Quotulatiousness

March 29, 2019

QotD: The subtle power of cultural norms

Filed under: History, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I am a cross-cultural being. As such, I am weirdly aware of the various … gradations … of what is culture, what is biological and what is probably reinforced in biology by culture over the centuries.

Say you’re a woman in a country that puts women to death for being lippy. Most indications would be that lippy women would get weeded out of the culture. Except things are more complicated than that, when it comes to human tendencies and inclinations. I.e. “It’s not that simple.” You could be a stubborn woman but know when to confine it to where it’s safe: say bullying your close relatives, particularly the female ones. Or long-term-preference lippiness: zipping it until you’re the mother-in-law and have a couple or more daughters-in-law to be lippy to in safety. The fact is if it were a single trait and immediately lethal, then there wouldn’t be women who talk back to judges and get killed for it, even now, after 14 centuries of selecting for meek. BUT the fact is also that if you go to one of those countries, you see women putting up with things they never would in America. Even “Strong” and “spirited” women. Because culture is like that. Culture sets parameters to what is even thinkable for each individual. And then you express yourself within those patterns. Sure you can go outside the parameters. I did. But even I only went slightly outside the patterns. I think. Well, however much I went outside was enough to make most people really uncomfortable around me. And unless you’re planning to pack and leave, this is not a long-term survival strategy.

Sarah Hoyt, “Cross-Culture”, According to Hoyt, 2017-03-23.

March 28, 2019

Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic, part 2 by Alex Funk

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Editor’s Note: This series was originally published by Alex Funk on the TimeGhostArmy forums (original URL – https://community.timeghost.tv/t/canada-and-the-battle-of-the-atlantic-part-1-edited/1433).

Sources:

  • The Far Distant Ships, Joseph Schull, ISBN 10 0773721606 (An official operational account published in 1950, somewhat sensationalist)
    [Schull’s book was published in part because the funding for the official history team had been cut and they did not feel that the RCN’s contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic should have no official recognition. It is very much an artifact of its era, and needs to be read that way. A more balanced (and weighty) history didn’t appear until the publication of No Higher Purpose and A Blue Water Navy in 2002, parts 1 and 2 of the Official Operational History of the RCN in WW2, covering 1939-1943 and 1943-1945, respectively.]
  • North Atlantic Run: the Royal Canadian Navy and the battle for the convoys, Marc Milner, ISBN 10 0802025447 (Written in an attempt to give a more strategic view of Canada’s contribution than Schull’s work, published 1985)
  • Reader’s Digest: The Canadians At War: Volumes 1 & 2 ISBN 10 0888501617 (A compilation of articles ranging from personal stories to overviews of Canadian involvement in a particular campaign. Contains excerpts from a number of more obscure Canadian books written after the war, published 1969)
  • All photos used exist in the Public Domain and are from the National Archives of Canada, unless otherwise noted in the caption.

I have inserted occasional comments in [square brackets] and links to other sources that do not appear in the original posts. A few minor edits have also been made for clarity.

Part 2 — The Admiralty takes control

On August 26, just a few days before the official outbreak of war, a single word Admiralty telegram was received in Ottawa from London: FUNNEL. With that message all British merchant vessels passed under Admiralty control. The same transfer took place in Canada on the same day. No Canadian-registered ship, no merchant ship in any Canadian port could sail without the authority of the Royal Canadian Navy. Naval control officers faced an enormous task. All British merchant vessels in North American waters would have to be gathered in from the wide face of the sea, assembled, bunkered, stored, provided with codes and orders. Vessels of every type would have to be formed into orderly fleets, sailed at precise times and by specified routes with the precision of a crack railway, all in absolute secrecy. Halifax stirred once again with the grim vitality of a key port in a world at war. Ships put in, their schedules interrupted, their captains angry, demanding explanations they didn’t get. Painting parties descended to defile clean white ships with the drab gray of military vessels. Old naval guns were mounted on merchantmen and a few ships were issued machine guns.

[Editor’s Note: Unlike the Royal Navy’s comparatively vast administrative resources for organizing convoys, the RCN had to draw heavily upon a small number of retired RN and RCN officers living in Canada and the United States to gather enough officials to establish convoy control in Canadian ports (the same pool would also be used to recruit convoy commodores). It’s difficult for modern readers, used to networked computers with online databases, to realize just how much literal paperwork had to be created and maintained from scratch to even begin organizing the convoy system from North America to the UK: that it was done at all is amazing. That it was done about as well as could be hoped is incredible.]


Ratings mustered along the starboard side of HMCS Assiniboine at sea, ca. September 1940.
Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-104105

On August 31st HMCS Fraser and St. Laurent were re-deployed to the east coast from the west coast.

On September 16th, six days after Canada declared war, the destroyers St. Laurent and Saguenay moved out through the Halifax approaches. Following behind were the 18 merchant ships of convoy HX-1, Halifax to the UK. Awaiting them offshore were the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Berwick and HMS York. The crossing was uneventful, but these 18 were the first of a grand total of 25,343 merchant vessels that would sail from North America under Canadian escort.

To briefly discuss the convoy system itself, it’s fairly simple: merchant vessels sail in organized groups rather than on their own and are provided some form of naval escort to protect them from hostile vessels. Even lightly guarded convoys are immensely preferable to ships sailing on their own, reducing the width of the target area and forcing any potential attacker to weigh the risk of counter-attack by the escorts. [Editor’s Note: It may seem odd to landlubbers like most of us, but even a large convoy is not much easier to find than a single ship in the wide ocean. Fewer discrete targets requires more search time by enemy submarines and surface raiders.] The speedier the convoy, the better, but the limited speed of many of the merchant ships necessitated a system of fast and slow convoys with different starting points in the Americas, and different codes for identification. The merchant vessels are described by Alan Easton, captain of the corvette HMCS Baddeck in 50 North: Canada’s Atlantic Battleground [Easton’s book is factual in most ways except for the dialogue and some of the names being changed]:

We sailed to Sydney, Nova Scotia. There we spent the night, topped up with fuel and stood out of the harbour early the next morning, where we were to await the convoy we had been instructed to escort. Many ships were lying at anchor that morning in the fine, land-locked harbour, ships of numerous different Allied and neutral nations, for this was the assembly port for the eastbound slow Atlantic convoys in those days. As we moved back and forth off the harbour mouth, I fell to examining the ships as they came out, one behind the other at intervals of three or four minutes, led by the Commodore’s ship. It was always intensely interesting to me to gaze at the ships. The more weatherbeaten and decrepit the ship, the more attractive she was to me; she had a story to tell and I could sometimes discern a part of it by just looking. The newest might have been ten years old, the oldest perhaps forty or fifty. Some were built of iron — the inch-thick plating of the 1880s, before the days of steel. They were large and small, from about nine hundred tons to nine thousand. You could tell almost at a glance their nationality, or the country in which they were built, by the shape of their hulls and the construction of their upperworks. But as they came out they flew their ensigns, soon to be hauled down, so that you could not mistake their identity. They were all heavily laden, few that were not down to their Plimsoll marks and some with little freeboard, perhaps four feet between the water and the well deck.

The first ship moved slowly, marking time as it were, to allow the others to take their stations, so that the whole could form into three columns. Soon after noon, the Commodore seemed to be satisfied that all were in their correct places for he ran up a flag hoist indicating that the speed of the convoy was to be seven knots. When every ship had signified that she understood his signal, the Commodore hauled his flags down and the engines of this heterogeneous collection of vessels simultaneously moved faster, although to the onlooker there was no perceptible change in speed.

The fast/slow system was implemented fairly early on, and by August 1940 slow convoys were more often being formed in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the faster convoys in Halifax. By 1941, fast convoys left every six days and made the crossing in around 13 to 14 days. Slow convoys left every six days as well, but took 16 to 17 days to cross. The size of the convoys varied. The largest convoy to ever make the crossing was HXS-300 consisting of 167 ships, but a good benchmark was 40 or so merchant vessels. These ships are positioned in a grid with nine columns, 920 metres apart, and in each column five ships, 550 metres apart. Ships carrying dangerous cargoes, such as gas, fuel, or explosives are placed in the centre, the position that affords the most protection against enemy torpedoes. The convoy commodore, in most cases a retired naval officer, is on board one of the merchant ships to take defensive measures as required and ensure coordination with the escort.

[Editor’s Note: An image from Swansea Docks showing the schematic arrangement of slow convoy ONS-154 returning to Halifax later in the war:]

Convoy ONS-154 in December, 1942. The numbers indicate the column and row designations for each merchant ship in the convoy.
Image by Ron Tovey, Swansea Docks – click the image to visit his site.

The following system of codes was used for identification of trans-Atlantic convoys:

    HX: Fast convoys (9 knots or over) sailing from Halifax (or later New York)
    SC: Slow convoys (under 9 knots) sailing from Sydney, Halifax, or New York
    ON: westbound convoys sailing from Great Britain to North America
    ONS: slow westbound convoys sailing from Great Britain to North America

The following system of call letters was used for identification of coastal convoys:

    BX: Boston to Halifax
    XB: Halifax to Boston
    SQ: Sydney to Quebec City (via the St. Lawrence River)
    QS: Quebec to Sydney

Convoy forming in Bedford Basin, 1 April, 1942
Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-112993

There was much debate among Canadian politicians as to the role Canada would play in the war in general. In the first few weeks, much debate was had as to which services would receive what money, and how they would be integrated into the allied war effort. Prime Minister Mackenzie King had somewhat sold the war to the nation as being different from the last war [Editor’s Note: where Canada provided an over-strength army corps for the Western Front, suffering nearly 60,000 combat deaths, slightly more than the US combat losses in that war]. Finance Minister J. L. Ralston publicly envisaged a program that would be “practical rather than spectacular”. The Prime Minister spoke of protecting Canada by sending food and raw materials to Britain and building a navy and air force and munitions industry, even the first musings of what would become the BCATP [British Commonwealth Air Training Plan] (though these early plans paled in comparison to what it would eventually become.) Canada would contribute vast amounts of resources to the allied cause, but there was not going to be a need for a large land army to fight and die in Europe. The army was just as short of equipment as the navy was and the air force consisted of 3100 men and 270 mostly obsolete aircraft, with just 19 modern Hurricanes. The old issue of conscription that had led to riots in Montreal in 1917 immediately reappeared, and an important provincial election in Quebec had been called within two weeks of the declaration of war in almost direct response to it. [Editor’s Note: The risk of another conscription crisis haunted the Canadian government from the very start of the war: English Canada was heavily in favour, but Quebec was just as opposed, and the ruling Liberal Party couldn’t risk losing their support in Quebec.] What soldiers Canada did have departed Halifax as part of convoy TC-1 in early December, and by the end of the month Canada had 15,000 men in England (the 1st Canadian Infantry Division).

It is the opinion of my sources that the idea of a limited war were extremely favorable to the navy and air force in the early months. Canadian naval vessels and aircraft fighting alongside the United Kingdom was seen as an appropriate contribution, whilst at the same time, seen as far less costly in terms of lives than a large expeditionary army, which Mackenzie King was steadfastly opposed to (fear of conscription crisis was ever present). Canada’s merchant fleet was at Britain’s disposal without question, combined with the vast natural resources she could provide, quite nicely rounded out the “limited war” concept. Industrial military capacity was small, almost non-existent, and building ships, aircraft and munitions would help it grow.

Focusing specifically on the navy itself, what few ships it had were immediately deployed on patrols and put to work escorting coastal convoys within coastal waters, and trans-Atlantic convoys to a handover point mid-voyage. The reserves were activated and sent to the coasts. In November all the Canadian destroyers were placed under the command of the Royal Navy’s North America and West Indies station (somewhat to the Government’s dismay, although not the navy’s: most RCN officers had close peacetime ties to the British squadron and felt it was the natural choice. They had actually requested this at the start of the war and had been refused by the government, who wanted the RCN’s ships kept close to home.) This placement also had the benefit of assuring the RCN that they would participate in the types of operations they had trained for; fleet work, or sweeps for surface raiders. October 1939 saw the purchase of a another destroyer, re-named HMCS Assiniboine in Canadian service. These seven River-class destroyers would form the backbone of the navy well into 1943. A modest attempt had been made in 1938 to give Canadian yards some experience building warships with a minesweeper program. Despite the dispersal of the contracts to both Atlantic and Pacific yards for four Fundy-class minesweepers, the Canadian shipbuilding industry was unprepared for the demands wartime was to make of it.

Undated photograph of RCN minesweeper HMCS Fundy (J88).
Canadian Navy Heritage website. Image Negative Number NP-1404 via Wikimedia Commons.

In North Atlantic Run, Marc Milner discusses the Ottawa front of the RCN’s early wartime struggles:

In the government the navy actually had a friend, as it discovered when planners began to submit estimates for expansion. As the late Admiral L.W. Murray, RCN (in September 1939, the Director of Operations and Training) recalled, the navy was given a carte blanche to plan its growth over the succeeding four or five years. When in February 1940 Murray and the deputy minister presented the first wartime naval estimates before the Finance Committee of the cabinet, they passed despite a “fine-tooth comb” inspection. The fact was that the navy’s expansion and its attendant shipbuilding programs suited the government’s intention to profit from what was seen as a limited European war. The prime minister, W.L. Mackenzie King, was steadfastly opposed to fielding yet another large army in Europe, which might lead to high casualties and a call for conscription. Rather, his government sought to channel Canada’s war effort into the sinews of war and into much less personnel-intensive services such as the air force and the navy. Both of these services also offered excellent opportunities for the development of Canadian industry.

The link between industrial and naval expansion also went deeper than simply the building of ships. In July 1940, the expansion of the navy was given impetus by the appointment of a separate minister of Defence for the Naval Service. King chose Angus L. Macdonald, former premier of Nova Scotia. Although once rather uncharitably described as “lightweight”, Macdonald was extremely popular in his home province and a strong voice for Nova Scotia in Ottawa. Macdonald and two other prominent Nova Scotians, Colonel J.L. Ralston, the Minister of Defence, and J.L. Ilsley, the Minister of National Revenue, formed the right wing of King’s cabinet — what J.W. Dafoe called the “Tory Imperialists”. All supported a full war effort, a position that led in 1944 to a bitter break between King and the two defence ministers over the issue of conscription. But apart from Macdonald’s desire to see Canada fully represented at the front, he shared many of King’s beliefs, including the notion that the preservation of the free world depended upon the retention of power in Canada by the Liberal Party.

Macdonald also believed that Canada could and should progress industrially from the war. Long a crusader for the re-industrialization of Nova Scotia, he saw an opportunity to funnel some of government investment into his own province. There was, moreover, a direct link between industrial growth and a large navy. “What use could it be to increase our agricultural production … or to put forth the magnificent industrial effort that we have,” Macdonald asked in 1945, “unless this food and these munitions could be got safely across the sea?” Although in the end he failed to restore to Nova Scotia its past lustre, this was precisely the rationale used to justify building destroyers in Halifax during the war. In the most fundamental sense, then, the aspirations of the [full-time, professional] navy and the government coincided.

I BROKE My First Bowl! | Turning Tuesday 10

Filed under: Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Matt Estlea
Published on 27 Mar 2019

In this episode, I attempt to make a bowl using a ropey offcut of Elm. This was given to me as a challenge by the guys at MAC Timbers while I was at the Midlands Woodworking Show in Newark.

Visit their website here: http://www.mactimbers.com/
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Support what I do by becoming a Patron! This will help fund new tools, equipment and cover my overheads. Meaning I can continue to bring you regular, high quality, free content. Thank you so much for your support! https://www.patreon.com/mattestlea
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See what tools I use here: https://kit.com/MattEstlea
My Website: http://www.mattestlea.com
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My name is Matt Estlea, I’m a 23 year old Woodworker from Basingstoke in England and my aim is to make your woodworking less s***.

I come from 5 years tuition at Rycotewood Furniture Centre and 4 years experience working at Axminster Tools and Machinery where I still currently work on weekends. During the week, I film woodworking projects, tutorials, reviews and a viewer favourite ‘Tool Duel’ where I compare two competitive manufacturers tools against one another to find out which is best.

I like to have a laugh and my videos are quite fast paced BUT you will learn a lot, I assure you.

Lets go make a mess.

From the comments:

Matt Estlea
5 hours ago (edited)
Completely forgot to post this yesterday 😂 Technically still Tuesday in Alaska and the Pacific….

Edit* Also I apologise for lack of uploads this week. The Midlands Woodworking Show messed with the schedule :)

Parker Hale M85: Traditional Sniper in a Modern World

Filed under: Britain, Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 27 Feb 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

The 1985 competition to pick a new sniper rifle for the British military came down to a closely fought contest between the Accuracy International PM and the Parker Hale M85. The M85 was a fantastically accurate rifle, every bit the equal of the AI submission and to this day there are still people who were involved in the trials who insist that the M85 should have been selected. Ultimately, the decision came down to the logistical issues surrounding the rifle, where AI’s chassis system was superior to Parker-Hale’s traditional construction. Despite being defeated, Parker Hale sold some 800 M85 rifles – nearly as many as the military contract would have procured (and in fact, a few M85s were purchased by several military units).

If you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out Steve Houghton’s newly released book, The British Sniper: A Century of Evolution. It can be found at:

https://www.swiftandboldpublishing.co…

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

QotD: Sharia law

Filed under: History, Law, Middle East, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

In order of importance, [Sharia] has four sources. First, there is the Koran, which is the record of what was revealed to Mohammed by God, speaking through the Archangel Gabriel, Its injunctions are absolutely binding on the faithful. Second, there is the sunna, or the practice of Mohammed, as understood from the hadith, or traditional stories of his sayings and doings. These are less holy than the Koran, being only what was observed of a particularly honoured man, and not the direct Word of God given at third hand. Also, there are nearly two million of them, and they often contradict one another. But they count, once any consistent doctrine can be divined from them on a particular issue, as reliable guides. Third, there is the ijima or consensus of opinion among the ulema, or learned Moslems. Fourth, there is qiyas, or a process of analogical reasoning by which, in the absence of any rule or precedent, a case is to be decided in a manner consistent with the existing body of law. In addition to these, we can be fairly certain that much law has been inherited from pre-Islamic Arabian custom, and from the near eastern societies that subsequently became Moslem.

The main development of Islamic law came to an end in the eighth century with the Foundation of what remain the four traditional schools of legal interpretation. The task of all succeeding jurists was seen increasingly to consist as no more than the application and development of principles already laid down. Then, some time during the tenth century, there came what is known as “The Closure of the Gate of Interpretation ”. Since then, the exercise of itjihad — or independent judgment — has not, in theory, been permitted at all.

Islamic law differs from our own not only in its derivation, but also in its content. With us, despite what remains from the old regimes, and despite a great mass of socialist legislation during the present century, law is a means largely of protecting life and property. Among the Islamic lawyers, this has been an end only incidental to the main one, of ensuring conformity to the will of God. “The sacred law of Islam…” according to the great western scholar of the subject, Joseph Schacht, “is an all-embracing body of religious duties, the totality of Allah’s commands that regulate the life of every Muslim in all its aspects”. Not surprisingly, any country where the government takes Islam seriously is invariably, in western terms, an exceptionally gloomy and repressive place.

Let us look at Saudi Arabia. Within the bounds set by Islamic law, the country is an absolute monarchy. It lacks even the pretence of representative institutions and freedom of the press. All public officers are appointed by the King, and are responsible in the final instance to him alone. No religion other than Islam is tolerated in public — not even the sale of crosses being allowed — and anyone who is not a Moslem is made a victim of official discrimination. All publications are subject to a searching, and what often strikes westerners as a frivolous, censorship. On the 13th of March, 1989, The Times was allowed on sale only after the censors had snipped out the relevant part of a photograph in which a lady was showing more of herself than was thought decent. Women, indeed, are treated as inferior beings, and this treatment goes far beyond the close regulation of their dress by the police. They can be divorced at will. The range of employments open to them is restricted by law, and they can take none that involves contact with any man not related to them. They cannot drive cars. They cannot travel unaccompanied by a male relative. Adultery and certain other sexual acts carry the death penalty. The drinking of alcohol, while not absolutely prohibited, is discouraged. Tobacco is only grudgingly allowed. Gambling is forbidden. Music and dance are frowned on.

Sean Gabb, “‘The Challenge of Islam: Can We Face It?’ A paper prepared for the post-graduate seminar Dr Dennis O’Keeffe presiding at the Polytechnic of North London Tuesday the 16th January 1990” republished as “Flirting with the Neocons in 1990”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2019-02-24.

March 27, 2019

Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic, part 1 by Alex Funk

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Editor’s Note: This series was originally published by Alex Funk on the TimeGhostArmy forums (original URL – https://community.timeghost.tv/t/canada-and-the-battle-of-the-atlantic-part-1-edited/1433).

Sources:

  • The Far Distant Ships, Joseph Schull, ISBN 10 0773721606 (An official operational account published in 1950, somewhat sensationalist) [Schull’s book was published in part because the funding for the official history team had been cut and they did not feel that the RCN’s contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic should have no official recognition. It is very much an artifact of its era, and needs to be read that way. A more balanced (and weighty) history didn’t appear until the publication of No Higher Purpose and A Blue Water Navy in 2002, parts 1 and 2 of the Official Operational History of the RCN in WW2, covering 1939-1943 and 1943-1945 respectively.]
  • North Atlantic Run: the Royal Canadian Navy and the battle for the convoys, Marc Milner, ISBN 10 0802025447 (Written in an attempt to give a more strategic view of Canada’s contribution than Schull’s work, published 1985)
  • Reader’s Digest: The Canadians At War: Volumes 1 & 2 ISBN 10 0888501617 (A compilation of articles ranging from personal stories to overviews of Canadian involvement in a particular campaign. Contains excerpts from a number of more obscure Canadian books written after the war, published 1969)
  • All photos used exist in the Public Domain and are from the National Archives of Canada, unless otherwise noted in the caption.

I have inserted occasional comments in [square brackets] and links to other sources that do not appear in the original posts. A few minor edits have also been made for clarity.

Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic, part 1

Canada’s navy before WW2

This is my modest attempt to illustrate Canada’s contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic and the war at sea in general. In my honest opinion it was the most important thing we did as a nation aside from the BCATP (British Commonwealth Air Training Plan).

The Naval Service of Canada/Royal Canadian Navy before World War 2

The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was founded in 1910 under the Naval Service Bill re-introduced by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier (its first attempt at approval under George Foster in 1909 had failed), creating the Naval Service of Canada [Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Royal_Canadian_Navy]. A distinct naval force for the Dominion of Canada to be maintained and manned by Canadians, which could be placed under British control if needs be. Two ex-Royal Navy vessels were obtained for the purposes of training [cruisers HMCS Niobe and HMCS Rainbow].

[There actually was an even earlier attempt to create a Canadian navy, as related by Joseph Schull:]

There had been one hint, in 1880, of an awareness of naval needs. A dispatch from the Governor General to the Colonial Secretary had suggested that Canada “would not be averse to instituting a ship for training purposes if the Imperial Government would provide the ship.” To the restrained enthusiasm of this proposal the Admiralty had responded with appropriate generosity. Charybdis, an ancient steam corvette, was at the time limping homeward from the China Station. The Canadian Government could have her.

When Charybdis arrived in the United Kingdom it was discovered that her boilers were worn out. Canada paid for their replacement. The ship was then coaxed and coddled across the Atlantic by a redoubtable Captain Scott, R.N., retired. Upon arrival in Saint John, Charybdis broke loose from her moorings in a gale and damaged much of the shipping in harbour. She had hardly been secured, and the clamour of aggrieved shipowners had not died down, when two Saint John citizens, attempting to come on board, fell through the rotting wood of her gangplank and were drowned. It was sufficient naval experience for the Canadian Government of that time. The wreck was towed from Saint John and turned over to the unwelcoming authorities of the Royal Navy. Charybdis became a gruesome memory, a political Flying Dutchman which heaved over the horizon when any naval proposal was advanced during the next thirty years.

The election of a new government (which had opposed the original bill) in 1911 left the new service in limbo. [Also in 1911, the Naval Service was given permission by King George V to rename itself the Royal Canadian Navy.] Nevertheless, between the two ex-Royal Navy vessels, two submarines purchased from the US [by the provincial government of British Columbia(!)], and two government patrol vessels pressed into military service the RCN spent the early years of World War 1 patrolling the east and west coasts of North America and sometimes as far south as Panama to deter the German naval threat. As that real or perceived threat slowly evaporated, the Canadian Navy’s patrols became less frequent.

HMCS Rainbow at North Vancouver, 1910.

Photo from the City of Vancouver Library, the collection of Matthews, James Skitt, Major (1878-1970) via Wikimedia Commons.

The First World War saw the modest beginnings of the Canadian Navy, although it should be pointed out that many more Canadians chose to serve in the Royal Navy than the Canadian one, some as officers.

The inter-war years saw very little growth for the RCN. The post-war drawdown naturally occurred, and by 1922 the service had only 366 men and had paid off their only remaining cruiser. The Naval Volunteer Reserve was firmly established in Canadian cities across the country (and numbered around 1,000 men) but the Navy itself only kept two destroyers donated by the Royal Navy in service [HMCS Patriot and HMCS Patrician], until these were replaced by two more destroyers in the late 1920s (once again, ex-RN [ships renamed as HMCS Champlain and HMCS Vancouver]). 1931 saw a major facelift with the first ships built specifically for the RCN: HMCS Skeena and HMCS Saguenay.

The early 1930s saw the Navy along with the other Canadian service branches almost completely starved of funding, although by the late 30s, escalating world tension convinced the Canadian government to slowly begin rebuilding. Two more destroyers were purchased from the Royal Navy in 1937 (HMCS Fraser and HMCS St Laurent) and then two more in 1938 (HMCS Ottawa and HMCS Restigouche).

Marc Milner outlines the RCN’s original expansion plans in North Atlantic Run:

In January 1939 the government, reacting to the Munich crisis, announced its intentions to proceed with building a fleet capable defending Canada’s two coasts. The expansion plan, when completed, would give the RCN a strength of eighteen modern destroyers, sixteen minesweepers, and eight anti-submarine vessels, the numbers split evenly between Pacific and Atlantic commands, and a flotilla of eight motor torpedo boats for the east coast. Not surprisingly, little came of this plan before war broke out. In fact, by May the government had sharply cut the navy’s estimates. The 1939 building program (four anti-submarine vessels and two motor torpedo boats) was scrapped, and there was just enough money left to acquire the necessary plans. It is, however, significant that the RCN’s expansion plans were laid down in the last days of peace. Later developments would thrust a new form of expansion on the RCN, one more easily attainable in wartime than a fleet of destroyers, yet one which did not conform to the long-term goals of the professional navy.

Thus, by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the RCN consisted of six River-class destroyers, five minesweepers, and two small training vessels.

HMCS Vancouver (F6A) anchored off San Diego, California (USA), on 5 March 1929.
Official U.S. Navy photo 80-G-416377 from the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command, via Wikimedia Commons.

The January 1939 expansion plan belied the fact that the RCN was a traditional, gun-oriented navy. The experiences of the First World War and technological developments since had confirmed the sanctity of the gun as the pre-eminent naval weapon. Admittedly, the threat from Germany’s U-boats in 1917 had been grave. But her indiscriminate use of the submarine had brought the United States into the conflict on the Allied side and (or so it seemed) therefore cost Germany the war. It was felt that in future no nation would risk the sanction of a world coalition by resorting to “piracy” on the high seas. But even if Germany, or any other nation, turned once again to unrestricted submarine warfare on merchant shipping, the means of defeating the threat was already in service with Commonwealth navies — convoy and ASDIC.

During the First World War, before the adoption of the convoy system, German U-Boats preferred to use their deck guns to destroy lone merchant vessels, using their precious torpedoes sparingly. With the introduction of the convoy system, the days of easy targets vanished and the proximity of naval escort forced the U-Boat to either risk fighting an unequal surface battle against more heavily gunned escorts or to operate submerged. Convoys made the oceanic routes much safer, but this success was not unmixed. Cargo ships continued to sail independently and unescorted to and from convoy assembly ports in British coastal waters, and the U-boats resorted to submerged attack tactics inshore. Although Britain was never again threatened with defeat by starvation, losses to merchant shipping remained high for the rest of the war because of the virtual immunity of a submerged submarine to any threat of effective counter-attack by escort ships.

With the U-Boats relegated to nuisance status through the use of convoys, their final telling defeat simply awaited the perfection of a reliable underwater-detection device. The Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee was established in 1918 to resolve this problem, but it was not until the early twenties that an effective underwater sound locating and ranging set (now called sonar) was in use. ASDIC, as the British called the device, was to spell the doom of the submarine. As late as 1936 the First Sea Lord [the professional head of the Royal Navy], Admiral A.E.M. Chatfield, claimed that the RN’s anti-submarine measures were 80% effective. With location no longer a problem, it was believed that destruction of a submarine by a few well-placed depth charges would follow with equal certainty.

If anything, Canadian planners, like those elsewhere, were absorbed by the unknown dangers of air attack on trade (particularly on convoys) and by the very real threat of powerful enemy surface raiders. Both of these also presented Canada with the only real threat of direct enemy action. The RCN was therefore charged with defence against surface and air attacks on Canada and on trade in adjacent waters — the two were really inseparable. The “forms and scales of attack to which Canada would be subject,” as anticipated in 1939, reflected the preoccupation with surface and air threats. Bombardment by a single battleship and/or one or two large cruisers, by armed merchant cruisers (AMCs), or even by heavily gunned submarines was felt likely. Attacks could also be expected in the form of MTBs launched from larger ships, mines, small assault parties, or aircraft carrying torpedoes, bombs, or gas. Indeed, it was thought that aircraft launched from remote points along the Canadian coast might penetrate as far inland as Toronto. Certainly, the major coastal centres were in danger of quick and unexpected raids.

The expansion plan of January 1939 was naturally intended to counter these threats. To make good its intentions, the navy hoped to acquire the most powerful destroyers then in service, the Tribal-class. The Tribal’s high speed and heavy armament (eight 4.7-inch guns and four torpedo tubes) made it a veritable “pocket” cruiser, and several acting in concert posed a credible threat to a lone battleship. Not surprisingly, the RCN would pursue its intention to acquire Tribals throughout the entirety of the war, eventually absorbing dockyard space, resources, and trained manpower which could have been better used to maintain the escort fleet.

[Editor’s Note: On the other hand, had they not pursued a Tribal-class building program, the RCN might well have suffered a similar or even worse drawdown after the war as it did in 1919-22.]

On the eve of the Second World War the submarine was therefore considered by the RN to be a manageable problem. The same held true in the RCN. In a pre-war analysis of the threats to trade and possible countermeasures, Commodore Nelles summarized Canadian reaction to the submarine:

    If international law is complied with, Submarine attack should not prove serious. If unrestricted warfare is again resorted to, the means of combating Submarines are considered to have so advanced that by employing a system of of convoy and utilizing Air Forces, losses of Submarines would be very heavy and might compel the enemy to give up this form of attack.

Nelles went on to point out that the RCN would provide anti-submarine equipment and mines “for prosecution of offensive measures against submarine attack.” His choice of words illustrates clearly the thinking of naval contemporaries on how best to deal with submarines — offensive action. The countermeasures outlined by the CNS indicated that some lessons had been drawn from the previous war, and in the long term the combination of convoy, air power, and aggressive anti-submarine warfare proved more than a match for the U-boats. Unfortunately, Britain and her allies lacked the necessary means for a very long time, and the resilience of modern submarines proved a surprise to virtually everyone.

Chief Petty Officer Lowther delivering a lecture about various types of ammunition, Royal Canadian Navy Gunnery School, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1940.
Credit: Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-104417

Gilgamesh vs. Humbaba – Bronze Age Myths – Extra Mythology – #2

Filed under: History, Humour, Middle East — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 25 Mar 2019

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Gilgamesh and Enkidu set out to slay Humbaba. With the help of the goddess queen Ninsun in obtaining a blessing from the gods, these two men became brothers, who went on to have, like, totally epic dreams, bro, in the “House of the Dream God” which empowered them to take on the monstrous foe.

Someone had way too much fun doing the voices for this episode. Just sayin’

“This was the week it became necessary to destroy the village of good government in order to save it”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It may be hard to believe, but in his latest at Maclean’s, Paul Wells appears to be getting a little bit cynical about recent shenanigans in Ottawa:

We have learned so much. Within minutes Monday afternoon, two good reporters had stories (here and here) about the Chief Justice of Manitoba, who was a candidate to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and who, later, wasn’t. Both reporters unfurled similar yarns about a lone Prime Minister standing athwart the tide of conservatism by blocking — shudder — a Harper appointee from sitting on the top court. Jody Wilson-Raybould plays the role of villain in the piece.

Both reporters decorously neglect to mention that Trudeau’s choice for Chief Justice, Richard Wagner, was a Harper appointee.

There are many things we can say about this story, working outward in concentric rings from the thing itself. First, Glenn Joyal’s views, as expressed in speeches that were said to alarm the prime minister, are almost comically orthodox. I first became aware of the notion that Charter litigation systematically airlifts important matters from the parliamentary arena and into the realm of jurisprudence in a Chantal Hébert column in the late 1990s. If I had paid more attention to literally any of my Canadian public administration profs a decade earlier I would have caught the argument then, because it is canvassed in every Canadian political science class. This is not wild-eyed Hayekism.

Second, perhaps the many thousands of Canadians who have applied for federal government appointments under what they thought was a confidential process, introduced by this prime minister, will want to contemplate a class-action suit against him. Because it is now radiantly clear to each of them that their CV is being held hostage by a claque of embattled sorcerers’ apprentices who will cheerfully wheel it over the transom to any waiting scribe if anything about them — their opinions, a fallen political star’s unfortunate decision to argue for their advancement — becomes politically inconvenient. This is the very stuff of the police state.

It was immediately fashionable to wonder on social media how everyone would react if Stephen Harper had done such a thing. It’s germane to note that Stephen Harper never did. Because he had more class. Welcome to the Tet offensive of Charter rights: This was the week it became necessary to destroy the village of good government in order to save it.

Third, Justice Joyal’s wife was in poor health. Apparently we are to believe that 9,000 jobs depended on your knowing that.

If the Trudeau government is not the source of the leak, I assume we will see spectacular efforts deployed in the next 36 hours to find the leaker. Mark Norman-scale efforts. But I’m pretty sure that we needn’t hold our breath, because the government is the source of the leak; that the amiable chap who currently sits in the office once occupied by the Attorney General of Canada will not bestir himself to question Monday’s sickening attack on due process; and that the leak will actually be roundly applauded by the ambient cloud of Liberal and Liberal-adjacent opinion, which became self-aware this weekend and decided Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott are a virus endangering the party’s re-election chances and must therefore be stopped.

Four reasons to own a bit-brace

Filed under: Tools, Woodworking — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Rex Krueger
Published on 13 Feb 2019

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QotD: Gossip, rumour, and innuendo

Filed under: Europe, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Rumor was rife in the village as in the science fiction community. It should be. Both are the province of women. Not that men didn’t gossip/egg women on in the village, as they do in the science fiction community, but the men stupid enough to be seen doing it openly had a special name attached to them “Tricoteiros.” It was not a complementary name. And most men really didn’t get involved. They merely went along with what their wives decided and decreed. People who imagine women powerless in true patriarchal societies are out of their minds. Once the “court of public opinion” which is largely female, makes a decision, men risk falling victim to it, should they not conform to its dictates.

And this is why I loathe and despise rumor, and will stand up for a victim of it, no matter how little I like him or her: or indeed how little I know him or her. I will stand up for the victim, because rumor is a ridiculous way of ascertaining if someone should be “a part of society” (remember the charming moppets who said someone should be “cast out of society” for saying bad things) or if someone should have a job or if someone should be allowed to live somewhere in peace.

Because the one thing rumor is not concerned with is truth or true guilt, or even gradations of guilt. Yes, perhaps everything rumor says is true. Heaven knows it’s been known to happen, which is when people say “no smoke without fire” but they ignore all the times their stories and whispers were ALL wrong.

For instance, before I got married to Dan everyone knew (based on TRUST me little more than a resemblance in coloring) he was a baker from a neighboring village, whom I’d met in Italy. What was true to this tissue? Well, I was getting married and the year before, I was in Germany. (I’m still confused as to how Italy got attached to it.) Which was okay because I had no reputation to speak of. The life I lived in gossip was far more interesting than my real life. Having grown up as the “little sister” of my brother’s group of friends, they (and I) never paid any attention to the fact I was now past puberty. This meant if they saw me trudging towards the train and they happened to be driving, they’d pick me up and take me where I was supposed to go (mostly college or home) and if they were at a coffee shop and I walked by, they’d call me to sit and grab a coffee and a pastry (which they paid for, as older siblings will. Since my brother is around ten years older than I, most of them had jobs while I was in high school.) BUT the gossips knew I was having affairs will all of them (what a busy critter I must have been, what with carrying a heavier-than-full-load of courses and tutoring on the side, all this while having boyfriends/fiances. So when I got married, of course the best I could do was the baker from the nearby, poorer village. (Rolls eyes.) Which fortunately Dan couldn’t care less about, since when I told him the rumors he went off in whoops of laughter at the idea that his geeky, introverted fiance could ever be the village hussy.

Sarah Hoyt, “Painted All In Tongues”, According to Hoyt, 2017-03-20.

March 26, 2019

Food Rationing – How to Make Woolton Pie – WW2 Homefront 001 – April 1940

Filed under: Britain, Food, History, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published on 24 Mar 2019

Rationing of goods in Europe started immediately when the war broke out. Lord Woolton, British Minister of Food came up with one of the first substitute dishes… a vegetable pie that was promptly named after him. Our team chef Joram shows you how to do it. To find out how it tasted go here: https://youtu.be/quB0yH8Qhlo

Recipe can be found here: https://the1940sexperiment.com/2016/0…

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In about a month’s time (yes, I have my 1:00am and 2:00am posts lined up that far in advance), there’s an eight-part video series from Ian at InRangeTV on British rationing in WW2 that includes a slightly different Woolton Pie recipe.

Matt Taibbi on “a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media”

Filed under: Law, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

A revised and updated chapter from his Hate, Inc.:

Note to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation is complete, I’m releasing this chapter of Hate Inc. early, with a few new details added up top.

[…]

Over the weekend, the Times tried to soften the emotional blow for the millions of Americans trained in these years to place hopes for the overturn of the Trump presidency in Mueller. As with most press coverage, there was little pretense that the Mueller probe was supposed to be a neutral fact-finding mission, as apposed to religious allegory, with Mueller cast as the hero sent to slay the monster.

The Special Prosecutor literally became a religious figure during the last few years, with votive candles sold in his image and Saturday Night Live cast members singing “All I Want for Christmas is You” to him featuring the rhymey line: “Mueller please come through, because the only option is a coup.”

The Times story today tried to preserve Santa Mueller’s reputation, noting Trump’s Attorney General William Barr’s reaction was an “endorsement” of the fineness of Mueller’s work:

    In an apparent endorsement of an investigation that Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked as a “witch hunt,” Mr. Barr said Justice Department officials never had to intervene to keep Mr. Mueller from taking an inappropriate or unwarranted step.

Mueller, in other words, never stepped out of the bounds of his job description. But could the same be said for the news media?

For those anxious to keep the dream alive, the Times published its usual graphic of Trump-Russia “contacts,” inviting readers to keep making connections. But in a separate piece by Peter Baker, the paper noted the Mueller news had dire consequences for the press:

    It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole…

This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: “Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?”

The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like itself made galactic errors by betting heavily on a new, politicized approach, trying to be true to “history’s judgment” on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse, in a brutal irony everyone should have seen coming, the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020.

Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.”

Donning hoplite armour

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindybeige
Published on 28 Sep 2016

How long does it take a hoplite to get ready for action? Watch one incompetent one time himself as he dons his panoply.

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Some game systems have rules on how long it takes to put on armour. Here I give you some practical hints as to how long it actually takes. Yes, the sword and shield are just mock-ups, but the time it takes to take them up is probably about the same as the real thing.

Was this really shot in ancient Greece? No, it was a park in Gosforth, near a primary school and with aircraft flying overhead and a breeze just strong enough to create constant rustling of leaves and occasional wind noise on the microphones.

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QotD: Salt

Filed under: Food, Health, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

My grandfather used to say this all the time, and it’s true. Salt brings out the flavor of the food, full stop. There are a great variety of salts, but the reality is they’re all the same mineral. Coloration in salt comes from the minerals near the salt as it forms. There’s nothing inherently better about colored salts, but the marketers selling you that stuff will try to convince you otherwise. I’ve seen pink salt promoted as an “alternative” salt that doesn’t cause blood pressure issues. That’s a lie. My advice is to buy kosher salt or the chunkier white salt if you like the crunchiness. If you really like the mild flavoring of gray salt, that’s fine, just know that it’s sold at a higher cost for what comes down to the same thing as my box of salt I can get for a couple bucks. And one more thing: All salt is sea salt.

Salt grinders are bullshit

I’m not done with salt yet: Don’t put your salt in a grinder. All you’re doing is making your salt smaller than it was before. Unlike pepper, which is actually processed in the grinder, salt does not need to be ground and is not fresher after coming out of a grinder. It’s just smaller. Use a shaker.

Caitlin PenzeyMoog, “Salt grinders are bullshit, and other lessons from growing up in the spice trade”, The A.V. Club, 2017-04-06.

March 25, 2019

The Boston Massacre – Snow and Gunpowder – Extra History

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 23 Mar 2019

Boston, 1770. A frigid winter night. A British sentry strikes a local citizen. Civilians begins to gather. Reinforcements arrive to back up the young sentry. Insults and snowballs escalate. Then out of the darkness comes a shout: “FIRE!”

The Boston Massacre didn’t come out of nowhere — resentment between the early US colonies and the British army had been brewing for some time over the Stamp Act. A propaganda war ensued between the loyalists and the radicals. John Adams would get his revolutionary start as he worked to resolve this injustice…

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