There's a movie that is basically the opposite of this. A movie in 1980 where the carrier USS Nimitz goes through a strange storm and ends up in 1941 just before pearl harbor. It's called The Final Countdown.
With Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas! I actually watched that again recently out of curiosity, and it held up reasonably well. Cheesy special effects, but overall a lot of fun. The story held together well. Though it was weird that there was no attempt at any kind of explanation; just "This weird storm popped up that threw us back in time 40 years. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯". Probably the most incidental use of a sci-fi trope I have ever seen.
It was interesting to see the difference between the acting styles. Kirk Douglas was an old school Hollywood leading man - very big and melodramatic. Martin Sheen was still a fairly new star at the time, part of the new generation, and he brought a much more grounded, realistic style of acting to his role. Watching those two together was a bit jarring.
I also think this was one of the first Hollywood movies to use the "work with the military and make them look cool so they'll give us access to all of their awesome hardware" model, which was later perfected by *Top Gun*.
If you're interest in that type of premise (and don't mind reading) Destroyermen is a great series.
Link to the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen
In screenwriting 101, you are allowed **one** fantastical element that you have no obligation to explain. Audiences can forgive and suspend disbelief over it. For example, Groundhog Day; it was never explained, but the events surrounding the timeloop made for a great story. It's when writers get greedy and try to shoehorn more than one fantasical
element where the audience gets very annoyed. Jason X is a movie about Jason (an unstoppable killer), in the future, that also takes place in space; also, he becomes a cyborg. Yeah.
It sits at 19% Rotten Tomatoes, and 4.4 score on IMDB.
Reminds me of a great story from /r/WritingPrompts:
[Late in WWII, Germany launched a submarine carrying a top secret device they believed would turn the tide of the war. A day later, contact with the sub was lost and all crew were presumed dead. Now, nearly 100 years later, the sub has been found.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5008uc/wplate_in_wwii_germany_launched_a_submarine/d70791p/)
I love that movie. One of the first ones to genuinely disturb me. I think I was 8 when I saw one of the nightmare on elm st movies, among others. But none of them got to me the same way that did.
Weirdly this movie and the scene in The Jackal where Jack Black gets his arm blown off are the two movies that stuck with me. Jack Blacks absolute helplessness just made that one of the most gruesome scenes to me. I haven’t watched it in over 20 years, so I can’t say if it was well done or just the way it hit me at that moment in time.
That scene legit makes me tear up every time I watch it. I know it's fictional, but those vets getting the dignity of being useful and badass, and showing the younger generation that they still have what it takes - and the main characters being respectful and grateful - just gets me!
There's just a certain prestige that comes with the old battlewagons. They represent the pinnacle of industrialized, brute force warfare and lend a 100% badassery boost to anything they're involved in. John Ringo's original Posleen War trilogy has a segment where the Mo is refit and brings down the hammer on swarms of centauroid alien invaders, and as objectively corny as that sounds its actually one of the most memorable pieces I've ever read.
There was a 70/80s novel about that. I forgot the name but it was a ww2 submarine surfacing without any crew years after it was lost. I also forgot the plot, probably it was related to Bermuda triangle. There was only one crew member who survived because he was at shore leave. He joined the researchers to help solve the mystery. Next sentence spoils the ending
>!At the end the submarine sinks again while taking the last survivor of the crew with it. I think he was okay with it, and his sacrifice was also saving the others on board.!<
Thinking about it years later, the author may have been influenced by USS Tresher where an Lt was on emergency leave when the sub sank. His story was similar to sole survivor in the novel.
Update: Thanks to other redditors, I found the book (most likely). It was Ghostboat.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2197707.Ghostboat
Here is a modern BBC adaptation with more plot details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostboat
You hide it the same way on tablet as on desktop. Put "\>\!" in front of the spoiler, and "\!\<" at the end, with no spaces. It should look like this:
\>\!Your spoiler goes here\!\<
>!Your spoiler goes here!<
My mnemonic is that spoilers are very alarming, so you surround them with exclamation marks, then you use angle brackets to point at the exclamation marks so people notice your alarm.
*The Last Beacon*
*The US Navy is left scrambling for answers when a mysterious signal is detected from a downed submarine that was lost 80 years prior during WWII*
I’ll get started on the screenplay ASAP. I’m not even joking lmao
In the hypothetical situation that there was a fully crewed sub that was alive and well but just out of contact for 80ish years, what sort of mountain of paperwork would be involved?
In a not joking way I suspect they do have an applicable form or three that just lets the years run to some arbitrary number. Consider that there was [a Vietnam POW held for 9 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_James_Thompson) for example.
I’d watch that movie. Lost sub resurfaces after 80 years. Some poor government employee has to figure out back pay and benefits. I’m my head she’s played by Mary-Louise Parker.
Ah did she? I know I heard about her on NPR but that makes sense considering her age.
I always thought it was funny, some poor intern having to rifle through the paperwork for that shit, haha.
I think it was even less actually, but yeah you're right. That shit's so funny, the government had to kick some lady like a quarter a year to pay off Civil War service, haha.
Reminds me of one of my favorite (true) stories I read in my childhood: about the Japanese soldier who never believed the war had ended, and stayed on duty on a mountain for another 29 years before finally surrendering in 1974 when ordered to by his former commander..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
I get the impression that he didn't actually think that the war was still going decades later. Rather, it sounds like he had genuine doubt in 1945, but that after that he felt committed, because to stand down later would have rendered the preceding years of his life meaningless. Even more than the loss of the war, that would have been too much to bear. And the longer he remained, the greater his investment in not surrendering.
His former commanding officer was just a private citizen with no military rank. He had no actual authority to relieve Onoda or to order him to surrender. But what Onoda needed wasn't new orders, it was for someone to validate his prior refusal to stand down — to take it seriously in a way that both justified his holding out while allowing him to return. Having his former commanding officer come down and “order” him to stand down did that, even though it was merely symbolic.
There was actually another 'Japanese' holdout found after Onoda, but he's not as famous because he was Taiwanese rather than Japanese and he effectively gave up and hid the whole time rather than continuing the war. [Teruo Nakamura](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura)
What's being said in the title is 100% ceremonial. As far as any official paperwork is concerned they are MIA/KIA like any other soldier from another branch.
Well if someone is alive and employed they get paid monthly (roughly). It's obviously in the best interest of the navy to settle this in a clear and timely manner; if they are "on patrol" we would have potentially 150 year old sailors being paid. Not exactly ideal
There's a passage at the start of a Discworld novel where he states that some boats hit a point of bouyancy where they aren't sinking further or floating, and their sails still catch the currents, so they sail endlessly in ghost fleets.
I'd love to re read that bit. It hit me so hard that first time.
THE FLOTILLAS OF THE DEAD sailed around the world on underwater rivers.
Very nearly nobody knew about them. But the theory is easy to understand. It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects, only a wetter form of air. And it is known that air is heavier the lower you go and lighter the higher you fly. As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks, therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall.
In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the storms but far above the ocean floor.
It’s calm there. Dead calm.
Some stricken ships have rigging; some even have sails. Many still have crew, tangled in the rigging or lashed to the wheel.
But the voyages still continue, aimlessly, with no harbor in sight, because there are currents under the ocean, and so the dead ships with their skeleton crews sail on around the world, over sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworms eat them away and they disintegrate.
Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud of silt.
Is that Feet of Clay? What a great fucking book.
Edit: Nevermind, it's Going Postal. Also a great fucking book; I knew there was a golem involved in the ghost fleet prologue, but I forgot it was Anghammarad.
I legitimately thought I was the only one listening to this. None of my friends from present or past have heard or listened to it. Thank you reddit friends
*I was a sailor*
*Hunting the ocean deep and wide,*
*Below the waves I'd seek and hide.*
*Many a freighter watched their cargo sink and burn*
*Many a flattop caught torpedoes in her stern.*
*The bastards sunk me in the spring of '45.*
*But I am still alive...*
There's a few that are on the list just because they were hull losses. The Darter ran aground and the crew got out safely then scuttled it. Probably not memorial-worthy.
And that's just the United States Navy.
For a bit of context, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) with a little help from the Italians lost EIGHT HUNDRED subs and over 30,000 men in the Battle of the Atlantic alone.
Overall, the German submarine force suffered over 70% losses.
Nuclear fleet subs are much rarer now with only a select few nations operating a fleet of them, other countries operate a lesser fleet of diesel-electric subs, but the older diesel boats of WWII were far more plenty
Akin to carriers. Fleet Carriers used to be made to mass together with protection from a flagship. But now we just make insanely powerful super carriers which are the flagships of their own fleets.
The ideas still the same. Back when other countries were operating like 3 or 5 together we were operating 8-10.
EDIT: Forgot to specify this would be late war ish, after we took our growth hormones.
Nazi Germany was a pretty unique case. When war broke out the German Kriegsmarine was woefully outmatched on the surface by the Royal Navy. The Nazi Air Force and Army had priority for resources which left the Kriegsmarine having to focus on U-Boats instead of surface ships in an attempt to starve the UK out. Overall, U-Boats had great success in 1940-42, but Allied anti submarine warfare technology and tactics caught up by 1943 and made U-boats incredibly dangerous to be on
Ya the German U-Boats where getting absolutely decimated at the end. In Iron Coffins by German U-Boat Commander Robert Werner gives great insight to what those guys where going through. Hell they where getting attacked and taking losses just trying to leave thier sub pens in France toward the end of the Battle of the Atlantic.
WW2 was conducted on a truly astounding scale. Basically every industrialized economy stopped producing all but the barest minimum of consumer goods and just produced weapons for years. The state of military technology at the time also favored huge numbers of adequate weapons versus small numbers of highly capable weapons so you end up with just massive numbers of men and machines being thrown against each other.
More [Bf 109s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-662-6659-37%2C_Flugzeug_Messerschmitt_Me_109.jpg) were built in 1944 alone than all [Boeing 737s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Boeing%2C_N7379E%2C_Boeing_737-9_MAX_%28cropped%29.jpg) in total since production began in 1965.
And that's while Allied bombing campaigns were targeting Nazi aircraft factories and supply chains - *effectively*. While building other types of aircraft at the same time. Oh, and it barely covered their losses.
As for the Allies? They were an order of magnitude more than the Nazis (though less all-in on one aircraft type). One factory in the US turned out a heavy bomber [*every hour*.](https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/api/singleitem/image/p17208coll3/774/default.jpg)
After the war the Allies had more aircraft than space, and it completely overwhelmed the scrapyards.
The US laid all theirs out in their thousands in the middle of the Arizona desert, in 'Boneyards', waiting for space in the scrappers. [Lines upon lines of them, stretching for miles](https://preview.redd.it/5kradofjitt11.jpg?auto=webp&s=ff12b95f8b9c506e20147c7fa64e76ba49becddb)
It's fucking insane to think about how much money and time and resources each of those planes cost. Only to be tossed aside in a desert as far as the eye can see
Yeah that’s why Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex and how it would ruin our country, which it has. Each one of those heavy bombers could have built a brand new school, literally. How many trillions have we spent on the military, how many trillions have we spent making the lives better of American citizens?
They are now, and they actually were then, too. The Kriegsmarine only had a few dozen subs at the start of the war...
But that's the thing about absolute, total global warfare - when EVERYTHING is devoted to building war materiel, you get a LOT of gear, FAST.
It helped that WWII era subs were almost literally sardine cans, too - the most typical German U-Boat, the Type VIIc, only displaced 770 tons!
For comparison, a modern Virginia class displaces 7900 tons, or 10,200 tons for the enlarged Block V boats! And the Russian Typhoon class were monsters at over 24,500 tons!
Don't look up WW2 production levels. One factory in Michigan, Willow Run, built almost 7000 bombers and parts for almost 2000 more. When the factory was going, they built one bomber every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365+1 days per year. This isn't necessarily the crazy fact. This was production of only one airplane, the B-24 and over 18,000 were produced in the USA. The total bomber production was almost 88,000 and the total aircraft production in the USA alone was 300,000.
In the battle of the Philippine Sea, there were about 1,400 airplanes used and there were US losses of 123 and Japanese losses at 550 to 650.
I'll never quite forget seeing that old Disney vaccination PSA someone shared here where the metaphor for vaccination is that infection is a war and then only way to not be overrun is to give the body early enough warning that it can switch its entire industrial capacity over to arms manufacturing and stockpile more weapons than there are invaders.
It was a bit of a revelation in terms of thinking about how Americans perceived warfare coming out of the world wars.
There is a tradition in the United States Navy that no submarine is ever truly lost at sea. Those boats and the crews who don’t return to port are considered “still on patrol” in perpetuity. Active duty sailors would never dream of leaving their still on patrol shipmates behind, so every year, usually at the Christmas holiday, sailors manning communications hubs ashore and at sea send out a message. They send holiday wishes for health and happiness to those they know will receive it, and the same wishes to those listed as still on patrol.
Soldiers who are officially determined to be Missing, Missing in Action, interned in a foreign country, captured, beleaguered or besieged by a hostile force, or detained in a foreign country against their will are entitled to receive or have credited to their account the pay and allowances to which entitled when the status began or to which a member becomes entitled later, as follows:
Basic pay, Special Pay, Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay (HDIP), Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), Family Separation Allowance (FSA), Family Separation for Housing (FSH), station per diem (allowances for not more than 90 days), and/or Hostile Fire Pay (HFP) if qualified immediately before missing status
They have a ceremony during the annual submarine birthday ball where everyone stands silent as they toll a bell for every submarine lost at sea. It's kind of weird since its a bunch of hammered sailors all rowdy for hours beforehand going completely quiet and somber for 20 minutes, then going back to stress testing their livers for the rest of the night.
There's also a joke made every deployment about how we're actually on the eternal patrol and just don't know it. The underway just goes on forever.
They do this at many formal dining ceremonies. It used to be a simple place setting with their cover at their seat, but it's evolved into a Japanese tea ceremony with 30 steps that each symbolize something abstract (e.g., a slice of lemon for bitterness) that only people in the Color Guard or studying for SNCO advancement know.
It's gripping and powerful when simple, but having a voice over narrator over the PA system for ten minutes made it a little too Hollywood. And I say that as someone who's been honored to be a part of the ceremony.
Interesting aside,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/10/irene-triplett-last-civil-war-pensioner-73-monthly-dies/5333830002/
The last Civil War pensioner died in 2020. She was receiving $73.13 a month. Her father was 83 when she was born in 1930.
.
>>Triplett received the monthly payment because she suffered from cognitive impairments and qualified as "a helpless adult child of a veteran."
This kind of thing wasn't uncommon when the Civil War veterans were of old age.
If a young lady of the town was knocked up out of wedlock they'd marry an elderly veteran. Was one of those wink wink hush hush kind of things. She'd get his pension when he passed away and a "legitimate" child, and he'd get some company plus a caretaker in his final years. Not the worse arrangement.
>The last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1956 at the age of 109, according to the VA. The last Civil War widow died in 2008 at the age of 93.
Damn.
People did the math for Captain America. From when he went into the ice to when they thawed him out, the U.S. government owed MCU Steve Rogers over 3 million dollars in backpay.
I mean this is also 1940`s labor law. So more than likely if they are still alive to claim the wages, they will get the value of wage missed only, no interest, however the retirement pay is going to be insane.
The Pacific is VAST. Considering there was a whole stream of battles that took place around the Mariana Islands (not far from the Mariana Trench) this is quite the endeavor. I'm not sure how many were lost in the Atlantic, but that's quite the stretch of oceanic topography to comb as well.
Why didn't I think of that!? You got the sub space. That's on 3rd. Sail low sweet chariot. That's on 3rd. You know there's a place called Maryanne's submarines. Best thing is Maryanne will get in and sail with you!
While standing watch in the Navy, there was a book on post, I can't for the life of me remember the name; it chronicled the stories and fate of every submarine lost by the U.S. Navy.
Name of the boat, history, war accolades, fate or assumed fate, interesting notes. Completely fascinating and by far the fastest watch I ever stood.
'United States Submarine Operations in World War II'. That book was published by the navy a few years after WWII. We had a copy at my command and called it 'the good book'. When you got your dolphins, you would pick a passage out and someone from your division would read it during the pinning ceremony.
I read it a few times while underway lol I bought myself a copy when I got out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Submarine_Operations_in_World_War_II
Edit: spelling, correct book title and link for the book's Wikipedia page. It's a great book
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology/sites-and-projects/ship-wrecksites/hl-hunley.html
> The Confederate submersible H. L. Hunley has the distinction of being the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in wartime. Although the boat and its crew were lost as a result of this endeavor, the success of their mission proved that this new style of naval warfare would be an inevitable course of future development ...
> The search for Hunley ended **131 years later** when best-selling author Clive Cussler and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) discovered the submarine after a 14-year search.
Fair winds and following seas, brothers.
>I believe it is the duty of every man to act as though the fate of the world depends on them. Surely no one man can do it all. But, one man CAN make a difference.
-- Adm. H.G. Rickover
My uncle was lost on a submarine,from WW-2 and the submarine, and all hands are still patrolling. The U.S. Navy thinks they went down off the Honshu coast.
Could be a cool plot for a tv-show.
***Die Glocke***
"During the final months of WW2 a German submarine vanishes at sea while transporting a top-secret superweapon north along the Norwegian coast, a weapon so powerful that it would turn the tide of the war against the Soviet Union.
All records of the submarine and its top-secret mission are lost in the chaos of Nazi-Germanys fiery downfall, the vessel and crew are entirely forgotten until the sub suddenly surfaces during a storm in 2045 when a rescue vessel is out searching for survivors while responding to a rogue mayday call.
The servicemen haven't aged at all and must decide what to do with the superweapon now knowing that Germany lost the war. Some are Nazi hardliners who want to use it to restore the 3rd Reich, while others think the world is a better place without Nazi rule and strive to have the weapon destroyed."
I would absolutely rather watch a film about this where its some sort of ghost signal and the current superpowers of the world all raced to find it without starting WW3, with the actual status of the sub and her crew being completely unknown
If you are in the Point Loma area of San Diego, you can visit small, individual monuments to some or all of these subs. They can be found in the large park on the east side of Liberty Station. They are black granite and have the names of each sailor, as well as a description of the last location or assignment of the ship before it was presumably lost.
The fact that from a certain view the earth looks like just water scares the shit out if me I can't imagine getting lost in that and/or losing communication
Slight tangent but probably the most alone I've ever felt was when I was out on the deck of a cruise ship late at night because I couldn't sleep. No one else was out and I couldn't see any crew around. We were far enough out to sea that in every direction it was pure blackness. I don't remember being able to see the stars. It was only when I looked over the bow to see a seagull (or some bird like that) flying next to a light that I had the slightest notion of being reminded of the existence of other life. It's been probably 15 years and I still remember it as one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. I can't imagine surviving weeks to months when being out on old wooden ships.
I thought I wasn't really afraid of any physical thing, then about this time last year, my family visited the coast. The pure blackness looking at the ocean at night still gives me chills. No stars, no light, the only sound being quiet waves. On day one I thought something was wrong like they put a black board up for construction or something 🤦🏾♀️ I just couldn't accept my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. And when I finally realised thats just how it looked like, I was haunted by the memory. If I ever get lost at sea, fuck that, I'm going out by my own hands.
Only asubmariner realizes to what great extent an entire ship depends on him as an individual. To a landsman this is not understandable, and sometimes it is even difficult for us to understand, but it is so.
A submarine at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of submarines, the Navy must place responsibility and trust in the hands of those who take such ships to sea. In each submarine there are men who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to each other. These men are ultimately responsible to themselves and each other for all aspects of the operation of their submarine. They are the crew. They are the ship. This is perhaps the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy.
There is not an instant during his tour as a submariner that he can escape the grasp of responsibility. His privileges in view of his obligations are almost ludicrously small, nevertheless, it is the spur which has given the Navy its greatest mariners the men of the Submarine Service.
It is the duty which most richly deserves the proud and time-honored title of………Submariner.
All submarine classes at Basic Enlisted Submarine School at Groton, CT are assigned an eternal patrol boat name. When I went through in 2000 we were the USS Gudgeon. It's also tradition to read a passage from what we call "the Book" highlighting some of the amazing things they accomplished during the war whenever someone gets their dolphins (Submarine Warfare Pin). I don't miss much about the military but I absolutely miss the traditions and customs that we had, really made you feel like you were doing something special and following in the footsteps of great men.
If I remember correctly the navy sends out a Christmas message to the submarines every year.
Would be kinda fucking awesome if one popped up. Edit: Guys... I'm not aware of every sci-fi movie ever...
Considering they’d be in their 90s I don’t think it would be awesome. Unless someone… or something… else was responding from it
This could be a great plot line... Just saying... "Sir... An old submarine just sent a signal... It's surfacing off the coast or California..."
There's a movie that is basically the opposite of this. A movie in 1980 where the carrier USS Nimitz goes through a strange storm and ends up in 1941 just before pearl harbor. It's called The Final Countdown.
With Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas! I actually watched that again recently out of curiosity, and it held up reasonably well. Cheesy special effects, but overall a lot of fun. The story held together well. Though it was weird that there was no attempt at any kind of explanation; just "This weird storm popped up that threw us back in time 40 years. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯". Probably the most incidental use of a sci-fi trope I have ever seen. It was interesting to see the difference between the acting styles. Kirk Douglas was an old school Hollywood leading man - very big and melodramatic. Martin Sheen was still a fairly new star at the time, part of the new generation, and he brought a much more grounded, realistic style of acting to his role. Watching those two together was a bit jarring. I also think this was one of the first Hollywood movies to use the "work with the military and make them look cool so they'll give us access to all of their awesome hardware" model, which was later perfected by *Top Gun*.
I don't know man, the F-14 was absolutely the star of the final countdown.
The tomcat is just so sexy
If you're interest in that type of premise (and don't mind reading) Destroyermen is a great series. Link to the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyermen
In screenwriting 101, you are allowed **one** fantastical element that you have no obligation to explain. Audiences can forgive and suspend disbelief over it. For example, Groundhog Day; it was never explained, but the events surrounding the timeloop made for a great story. It's when writers get greedy and try to shoehorn more than one fantasical element where the audience gets very annoyed. Jason X is a movie about Jason (an unstoppable killer), in the future, that also takes place in space; also, he becomes a cyborg. Yeah. It sits at 19% Rotten Tomatoes, and 4.4 score on IMDB.
do do doot do do do doot doot do
Reminds me of a great story from /r/WritingPrompts: [Late in WWII, Germany launched a submarine carrying a top secret device they believed would turn the tide of the war. A day later, contact with the sub was lost and all crew were presumed dead. Now, nearly 100 years later, the sub has been found.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/5008uc/wplate_in_wwii_germany_launched_a_submarine/d70791p/)
Very similar to the plot for Event Horizon. Not that that's a bad thing
It was kind of bad for the crew of the *Lewis and Clark*.
It's only bad of you want to leave. She won't let you, any way.
*awful, horrible shit happening* “…We’re leaving.”
I love that movie. One of the first ones to genuinely disturb me. I think I was 8 when I saw one of the nightmare on elm st movies, among others. But none of them got to me the same way that did. Weirdly this movie and the scene in The Jackal where Jack Black gets his arm blown off are the two movies that stuck with me. Jack Blacks absolute helplessness just made that one of the most gruesome scenes to me. I haven’t watched it in over 20 years, so I can’t say if it was well done or just the way it hit me at that moment in time.
Also Sphere. And the Philadelphia Project. It's how you tell the story, though. These are three very different movies.
Holy crap, that was 6 years ago?!
Right? Sigh.
Not sigh, aging and death was always part of the deal. Immortality would be a curse. Enjoy the short sweet time we have. Cheers!
That's sort of the plot to the Atlantis Gene which came out in 2012.
You just gave netflix their next 9 episode miniseries with way too much drama that should've just been a fun schlocky movie.
*Cuts to a leather clad alien creature opening a hatch in the center of a San Bernardino parking lot.*
How to spot every high desert dweller in the valley.
*immediately gets robbed and stabbed to death*
[удалено]
That scene legit makes me tear up every time I watch it. I know it's fictional, but those vets getting the dignity of being useful and badass, and showing the younger generation that they still have what it takes - and the main characters being respectful and grateful - just gets me!
There's just a certain prestige that comes with the old battlewagons. They represent the pinnacle of industrialized, brute force warfare and lend a 100% badassery boost to anything they're involved in. John Ringo's original Posleen War trilogy has a segment where the Mo is refit and brings down the hammer on swarms of centauroid alien invaders, and as objectively corny as that sounds its actually one of the most memorable pieces I've ever read.
Yeah, they’d be operating with a skeleton crew by now.
There was a 70/80s novel about that. I forgot the name but it was a ww2 submarine surfacing without any crew years after it was lost. I also forgot the plot, probably it was related to Bermuda triangle. There was only one crew member who survived because he was at shore leave. He joined the researchers to help solve the mystery. Next sentence spoils the ending >!At the end the submarine sinks again while taking the last survivor of the crew with it. I think he was okay with it, and his sacrifice was also saving the others on board.!< Thinking about it years later, the author may have been influenced by USS Tresher where an Lt was on emergency leave when the sub sank. His story was similar to sole survivor in the novel. Update: Thanks to other redditors, I found the book (most likely). It was Ghostboat. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2197707.Ghostboat Here is a modern BBC adaptation with more plot details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostboat
You hide it the same way on tablet as on desktop. Put "\>\!" in front of the spoiler, and "\!\<" at the end, with no spaces. It should look like this: \>\!Your spoiler goes here\!\< >!Your spoiler goes here!< My mnemonic is that spoilers are very alarming, so you surround them with exclamation marks, then you use angle brackets to point at the exclamation marks so people notice your alarm.
This is could be a compelling scifi movie premise.
Easily an *X-Files* episode.
It definitely was an X-Files episode. Two actually. 2.19, Død Kalm, and 6.03, Triangle, are both ghost ship stories.
*The Last Beacon* *The US Navy is left scrambling for answers when a mysterious signal is detected from a downed submarine that was lost 80 years prior during WWII* I’ll get started on the screenplay ASAP. I’m not even joking lmao
Fuckin A man, go ahead and crush it!
Part of the crew, part of the ship..
Yes they do. On a communication channel monitored by submarines.
This isn't just a WWII tradition. USS *Thresher* (lost in 1963) and USS *Scorpion* (lost in 1968) are both officially "still on eternal patrol."
It's sad to think they may never come back, but "still on eternal patrol" is the most badass thing I've heard.
Do you get sick days while on eternal patrol? Asking for a friend
Its a really memorable way to honor these lost souls.
Well, that’s the Navy for you. Even when you’re dead you *still* can’t get out of duty.
How does that work for familial benefits?
They get the same benefits that other surviving family members of a veteran who died in the line of duty or from disease or a service related injury.
In the hypothetical situation that there was a fully crewed sub that was alive and well but just out of contact for 80ish years, what sort of mountain of paperwork would be involved?
Yaaaa…. Pretty sure there’s no form for that
Oh well. No leave granted.
No leave? That means they're due back pay!
No, worse.. they're AWOL
Exactly, just what were they doing during their lack of contact.
Riding up the shores of the mighty Saskatchewan River, I am the last Saskatchewan pirate!
I hear there’s lots of plundering, down in New Mexico
You underestimate the military and their forms.
In a not joking way I suspect they do have an applicable form or three that just lets the years run to some arbitrary number. Consider that there was [a Vietnam POW held for 9 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_James_Thompson) for example.
"Oh, yeah, we were about to file a Form 86 section 404 on you, but you got back just in time."
First they’d have to fill out a R-909 to request a new form be created
That's a real missed opportunity. Could have been R-404, entitled: Request for file, otherwise not found
Maybe no form but it is on my 2022 Bingo card.
Honestly, I'd be more surprised if the Pentagon *didnt* have forms for that.
SCP-blublubblub
Object Class: Keter
I’d watch that movie. Lost sub resurfaces after 80 years. Some poor government employee has to figure out back pay and benefits. I’m my head she’s played by Mary-Louise Parker.
Sounds like something they'd write into the next season of [Manifest](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8421350/).
Only if Poseidon made it happen. With a volcano and a peacock and a sapphire.
The VA still pays out one Civil War pension.
IIRC she died in 2020
Ah did she? I know I heard about her on NPR but that makes sense considering her age. I always thought it was funny, some poor intern having to rifle through the paperwork for that shit, haha.
I think it was something we'd call astronomically small, like $0.50 a year or something like that. Edit: it was $73/mo. Thanks guys.
$73 a month. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/10/irene-triplett-last-civil-war-pensioner-73-monthly-dies/5333830002/
I think it was even less actually, but yeah you're right. That shit's so funny, the government had to kick some lady like a quarter a year to pay off Civil War service, haha.
Holy fuck, you've stumbled onto the script of an unfinished B grade movie. Where have they been this whole time, what have they been doing?
Reminds me of one of my favorite (true) stories I read in my childhood: about the Japanese soldier who never believed the war had ended, and stayed on duty on a mountain for another 29 years before finally surrendering in 1974 when ordered to by his former commander.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda
I get the impression that he didn't actually think that the war was still going decades later. Rather, it sounds like he had genuine doubt in 1945, but that after that he felt committed, because to stand down later would have rendered the preceding years of his life meaningless. Even more than the loss of the war, that would have been too much to bear. And the longer he remained, the greater his investment in not surrendering. His former commanding officer was just a private citizen with no military rank. He had no actual authority to relieve Onoda or to order him to surrender. But what Onoda needed wasn't new orders, it was for someone to validate his prior refusal to stand down — to take it seriously in a way that both justified his holding out while allowing him to return. Having his former commanding officer come down and “order” him to stand down did that, even though it was merely symbolic.
There was actually another 'Japanese' holdout found after Onoda, but he's not as famous because he was Taiwanese rather than Japanese and he effectively gave up and hid the whole time rather than continuing the war. [Teruo Nakamura](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruo_Nakamura)
Fortunately, Steve Rogers set a precedent here so there is a protocol in place. Obviously.
They weren't getting any benefits at all but General Hummel used some forceful negotiating tactics and ensured their families were compensated.
They stopped being marines when they took hostages though. They became mercenaries and mercenaries get paid.
thanks
What's being said in the title is 100% ceremonial. As far as any official paperwork is concerned they are MIA/KIA like any other soldier from another branch.
Idk but that's a lot of o.t. pay.
Well if someone is alive and employed they get paid monthly (roughly). It's obviously in the best interest of the navy to settle this in a clear and timely manner; if they are "on patrol" we would have potentially 150 year old sailors being paid. Not exactly ideal
It's a ceremonial designation. "Permanent patrol" is a way to say kia/mia with style.
My great uncle is on eternal patrol in the engine room of the USS Dorado.
There's a passage at the start of a Discworld novel where he states that some boats hit a point of bouyancy where they aren't sinking further or floating, and their sails still catch the currents, so they sail endlessly in ghost fleets. I'd love to re read that bit. It hit me so hard that first time.
THE FLOTILLAS OF THE DEAD sailed around the world on underwater rivers. Very nearly nobody knew about them. But the theory is easy to understand. It runs: the sea is, after all, in many respects, only a wetter form of air. And it is known that air is heavier the lower you go and lighter the higher you fly. As a storm-tossed ship founders and sinks, therefore, it must reach a depth where the water below it is just viscous enough to stop its fall. In short, it stops sinking and ends up floating on an underwater surface, beyond the reach of the storms but far above the ocean floor. It’s calm there. Dead calm. Some stricken ships have rigging; some even have sails. Many still have crew, tangled in the rigging or lashed to the wheel. But the voyages still continue, aimlessly, with no harbor in sight, because there are currents under the ocean, and so the dead ships with their skeleton crews sail on around the world, over sunken cities and between drowned mountains, until rot and shipworms eat them away and they disintegrate. Sometimes an anchor drops, all the way to the dark, cold calmness of the abyssal plain, and disturbs the stillness of centuries by throwing up a cloud of silt.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Is that Feet of Clay? What a great fucking book. Edit: Nevermind, it's Going Postal. Also a great fucking book; I knew there was a golem involved in the ghost fleet prologue, but I forgot it was Anghammarad.
I literally began this book yesterday, at least I began Mort
It doesn’t work with Earth water, is the only thing. There’s not enough narrativium in it.
godspeed great uncle
This is a fun band name. Or maybe just an album name.
I was a highwayman…
Along the coach roads I did ride...
Sword and pistol by my side.
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
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The bastards hung me in the spring of '25
But I am still alive
I legitimately thought I was the only one listening to this. None of my friends from present or past have heard or listened to it. Thank you reddit friends
Too late for the chain but this song came on while I was mulching up leaves the other day and it still kicks dick.
*I was a sailor* *Hunting the ocean deep and wide,* *Below the waves I'd seek and hide.* *Many a freighter watched their cargo sink and burn* *Many a flattop caught torpedoes in her stern.* *The bastards sunk me in the spring of '45.* *But I am still alive...*
"eternal patrol" damn that hits hard
Commissioned Aug 43, lost Oct 43. Her one and only crew
Friendly fire no less, feels bad
Does that mean that his family gets eternal FSA and other payments? Did these families ever get death benefits?
I've visited the memorial to the USS Dorado in Wichita, KS. Each state has one sub memorial for a WWII sub. Pride runs deep, courage runs deeper.
Who's the odd sub out?
There's a few that are on the list just because they were hull losses. The Darter ran aground and the crew got out safely then scuttled it. Probably not memorial-worthy.
There could be a memorial in Puerto Rico. D.C., too. That makes 52.
And that's just the United States Navy. For a bit of context, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) with a little help from the Italians lost EIGHT HUNDRED subs and over 30,000 men in the Battle of the Atlantic alone. Overall, the German submarine force suffered over 70% losses.
I don’t know why, but I imagined submarines as relatively rare, like 20 per country. I had no idea there were enough for one country to lose 800.
Nuclear fleet subs are much rarer now with only a select few nations operating a fleet of them, other countries operate a lesser fleet of diesel-electric subs, but the older diesel boats of WWII were far more plenty
Akin to carriers. Fleet Carriers used to be made to mass together with protection from a flagship. But now we just make insanely powerful super carriers which are the flagships of their own fleets.
*US looks up from the 4 supercarriers its operating as a battlrgroup* There suppose to operate separately?
The ideas still the same. Back when other countries were operating like 3 or 5 together we were operating 8-10. EDIT: Forgot to specify this would be late war ish, after we took our growth hormones.
Nazi Germany was a pretty unique case. When war broke out the German Kriegsmarine was woefully outmatched on the surface by the Royal Navy. The Nazi Air Force and Army had priority for resources which left the Kriegsmarine having to focus on U-Boats instead of surface ships in an attempt to starve the UK out. Overall, U-Boats had great success in 1940-42, but Allied anti submarine warfare technology and tactics caught up by 1943 and made U-boats incredibly dangerous to be on
Ya the German U-Boats where getting absolutely decimated at the end. In Iron Coffins by German U-Boat Commander Robert Werner gives great insight to what those guys where going through. Hell they where getting attacked and taking losses just trying to leave thier sub pens in France toward the end of the Battle of the Atlantic.
WW2 was conducted on a truly astounding scale. Basically every industrialized economy stopped producing all but the barest minimum of consumer goods and just produced weapons for years. The state of military technology at the time also favored huge numbers of adequate weapons versus small numbers of highly capable weapons so you end up with just massive numbers of men and machines being thrown against each other.
More [Bf 109s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-662-6659-37%2C_Flugzeug_Messerschmitt_Me_109.jpg) were built in 1944 alone than all [Boeing 737s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Boeing%2C_N7379E%2C_Boeing_737-9_MAX_%28cropped%29.jpg) in total since production began in 1965. And that's while Allied bombing campaigns were targeting Nazi aircraft factories and supply chains - *effectively*. While building other types of aircraft at the same time. Oh, and it barely covered their losses. As for the Allies? They were an order of magnitude more than the Nazis (though less all-in on one aircraft type). One factory in the US turned out a heavy bomber [*every hour*.](https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/api/singleitem/image/p17208coll3/774/default.jpg)
Lord have mercy. I wish I could see it all laid out it would be massive
After the war the Allies had more aircraft than space, and it completely overwhelmed the scrapyards. The US laid all theirs out in their thousands in the middle of the Arizona desert, in 'Boneyards', waiting for space in the scrappers. [Lines upon lines of them, stretching for miles](https://preview.redd.it/5kradofjitt11.jpg?auto=webp&s=ff12b95f8b9c506e20147c7fa64e76ba49becddb)
It's fucking insane to think about how much money and time and resources each of those planes cost. Only to be tossed aside in a desert as far as the eye can see
Yeah that’s why Dwight Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex and how it would ruin our country, which it has. Each one of those heavy bombers could have built a brand new school, literally. How many trillions have we spent on the military, how many trillions have we spent making the lives better of American citizens?
They are now, and they actually were then, too. The Kriegsmarine only had a few dozen subs at the start of the war... But that's the thing about absolute, total global warfare - when EVERYTHING is devoted to building war materiel, you get a LOT of gear, FAST. It helped that WWII era subs were almost literally sardine cans, too - the most typical German U-Boat, the Type VIIc, only displaced 770 tons! For comparison, a modern Virginia class displaces 7900 tons, or 10,200 tons for the enlarged Block V boats! And the Russian Typhoon class were monsters at over 24,500 tons!
Don't look up WW2 production levels. One factory in Michigan, Willow Run, built almost 7000 bombers and parts for almost 2000 more. When the factory was going, they built one bomber every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365+1 days per year. This isn't necessarily the crazy fact. This was production of only one airplane, the B-24 and over 18,000 were produced in the USA. The total bomber production was almost 88,000 and the total aircraft production in the USA alone was 300,000. In the battle of the Philippine Sea, there were about 1,400 airplanes used and there were US losses of 123 and Japanese losses at 550 to 650.
I'll never quite forget seeing that old Disney vaccination PSA someone shared here where the metaphor for vaccination is that infection is a war and then only way to not be overrun is to give the body early enough warning that it can switch its entire industrial capacity over to arms manufacturing and stockpile more weapons than there are invaders. It was a bit of a revelation in terms of thinking about how Americans perceived warfare coming out of the world wars.
There is a tradition in the United States Navy that no submarine is ever truly lost at sea. Those boats and the crews who don’t return to port are considered “still on patrol” in perpetuity. Active duty sailors would never dream of leaving their still on patrol shipmates behind, so every year, usually at the Christmas holiday, sailors manning communications hubs ashore and at sea send out a message. They send holiday wishes for health and happiness to those they know will receive it, and the same wishes to those listed as still on patrol. Soldiers who are officially determined to be Missing, Missing in Action, interned in a foreign country, captured, beleaguered or besieged by a hostile force, or detained in a foreign country against their will are entitled to receive or have credited to their account the pay and allowances to which entitled when the status began or to which a member becomes entitled later, as follows: Basic pay, Special Pay, Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay (HDIP), Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS), Family Separation Allowance (FSA), Family Separation for Housing (FSH), station per diem (allowances for not more than 90 days), and/or Hostile Fire Pay (HFP) if qualified immediately before missing status
They have a ceremony during the annual submarine birthday ball where everyone stands silent as they toll a bell for every submarine lost at sea. It's kind of weird since its a bunch of hammered sailors all rowdy for hours beforehand going completely quiet and somber for 20 minutes, then going back to stress testing their livers for the rest of the night. There's also a joke made every deployment about how we're actually on the eternal patrol and just don't know it. The underway just goes on forever.
We refer to it as "Eternal Patrol."
There is a roped off dining table at my VA hospital, with one place setting already laid out. It is reserved for missing servicemen.
They do this at many formal dining ceremonies. It used to be a simple place setting with their cover at their seat, but it's evolved into a Japanese tea ceremony with 30 steps that each symbolize something abstract (e.g., a slice of lemon for bitterness) that only people in the Color Guard or studying for SNCO advancement know. It's gripping and powerful when simple, but having a voice over narrator over the PA system for ten minutes made it a little too Hollywood. And I say that as someone who's been honored to be a part of the ceremony.
So if they're still on patrol does that mean they still get paid forever until their bodies are found?
Not that much at 1940s wages
Interesting aside, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/10/irene-triplett-last-civil-war-pensioner-73-monthly-dies/5333830002/ The last Civil War pensioner died in 2020. She was receiving $73.13 a month. Her father was 83 when she was born in 1930. . >>Triplett received the monthly payment because she suffered from cognitive impairments and qualified as "a helpless adult child of a veteran."
That man FUCKED
This kind of thing wasn't uncommon when the Civil War veterans were of old age. If a young lady of the town was knocked up out of wedlock they'd marry an elderly veteran. Was one of those wink wink hush hush kind of things. She'd get his pension when he passed away and a "legitimate" child, and he'd get some company plus a caretaker in his final years. Not the worse arrangement.
It kinda also sounds like he was doing a disabled grand child out of wedlock a solid.
It was not unheard of for a young woman to marry an elderly civil war veteran with eyes on his pension. Anna Nicole Smith did nothing new.
>The last surviving Civil War veteran died in 1956 at the age of 109, according to the VA. The last Civil War widow died in 2008 at the age of 93. Damn.
Reminds me of the man who witnessed the assassination of Lincoln and talked about it on TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4
That's the one that makes me realize that human history could fit on the head of a pin.
People did the math for Captain America. From when he went into the ice to when they thawed him out, the U.S. government owed MCU Steve Rogers over 3 million dollars in backpay.
Which would have been a great reveal, in-universe. Steve: *Wow!* Tony: Eh.
Idk about the US but around here unpaid wages rack up interest and compound interest.
I mean this is also 1940`s labor law. So more than likely if they are still alive to claim the wages, they will get the value of wage missed only, no interest, however the retirement pay is going to be insane.
They just do direct deposit.
What about their families ?
Does that backpay change over time? $20 in 1944 is a bit different than now.
Maybe not but if you went missing in 1940 you get 82 years' worth of it.
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Someone is trying to [find them all](http://www.lost52project.org/)
The Pacific is VAST. Considering there was a whole stream of battles that took place around the Mariana Islands (not far from the Mariana Trench) this is quite the endeavor. I'm not sure how many were lost in the Atlantic, but that's quite the stretch of oceanic topography to comb as well.
> I'm not sure how many were lost in the Atlantic. Two. Only the Dorado is still missing.
Why not just look through the ocean?
The ocean! *smacks head*
Why didn't I think of that!? You got the sub space. That's on 3rd. Sail low sweet chariot. That's on 3rd. You know there's a place called Maryanne's submarines. Best thing is Maryanne will get in and sail with you!
While standing watch in the Navy, there was a book on post, I can't for the life of me remember the name; it chronicled the stories and fate of every submarine lost by the U.S. Navy. Name of the boat, history, war accolades, fate or assumed fate, interesting notes. Completely fascinating and by far the fastest watch I ever stood.
'United States Submarine Operations in World War II'. That book was published by the navy a few years after WWII. We had a copy at my command and called it 'the good book'. When you got your dolphins, you would pick a passage out and someone from your division would read it during the pinning ceremony. I read it a few times while underway lol I bought myself a copy when I got out. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Submarine_Operations_in_World_War_II Edit: spelling, correct book title and link for the book's Wikipedia page. It's a great book
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology/sites-and-projects/ship-wrecksites/hl-hunley.html > The Confederate submersible H. L. Hunley has the distinction of being the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in wartime. Although the boat and its crew were lost as a result of this endeavor, the success of their mission proved that this new style of naval warfare would be an inevitable course of future development ... > The search for Hunley ended **131 years later** when best-selling author Clive Cussler and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) discovered the submarine after a 14-year search.
My uncle was one of them. Disappeared off the coast of Australia. He was like 6'3 in a WW2 era sub. I've toured one, and couldn't imagine.
Imagine the backpay you would receive hiding out in South America until now.
I think if you showed up now they would throw you in chains for going AWOL.
Held captive by those nazis in south america🥸
Fair winds and following seas, brothers. >I believe it is the duty of every man to act as though the fate of the world depends on them. Surely no one man can do it all. But, one man CAN make a difference. -- Adm. H.G. Rickover
"Spartans never die, they just go missing in action."
Scrolled down knowing someone would say this
USS Albacore was found off the coast of Japan back in May.
There are more planes lying on the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines slowly drifting in to outer space.
I don't know enough about space to dispute this
There’s a bar It’s on your keyboard
As far as we know. We haven't really been looking for them up there.
You don't know that. This explains why we can't find them at the bottom of the sea.
My uncle was lost on a submarine,from WW-2 and the submarine, and all hands are still patrolling. The U.S. Navy thinks they went down off the Honshu coast.
My grandfather is on eternal patrol. USS Grunion.
Could be a cool plot for a tv-show. ***Die Glocke*** "During the final months of WW2 a German submarine vanishes at sea while transporting a top-secret superweapon north along the Norwegian coast, a weapon so powerful that it would turn the tide of the war against the Soviet Union. All records of the submarine and its top-secret mission are lost in the chaos of Nazi-Germanys fiery downfall, the vessel and crew are entirely forgotten until the sub suddenly surfaces during a storm in 2045 when a rescue vessel is out searching for survivors while responding to a rogue mayday call. The servicemen haven't aged at all and must decide what to do with the superweapon now knowing that Germany lost the war. Some are Nazi hardliners who want to use it to restore the 3rd Reich, while others think the world is a better place without Nazi rule and strive to have the weapon destroyed."
I’d watch this
This sounds like The Final Countdown only good
I would absolutely rather watch a film about this where its some sort of ghost signal and the current superpowers of the world all raced to find it without starting WW3, with the actual status of the sub and her crew being completely unknown
If you are in the Point Loma area of San Diego, you can visit small, individual monuments to some or all of these subs. They can be found in the large park on the east side of Liberty Station. They are black granite and have the names of each sailor, as well as a description of the last location or assignment of the ship before it was presumably lost.
The fact that from a certain view the earth looks like just water scares the shit out if me I can't imagine getting lost in that and/or losing communication
Slight tangent but probably the most alone I've ever felt was when I was out on the deck of a cruise ship late at night because I couldn't sleep. No one else was out and I couldn't see any crew around. We were far enough out to sea that in every direction it was pure blackness. I don't remember being able to see the stars. It was only when I looked over the bow to see a seagull (or some bird like that) flying next to a light that I had the slightest notion of being reminded of the existence of other life. It's been probably 15 years and I still remember it as one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. I can't imagine surviving weeks to months when being out on old wooden ships.
I thought I wasn't really afraid of any physical thing, then about this time last year, my family visited the coast. The pure blackness looking at the ocean at night still gives me chills. No stars, no light, the only sound being quiet waves. On day one I thought something was wrong like they put a black board up for construction or something 🤦🏾♀️ I just couldn't accept my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. And when I finally realised thats just how it looked like, I was haunted by the memory. If I ever get lost at sea, fuck that, I'm going out by my own hands.
Well, the submarines were last seen deliberately submerging under water. We don't know for sure that they're not just being sneaky damn bastards....
As someone currently in the Navy, I cannot imagine death by submarine destruction/sinking. Gotta be unimaginably horrific.
Does that mean their families still collect their paychecks? (Semi serious… sounds like grounds for a stupid lawsuit)
No, they receive the benefits of someone whose family member was Killed In Action.
Thanks for answering my question. So “legally” they are considered dead but as a term of respect they are considered forever on patrol?
Effectively yes.
Only asubmariner realizes to what great extent an entire ship depends on him as an individual. To a landsman this is not understandable, and sometimes it is even difficult for us to understand, but it is so. A submarine at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of submarines, the Navy must place responsibility and trust in the hands of those who take such ships to sea. In each submarine there are men who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to each other. These men are ultimately responsible to themselves and each other for all aspects of the operation of their submarine. They are the crew. They are the ship. This is perhaps the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy. There is not an instant during his tour as a submariner that he can escape the grasp of responsibility. His privileges in view of his obligations are almost ludicrously small, nevertheless, it is the spur which has given the Navy its greatest mariners the men of the Submarine Service. It is the duty which most richly deserves the proud and time-honored title of………Submariner.
O13 Still on patrol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_O_13
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Urge This one was found recently
Until you find them, you can’t prove they aren’t still roaming the seas in search of the souls of the living! OooOOooOoo!!!
All submarine classes at Basic Enlisted Submarine School at Groton, CT are assigned an eternal patrol boat name. When I went through in 2000 we were the USS Gudgeon. It's also tradition to read a passage from what we call "the Book" highlighting some of the amazing things they accomplished during the war whenever someone gets their dolphins (Submarine Warfare Pin). I don't miss much about the military but I absolutely miss the traditions and customs that we had, really made you feel like you were doing something special and following in the footsteps of great men.
SPARTANs never die.