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

[JesseCuster]

According to Sea of Death: The Baltic, 1945, Wilhelm Gustloff had been a hospital ship from 1939-1940, there's even a photo in the book of it during its time as a hospital ship while at Gotenhafen, painted in actual hospital ship colors, white with a stripe down the side. (chapter 4, page 78 of the Kindle edition). That was before it was converted for use as an accommodation and training ship.

Vixen, where in the book does it say that the Gustloff was painted grey because that was the colour of a hospital ship?

I can easily check the reference for you. It'll only take a second for you to post the reference for where the book says what you claim it does.

 

[JayUtah]

It is a fact...

Everything you brought up has been thoroughly discussed. Your attempt to explain observations by the most farfetched means conceivable does not rise to fact. You are not a competent investigator.

It is meet and right to expect to understand what happened to the senior crew.

In your hands, that expectation is a joke. You have no talent for acquiring fact and reasoning through it in parsimonious ways. You're steeped in conspiracy lore, and will entertain little if any discussion to the contrary.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

He must have done something special, no? Apart from sharing another helicopter's rescues.



The descriptive narrative in the JAIC (section 7) of the rescur was written up by Rear Admiral Heimo Iivonen and ISTM the reason his version seems strikingly similar to the Aftonbladet versions is because he copied the details of Svensson's rescues from there to include under the six o'clock in the morning antics.



I have had a look at this an come up with this by superimposing the accounts on each other.



Kenneth Svensson could hardly fit the rescue harness around them. ... Eight humans Kenneth Svensson managed to pick up from the sea.

Then he almost drowned himself.





Y b4 (Boeing Kawasaki)

Y 64 took off from Berga at 0445 hrs, picked up a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 0552 hrs



... Kenneth Svensson assisted as rescue man in one of the first three Vertol-helicopters that left from Berga naval base outside Stockholm. The time was then just after two o'clock in the night. After an hour they arrived.



Stefan Olsson with Y74 was first to leave Berga arriving at 0300 EET.



06.42 (over three hours to get there)The Swedish Navy's helicopter Y 74 arrives at the disaster area. The crew rescued 6 survivors and two lifeguards who were in the water after winch crashes on other helicopters.



Svensson arrived with Y64 to find one raft with three men. ... After about twenty minutes hard work he had managed to lift all three to the helicopter. ... (29.9.1994)=3 ‘three apathetic men frozen on a raft'. (28.9.1994). He tried to winch up the earlier ones but only one was winched up alive.=1



Whilst Kenneth Svensson was on his way up with the fourth person, the rescue line got stuck in the undercarriage of the helicopter. The crew managed to get onboard the injured person, but Kenneth Svensson remained hanging below the helicopter. To prevent him from being smashed against the aircraft the line was cut and he fell back into the ... sea. The helicopter was forced to leave Kenneth Svensson alone in the water in order to fly to Huddinge hospital with the injured. =4 saved so far.



Y74 had come along, at 0642. Y 74 went to assist Y 64.lowered a winch A hook and harness were dropped to the rescue man, Y64, and he was able to use them to get up to the helicopter.



Three survivors were hanging on to the keel of an upside-down lifeboat. Y 64's rescue man was lowered, and all three survivors were winched up. + 3 =7



In connection with the rescue of the last of the three, a strong wave threw the rescue man against the lifeboat, injuring him. Since Y 74 now had three injured rescue men, (Including Y69 whom Y74 also rescued) it had to interrupt its rescue operations. In addition, fuel was running low.



The injury to the Y 74 rescue man proved so serious that he was unable to do more. The work was continued by Y 64's rescue man. The six survivors, the injured rescue men and the body were taken to Huddinge Hospital, where the helicopter arrived at 0930 hrs.



Six were Y74 and One was Y64.



Y 64 got permission from the OSC to return to Berga to repair the broken winch, and landed there at 1530 hrs. In the helicopter were nine persons, one of whom was dead.[- 29.9.1994) = 8



In which helicopter? Y64 or Y74?



In the Aftonbladet 29.9.1994 report Svensson is quoted as, “After only just half a minute I made a new attempt and it went better.”



Note the first person tense – he was speaking directly to Eriksson.



So you can see how the JAIC has clearly tried to interweave the eight Svensson rescued earlier with the rescue attempts of Y74 in a legerdemain attempt to lead the reader to believe this is what the Atonbladet article was referring to.



ISTM if Y74 Olsson/Moberg saved not only Y64 but also Y69 and got injured themself in so doing, then give that bloody man a medal, too!

This jumble appears to be quotations from perhaps three different sources intermixed with your own comments and obviously some of it translated, by we know not whom. Since there's no way to discern who said what or whether the quotes are accurate it really doesn't help in the slightest. Do you want to try again in a less stream-of-consciousness style?

 

[Mojo]

This jumble appears to be quotations from perhaps three different sources intermixed with your own comments and obviously some of it translated, by we know not whom. Since there's no way to discern who said what or whether the quotes are accurate it really doesn't help in the slightest. Do you want to try again in a less stream-of-consciousness style?

I thought it was just something that Vixen had made up:

I have had a look at this an come up with this by superimposing the accounts on each other.

 

[Vixen]

If I'm the captain of that sub, I'd sink it too.

My point is that instead of making your point from a British point of view, say the silence surrounding the Dieppe raid, Operation Tiger, or if you wanted to stretch it - Coventry, the fact is you went with the Nazi perspective.

This is where your lack of historical facts merges with your lack of all things nautical.

Pro-Tip: Never take the Nazi's side on anything.

As if...!

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Open a thread and we can chat about it.

You already opened this thread and began chatting about it. It's clear you're running away from having to substantiate your claim to have a textbook source for your hospital ship claim.

You could just have admitted you misremembered but no, you had to raise the stakes with a bluff and are now caught in a lie.

 

[Vixen]

Are you seriously suggesting that “rogue KGB agents, wheeled submarines, minisubs firing blank torpedos, detonation charges, lock dissolving nuclear material, trucks full of heroin being pushed off the Estonia in the middle of a storm, CIA rendition flights disguised as cargo flights, WW2 mines, Spetsnaz, secret helicopter flights, etc.” is not half-baked nonsense?

That is the cargo that was regularly being transported from Estonia to the west, and as ordered by western intelligence agencies. That it is outwith your ken does not make it not so.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Er, MRCC Stockholm and MRCC Turku. You can look them up in recorded police statements and the official distress transcript as it happened live.

If you have these logs why have you not presented them?

 

[Vixen]

This is the post of mine you were responding to:

How in god's name did you interpret that post as saying that if something is not within my radar it cannot be true?

You said it was all BS. You are ignorant. Read up on the cold war and the fall of the USSR. Then come back and say, 'It is all BS'.

 

[JesseCuster]

You said it was all BS. You are ignorant. Read up on the cold war and the fall of the USSR. Then come back and say, 'It is all BS'.

Yes, I said it was BS.

I did not say that "if its not within my radar it cannot be true".

I did not say anything that could be interpreted as anything remotely like that.

You lied about what I said.

 

[Vixen]

If you have these logs why have you not presented them?

You can search for the discussion we had about the mayday communications and the responses of the various ships in the area and MRCC. It is all there.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Oh please, 26 helicopters rescued 104 people. He wasn't the only one to fall into the water because of winch problems.

A medal is an award, not a reward.

Is that your evidence for a secret military flight?

 

[JesseCuster]

You said it was all BS. You are ignorant. Read up on the cold war and the fall of the USSR. Then come back and say, 'It is all BS'.

Is reading about the cold war and the fall of the USSR going to make lock dissolving nuclear material being the cause of the Estonia sinking any less silly?

Or minisubs firing blank torpedos at the Estonia and sinking it less silly?

Or crew members trying to push a truck full of heroin off the ship via the bow visor any less silly?

Or wheeled submarines leaving tracks on the bottom of the Baltic somehow being involved with the sinking of the Estonia any less silly?

Etc.

I'm not sure that you're the person to take history lessons from about the history of the USSR, before and after its downfall, I mean, you thought Vladimir Putin was head of the KGB in 1994...

 

[Andy_Ross]

Oh please, 26 helicopters rescued 104 people. He wasn't the only one to fall into the water because of winch problems.

A medal is an award, not a reward.

That doesn't answer the question.

Why were n't the rest of the crew awarded medals?

Why pick on just the rescue man?

If I was the pilot that was flying the helicopter to do this secret mission I would want to know why a junior crew member got a reward for doing the secret stuff and I didn't.

 

[Vixen]

Is that your evidence for a secret military flight?

If a thing is classified, what would you accept as evidence?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

There was a regular column called 'through German eyes'. One example is as attached.



As you can glean, newspapers then were excellent sources of research.



Some, such as Helsingin Sanomat have retained standards. I can understand why people in the UK are highly sceptical of early new reports as they are often based on prurience, salaciousness or faux outrage.

Looks like a gleeful summary by the British press of how the German press were trying to explain away bad news. Disappointingly it doesn't appear to contain the promised thrilling first hand eavesdropping of The Times' secret agents embedded in the German front lines, though.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

He must have done something special, no? Apart from sharing another helicopter's rescues.

The descriptive narrative in the JAIC (section 7) of the rescur was written up by Rear Admiral Heimo Iivonen and ISTM the reason his version seems strikingly similar to the Aftonbladet versions is because he copied the details of Svensson's rescues from there to include under the six o'clock in the morning antics.

I have had a look at this an come up with this by superimposing the accounts on each other.

Kenneth Svensson could hardly fit the rescue harness around them. ... Eight humans Kenneth Svensson managed to pick up from the sea.
Then he almost drowned himself.


Y b4 (Boeing Kawasaki)
Y 64 took off from Berga at 0445 hrs, picked up a physician and a nurse from Huddinge Hospital and arrived at the scene of the accident at 0552 hrs

... Kenneth Svensson assisted as rescue man in one of the first three Vertol-helicopters that left from Berga naval base outside Stockholm. The time was then just after two o'clock in the night. After an hour they arrived.

Stefan Olsson with Y74 was first to leave Berga arriving at 0300 EET.

06.42 (over three hours to get there) The Swedish Navy's helicopter Y 74 arrives at the disaster area. The crew rescued 6 survivors and two lifeguards who were in the water after winch crashes on other helicopters.

Svensson arrived with Y64 to find one raft with three men. ... After about twenty minutes hard work he had managed to lift all three to the helicopter. ... (29.9.1994)=3 ‘three apathetic men frozen on a raft'. (28.9.1994). He tried to winch up the earlier ones but only one was winched up alive.=1

Whilst Kenneth Svensson was on his way up with the fourth person, the rescue line got stuck in the undercarriage of the helicopter. The crew managed to get onboard the injured person, but Kenneth Svensson remained hanging below the helicopter. To prevent him from being smashed against the aircraft the line was cut and he fell back into the ... sea. The helicopter was forced to leave Kenneth Svensson alone in the water in order to fly to Huddinge hospital with the injured. =4 saved so far.

Y74 had come along, at 0642. Y 74 went to assist Y 64.lowered a winch A hook and harness were dropped to the rescue man, Y64, and he was able to use them to get up to the helicopter.

Three survivors were hanging on to the keel of an upside-down lifeboat. Y 64's rescue man was lowered, and all three survivors were winched up. + 3 =7

In connection with the rescue of the last of the three, a strong wave threw the rescue man against the lifeboat, injuring him. Since Y 74 now had three injured rescue men, (Including Y69 whom Y74 also rescued) it had to interrupt its rescue operations. In addition, fuel was running low.

The injury to the Y 74 rescue man proved so serious that he was unable to do more. The work was continued by Y 64's rescue man. The six survivors, the injured rescue men and the body were taken to Huddinge Hospital, where the helicopter arrived at 0930 hrs.

Six were Y74 and One was Y64.

Y 64 got permission from the OSC to return to Berga to repair the broken winch, and landed there at 1530 hrs. In the helicopter were nine persons, one of whom was dead.[- 29.9.1994) = 8

In which helicopter? Y64 or Y74?

In the Aftonbladet 29.9.1994 report Svensson is quoted as, “After only just half a minute I made a new attempt and it went better.”

Note the first person tense – he was speaking directly to Eriksson.

So you can see how the JAIC has clearly tried to interweave the eight Svensson rescued earlier with the rescue attempts of Y74 in a legerdemain attempt to lead the reader to believe this is what the Atonbladet article was referring to.

ISTM if Y74 Olsson/Moberg saved not only Y64 but also Y69 and got injured themself in so doing, then give that bloody man a medal, too!

So you now acknowledge that the JAIC report credits Svensson (i.e. "the Y 64 rescue man") with seven rescues on two different helicopters and not just one on Y 64. Good, that's progress.

And you've also acknowledged now that there must be inaccuracies in the Aftonblad report, since it reports that there were eight rescuees and a dead body in the helicopter that left Svensson in the water (Y64) to go to Huddinge. Even in your two-trip reconstruction, that's wrong.

And it makes a hash of most of the rest of your narrative.

Nobody is confused about the JAIC's report other than you.

And why would you assume that everybody's copying the same Aftonbladet report? Why would anybody else care about it? You've just fetishized it because you got it from Bjorkman and have made it central to your conspiracy theory. You've given no reason to think that anybody besides you considers it to be important or even remembers it. Plenty of other newspapers covered the incident with their own journalists. Aftonbladet isn't exactly the Guardian of Swedish newspapers. It's more like the Daily Mail. More New York Post than New York Times.

ETA, according to Wikipedia, the newspaper of record for most of Swede would be Dagens Nyheter, not Aftonbladet.

And to date, you still haven't bothered to dig up the original article, as important as you claim it is. You continue to rely on Bjorkman's extract.

 

[JesseCuster]

If a thing is classified, what would you accept as evidence?

Something better than your imaginative fantasies?

 

[Vixen]

That doesn't answer the question.

Why were n't the rest of the crew awarded medals?

Why pick on just the rescue man?

If I was the pilot that was flying the helicopter to do this secret mission I would want to know why a junior crew member got a reward for doing the secret stuff and I didn't.

Ensign Kenneth Svensson did indeed get the Swedish Defence Forces Medal of Merit, Gold with Sword, did he not?

Or is that a 'conspiracy theory' that he got a medal but nobody else did in that category, not even silver or bronze.

Is it a fact?

A simple yes or no will suffice.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You claimed that I claimed Svensson went on a special mission to capture the Estonia ship's officials. It is unlikely it was like that at all. It was probably entirely by the by. Because the survivor count had to be reduced by twelve (remember, the original survivors lists showed 149 names, including the senior ship's officers). In addition, the early 0202 logged helicopter flight is mysteriously unrecorded.

The Rockwater divers said the bodies were in good condition, as it is near zero degrees and low salinity. In fact divers went down within days of the ship being located. Of course they would want to locate the captain for a start. Why no public announcement as to what happened to the captain and his officers?

Well, Helsingin Sanomat reported that Avo Piht was alive and that Arvo Andresson, first captain, had 'drowned with his ship'.

Explain that. Somebody obviously did do some identifying.

You have no evidence for this earlier claimed flight.

If the helicopter wasn't on a secret mission to capture the officers what is the claim you are making?

As for the bodies, they may have been in good condition but how would the diver identify them in the wreck? they don't know what the officers looked like and the certainly couldn't take pictures along with them.