Well There's Your Problem | Episode 92: SS Leopoldville

boat sink (again)
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[@theD0gfish]

Liam's pro wrestling name would be "Actionable Threat"

[@grantus_pax]

"Tonight, live on TV, I will walk into the ring and [entire rest of promo is one long bleep]"

[@qtipmotha]

Great band name

[@spamviking]

His finishing move is a spear kick off the top rope called the "Jewish Space Laser"

[@chaseman113]

Sounds like a Venture Brother’s show villain.

[@noah3384]

Shake hands with danger is his theme song

[@UKTVGlod]

I've got a theory about why captains go down with the ship, that it's preferable to the sheer amount of paperwork they'd have to do instead.

[@OddLeah]

Mood.

[@coreygolphenee9633]

Yeah die drowning or dorwning in years of litigation hearings

[@AsbestosMuffins]

In modern times yes, which is funnier when you have a ship where everybody gets off and the captain is still insisting on staying and has to be dragged off himself

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

@@AsbestosMuffins if only all captains could be as brave as my man Francesco Schettino, smh

[@kumaflamewar6524]

I mean if nothing else it's the surest way to salvage some public opinion from a disaster, especially if you fucked up.

[@jamessears8907]

Welcome to "Hey What's Your Problem": an actionable threat, with slides.

[@MrTaxiRob]

this comment needs more likes

[@IslandHermit]

"I signed up to be in a first person shooter, not a platformer!" That joke deserved far more response than it got.

[@Madhouse_Media]

When she said that I immediately pictured guys jumping between ships as the music from the Labyrinth Zone level from Sonic The Hedgehog played.

[@lukewest7216]

Oh thank god I heard Rocz's very subdued and professional intro and I thought you guys had tragically figured out how to podcast professionally and I was just about to unsub when Liam started threatening to commit arson.

[@Daneelro]

Why do people write "Rocz" instead of "Roz"? (Sounds like the German word for "snot")

[@lukewest7216]

@@Daneelro because his last name is spelled 'Roczniak'

[@Rolan7196]

@@lukewest7216 I know this and still usually use "Roz" because I can't remember, but it doesn't feel right to call him Justin. Which is weird because I call Yay Liam "Liam" and Alice by her name. I guess it's that professor energy. Edit: Honestly it's because Liam calls him Roz in such an endearing way. Alice tends to say Justin but I'm not Scottish.

[@GoredonTheDestroyer]

@@Rolan7196 You also are not trans and do not wear a Hi-Vis hijab (As far as I know). The hi-vis hijab is essential for Alice cosplay.

[@mechtechpotato4249]

The intro to this episode is basically: “We invested in a bleeper and by golly we are going to use it.”

[@HotClown]

*T H E T H R E S H O L D*

[@Gunni1972]

I imagine they'll use it to get a morse-coded message across their episodes.

[@GoredonTheDestroyer]

It's like buying a car with an 8000rpm tachometer. I paid for the whole thing, and God as my witness, I am going to use *every single RPM on this tachometer.*

[@LordMangudai]

29:02 "In fairness, the Nazis were also being antisemitic" Rocz never fails to deliver some spicy takes

[@pleasant_asymmetry]

3:56 "it's from Belgium" that's it, that's the disaster, Safety Third intro plays

[@TrashHeapCustodian]

As a veteran I have an idea as to why this was classified for so long: Institutional Inertia. Someone every once in a while probably came up like "hey there doesn't seem to be any reason this is classified, why don't we declassify it?" and it took until 1996 for someone to go "yeah ok that seems fair" instead of "WELL IF IT'S CLASSIFIED IT MUST BE FOR A REASON SO LEAVE IT ALONE" The amount of times I had shit like that happen(not with classified tho)... Fuckin hell

[@AllenSJ5]

I love it when things that are public knowledge (as in, front page of the New York Times public knowledge) remain classified, or even funnier, when things are RETROACTIVELY classified. Really insane.

[@MrTaxiRob]

@@AllenSJ5 isn't that what the military did to Chelsea Manning?

[@susiefrost618]

Heartbreaking. We still have the office letter from Eisenhower denying the whole time

[@AllenSJ5]

“The Congo finally got its independence from Belgium in 1960, and elected a popular President named Patrice Lumumba” “Oh cool! What happened after that?” “Anyway…”

[@synthgal1090]

my gf and I inform each other whenever there's a new episode with the phrase "new problem"

[@cookiesonastick]

Awesome

[@realcanadian96]

Sadly my wife is not as interested in this show as much as I do

[@OriginalPineapplesFoster]

This rocks! In similar fashion, my partner and I inform each other of a new podcast discovery by saying, "I made a new friend." In this case, 3 of them. 🎧🍍

[@Kapi.23]

The electoral victory of Boric for the presidency, it's the second most massive victory in our country. Many people who doesn't vote (poor, marginalized people, and a huge part of the most fanatical left wingers) joined and campaigned against the Nazi, Kast. Boric was one of the leaders of the student movement in the early 2010's, and his team is basically the same guys who lead the movement and later gained seats in the parlament. Kast is obviously a transphobe, homophobe, racist and classist, so he never had a chance. The right wing government tried to boicot the election, by reducing the public transport available, but on the bright side, hundreds of volunteers rallied with their own cars and drove people to the polls. Additional fun fact: Pinochet's widow died last week, 3 days before the election, and the fascist candidate disavowed even knowing her

[@juanjuri6127]

Kast also wasted a week of the runoff campaign trail by leaving for an extremely conspicuous trip to the US, where he met with GOP members and possibly bribed world-class grifter Franco Parisi for an endorsement, which in the end amounted to nothing since Parisi's ~10% of first-round voters went for Boric in droves despite Parisi publicly going all-in for Kast in his podcast/MLM recruiting outlet

[@jakedominguez118]

congratulations chile! 🎉 🇨🇱 lots of love from the imperial states of america 🇺🇸 ❤️ 🇨🇱

[@Kapi.23]

sorry, when i wrote "massive" i actually meant "largest advantage". Btw, Boric it's 35, and he admitted a few years that he experimented sexually with a male friend in school. And no, that wasn't a campaign scheme, he just jumped into the presidential race a few months ago (he barely collected the support, here you need to present 20k signatures, he nearly missed the mark)

[@jaysea5939]

Keeping my fingers crossed the cia leave y'all alone

[@Soemrjruur]

@@juanjuri6127 lmfao that’s amazing

[@spyarks]

Hi! Pharmacist here and listener of the pod since the donoteat days - glad to see we're finally getting appropriate representation! Hope you get it sorted out and that you all have a wonderful holiday :)

[@dgd109]

I too am a pharmacist, I approve of doing [redacted] to Walgreens

[@trevorcorey7910]

Hello pharmacy? Do you guys sell diarrhea medication?

[@grmpEqweer]

@@trevorcorey7910 When sh1t happens, they usually have Imodium in stock. ... Maybe they can just throw it at your car if you have a big problem.

[@trevorcorey7910]

@@grmpEqweer Oh yeah it’s big. I’m not gonna be able to make it there. Do you think I can plug it with some kind of stopper?

[@briannem.6787]

@@trevorcorey7910 You probably wanna ask your local liquor store for a wine cork

[@Skeptidelphian]

Re: bondage Jim, I dated a woman who got excited when she learned I could tie knots. The clove hitch and bowline are not sex knots.

[@OriginalPineapplesFoster]

Not with that attitude. 🙄🍍

[@eccentricgreen7249]

The pharmacy tried to charge me 200 bucks for one esteogen vial so I bought a bunch in bulk from an estonian catgirl

[@ilicythings]

go get those titty skittles (needles? I don't know the equivalent for injections)

[@grmpEqweer]

Hope they perform as required. Cheers.

[@thefareplayer2254]

You know it’s going to be an *amazing* episode when Liam’s actionable threats start 27 seconds in.

[@OW3NS93]

The 66th Infantry Division was largely made up of excess US Army Air Force personnel, effectively making it an American Luftwaffe Field Division. Also, the Leopoldville disaster accounted for nearly 90% of the division’s casualties. For the rest of their time besieging Lorient and St. Nazaire, the division suffered ~50 men killed, ~150 wounded, and 20 captured

[@kanalkucker14]

crazy

[@Madhouse_Media]

Damn... When the deadliest part of the mission is the ride to it that's saying something.

[@johnathanh2660]

@@Madhouse_Media The German submarine and RAF Bomber command were the most dangerous 'trades' during WW2. Training of aircrew was only slightly less dangerous than ops. For the training of pilots in 'Empire' training flight schools in Canada in SA they used Stearman trainers (and others). Originally they were painted yellow. They stopped doing this, instead they left them unpainted in 'silver' aluminium alloy - they were replacing so many wings and tail sections.

[@Dark_LoreVT]

So.. Is there ever going to be a Patreon bonus episode of uncensored Actionable Threats from Liam? I'd be willing to pay good money for that!

[@CreamyPennePasta]

I think you’d have to pay the Mike Bloomberg Tier to hear those

[@xmlthegreat]

@@CreamyPennePasta damn, let's set up a Patreon to fund someone to pay the Mike Bloomberg tier

[@mcarp22]

Nice try the FBI.

[@laurieskelly]

I also came here to say Nice try Agent Huber

[@briannem.6787]

I feel like he'd go to gaol if he published that...

[@motolumpy1216]

I'm 30 seconds in and already cracking up at the Muslim detailing how Holly jolly the episode is immediately followed by the Jewish dude threatening God himself I fucking love this podcast.

[@GONEmypurpleflapjack]

tbf jesus is only god if ur Christian

[@TheRealColBosch]

@@GONEmypurpleflapjack Don't worry, we Jews spend a decent amount of time yelling at God-as-Father, too.

[@arthroku-juroku8481]

this is my favorite slide about podcast engineering with disasters.

[@xmlthegreat]

Hell yeah the cure to my insomnia: Rocz's baritone drawl!

[@hedleybutler9706]

His voice and manner of speaking just make me feel nice😊

[@Daneelro]

Is there a reason you write his name with an extra c?

[@ghostsethrich7306]

@@Daneelro i think that's the correct spelling, actually. Polish excellence!

[@xmlthegreat]

@@Daneelro if I'm not wrong it's spelled as Roczniak (maybe some word squiggles on some letters are missing)

[@Daneelro]

@@ghostsethrich7306 Damn, my bad. But then Justin's problem of pronouncing foreign words extends to his own surname...

[@hinzster]

That must have been one of the most intentionally unsuccessful censorings ever... "Yey, Liam, and I'm gonna burn this beeeeeeeeeeeeep ... ucking ground."

[@benculhane]

My understanding was that he named a specific pharmacy, it's not that they censored the cursing

[@Sombomombo]

What's wrong with ducking dirt?

[@nicolescats2]

I'm pretty sure Liam pushes the beep button instead of continuing to talk, as a bit. That way he can have the implication without making Justin's job as editor harder. There might genuinely be times where Justin has to add it in post, but I don't think that includes this time.

[@TheNonFanatic]

The correct answer to the Safety Third is and always be "If it sucks ... Hit Da Bricks"

[@devinfaux6987]

My favorite and most succinct summary of the Belgian Congo is a meme. Belgium in Europe: T-Rex from Toy Story Belgium in Africa: T-Rex from Jurassic Park

[@roelantverhoeven371]

battle of worringen 1288, battle of courtrai 1302, sieges of antwerp and ostend, battle of tournai 1789... all examples of where Belgians kicked ass... but I guess hating on Belgians is popular... not to mention belgian resistance in 1914 was instrumental in the German defeat in their race to the French capital and atlantic coast....

[@ProletariatPrince]

​@@roelantverhoeven371 Belgium is a fake country.

[@benoitbvg2888]

Since you do military stuff now, the "voyage of the damned" of the russian fleet during the russo-japanese war would be a great episode. Maybe a two-parter.

[@WebertHest]

Drachinfel, a youtuber dedicated to naval military history, has a two-parter on it. Much better information/noise ratio than any podcast, yet still very enjoyable. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b37HmpJ8nZ6Sd8k

[@heartache5742]

@@WebertHest but do we know whether that channel is allegiant to the communist party?

[@WebertHest]

@@heartache5742 Don't know, don't care.

[@MySerpentine]

@@WebertHest Well that's no fun.

[@Wafflepudding]

Joe Kassavian already did an episode on it on Lions led by donkeys. Edit: like Draquinifel, he also called it the "voyage of the damned"

[@bossbeartherock6034]

I would be interested in seeing the crew do a video on the USS sultana , how a river boat killed more people then the titanic in equally horrific ways .

[@falloutghoul1]

Sounds like a topic for Lions Led By Donkeys.

[@Daneelro]

Just "Sultana". The USS Sultana was a seagoing yacht, used to rescue people during WWI.

[@harkonen1000000]

It's usually unremarked that it was the 7th riverboat called Sultana. Most of the previous ones burned down.

[@roisindoherty8731]

I didn’t learn about the Belgian Congo until I left the US and went to Dublin, Ireland and learned about it in an Irish History museum. I love having to learn about generational traumas only from other people who have generational trauma

[@treyandoss3056]

Hey the USA has plenty of generational trauma made right here! Stop using imported generational trauma!

[@AsbestosMuffins]

which is weird because you could teach a lot about racism and slavery without triggering southern conservatives by talking about it

[@spyone4828]

"History" in American schools, in my experience, has some odd ... gaps. Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and then nothing important happened in Europe until the French Revolution. Napoleon will be mentioned, but mostly in passing. And then Europe won't come up again until World War One.

[@charliepage3025]

The boat ones are always terrifying

[@charliepage3025]

Also yay liam

[@BravoCharleses]

Episode request: the systematic and mostly intentional destruction of Sears/Kmart

[@mathewkelly9968]

Kmart is still a thing here in Australia, in fact they're very big here .

[@Trendyflute]

The guy who raped and pillaged Sears sounded like a psychopath to me, sounds like a good episode.

[@RurouniIdoru]

My job held a Christmas party this year. The following Monday, all employees got an email informing us that someone who had been at said party has just tested positive for COVID-19, and then we all subsequently received three more such emails. I heaved a sigh of relief about my decision not to attend. Don't go to Christmas parties!

[@MrJohndoakes]

30:40 They had this "utility pool" method of assigning soldiers to units; they needed infantry, they assigned all the infantry trained soldiers to whatever unit. If they were desperate, they would send people with radically different skills to units, so the kid in "Fury" being a typist but being sent to a Sherman tank as a hull gunner was not absurd.

[@peterpanda5069]

A two-tonne steel box on castor wheels sounds less “cabinet” and more “cursed SUV”

[@MrTaxiRob]

it was eventually melted down and turned into a Grand Cherokee purchased by Anton Yelchin

[@Omegan01]

1:00:16 If I had to speculate, apart from inertia one reason for keeping the documents classified for so long is to ensure that anyone with even a small amount of responsibility for the disaster would either be long dead or retired before the information became widespread. After all someone age 40 at the time of the sinking would be 92 by the time of the release, let alone any older, more senior officers. If you haven't seen it check out Knudson's video on the 'Battle' of May Island for a similar hush-hushing of an even bigger debacle by the Brits.

[@GigasGMX]

King Leopold's Ghost is the single most horrifying book I have ever read. Do not read it unless you are prepared to make actionable threats against the nation of Belgium in general and the Belgian Royal Family in particular.

[@evamiller4886]

Weirdly, “all safety instructions were given in a language the majority of the passengers don’t speak, including the order to evacuate” was a problem through at least the 1990s. It played a roll in why the sinking of the Estonia was so deadly

[@matthewmenendez6981]

Recently read King Leopold’s Ghost and if I remember correctly the Congo River was extremely difficult to navigate to the point that they had to use portage most of the time.

[@r.c.morgenstern9405]

Kind of... It was navigable in sections separated by extremely dangerous rapids. A lot of the efforts to "develop" the Congo related to building railroads that could run parallel to difficult sections and connect the routes of river steamers that had to be hauled in sections and assembled on site. That said it's a very wide river and navigable for some distance from the coast. I don't recall how far inland it starts to get tricky but it's less far inland than the rubber was

[@LordMangudai]

​@@r.c.morgenstern9405 It's the bit close to the coast that's tricky, between what is today Kinshasa/Brazzaville and the rivermouth. There are some massive rapids there, the largest in the world by flow volume. Upriver from Kinshasa, through the rainforest, is the navigable part. So the rail lines were between Kinshasa and the sea.

[@Erreul]

52:29 If I had to guess no one was watching the engines, and you don't want to leave the engines alone, if you just let an steam engine cook without letting off the pressure you do run a serious risk of just straight up exploding it. I googled it, and it had two engines that they stuck turbines on, meaning they probably still didn't add any off flow or anything, and they left it alone for hours after it got torpedoed because the crew just straight up left. I'd assume that's what that was.

[@anjoliebarrios8906]

1:35 I know how frustrating it is to refill meds, bc my ADD drug is a Class 2 the war on drugs decided my mom doesn't _really_ need to call until I have 2-3 pills left. Extra fun bc ADD skews your perception of time and makes you forget important things, like how many pills you have left. Doing that sht with a more debilitating illness like demensia is prolly a special kind of hell I wouldn't wish on anybody.

[@redleaderantilles1263]

Glad Alice mentioned Casement's heroics in the Rising. He was buddies with Doyle and a bunch of other famous people who all acted shocked and insulted when he, big shocker, opposed imperialism when it was done to his own people as well. The Brits somehow thought he just exposed this stuff cause he disliked people being pillaged by someone other than the English, and not cause he deeply empathized with the oppressed of the world due to his own circumstances as an Irishman. Casement was a true hero, and to go to the Sorkin point, he proved why that "godamn news solves all problems" shit sucks when he got involved and smuggled arms to Banna Strand Also Banna Strand ballad to this Irish martyr kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4uZgnmmfbNgqMk salutes to a real one who fought for the oppressed of all continents. One of the priests who last saw him said this upon his execution "a saint ... we should be praying to him instead of for him"

[@LordMangudai]

When Casement came up my first thought was "I wonder if it's the same guy the train station in Tralee is named after?" I vaguely knew he was an Irish revolutionary but didn't realize his involvement with the Congo at all.

[@vandama0mossadegh]

@14:00 when Rhodesia is arguably not the most horribly racist thing on the map, you're in some deep, deep trouble

[@justtheworst.6795]

I heard y'all saying it's a Christmas podcast, and I was like, "that's weird, Christmas isn't for awhile right?" And then I looked at the date on my computer and just went "fuuuuuuuck, there's only two weeks until 2022, god dammit"

[@MrTaxiRob]

did you forget to get me a gift AGAIN?

[@creampop8553]

Kek, it's just over a week here.

[@justtheworst.6795]

@@MrTaxiRob to be fair, I work on Christmas, and my next paycheck in Christmas Eve, so time is kinda spiralin' in over here, do you mind if your gift's a bit belated?

[@MrTaxiRob]

@@justtheworst.6795 it's okay I'm used to it.

[@kimmatzen6504]

I'm just about to watch this. Can anyone confirm when the other four parts of this podcast will release? An hours seems a bit light.

[@xmlthegreat]

I know right, this is becoming a real problem. We're faced with a WTYP deficit. And we were doing so well right up until the Titanic episodes...

[@cybernaile]

Hey Roz, here's your reminder to do the Andrea Doria soon. You told me to remind you.

[@chillzedd8179]

Hell yeah another boat episode!

[@frank6842]

Literally my first thought!

[@ryans4877]

The sea fucking terrifies me, I’m thrilled

[@Phoenix_emperor76]

yay another ship episode and they just shet on my country so hard

[@Trendyflute]

Ironically, podcasts about sinking ships really floats my boat.

[@MrTaxiRob]

i got a sinking feeling that a lot of people were gonna die in this story

[@baum8981]

As far as I understand, there are numerous sections of the Kongo river, which are just giant rapids which are not navigable to this day

[@DeHeld8]

Flemish and Dutch aren't really seperate languages. Flemish is considered a group of dialects of the Dutch language. Note that this does not mean that these dialects are intelligable to speakers of other dialects of Dutch. But in general, speakers of any of the flemish dialects do understand and can converse in the standard dialect of Dutch. Oh, and the Dutch for "Abandon ship!" is "Verlaat 't schip!"

[@Frahamen]

"Flemish" and Dutch share the same standard language with some minor local variation. These days most dialects are hollowed out enough that only old rural people speak uninteligable enough to create more than minor linguistic confusion.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

I should add there is no meaningful distinction between a dialect and a closely related language. It's arbitrary.

[@ukaszgolon5617]

The fun thing about Dutch is that "sch" is pronounced not as a single sound, but as separate sounds "s" and "h," so "het schip" sounds kinda like "hats - hip" in English. During ww2 Dutch resistance used this fact to uncover German spies.

[@DeHeld8]

@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes True, true. Though since Belgium, Suriname and the Netherlands are all participating in the Dutch language Union, and at least the standard dialects of all these regions are mutually intelligable, it's pretty safe to say that Flemish is a dialect of Dutch. Also, all the language authorities of the Flemish region say it is so. (very legalistic, I know) But yes, where does one language end, and the other begin? We have but to look at the dialect continuum of the low Saxon dialects to see that one cannot draw a distinct line of where Dutch ends, and German begins.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

@@DeHeld8 I'm sure you can imagine I don't particularly care for the jurisdiction of linguistic organizations, but yes, it's generally considered a dialect of Dutch by just about everyone. I'm just saying there isn't an actual deterministic reason to make that judgement vs other relationships like Serbo-Croatian, which is considered like 4 languages by the countries that speak it despite being more or less 100% mutually intelligible. All very arbitrary.

[@themroc8231]

Pinochet's wife also died during Boric's election in Chile. So even if Boric turns out to be a disappointment I say he gets at least partial credit for that one.

[@GodelsLaw]

It sure seems like this whole industrial warfare thing leads to a whole lot of engineering mix-ups

[@SyntheticParanoia]

47:00 Alice's gamer dissection of the situation had me in stitches 🤣

[@syl6803]

if you ever get around to doing JAL 123 they did a similar thing, where they just assumed there were no survivors and waited until morning to start recovery, so a lot of people survived the crash but died of exposure

[@Panthera_Leo_]

Why have I never heard of this Ghost of Leopold book before? Just reading the summary and hearing a small snippet of the audiobook makes me more than a little mad, not at the book but at it's subject and the stupids who didn't tell me about it earlier. "An atrocity on the scale of the holocaust" and I'm only just now hearing about it? On this podcast of all things? Not to throw shade or anything at you guys, but fucking hell what's the point of public education if this kind of thing is left out?

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Have to say they fucked up the timeline a bit in their explanation. Leopold had been planning taking over the Congo River Basin since 1876. That's when he started his "humanitarian fundraising organization" supposedly to combat Tippu Tip's slave raiding in the Great Lakes region. Both Henry Morton Stanley working for Leopold and Pierre Savognan de Brazza working for France (namesake of Brazzaville which was founded in 1883) were making treaties with local leaders and establishing control over territory in 1882, specifically described as a "race". This race in expansion in the Congo River Basin between France and Leopold is what caused the Berlin Conference to be arranged in 1884 in the first place. It wasn't just Leopold randomly barging into the conference and smooth-talking. Pre-existing claims were given priority in the conference. In this sense: Leopold II was more or less a major cause of the so-called "Scramble for Africa" to begin with.

[@jaysea5939]

Yay Liam, Yay Alice, Yay Roz!

[@szurketaltos2693]

The Congo river is navigable... Until you get past Matadi, then the rapids are extremely dangerous.

[@timpauwels3734]

As a Belgian, I can assure you all that that the video of the old man parking in the tiny garage sums up just about everything there is to not understand about this country, that is in itself a continuous disaster.

[@gingganggoolie]

It was looking like a pretty rough christmas this year, but thankfully wtyp is here to remind me it can always be worse

[@kalidwapur]

I have two suggestions for you guys. One boat related: the Africa a transport ship that sunk off the coast of France in 1920 killing 200+ that the company tried to cover up. And a mining related one: Courrières. The second deadliest mine explosion and fire in history killing 1099 officially in large part due to negligence.

[@thomaspalazzolo5902]

The clinking of ice in a glass is a legitimately pleasing background sound.

[@ClaudiaNW]

Especially when it signifies that someone is about to serve me a drink

[@emilyadams3228]

Very 1959 (in a good way).

[@drewsauveterre8867]

Congrats, Liam on your actionable% world record.

[@Tepid24]

Small addendum for the sidelining of the Kriegsmarine surface ships in favour of the submarines: The internal split was to some degree oriented around Adm. Raeder and Adm. Dönitz. Raeder was head of the KM until late 1943, when he was replaced by Dönitz. In a nutshell, Raeder was the surface guy, Dönitz was the sub guy. The decision to replace him with Dönitz (and to scrap the surface navy; this was later retracted when *Dönitz* had to convince Hitler that having a surface navy is kinda important) was in large part also caused by the successive failures of the surface navy. Not the biggest example of this, but the final nail in the coffin was the Battle of the Barents Sea, which was the direct initiator for Hitler making the decisions that he made. So it's not just this weird thirst for internal rivalry that caused the focus on submarines, it's also the slow onset of a realization that starting a naval war with the UK and her allies maybe isn't such a good idea. Edit: Additional addendum on why it was declassified so late: I'm willing to bet good money that they forgot about it until Bondage Jim's grandkid came knocking to make a collage of his venerable ancestor's experiences in the Greater War™and someone was like "huh, I've never known this shelf existed back here and I've worked here for 25 years". At least that's the hunch I'm getting from everything I know about archives and declassification.

[@AlRoderick]

We are the three ghosts of Christmas, our pronouns are was, are, and will be.

[@timmylean]

My Belgium Story: While on a study abroad, I took a train from Utrecht to Ypres. In Brussels we switched to a train that had wooden bench seats in the coaches and then, not far from Ypres, an announcement was made in French and Flemish, no clue what it meant, except I later found out it meant that the train was splitting and one half was going to Ypres and the other half (the one I was on) was going to Nieuwport. Other than that, the trip was cool, saw lots of World War I stuff, and was amazed that instead of restaurants giving out free bread with meals, it was free french fries with mayonnaise.

[@NoMoreCrumbs]

You guys should do an episode on the mark 14 and 15 torpedoes the US used in WW2 and beyond. They had 4 different problems when they were deployed: the contact detonator didn't work, the magnetic detonator would go off in the middle of target routes, the depth they ran at was 3 and half meters deeper than advertised, and sometimes they wouldn't straighten out which resulted in several ships sinking themselves with the torps. I think you'd all have a lot of fun with this

[@welltheresyourproblempodca1465]

See the lions led by donkeys episode about same

[@mkepioneet]

9:21 sorry if you get this all the time but a WTYP episode with Eden Medina on Project Cybersyn and Allende's Chile. Hell I've done enough research on it myself where I can help too!

[@MrTaxiRob]

holy crap that sounds amazing, I didn't know Allende was that far ahead of the IT curve

[@AVERYLongtimeago5]

Love the podcast and esp the no-bs request for compensation for your labor to put together these well-researched eps! Signed up for the $2 thing because I can actually afford that woo

[@masonturner0]

WTYP: a podcast about boats with slides

[@ssgtmole8610]

I just want to say that the timing of the Patreon commercial in this episode had me rolling on the floor. You just explained how long the troops waited at the dock, then how long they took to embark. "They set sail at 9AM..." I'm just listening to the audio at this point when the elevator music of the Patreon request comes on. 🤣 I flashback to a modern movie with that particular music in a very boring scene in a comedy played for comedic effect... Having several Space-Available Military Airlift Command journeys under my belt during my 5 years of Air Force active duty, I was reflecting on the 8+ hour flight on a Marine C-130 from Anchorage, Alaska to San Diego, California. Fortunately, I did not suffer the fate of these poor, mostly drafted, american plains corn farmers. I didn't have any turkey either, but at least this was back when you could still choose between the greasy boiled chicken, and ham sandwiches in the box-nasties for your in-flight meal.

[@Trendyflute]

26:30 in college we had a couple computer labs with ~50 Pentium D workstations, the D was the dual core version of the P4 and they just gobbled wattage and threw out massive heat. My college was in a mild enough climate that many rooms didn't have A/C, including those computer labs, and they didn't heat well either. You loved to have a class in those labs in the winter quarter because the computers made it comfortable but it was misery in the warmer parts of the year when those labs were just ovens. Thanks mid 2000s Intel!

[@MrTaxiRob]

wasn't D the 32 bit chip that they sold along side the first Core Duos?

[@Trendyflute]

@@MrTaxiRob My memory was that the Core Duo was the much, much, much better replacement to the D and the D was P4-based but it was a long time ago and I was an AMD guy by that point anyway so I can't say with complete certainty!

[@ajbianchi85]

Happy holidays Wtypp! Thanks for all the incredible content dug up from the podcast mines.

[@drewdederer8965]

Probably censored for similar reasons to "Exercise Tiger" (ships torpedoed during D-Day rehearsal). In both cases you have Royal Navy escort of American troops. May have initially been censored to keep from causing incidents between the allies. BUT because of this, it might require both sides to agree to declassify, and this didn't come up very often. BTW, most new divisions were sent to Brittany, the Panthers were probably sent to allow a unit there to be shifted to the front. The Brittany ports were kept under siege but not assaulted (except for Brest which was taken during the initial rush in after operation Cobra (the breakout from Normandy)). The original plan was to use them to supply the American forces, but that was given up when the German defenses collapsed (it was too far to the new front lines and the French railroads had been bombed to pieces). So supplies kept coming through Cherbourg, until Antwerp was opened, and from Marseilles (where the railroads were in better shape since we hadn't bombed Vichy France). The Brittany Ports were surrounded by newly raised French forces and new units were rotated through them so they could learn about patrolling, fortifications etc. In a reasonably "safe" place. The U-Boats evacuated fairly soon, mostly to Norway, about half didn't make it. BTW transiting under Snorkel was not popular with German Crews. There was a valve which shut when a wave washed over the pipe, which would pop the ears of the whole sub crew, and it shut fairly frequently. Plus, you could only make about 5 knots underwater, which meant it took forever to get anywhere. And, aircraft could still spot you and you'd never know it. By 45' being a u-boat crew was pretty much a suicide mission (this is where the 75% loss rate really kicked in. In fact, the loss rate for U-boats exceeded that for Kamikaze squadrons (who had some chance of being held back for the home island invasion, and thus surviving the war).

[@davidwright7193]

The sinking of the Cunard Liner SS Lancastria was also classified and that was a British ship bombed at anchor while evacuating British forces from St Nazire after the fall of France in 1940. So the secrecy was just standard practice. The last witchcraft trial in the UK was of a medium who breached a D-notice by including the loss of HMS Barham in her act and was prosecuted for fraudulently claiming to talk to he dead.

[@aickavon]

just watched the entire episode. I am also lying but Happy to see another episode.

[@juanjuri6127]

never thought i'd run into chiletalk in my favorite podcast (with slides). we're all happy that El Boris won, though I wish that massive turnout had also showed up for the parliamentary elections, since the current composition in congress will require making in-roads with the establishment center-left in order to get anything passed. still, happy to kick pinochetism's ass, happier to see Franco Parisi eat shit, happiest for APRUEBO, APRUEBO, APRUEBO DIGNIDAD, QUEREMOS TODO GRATIS Y TODO HOMOSEXUAL also project cybersyn episode when

[@ifrichardnixonwasgoodatfoo1470]

The guy from the Safety Third story definitely works for the Federal Bureau of Control given the amount of times he says “the threshold”

[@ewanhogg3068]

And yet again, we must ask and answer the greatest question of all... WHY BOAT NO FLOAT?!

[@benoitbvg2888]

Archimedes : haha water go ploooosh

[@tomhsia4354]

I must stress the fact that it's not typical for boats to no float.

[@phathumdeep]

And this ends Well There's Your Problem's non-denominational holiday fun fest. So have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, a Krazy Kwanzaa, a Tip Top Tet, and a solemn, reverential Ramadan.

[@Kinzokugia]

"I wish they'd stop calling me that, I learned these knots in Cub scouts." - Bondage Jim

[@eleSDSU]

Happy holidays WTYP! thanks for another awesome episode and Justin, 7:37 we could use Lucia Hiriart for redundancy.

[@sweetpepino1907]

Wow how refreshing, usually the goddamn news is the bad sad stuff and the podcast is a welcome break from it. Now this week the podcast is the bad sad stuff and the goddamn news is GOOD stuff.

[@HamburgerTime209]

Oh man, I can’t believe this is the first troopship sinking you guys have done. That’s a fertile subject for episodes, that. Well and refugee ships. … and prisoner ships.

[@theryanbard]

Nothing gets me in the holiday spirit like a festive maritime disaster

[@colonelgraff9198]

Festivus

[@RedHotMessResell]

I’ve been binging these, waiting for someone to finally mention the Safety Third podcast… which I actually really enjoy as well. 😂

[@TheMrVengeance]

The guy parking his car in the very small garage IS in fact Belgian, and as such speaks Flemish.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

Another rousing episode of Well There's Your Bowel Movement.

[@tomhsia4354]

Yay Liam!

[@Krul6]

The video Roz is talking about at 23:30 is in Flemish, not in Dutch.

[@Baudelier42]

Speaking of submarines, it would be awesome if you covered the USS Barb. An American Gato class sub that among it's many feats is credited as the only submarine to sink a train

[@darthbob88]

Or the Thresher (SSN-593), including how many people got amnesty discharges for drug offenses. I can probably talk my dad into providing subject matter expertise and contemporary vibes, since he was on the other USS Barb (SSN-596) during the 70s.

[@Weird_Ice_Cream]

A one hour boat episode (scoffs) but have you lived through their 4 hour titanic episode 👍🏼

[@iciajay6891]

I have watched that ep a few times XD

[@frank6842]

You mean 7 hour?

[@frank6842]

And yes it's great lol

[@Kirisame312]

Merry Saturnalia, folks

[@rogerledgister7913]

From what I've heard the labor conditions at Walgreens is part of why the people that work there are miserable. Anyone who can goes to work at, of all places, Walmart.

[@chaseman113]

Okay so freaking hell thought I was drinking crazy sauce when suddenly Spotify forgot WTYP existed. Anyway turns out PodBay loads quicker for me.

[@GracefulStars]

had to rewind a few times and make sure i didn't miss anything when the ep opened on the intros and not some variation of "oh, are we recording?"

[@EBDavis111]

I'm going to guess that the reason it took so long to declassify is that basically nobody cared. It got classified first because some people were embarrassed. Then later nobody found a reason to declassify. The parents of the boys figured out that their sons died when their ship sunk, almost certainly from a U-boat. Just, as suggested, based on the timing. Furthermore, the culture of secrecy that Alice brought up wasn't just for the government. That generation never ever talked about the war. None of them would have ever petitioned the government to find out what happened to their boys. What's more, the people in the government who chose to declassify things, they come up with reasons to declassify, not reasons to not declassify. So some wonk working in the pentagon in the mid sixties or whatever is going to come across this file and say, "a ship sunk? From a U-boat? That happened all the time. Why was this even classified in the first place?" And then they never passed it on to anybody who thought maybe it shouldn't stay classified.

[@rebeccabortolin4986]

Please do one on the Andrea Doria - my great grandparents were on it and both survived...with a few broken bones that is.

[@DWOBoyleMusic]

This one was actually extremely sad. Like fuck the military, but these poor teens who got drafted...

[@Wafflepudding]

Yesss new WTYP episode! Just hook it up to my veins!

[@SyntheticParanoia]

Yes WTYP! Christmas came early for me :)

[@cpt_nordbart]

I was successful last year in avoiding Christmas Parties. I got covid and had to stay in bed during the holidays. Fun times

[@deptofcarstereorepair]

The lesser known Jimmy Buffett song

[@napalmholocaust9093]

Happy Zombie Day Everybody. I have my totally related Italian pooping good luck statue at the ready and you should too.

[@whackedoutpoobrain]

Is that related to the Catalonian caganer?

[@trevorcorey7910]

Drunk, in a Santa hat, yelling over the railing of my boat to a soldier in the water desperately fighting off hypothermia as he’s seconds from death: Hey… hey… cold enough out there for ya?

[@GretchenDawntreader]

Liberty Ships, I think that's what was moored in Cape Cod Bay near Orleans so air force trainees could practice bombing runs at it. Over time it was riddled with holes (they weren't explosives I think but still were firing projectiles) and quite rusty. As a kid (I'm 58) you could sail out and around it and it was quite a hulk sitting there in shallow bay waters, still there but no longer in use as a target. Today I don't think much of anything visible from shore is left of what we all called the Target Ship. (the SS James Longstreet.)

[@mathewkelly9968]

51:42 securing the tow ropes is easy as ...... if you know what you're doing . As a commercial fisherman it's beyond me why you'd release the crew when there's a bunch of clueless lubbers aboard is beyond me . I know I watch green crew like a hawk .

[@MrTaxiRob]

because there weren't enough lifeboats for 2000 troops