SAPEURS

Sapeurs are gentlemen (and occasionally ladies) from Brazzaville (the capital of the Republic of Congo) who have made an art form out of dressing in very colorful yet very elegant French fashion kinds of clothes. They are not rich (the average income is less than $400 per month), but they save their money for designer suits and accessories. There are very strict and well-established rules (such as that a perfect ensemble may not have more than three colors) which distinguish a Sapeur from someone who merely dresses garishly.

They generally act as ambassadors for good moral conduct, proper etiquette, and peace in a country which had a bloody civil war in the late 1990s and which is still recovering from terrible poverty. They have normal day jobs but sometimes get hired out to appear at weddings or funerals. They are well revered in the community and provide onlookers with a momentary respite from the destitution around them. They welcome newcomers to their ranks.

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THE HITLER-SANDERS CHIMERA

Just when I think that Führerphilia has finally reached the pinnacle of the bizarre (see, for example, Nazi Oenophilia), I find that I am wrong. Case in point--a chicken fast-food restaurant in Thailand called "Hitler" featuring as its trademark the head of the dictator on the shoulders of what appears to be Col. Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. 

In response to international criticism (and more likely, a nasty letter from the KFC legal department), the owners of the restaurant have changed its name to "H-ler." Really subtle, guys.

You can access the H-ler Facebook page here.

THE INFERNAL COAL TORPEDO

Thomas Courtenay was a St. Louis businessman who developed the "coal torpedo" for use by the Confederacy in the American Civil War. The coal torpedo was a hollow chunk of iron about four inches on each side which was forged to resemble a piece of coal. The torpedo was filled with gunpowder and plugged. It was then coated with beeswax and covered with coal dust so that it looked exactly like a hunk of bituminous. 

Courtenay entered into an agreement with the Confederate government where he was placed on rolls of the Confederate Secret Service and he and his employees threw coal torpedos into refueling bins used by the US Navy or by US freighters.

Eventually, the coal torpedo would make its way onto a US vessel and then into the firebox of the boat, where it would explode from the heat. The explosion by itself would not be able to sink the vessel, but it was enough to rupture the ship's steam boiler. The resulting boiler explosion would cause extensive death, injury, and fire on the vessel and sometimes did result in the ship sinking.

The same concept was adopted in World War II to be used by various resistance groups to sabotage Nazi-controlled steam locomotives, by German saboteurs against American coal-powered plants, and by the British with their dreaded rat bomb.

THE DREADFUL PENNY DREADFUL

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"Penny dreadfuls" were cheap pamphlets published for about eighty years in England after they were introduced around 1830. They were serialized adventure stories, often very sensational or lurid in nature, which were designed originally to appeal to adults who could not afford to buy real books. However, eventually the audience was primarily composed of teenagers. These publications filled the niche occupied by comic books today and were condemned by the same types of do-gooders who vilified the horror-type comic books of the 1950s.

Due to their cheap price, low quality of paper, perceived lack of worth, and paper drives in two World Wars, few examples of the earlier editions survive today.

For more information about penny dreadfuls as well as the TV series named after them, please see this article in The Guardian.

BOVINE COMPASSES

 

Scientists studying satellite images from all over the world were gobsmacked to note that, in the vast majority of instances, grazing or resting cattle line up their bodies so that they are facing either magnetic north or south. The exception to this rule occurs on pastures beneath or near high-voltage power lines which disrupt the normal electromagnetic fields of the earth.

Click here for an abstract of the study as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which also contains a PDF of the full report).

THE WICKED BIBLE

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In 1631, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, produced a version of the King James Bible which erroneously contained the commandment, "Thou shalt commit adultery." The King ordered all of the books called back and destroyed, and the printers were fined 300 pounds (about 34,000 pounds in today's money). The few surviving copies of what became known as "The Wicked Bible" that still exist are quite valuable today.

THE LAST TIME US SAILORS HEARD "AWAY ALL BOARDERS!"

On June 4, 1944, sailors under U.S. Navy Captain David V. Gallery, Commander of Task Force No. 22.3, boarded and captured the German submarine U-505 off of the coast of West Africa. A seaman from the sub was the only casualty on either side. 

Captain Gallery was very pleased because he had worked very hard to devise a feasible plan where a Nazi submarine could be obtained intact with all of its code books. It was a far more difficult and risky procedure to orchestrate the capture of a sub than to simply sink it with dozens of depth charges. The Americans had to damage the U-boat only to the extent that its crew would abandon it after setting scuttling charges with the Americans then swarming onto the vessel and hopefully removing the charges before it blew up. As events transpired, the American boarding crew discovered that the Germans fortunately had neglected to set scuttling charges and merely had opened valves instead to flood the boat--valves which the Americans simply closed.

Unfortunately, no one had told Captain Gallery that the allies had already broken the Kriegsmarine codes. As a result, his capture of the vessel needlessly increased the risk that the Germans would completely redo their code books from scratch and set the Allied cryptoanalysts back five years. 

Fortunately, however, this did not happen, and probably the only reason that Captain Gallery received just a blistering dressing-down instead of a full court-martial from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King was the need to maintain secrecy.

The German crew members were interred  at Camp Ruston in Louisiana with the same concerns about secrecy and without access to the Red Cross, contrary to the Geneva Convention of 1929. Their relatives and the German government thought that they were all dead until 1947, when they were repatriated. During their internment, the prisoners launched hydrogen-filled balloons marked with "U-505 lives!" in a futile attempt to reveal their plight.

Nothing succeeds like success. After the war, when it was clear that the Germans had not suspected a thing and the capture of the sub was not a fiasco after all, Task Force No. 22.3 received a Presidential Unit Citation, and Gallery was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Lieutenant Albert David received the Medal of Honor as the leader of the boarding party of the U-boat, which, during its seizure, was foundering and which the Americans thought at the time was about to blow up from scuttling charges. The decorations were partial compensation to the American sailors who were chagrined when, in the interest of security,  they were ordered to turn in all of the Lugers, binoculars, and other souvenirs they managed to snag while securing the boat.

Being taken by the enemy had not been the first misfortune to befall U-505. During a prior voyage of the sub, on October 24, 1943, its previous Captain blew his brains out in the middle of a depth charge attack while standing in front of the periscope. This act demoralized the crew. Nonetheless, the surviving crewmen did manage to get the U-boat back home.

The U.S. Navy donated U-505 to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1954. At the time, the interior of the sub had been thoroughly gutted of all parts and machinery. The Museum sent requests to all of the German manufacturers who had made the components originally in World War II, and they all graciously, at no cost, provided replacements. 

Go to Chicago and you can tour the sub yourself.

U-505 SHORTLY AFTER CAPTURE