THE THERMAL INPONDERABLE

Most scientists agree on the coldest possible temperature. That would be at -459.67 degrees F (-273.15 degrees C or, on the Kelvin scale used by nerds, 0 degrees K). It is pretty cold at that level, especially considering that the coldest known natural temperature on earth was a balmy -128.6 degrees F (-89 degrees C) measured in Antarctica in 1983. 

The temperature of a substance is determined by how fast its molecules are moving, and, at absolute zero, there are no molecules in motion at all. 

Outer space is pretty close to absolute zero, but it does not quite make it as there are still a few random molecules bopping around out there.

What about the highest possible temperature? The answer to that question is a little more problematic. According to Max Plank, who won the 1918 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum physics, the highest possible temperature is 255 nonillion (255,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)* degrees F (141 nonillion degrees C). However, according to string theory, the highest possible temperature, known as the Hagedorn temperature, is a mere 2 nonillion degrees F (1.1 nonillion degrees C). Another even more frigid estimate, based on studies at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, is only 180 quadrillion (180,000,000,000,000,000) degrees F (100 quadrillion degrees C). The hottest part of the sun (which is its core) is a wussy 27 million degrees F (15 million degrees C).

In short, the correct answer to the question about the highest possible temperature is--"really high."

*Americans are getting accustomed to numbers of this magnitude in light of anticipated future federal deficits. 

View image | gettyimages.com

WITOLD PILECKI--THE ULTIMATE ANTI-WUSS

One unfortunate consequence of ethnic jokes against people of Polish descent is that they obfuscate the fact that there have been numerous Poles who have had cojones the size of bowling balls who have committed incredible acts of heroism and bravery. One such example is Captain Witold Pilecki.

Pilecki gallantly served as a young soldier in the Russo-Polish war of 1919-1920. Although this by itself is a notable achievement, it is not enough to distinguish him from numerous others who also participated. In 1939, he fought Germans and, in collaboration with Major Jan Włodarkiewicz, established a resistance group known as the Polish Secret Army, which spread across the country—again, a very courageous thing to do, but by itself not necessarily the stuff of legends.

However, Pilecki really demonstrated his mettle in 1940, when he deliberately allowed himself to be captured by the Nazis so that he could be incarcerated in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Once in the camp, he enlisted the help of other prisoners to do things to things which would have really gotten him into a fecal-load of trouble with the Germans if he had been caught.

His first task was to infiltrate the administration of the camp, where prisoners were often put in charge of running various functions under the supervision of the Nazis. By doing so, he was able to place his co-conspirators under one roof with a more benevolent Kapo (a prisoner appointed by the Nazis to oversee other inmates) and access to better food and medical care.

He then built a short-wave radio which the conspiracy used for several months in 1942 to communicate with the Allies about conditions in the camp. The radio was hidden in the hospital, where the Nazis usually did not tread, but it eventually had to be dismantled when one of the conspirators got too talkative.

He organized several escapes from the camp, including an exploit which could have come straight from a Hogan's Heroes episode, where four of the prisoners, armed and dressed up as SS officers, stole the camp Commandant’s car and blithely drove out of the camp in broad daylight. He used the prison escapees to transfer additional information to Warsaw and ultimately to the Polish government in exile in London.

The camp had a “suggestion box,” where prisoners seeking to suck up to the Nazis and receive favorable treatment could submit the names of fellow prisoners who had committed infractions. Pilecki's group was able to intercept the contents of the box on a regular basis and replace the names of the anti-Nazi prisoners with the names of the most malevolent ones.

Pilecki's group also assassinated the most dangerous of the prisoner informants. The Germans were not all that concerned about an occasional murdered prisoner in a death camp, although they did not officially condone the practice if they themselves were not the perpetrators. However, Pilecki's group also wanted to get rid of the most inhumane representatives of the SS. Killing or incapacitating German soldiers and getting away with it was a far more daunting task than killing mere prisoners. The group nonetheless achieved this goal without suspicion by raising a colony of typhus-infected lice and turning them loose on the Germans.

In late 1942, Pilecki had a thousand prisoners under his command and formulated a plan for taking over the camp from the Germans and freeing all of the inmates. However, he could only do so with the assistance of the Polish authorities and supplies to be air-dropped by the Allies. The Allies ignored his request, so the escape never occurred.

Pilecki, through the use of his clandestine radio and his reports carried by escapees, was the first to inform the Allies about the crematoriums and the use of Zyklon B in gas chambers. The Allies refused to believe the reports and thought that they were just exaggerations promulgated by the Polish government in an attempt to get more support.

Eventually, Pilecki escaped in 1943 and presented his information in person. The Allies still believed the reports to be exaggerated and still did nothing.

Pilecki then participated in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and fought gallantly against the Germans. He was captured and held as a prisoner-of-war.

After the war, he was repatriated. His grateful government tortured, tried, and executed him in 1948 on trumped-up charges and buried him in a secret location. His real crime was that the Soviet overlords of Poland believed that he was going to be a trouble-maker and plot against the Communist regime. The overlords' suspicions were most likely well-founded. 

Outside of his native country, Pilecki's name and story are essentially unknown. However, his tale and many others equally compelling was found at the exhibit which had been on display through December of 2016 in Abilene, Kansas at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum entitled Be Ye Men of Valour: Allies of World War II. A video tour of the exhibit conducted by the Collections Manager provides further insights on Captain Pilecki at 1:47.

POSTAL SCATOLOGICAL DISSEMINATION

Although perhaps not on the same order of magnitude as some other environmental hazards, the improperly placed pooch poop problem crosses all borders. The Spanish town of Brunete aggressively investigates instances where owners do not pick up the excrement from their dogs. When the owner has been identified (which is more often than you might think), the town will mail the offending feces back to him/her in a box marked (in Spanish, of course) "lost property." The rate of illegal canine crapping has gone down 70% since the policy was implemented.

IT IS BETTER TO LIGHT A SINGLE SHELBY ELECTRIC COMPANY BULB THAN TO CURSE THE DARKNESS

The average incandescent light bulb (the old-fashioned Edison kind which is being banned by the US government) lasts from about 750 to 1000 hours. However, there has been one carbon-filament bulb made by the Shelby Electric Company which has been illuminating the firehouse in Livermore, California for over one million hours. Known as the Centennial Bulb since 2001 (for a reason which will very quickly be apparent), it has been glowing since 1901 and is still shining brightly.

Well, actually, it really is sort of shining dimly. It started its long life as a 60-watter, but it currently (get the pun?) is drawing only 4 watts.

The Centennial Bulb has been recognized as the oldest functioning bulb in the world by Guinness Book of World Records and other entities who are into recognizing points of light, including then-President George W. Bush and the City of Shelby, Ohio. With brief interruptions,* it has been burning continuously.

The Livermore Fire Department takes its bulb seriously. The bulb has its own power supply to avoid current surges should the regular generator kick on (I know that this is a dangling preposition, but just live with it). The bulb has its own very comprehensive website and a "BulbCam" which provides the fascinated viewer with live views of the bulb as it hangs around and burns. The site also incorporates links to numerous articles and even TV appearances about the bulb.

Why has the bulb lasted so long? A possible guess would be that it is a happy mixture of various factors, including 1) the bulb was handmade (apparently by someone who knew what he was doing), 2) it is not normally turned off and on, 3) it is being protected by power surges, 4) it contains a thick carbon filament which burns at a relatively low temperature, and 5) it operates at a very low wattage (although when the power went off in 2013, the bulb burned brightly for a while at a retina-searing 60 watts until it subsided back to its usual 4).

It may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but it certainly is the classiest.

*These interruptions include when the bulb was moved to a new firehouse in 1903, when it was off for a week during renovations of the firehouse in 1937, when it received a police and fire escort in 1976 to yet another new firehouse, and when the power went out for 9.5 hours in 2013.

By LPS.1 (Own work)
[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

DENATURED ALCOHOL--POISONING PEOPLE TO SAVE THEM

During Prohibition in the USA, there was still a large need for the production of ethyl alcohol for use in various industrial processes. In order to discourage the diversion of this alcohol for use in illegal beverages, the government required that the makers add poisons to denature it. However, because most bootleggers could pay more for competent chemists than the government would, the bootleggers would quickly develop de-denaturing processes to restore industrial alcohol back to a form which could be consumed, and industrial ethyl alcohol became the primary source of alcohol for illegal liquor suppliers.

However, in 1926, the government finally came up with a formula which could not easily be made safe. It included, among other ingredients, kerosene, brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, acetone, and methyl alcohol*.  Despite the lethality of this mixture, there were always foolish folks who would, either knowingly or unknowingly, feel compelled to drink booze laced with it.

The government's witch's brew killed over 10,000 people from 1926 to the end of Prohibition in 1933. Somehow, however, the supply of illegal liquor, regardless of its source, remained plentiful throughout the same time period.

*Methyl alcohol, which is a different compound than the ethyl alcohol normally contained in booze, is not always fatal. Sometimes, it merely destroys the optic nerve and causes permanent blindness.

Embed from Getty Images

THE CASE OF THE DUBIOUS DOLLARS

We have already discussed how in the mid-1960s the price of silver moved upward and the U.S. government was losing money every time it minted a coin whose face amount was less than the value of the silver contained within it. Prior to that time, banks throughout the country had vaults stuffed full of silver dollars (informally called "cartwheels" due to their large size)--a coin which generally did not circulate except in a few areas in the West and a coin which had not even been minted, due to lack of demand, since 1935. However, once silver prices soared, people flocked to the banks to exchange their paper currency for silver dollars.

What would be the logical response of the government when it was put in the position of selling coins for $1 apiece which nobody had wanted for decades until they suddenly contained more than a dollar's worth of silver? Why, of course, simply make more silver dollars for people to hoard. In August of 1964, Congress passed a bill which was signed by President Lyndon Johnson authorizing the minting of 45 million additional silver dollars. While there was considerable opposition to this bill, Congressmen from silver-producing states in the West were able to push it through. President Johnson ordered production of the coins, and the Denver mint in 1965 started churning out silver dollars (albeit dated "1964") based on the same design (i.e. the "Peace Dollar") as the ones produced from 1921 through 1935. Eventually, the silver dollar naysayers convinced the President that the government using up enough silver to mint 45 million dollar coins would only drive up the price of the metal even faster and result in even more intensive hoarding by the public of the silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars which were normally employed in everyday commerce. Johnson ordered the production of the dollars halted after only a total (including thirty trial pieces) of 316,106 of the cartwheels were minted.

How much is a 1964 silver dollar worth? Hard to say. Supposedly, they were all destroyed before any were released for general circulation, so the question is, in theory, an academic one (the photo below is actually of an earlier dollar with an altered date). However, in reality, the issue remains open. In 1970, the Treasury discovered two of the thirty trial pieces, which had been circulated among government officials, and destroyed them. Where are the other 28? In addition, mint employees were given an opportunity during the striking of the coins to substitute an older silver dollar in exchange for one with the 1964 date, as at the time, the Treasury just needed to come up with 45 million more silver dollars, and it would not have really mattered if a few of them were not dated 1964. After the production was halted, the workers were instructed to bring any such 1964 coins back for melting, but who knows if all of the dollars returned to the fold. Further, the 1964 coins were not individually counted or inspected prior to melting--just weighed in mass. A devious employee could have thrown an older silver dollar (which, of course, would weigh the same) into the pile and retrieved a 1964 one, and no one would have known the difference.

Well, if there is a surviving 1964 dollar, why has it not surfaced? The answer is clear. In 1933, a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces of that same year were released into circulation after President Roosevelt had taken the country off of the gold standard and made the private ownership of gold illegal (with a few minor exceptions). The Secret Service aggressively pursued and seized, without compensation (except for one bizarre and unusual situation which may be addressed in a later Factoid), any and all 1933 twenty-dollar gold pieces, whenever they appeared, on the basis that the coins were stolen from the government. It is fairly obvious that any 1964 silver dollar which ever sees the light of day would suffer the same fate.

If a genuine* 1964 silver dollar did emerge, and if it could be legally sold, it would command millions of dollars. In fact, David Hall, president of Collectors Universe and co-founder of Professional Coin Grading Service, offered to pay $10,000 to any person holding one just for the privilege of examining it.  If it were lawful to own one, a real 1964 cartwheel might be the most valuable coin in existence (except maybe for this one).

*Facsimile examples from private mints have been produced; they have minimal value.

By Wehwalt (Own work) [Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
 or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)],
via Wikimedia Commons

PAINTING WITH COW URINE

View image | gettyimages.com

"Indian yellow" was a bright yellow pigment first used by Dutch artists but later by all painters until the early 20th Century. It was fluorescent and, as a result, produced a particularly vivid hue when the painting was seen in sunlight.

It was purportedly made from the urine of cattle in India which were fed on an exclusive diet of mango leaves. The production was banned in 1908 on the basis of cruelty, as the mango leaves contained urushiol, the active agent found in poison ivy, and bovines on this diet were both very uncomfortable as well as extremely malnourished. For a practice to have been banned as long ago as 1908 on the basis of cruelty, it must have been cruel indeed.

  

The pigment has now been replaced by a substitute manufactured in boring chemical plants.

THE BULL MOOSE HYPOCHONDRIAC

One of the axioms of American history is that Theodore Roosevelt was a spindly youth with devastating asthma who cured himself of his pulmonary distress by embarking one day on the pursuit of various manly athletic endeavors such as boxing and bodybuilding. However, as reported by Richard Shenkman in his 1988 book Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History, Roosevelt biographer David McCullough gainsays the foregoing.

According to McCullough, Roosevelt's asthma abated long before he became a jock. In fact, it seemed to disappear once Roosevelt left home to attend Harvard University. 

Further, Roosevelt's asthmatic condition may have been highly overstated. Normally, asthmatics have attacks triggered by certain stimuli, such as temperature or the presence of allergens. Roosevelt, as a youth, was healthy in all sorts of locations, times of year, and conditions--with one exception.

That exception was that the attacks usually occurred only on Sundays. By coincidence, the only time Roosevelt's father was at home with him was on Sundays. McCullough theorizes that Roosevelt quickly realized that his father would dote on him whenever little "Teedie" had a bout of illness. Because the Roosevelts were wealthy, this doting could take on extreme forms, including carriage rides, lavish gifts, and trips to exotic locales.

Asthma obviously is a legitimate and a sometimes debilitating, life-threatening ailment. However, in Roosevelt's case, his attacks were probably primarily a device to get his father's attention. This hypothesis, by the way, is a theory one probably would not have wanted to assert in Roosevelt's presence when he was still alive.

1960s TECHNOLOGY IN A STAR TREK UNIVERSE

Although the original series of Star Trek was supposed to portray the incredible advances which would be available some three hundred years in the future, the first pilot episode (which is not redundant, by the way, as there was a second pilot episode) was remarkably non-prescient in several respects. It featured, for example:

1. A bulky 23" cathode-ray tube cabinet-style television set in the captain’s quarters.

2.  Crewmen with thick plastic-framed eyeglasses.

3.  Bound paper books in bookshelves.

4. Various orders, reports, and other paper documents affixed to clipboards.

5. Hulky and cumbersome communication devices (i.e. cell phones) the size of thick paperback books which looked like they were assembled from 1964 Radio Shack kits.

6. A captain who apologizes for snapping at a female junior officer because he "still has trouble accepting the concept of having a woman on the bridge."

Treckies (but no one else) will also marvel at the following items in this initial show. Spock had a pasty green complexion; he tittered with glee upon finding a pretty plant on a planet; and he expressed angst when members of the crew disappeared. The sets were remarkably primitive, and in some scenes, you can even see the nails in the papier-mâché rock formations. Finally, and most amazingly, the captain made no effort at any point to threaten to blow up his own ship using the auto-destruct sequence.

The original filmstrip for this episode, which was made in 1965 and called The Cage, was cut up to be incorporated, in part, as flashbacks in a later episode during the regular series called The Menagerie. As a result, it was never broadcast or released in its original format until 1988, after a film archivist found a copy of it in stored in a photo lab.

CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER PIKE FROM THE MENAGERIE
Copyright Paramount Pictures 1966

V-MAIL

V-mail was a system of correspondence between American servicemen in combat zones and civilians during World War II. The concept was stolen by the USA from the British. The sender of V-mail would write a one-page letter on a pre-printed form. Once a censor had approved the content, the letter would be microfilmed and then transported to a receiving center across the ocean. The receiving center would then enlarge the microfilmed image to 60% of the original size and deliver the printed image to the recipient. 

Use of this system greatly reduced the amount of precious cargo space which would be needed to transport mail. A single mailbag could hold 150,000 V-mail microfilm images. In addition, the use of V-mail reduced opportunities for espionage, as microdots, invisible ink, and other forms of secret communication which normally could be included in a letter would be obliterated during the microfilming process.

THE BATRACHIAN SINFONIETTA COADUNATION

For centuries, any European concert violinist who had his act together would keep in his instrument case the violin itself, a bow, a live toad, spare strings, and a lump of rosin-impregnated beeswax. You might think that he would also carry replacement filaments for his bow, but bow repair can get sort of hairy and was generally done by a specialist and not by the musician himself.

The toad? The common toad a/k/a the European toad (Bufo bufo) secretes a toxin in its skin called, appropriately enough, bufotoxin. Savvy violinists would rub the toad with their hands right before playing, and the toxin would inhibit perspiration and prevent slippery fingers--thus allowing the violinist to provide a ribbiting performance.

TYPECASTING

BEN FRANKLIN'S PRINT SHOP

Why are capital letters called "upper case" and non-capital ones "lower case?" I always just presumed that it was because the capital letters were often taller and thus more "up" than their small brethren. Actually, however, the term arose in manual typesetting days, and the true explanation is elegant in its simplicity. Namely, printers (i.e. people who printed, not the little electronic paper-spewing boxes connected to computers which cost $75 while their ink refills cost twice as much) traditionally kept the capital type in the top of their storage cases while the small letter type would go into the lower.

WHEN THE GENERALS FREED THEIR SLAVES

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed all of his family's slaves in 1862 after the death of his father-in-law. Lee observed that, "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

Union General Ulysses S. Grant manumitted in 1859 a slave that he owned. However, the slaves belonging to his wife, a Missouri resident, did not receive their liberty until 1865, when Missouri legally abolished slavery in that state and the 13th Amendment was adopted. Mrs. Grant did not have to comply with the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation and free her slaves in 1863, as the Proclamation applied only to those states officially in rebellion at that time--which did not include Missouri.

The foregoing is a widely-circulated narrative about the irony of the Confederate general's enlightened view of about slavery compared to the Yankee general who was involved in the ownership of slaves throughout the Civil War. However, as Paul Harvey oft said, "Now for the rest of the story."

The opening paragraph about Lee is technically true. What is omitted is the fact that Lee's father-in-law died in 1857 and stipulated in his will that all of the family's slaves be freed within five years. Lee fought to extend in state court the five-year period of the enslavement on two different occasions, but he lost both times. During the five years, Lee, according to contemporary reports, sought to get the maximum mileage of work out of each slave before the court-ordered manumission and was a harsh taskmaster who did not eschew using the whip.

What about Grant? He did own a slave which he freed in 1859. His wife in fact was from a slave-owning family and owned four slaves which served Grant, his wife, and their children while they lived in St. Louis from 1854 to 1859. However, the record is murky as to whether Mrs. Grant's father retained legal title to the slaves or if they instead had been officially conveyed to her. It is true, as stated above, that her slaves were not freed as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation. What is not so clear from the record is whether they were freed as a result of Missouri abolishing slavery within its borders in January of 1865, whether they were instead freed as a result of the adoption of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865, or whether the slaves simply ran off on their own.

THE SORDID TRUTH ABOUT KRYPTONITE

It is axiomatic among nerds that the least heroic of the comic superheroes is Superman. In that he is virtually indestructible, is capable of flying through outer space, and has unlimited strength, Superman's apprehension of any but the most innovative of villains does not really require a great deal of courage or effort on his part. The introduction to the mythos of kryptonite, a substance which can render Superman helpless, aids in making his conquests a little less boringly one-sided and introduces the possibility of personal risk to him into the story lines.

However, the origins of kryptonite are far more prosaic. Bud Collyer portrayed Superman on the radio program of that name in the 1940s. His voice was extremely versatile, and he could switch with ease from a booming bass for the caped hero to a wispy high squeak for Clark Kent. In either role, however, his voice remained unique and quite recognizable. As the programs were recorded all year long, Collyer was doomed never to go on a vacation or work on other projects, as no one could take his place. Kryptonite was thus introduced to create a series of shows where Superman was reduced to a weakened, whispering husk--a husk whose voice could be provided by an actor other than Collyer, who would then achieve his freedom for a couple of weeks.

Embed from Getty Images

THE ELUSIVE RAT KING

A "rat king" occurs when the tails of several rats become stuck together through knotting, blood, ice, dirt, or sticky unsavory organic substances and the bunch of rodents grows together as one unit. The most famous one, illustrated here, was found in 1828 and is currently located in the Mauritianum Museum in Altenburg, Germany. It features 32 rats.

Finds are rare, with the last known one occurring in Estonia in 2021. Part of the scarcity may be due to the displacement in the 1700s of the black rat (Rattus rattus) by the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus). For some reason, rat kings are more likely to be produced in black rat colonies. There are also reports of mouse kings (even other than the one in The Nutcracker ballet) and squirrel kings.

Many superstitious peasants in the Middle Ages considered it an unfavorable omen to find a rat king in a house. Others merely regarded it as yecchy.

To see a video of a recent Russian rat king featuring live rats, please click here.

[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
 or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

THE MENACE OF THE SUPERHEATING MICROWAVE

If water is heated uniformly in a perfectly smooth container way past the normal boiling temperature, it may still not boil. Boiling requires a nucleation point, like a particle of dust or a scratch or other imperfection in the container around which the bubbles will form. You may have observed when you boil water in a pan over a burner that most of the bubbles come from a particular point on the pan. Even in a smooth container, water will generally boil when cooked on top of a stove, as it is not uniformly heated and the hot water rising from the bottom of the pan causes currents that break the surface tension of the water and create nucleation points on the surface. 

Water which is heated past the boiling point of 212 degrees F (100 degrees C) but is not boiling is called superheated. If you are foolish enough to be carrying a container of superheated water and you jostle it even slightly or you place a spoon or a coffee crystal in it, the water will explode into steam on the spot and violently spatter your body and face. Such an encounter can easily result in third-degree burns and, of course, blindness if the eyes are involved.

Liquid heated in a smooth vessel in a microwave oven could well achieve superheated status. To avoid this, keep a non-metallic object, such as a wooden popsicle stick, in the container during the heating. This will provide a nucleation point so that normal boiling can proceed.

THE BOSTON MOLASSES DISASTER

On January 15, 1919, a storage tank in Boston containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses ruptured and created the Great Boston Molasses Flood (no, I don't know if there were lesser Boston molasses floods). The 8-foot to 40-foot high (depending which source you believe) tidal wave of brown sugary goodness rolled out at 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour), exerted a force of 2 tons (1.8 metric tons) per square inch, and destroyed buildings, railroad platforms, and trains. The blast created by the displaced air was enough to hurl a truck into Boston harbor. Numerous horses and 21 people were smothered in the goo like bugs in flypaper and died, and another 150 people were injured.

Many factors probably contributed to the disaster, including an unusually fast rise in the outside temperature, carbon dioxide buildup from fermentation, and the filling of the tank to the top in anticipation of making a lot of rum before Prohibition took effect. However, the fact that the tank was made of brittle metal and was only half as thick as it should have been (even by 1919 standards) was most likely the primary cause of the failure.

By the time all of the litigation was resolved, the company owning the tank (Purity Distilling Company) paid out a total of $600,000. This sum, even though the equivalent of $10.9 million today, was quite the bargain for Purity considering the extent of carnage involved.

Purportedly, on hot summer days, the aroma of molasses still seeps up from the pavement.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIREYS?

Dauntless. Hurricane. Avenger. Thunderbolt. Lightning. Spitfire. Hellcat. Komet. Corsair. Mustang. Kingcobra. Meteor. Warhawk. Devastator. Flying Fortress. Superfortress. Dominator. All of these testosterone-laden names for World War II aircraft suggest lethality, power, invincibility, speed, and just general all-round ability to be all over their foes like scum on a pond. Oh, and also, lest we forget, the British Fairey Swordfish.

What sort of plane does one envision with a name like "Fairey Swordfish?" Probably, something pretty close to the truth. The Fairey Swordfish were fabric-covered biplanes which would have looked right at home in the skies of World War I, and they were certainly obsolete by World War II (although they still did do very well against submarines). They suffered catastrophic losses in battle (some missions lost 100% of the aircraft) and remained operational in the Second World War only because the British needed every plane they could use. I am not sure of the exact term used to describe someone who flew in a Fairey Swordfish, but I am confident that it is not "coward."

Now, let's switch over to battleship nomenclature. The pride of the German fleet in World War II was the Bismarck, named after Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century "Iron Chancellor" who forged the various German states into one modern nation, As described by Johnny Horton in his 1960 hit ballad Sink the Bismarck--

"In May of 1941 the war had just begun

The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns

The Bismarck was the fastest ship that ever sailed the sea

On her decks were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees."

Although technically speaking, the Bismarck at that time was not the biggest battleship afloat with the biggest guns (that honor goes to the Japanese battlewagons Yamato and Musashi), it certainly was the biggest German ship, and the song accurately conveys the perception that any enemy vessel that crossed the Bismarck's path would have its hands full. 

The Bismarck and her twin sister, the Tirpitz, were intended to be surface raiders which would steam out into the Atlantic and methodically sink Allied convoys by the boatload. Quite inconveniently, however, the British took great pains to discourage such ventures and deployed much of their naval and air resources towards keeping the two vessels bottled up in their respective harbors. 

Nonetheless, on May 19, 1941, the Bismarck (sporting dazzle camouflage), along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, three destroyers, and a number of minesweepers, broke free with the intention to wreak havoc in the North Atlantic. After some brief skirmishes with British vessels, the German fleet encountered the British battlecruiser H.M.S. Hood and the battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales. Salvos were exchanged between the British and German vessels. Eight minutes into the battle, the Bismarck lobbed a shell into an ammo bunker in the Hood, with the resulting explosion causing the Hood to sink almost immediately with a loss of all but three of her crew of 1,419. 

The Germans then savaged the Prince of Wales. They probably would have been able to sink her, but she was effectively neutralized for the time being, and the German orders were to avoid as much as possible any engagement with warships which were not actually protecting a convoy. The Bismarck sailed away suffering damage from three hits--she had inflicted 93 hits on the British in return. 

The damage to the Bismarck, although inconvenient, was not lethal. She headed back to port for repairs. Although her top speed had been reduced to 27 or 28 knots, she was still fast enough that the British ships could not catch up to her. She then subsequently successfully withstood attacks by torpedo bombers, although her speed slowed to to about 16 knots as a result of this additional action. 

The British, who were throwing everything they had into the sea and the air, were desperate. They had miscalculated the course and destination of the Bismarck, and it become obvious that the chances were excellent that the Bismarck would reach her sanctuary. The British finally spotted her by air, but she was out of the range of all British vessels, except one--the H.M.S. Ark Royal. 

The Ark Royal sent out its torpedo bombers to work over the German behemoth. Unfortunately, the bombers attacked a British ship by mistake. Fortunately, none of the detonators on the bombs worked. The British switched to planes equipped with torpedoes and tried again. 

Have you forgotten about our friend the Fairey Swordfish? That is what the Ark Royal had to offer. These delicate and slow cloth-covered kites, each carrying a single torpedo, were the only arrows left in the British quiver. Their pilots were given the unenviable task of lobbing their ordnance at the largest German ship afloat--one bristling with anti-aircraft capabilities. Their only defense would be to fly so low and so slow that the German guns would have trouble tracking them. 

Most of the attacks by the Fairey Swordfish were a failure. One brave pilot managed to lob a torpedo into the side of the ship, causing only minor flooding. Another pilot, John Moffat, sent his torpedo into the port rudder coupling.

Uh oh. With the damage to the port rudder inflicted by Moffat's lowly Fairey Swordfish, the Bismarck could only steam in a giant circle, which is what she was doing when the British fleet finally caught up to her. After the British fired 2,800 shells (400 of which hit the Bismarck) and numerous torpedoes, the German sailors scuttled her to avoid capture of the ship by the British. Finally, the Bismarck finally went down with only 114 survivors from its crew of over 2,200.

"We found the German battleship t'was makin' such a fuss

We had to sink the Bismarck 'cause the world depends on us

We hit the deck a runnin' and we spun those guns around

We found the mighty Bismarck and then we cut her down."

Embed from Getty Images