• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

Status
Not open for further replies.
Don't put words in my mouth. What I think likely happened is that the Swedish helicopter/s arrived promptly as commanded, as per protocol, as logged by Sweden MRCC operations at 0202, and advised to Silja Europa by Turku MRCC at 0227 that 'the Swedish helicopter will be here in ten minutes'. As these senior officers were billeted together in the forward cabins on decks 5 or 6, adjacent to the Voronins and the retired sea captain, who all escaped, no problem, thanks to being near the life-saving equipment and not needing to scramble up narrow stairwells, IMV some or all or all of them almost certainly survived. Ask yourself, how come the bodies the divers came across on the bridge or in the sixth deck and fourth/fifth deck cabins were never publicly identified because you can be sure the police and marine investigator bods will certainly want to know where each of the ship's officers were! It is not as if they were unidentifiable. So we can assume reasonably that these guys escaped together in a life boat, knew how to send SOS flares, attracted the attention of the first helicopter/s and were consequentially rescued, taken to Huddinge, as the Turku OHG Super Puma did not arrive until circa 0300 to bring people up to the decks of Silja, Symphony, Isabella and Mariella, so fly straight to Huddinge, Stockholm from where the nurse and doctor were picked up to return to the scene. Obviously, Svensson couldn't possibly know who he was rescuing in advance. Not his job.

Where did I put words in your mouth?

You claim there was a secret helicopter mission.

Why were the pilot and other crew ignored when it came to handing out medals?

How would the divers identify bodies? they don't know what the officers looked like. They could only get access to a small part of the ship, they weren't looking for bodies that had floated or washed away.
 
He delivered the senior officers of the ship.

Svensson delivered the senior officers where? Are these the senior officers who officially died but you theorize are living to this day in hiding somewhere? Wouldn't such an operation (the secret rescue and the hiding of the officers) require a vast conspiracy?
 
The Swedish Riksdag accepted the Soviet smuggling in September 1994 as an acknowledged fact that it did do this.

As that is official how can you call it a conspiracy theory. I thought you lay great store in what 'officials' tell you?
Until it comes from the mouth of an official it hasn't happened. So what went wrong here with Johan Hirschfeldt's statement to the Riksdag in 2005?

Can't have it both ways.

Or maybe you prefer to consult the tarot for the truth of a matter.

It becomes a conspiracy when you go on to say that the ship was intentionally sunk with the loss of over a thousand innocent lives because there may have been some smuggling going on.

re the highlite - why do you think that? Although I will categorically say that I tend to put way more "store" in what an official investigation reports than what a poster named Vixen reports.
 
That wasn't the correct line from the book, but I'll let you have it since it is kindle.

I have forgotten what the quibble was but if you read the kindle account you will become aware the Wilhelm Gustloff was predominantly a civilian ship as of the time it was sunk.

From New Yorker:



Whilst wiki is excellent for looking up quick facts, it is not necessarily always correct (for example, remember how the wiki entry for The Herald of Free Enterprise states that it had no watertight bulkheads?). Another problem is mindless cutting and pasting of 'facts' so if one source erroneously calls it a military ship, then everybody thereafter follows suit. We saw how Axxman300 said the Nazis were baddies so who cares, which is circumventing the issue of what is or is not a fair target.

So don't use Wiki without following the references.

Why would you use New Yorker as a reference?

It was being used as a military transport, it was sunk. Just like hundreds of others.
 
Piht is mentioned in the list of survivors of Estlines in Tallinn on September 28, 1994 at number 13 at 13.03 at Turku University Central Hospital. On the same day, Turku's maritime director Erik Mörd said that Avo Piht had been transported by car to Helsinki. 28.9. Estonian radio station KuKu sent an interview to a helicopter crew member. Apparently a Swedish helicopter Y-64. the interviewee said he saved Avo Piht. When Spiegel TV's Jutta Rabe tried to get an interview tape, the director of the radio station told her that the tape had already been seized by the Estonian security police. Two days later, Reuters interviewed Bengt Stenmark, head of the Department of Water Transport Safety. He also said he had been in contact with Piht after the accident. On October 1, 1994, the Estonian Embassy filed a protest with the Swedish Foreign Ministry over access to information about Estonian passengers. Swedish police had also blocked the Estonian consul from visiting the survivors at Södersjukhus Hospital.

Helsingin Sanomat reported that Piht was due to be interviewed at Turku Hospital and on the following day reported Bengt Stenmark stating that Piht had now been interviewed (this would have been 28.9.1994 when the three PM's visited). Danish and Swedish papers subsequently reported that he had gone missing from a Helsinki Hospital.

Persons in Rostock who knew Piht professionally are adamant they saw him in a German news broadcast, which Jutta Rabe claims was seized by the security services from the tv station.

Isn't it convenient that any evidence that supports the claim has all disappeared.
What evidence do you have for the the news footage from a German TV company being 'seized by the security services'?

Are you claiming the German government is in on the conspiracy as well now?
 
Simply calling something of public concern a 'conspiracy theory' does not make it so. Presumably, if you lived in China, you would be calling the Tiananmen Square massacre a 'conspiracy theory' by your reasoning (if one can call it that).

You are claiming there was a conspiracy to sink the ship, kidnap the officers, hide a rescue mission, bribe the aircrew, seize news footage from a German TV company and goodness knows what else. You can't present any evidence for any of it.

Seems like a conspiracy theory to me.
 
Isn't it convenient that any evidence that supports the claim has all disappeared.
What evidence do you have for the the news footage from a German TV company being 'seized by the security services'?

Are you claiming the German government is in on the conspiracy as well now?


Everyone is in on it except Vixen.
 
Way more frequently a simple mistake or misstatement is obvious.

What, in your opinion, is the difference between this cover up that you flatly state occurred and is ongoing, and a conspiracy to conceal which you continually deny you are espousing?



I suggest that the "Customs whistleblower" was even more mistaken than Bildt or the JAIC. I suggest that after ten years the "Customs whistleblower's" memory was somewhat less than accurate. No evidence has been provided to the contrary.

Didn't Vixen claim he saw truck loads of US Marines being secretly put aboard the ship?
 
If it walks, talks and smells like a conspiracy theory...

...then apparently it isn't because Vixen says it isn't.
 
He delivered the senior officers of the ship.

As the incident had to be classified, involving as it likely did the interests of the Swedish defence forces, his acts of heroism also had to be.
.

So why draw attention to him at all? Why give him a medal and not any of the other crew?
 
Svenssons acts of heroism were classified by officially and publicly rewarding him with a medal for said acts of heroism?
 
So why draw attention to him at all? Why give him a medal and not any of the other crew?
According to Vixen, they weren't given medals because they were just doing their jobs.

Apparently not logging their flights, keeping quiet about who they rescued and why and not telling anyone about the skulduggery they were up to is "just doing their jobs" for SAR crew.

Apart from Svensson. For some reason he needed a medal to keep him quiet.
 
According to Vixen, they weren't given medals because they were just doing their jobs.

Apparently not logging their flights, keeping quiet about who they rescued and why and not telling anyone about the skulduggery they were up to is "just doing their jobs" for SAR crew.

Apart from Svensson. For some reason he needed a medal to keep him quiet.

Well, technically, they weren't actually a SAR crew and weren't just 'doing their jobs'. They were an Anti Submarine crew and took aboard Svensson as an extra crew man for the SAR flight.
 
Exactly. Only Svensson got a medal.

Why?

Presumably, it was for something that only Svensson himself did.

Or, running with your premise for argument's sake, something only Svensson himself needed to be compensated for, or that only Svensson himself needed to be bribed for.

This is why the secret helicopter trip suggestion isn't convincing. If such was what the medal was for, the other crew members should have gotten one, too. Why, then, did only Svensson get one?
 
Well, technically, they weren't actually a SAR crew and weren't just 'doing their jobs'. They were an Anti Submarine crew and took aboard Svensson as an extra crew man for the SAR flight.
That probably proves something or other when looked at through conspiracy-tinted glasses.
 
So why draw attention to him at all? Why give him a medal and not any of the other crew?

Svenssons acts of heroism were classified by officially and publicly rewarding him with a medal for said acts of heroism?


It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something, that conspirators must always leave clues to the existence of the conspiracy, just as Bond villains always explain the plot to Bond before trying to kill him.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom