Annales Belli Profile picture
Aug 17, 2022 11 tweets 5 min read Read on X
- The WW2 Ghost Blimp 🧵 -

At 6:03 a.m., on August 16, 1942, L-8 lifted off from Treasure Island, San Francisco, on a coastal antisubmarine patrol (1/11) #svagaiature #History #Historia #USA #Mistery #Coldcase #USNavy
Inside the control car were Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody, aged 27, and his co-pilot, Ensign Charles Adams, aged 35. L-8 was armed with two depth charges and one 30-caliber machine gun. At the time of the incident, the airship had made 1,092 previous safe trips (2/11)
At 7:38 a.m., L-8's crew radioed to Treasure Island and reported observing an oil slick. A Liberty ship and a fishing boat in the area both witnessed L-8 descending to within thirty feet of the ocean surface and circling the oil slick (3/11)
Shortly after 9:00 a.m., L-8 dumped ballast, ascended, and headed east – contrary to its intended course towards Point Reyes, which was to the northwest (4/11)
At 11:15 a.m., L-8 reappeared drifting towards the coastline at low elevation. The airship touched down on the beach, where two fishermen tried to hold it down by its tie lines. Upon looking inside its control car, the fishermen observed that no crew were inside (5/11)
Police and military personnel immediately descended upon the crash site. While the control car doors were found hanging open, and the crash had been so gentle that the crewmen would have walked away unharmed, neither Cody nor Adams were found inside (6/11)
Searches of the coastline from air, land and sea found no trace of the missing pilots, and the search was abandoned on August 18 (7/11)
Authorities initially theorized that Cody and Adams had bailed out the ocean, but all three parachutes and a rubber life raft were found aboard the control car. Furthermore, the radio and engines were switched on, and no distress transmissions had been sent (8/11)
A board of investigation convened by the Navy could only determine that L-8 had not been shot down, burned, or made contact with the ocean, and that Cody and Adams had not engaged in misconduct. Cody and Adams were declared legally dead in 1943 (9/11)
The official theory was that in order to deploy a smoke marker at the site of the oil slick, one crew member opened the rear hatch. He then slipped and, dangling from the hatch, shouted for assistance. When the other crew member attempted rescue, they both fell (10/11)
L-8 was quickly repaired and returned to service following the incident. After the war, the airship was sold back to the Goodyear company and renamed America, flying over sporting events as part of Goodyear's blimp fleet until it was retired in 1982 (11/11)

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More from @annalesbelli

Mar 27, 2023
- The Pianist who dared to challenge Stalin 🧵-

Our story begins on an evening of 1944 in Moscow, Stalin was listening to the radio in his office when he heard Maria Yudina playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 and absolutely loved it (1/8) #Svagaiature #History
The dictator loved it so much that personally called the radio station demanding for a copy of the performance, there’s was only one problem: what he had listen was a live broadcast of a concert that hadn’t been recorded but no one wanted to upset the leader (2/8)
Maria Yudina was woken up in the middle of the night and urgently driven back to the theatre she had left just few hours before together with a conductor and a small hastily gathered orchestra (3/8)
Read 8 tweets
Mar 24, 2023
-Battle of Lechfeld 955- 🧵

The battle of Lechfeld was a significant event in the history of europe, because it stopped the raids of the Magyars people.
The battle took place near the city of Augusta, in a plain flanked by the river Lech. (1/6)
#svagaiature #battles #medieval Image
Otto I arrived with his troops near the city between the 8th and 9th of August. He was joined by the dukes of Bavaria, of Lotharingia, of Swabians and of Bohemia. Otto had at his disposala round 10k heavy cavlry, against around 50k of the enemy light cavalry. (2/6) Image
The emeperor knew the strategy of the magyars, as it was similar to the one used by the Hunn: they tried to avoid at all cost a melee fight. The next day Otto arranged his troops in a column diveded by nationality, (3/6)
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Mar 17, 2023
- The Man Who Fought in WWII with a Sword and a Bow 🧵 -

Born into an old Oxfordshire family, Jack Churchill graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1926 #Svagaiature #WWII #History #Scotland #Trivia (1/16) Image
In 1930 he left the Army and worked as an editor of a Nairobi newspaper, a model, and a movie extra, he even participated to the 1939 bow World Championship representing Britain (2/16) Image
In 1940 Jack felt the call of duty and re-joined the Army becoming the second in command of an infantry platoon. Everything fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mad Jack always marched into battle with bow, arrows and his trusty basket-hilted claymore by his side (3/16)
Read 16 tweets
Mar 16, 2023
-The Carroccio- 🧵

A carroccio was a large very decorated wagon, moved by oxes, bearing the city signs. It was highly regard by the italian communes, around it the militia of the city gathered and fought, and losing it in battle meant defeat. (1/6)
#svagaiature #italy #medieval
It is thought to have Lomgobards origins, used by the aristocracy of the kingdom as a charriot. By XI century its functions became mainly symbolic, because of the added weight of the Cross and the city banners. (2/6)
Documents dating 1158 and 1201 confirm the presence of the milanese carroccio in San Giorgio al Palazzo’s church, in time of peace. In the battle of #Legnano, 29th of May 1176, the carrocio played a crucial role in the final victory. (3/6)
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Mar 15, 2023
- That Time Caesar was Kidnapped by Pirates 🧵-

In 75 BCE a band of Cilician pirates in the Aegean Sea captured a 25-year-old Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar, who had been on his way to study oratory in Rhodes. (1/8) #Svagaiature #History #Caesar @SNicotinus @UpdatingOnRome Image
From the start, Caesar refused to behave like a captive. When the pirates told him that they had set his ransom at 20 talents, he laughed at them for not knowing who it was they had captured and suggested that 50 talents would be a more appropriate amount. (2/8)
Caesar wasn’t the usual captive, he treated the pirates as if they were his subordinates. In few time he became the de facto leader of the ship. He even sent his entourage out to gather the ransom money and settled in for a period of captivity. (3/8)
Read 8 tweets
Feb 15, 2023
- Landing on the wrong aircraft carrier 🧵-

Carriers can look indistinguishable to an untrained eye, but it seems that even the most trained of eyes can sometimes make some mistakes (1/5) #Svagaiature #History
US naval tradition requires the carriers’ crews to be as discreet as possible about the error especially avoiding embarrassing the pilot. But theory and practice are two very different things and crews developed a tradition of doing works of art with the unexpected visitors (2/5)
This exactly what happened to an A-7 Corsair II from USS Kitty Hawk that in the 1970s mistakenly landed on USS Hancock (3/5)
Read 5 tweets

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