people, as did Stalin and Mao and in modern warfare then do not forget the Spanish revolution and Guernica where German planes destroyed a complete city and merchant ships had to run the gauntlet of Franco's warships and also WWI where thousands of allied merchant seamen died. Rules of war as written, i.e. Geneva were forgotten, as was the agreement of 1927 where-in it was agreed that all submarines of opposing forces would stop merchant ships and allow crews to take to the lifeboats, that went by the board when merchant ships started carrying war effort cargoes. The Allied forces also sunk German and Japanese merchant ships, but as you say war is war and rules are written to be broken

[Frederick Lacey]

More sad loss of life in the same month....

Tuesday 22nd September 1914.
North Sea. British cruisers, HMS Cresy, HMS. Abtoukir. Hms. Hogue. are sunk with the loss of 1,500 lives.


F

[Captain Kong]

Sad and tragic as it seems, I guess we have to have wars to keep the Populations down.
.
Just the Deaths in the 20th Century alone must run into 100s of millions. can you imagine the earth when all those would be breeding as well as living?
We would all be eating each other, would not be enough food or standing room.
Until the world can behave and stop breeding like flies, to keep the birth rate down wars will do the for us.
Brian

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Fouro.
Make's me feel sad and old,and it doesn't seem that long ago to me; my Dad was in the MN\Navy in that one.
Cheers Des.

[happy daze john in oz]

Alas John civilians have always borne the brunt of any war, we only think it was WWII because that is the one that affected ourselves the most, but Hannibal the Hun wiped out millions of people, as did Stalin and Mao and in modern warfare then do not forget the Spanish revolution and Guernica where German planes destroyed a complete city and merchant ships had to run the gauntlet of Franco's warships and also WWI where thousands of allied merchant seamen died. Rules of war as written, i.e. Geneva were forgotten, as was the agreement of 1927 where-in it was agreed that all submarines of opposing forces would stop merchant ships and allow crews to take to the lifeboats, that went by the board when merchant ships started carrying war effort cargoes. The Allied forces also sunk German and Japanese merchant ships, but as you say war is war and rules are written to be broken

You are correct mate, as to the Geneva convention, not worth a pinch of nanny goats. There many be rules for may things, sports, work etc but when it comes to war, what rules! As Breaker Morant said when put on trial for killing so called civilians in the Boer war, 'sir we applied rule 303 as we were told to'.

[Fouro]

No country has suffered more internal wars than our own.
Take the Battle of Flodden for instance. Some will struggle to understand why so much attention is still paid to a military defeat of such magnitude.Some will wonder at the relevance of the events half a millenimum after the catastrophie. Some will miss the point of the commemoration entirely. It is a reality to every man, woman and child. It is the disaster that has sunk deepest into the Scottish heart and has caused the longest and most open wound. Even today that grey cloud hovers over Scotland. Flodden stands for more than a simple, if ghastly military catostrophie. It was not the last battle fought between English and Scottish armies, but it was the last greatest battle of its type. It did not close the book on Anglo-Scottish animosity, but after Flodden it was never hard to discern which side had the upper hand.

FOURO.

[Fouro]

Re # 8.
This morning I sat for a while to write,
Some words on what I was thinking,
When life's reality came to bite,
As my coffee I was drinking,
How long have I got for my thoughts to surpass,
As this topic is destined to join files in the long grass.

p.s. Censorship is the hallmark of Dictatorship.

FOURO.

[happy daze john in oz]

Censorship is not restricted to just dictators. Here in victoria we currently have a Labor gov, though they act more like a socialist one. There has been a long running dispute within the fire brigades. we have two, the full time professionla fireys who are within the Metropolitain regions, and the CFA, volunteer brigades who opperate in the outer regions and bush town areas.

The Fire fighter union is attempting to take over the volunteers and control what they do. One problem is that they metro lads as good as they are would not have a clue how to fight a bush fire, but the State Premier is backing the metro boys who helped him get power at the last election.

He issued an order to members of the opposition telling them that if they attended a CFA function they will not be allowed to speak by his order!

He was very politely told where to go by the opposition.

Dan the dictator is alive and well