Milsurp After Hours

Christmas day 1914.

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Now here is another view of what happened at the front on Christmas day. And... considering the Christmas story previously reported was printed on Christmas Day.. in Seattle... how did the news get to the US so fast? Now this story is the day after Christmas and taken from official war dispatches. And the truth? Probably something between the two with more weight given the still killing each other side.

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"Extra precautions to be sure no explosives were taken aboard". Some months later it goes down to torpedoes and brings the US into the war....and was probably carrying a load of war material at the time.

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Happy New Year ....not so happy for one British battleship to start the new year in the news in 1915.

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Slightly different detail in today's diary entry.............. torpedoed by U24, 200 survivors.

233 survivors out of a crew of 780, so 547 lost.

But here's a bit of trivia about the sinking of HMS Formidable that I bet you didn't know..........

Lassie...

According to writer Nigel Clarke in the Shipwreck Guide to Dorset and South Devon, the original "Lassie" who inspired so many films and television episodes was a rough-haired crossbreed who saved the life of a sailor during World War I.

Half collie, Lassie was owned by the landlord of the Pilot Boat, a pub in the port of Lyme Regis. On New Year’s Day in 1915 the Royal Navy battleship Formidable was torpedoed by a German submarine off Start Point in South Devon, with the loss of more than 500 men. In a storm that followed the accident, a life raft containing bodies was blown along the coast to Lyme Regis. In helping to deal with the crisis, the local pub in Lyme Regis, called the Pilot Boat, offered its cellar as a mortuary.

When the bodies had been laid out on the stone floor, Lassie, a crossbred collie owned by the pub owner, found her way down amongst the bodies, and she began to lick the face of one of the victims, Able Seaman John Cowan. She stayed beside him for more than half an hour, nuzzling him and keeping him warm with her fur. To everyone’s astonishment, Cowan eventually stirred. He was taken to hospital and went on to make a full recovery. He visited Lassie again when he returned to thank all who saved his life.

The sinking of the ship was a severe blow to Britain during these early years of the war. When the officers heard the story of Lassie and what she did to rescue Cowan, they told it again and again to any reporter who would listen as it was inspirational and heart-warming. Hollywood got hold of the story, and so a star was born.

Good job Vern

Meanwhile...1915. America being neutral........ so President Wilson says anyway. First ship the guns to Vancouver B.C. No taking sides here.

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German planes bomb England. People relieved it was not a bombing by Zeppelin.

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