Ships aren’t meant to sink, but sometimes you have to wonder what miraculous forces kept a vessel afloat. The SS Baychimo was such a ship. For nearly four decades after it was abandoned, this 1,300-ton cargo ship sailed the Arctic without fuel or crew, until it disappeared just over fifty years ago, but some believe she is still out there drifting among the frozen icebergs.
During the Irish famine (1845 – 1849), an estimated 500,000 people were dispossessed of their cottages. Unscrupulous landlords used two methods to remove destitute tenants. The first involved applying for a legal judgment against the male head of a family owing back-rent. After the local barrister pronounced judgment, the man would be thrown in jail and his wife and children evicted. A ‘notice to appear’ was usually enough to cause most pauper families to flee and they were handed out by the hundreds.
After the defeat of the Workers Reich the Allies notoriously thieved everything they could lay their hands on. The Allies motto; ‘if it moves steal it; if it can’t be moved, blow it up’.
The story about the sinking of the Gairsoppa is ordinary, but the weight of the treasure it was carrying when sent to the bottom was one of the largest in the world.
Weigh anchor, and raise the Saint Andrew’s cross of the Russian Fleet, it’s time to sail back into history. Amongst his feats, this hero can boast over 40 battles without tasting defeat; this is Fyodor Ushakov, Admiral of the Russian Fleet.
Pamir, a four-masted barque, was one of the famous Flying P-Liner sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She was the last commercial sailing ship to brave the notorious rounding of Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, the barque had been out-dated by modern bulk carriers and was by then unable to operate at a profit.
The French surrendered to the Germans on June 22, 1940. The terms of the capitulation were unusual. The Germans permitted the new French administration, under Marshall Petain, to establish itself in the city of Vichy in the south and central France. From there, unoccupied independent Vichy France governed over half of the French landmass in the south of France whilst retaining their overseas colonies and their navy.
If any creature ever got that sinking feeling, it was surely a feline sailor who got it three times but waded through them all. The black and white cat was originally named Oscar but then became known as Unsinkable Sam.
The ancient Viking burial site in Estefall in southeastern Norway was in fact a whole complex, including a feast hall and a religious building.
100 years ago, in November 1920, the White Guards evacuated from the Crimea. Off media radar is one of the most horrific holocausts to stigmatise the half-human race. The proud Cossack had long suffered stigmatisation, hate and horror by the Bolsheviks. On November 14, 1920 one of the largest flotillas in European history was moored off the bay at Sevastopol in Crimea. The rescue by armada included 150 ships of every size and type imaginable. Most but not all were ships of Imperial Russia.
Michael Walsh Stories and Books 
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