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

[LondonJohn]

For crying out loud. If a military person carries out a mission that is 'Top Secret' he or she can still be given a medal for that secret mission. What is hard to understand?

Why was a similar medal given to nobody else who carried out this "Top Secret" (LOL) mission alongside Svensson?

Or are you going to suggest that it was Svensson alone who participated in this "Top Secret" mission (of your imagination)? Did Svensson also fly the helicopter himself and operate his own winch, in this fantasy "Top Secret" flight of yours?

 

[LondonJohn]

OK, I’ve now gone through all the ‘Through German Eyes’ columns contemporary with the battle of Stalingrad (and up to about a month after the surrender), and all the later ones that mention Stalingrad. All are round-ups of the German (and sometimes other countries) media, reports of speeches by the German leadership, etc.

None of them contains comment from “ordinary German soldiers”, or supports your claim of Times reporters going undercover as spies embedded in the German army.

Soooo.... Vixen's claim was either a mistake or a lie?

Interesting......

 

[Mojo]

You are not asking in good faith. I doubt you are even interested. You are just being vexatious for the sake of it.

I’ve done the research for you. None of the ‘Through German Eyes’ columns supports your claim. Unless you have given the wrong title for the column, it doesn’t exist. Your claim fails.

 

[LondonJohn]

I’ve done the research for you. None of the ‘Through German Eyes’ columns supports your claim. Unless you have given the wrong title for the column, it doesn’t exist. Your claim fails.

And it's rather tragic that, once again, Vixen introduced a claim but then (effectively) refused to support that claim with evidence - thereby forcing others to do the research instead (research which, with grim inevitability, proved Vixen's claim to be false).

Despicable, Vixen. Hugely dishonest as well.

 

[JesseCuster]

But why give him a distinction and not the others?
If I had been the pilot in charge and got passed over for the sweetener I wouldn't have been very happy .

I bet you would have gone right up to your superior officer, shoved your face right into theirs and screamed at them demanding a medal!

Vixen is probably going to say she was being facetious, but she churns out these ridiculous emotional and dramatic strawmen and scenarios at every available opportunity.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I presume they would have been court martialled if they'd stuck their faces in their superiors' faces and screamed, 'Where's my dash-dash medal, then, you so and so?!!!'

As Peter Cook once asked of Dudley Moore, 'Who does one complain to?'

So why give one to the rescue man if they couldn't have done anything about not getting one anyway?

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Why was a similar medal given to nobody else who carried out this "Top Secret" (LOL) mission alongside Svensson?

Or are you going to suggest that it was Svensson alone who participated in this "Top Secret" mission (of your imagination)? Did Svensson also fly the helicopter himself and operate his own winch, in this fantasy "Top Secret" flight of yours?

It bears reminding that waaaay back in one of the earlier threads, Vixen mistakenly thought Svensson *was* the pilot and/or commander of Y 64; I had to point out repeatedly that he was the rescue man before that bit, at least, sank in.

I don't think she's grokked how it changes her conceit of what happened, though.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The first Finnish helicopter returned to shore because the work was exhausting and they needed to get a new rescue swimmer and get four people they already saved to safety. They returned at 0600 am and rescued 40 people. Swedish also did short trips to the shore, from 0500 to 0540 am. The Finnish helicopter was the only one capable of landing on the ferries whilst others had to periodically return to shore which is why they were able to rescue so many. Since the first helicopter arrived at 3:05 there was always at least one helicopter present on the scene. 137* people in total were saved, 104 of them by helicopters. Swedish helicopters rescued 18% of those saved and almost 25% of those rescued by helicopter.

The helicopter crews made almost heroic efforts in the harsh weather. A single Finnish helicopter managed to rescue 37 people and took care of 11 dead people. It was extremely stressful both physically and mentally. Many lifeguards were injured by hooks and various objects.

HS 30.9.1994



*137 is the final official figure. (Excluding the Estonia crew originally included in survivor lists.)

It landed on a ship once and then didn't try again because it was too rough.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ask yourself why that has been given so much space.

It was given no more space than the accounts of the other helicopters.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

I bet you would have gone right up to your superior officer, shoved your face right into theirs and screamed at them demanding a medal!

Vixen is probably going to say she was being facetious, but she churns out these ridiculous emotional and dramatic strawmen and scenarios at every available opportunity.

It's amazing how unprofessional Vixen thinks officers in the armed services are. Not only do they need to be bribed to keep their nation's secrets, they also apparently shove things in their superior officers' faces and scream at them whenever they don't get their way.

 

[Andy_Ross]

For crying out loud. If a military person carries out a mission that is 'Top Secret' he or she can still be given a medal for that secret mission. What is hard to understand?

But why him and not the rest of the crew?

He was given a medal for his actions on the flight we actually know he did.
you originally claimed he was given it as a reward or 'sweetener' for the secret mission you have no evidence for.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

You are not asking in good faith. I doubt you are even interested. You are just being vexatious for the sake of it.

The chutzpah is ridiculous here. How dare you claim someone isn't asking in good faith when you are a known and repeated liar and fantasist?

Provide the source so it can be checked, if it says what you claim it says it will be reported and you will be shown to be correct, but at this time no one believes you because you're, you know, a liar. You lie about what things you've read say and then try to avoid the question when called on it. You lied to me about one of your sources and even had the temerity to ask me to prove I owned the book. The most reasonable explanation for your refusal to provide a source is that you are lying yet again.

ETA: Oh look, Mojo did the legwork without your specific reference and you were lying again. Tell us again why anyone should pay attention to your obvious nonsense?

 

[JayUtah]

You are not asking in good faith. I doubt you are even interested. You are just being vexatious for the sake of it.

Says the person who was recently caught bluffing about her sources. You're not reporting in good faith. This is why someone else needs to check your sources for you.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Wait?!!! You mean the Finns were not as heroic, super-human, and vastly superior & better trained than their Swedish counterparts..... as Vixen would have had us believe?!!!!

Well cover me in eggs and flour and bake me for 40 minutes! I'm shocked!

They were better trained than the crews of the Anti Submarine helicopters pressed in to service but not better than the Swedish SAR helicopters. Numbers rescued shows that the dedicated SAR helicopters did better than the AS helicopters and the missions flown in daylight did better than those in the dark.
When daylight came the later missions did not do so well as the earlier missions as there were less people in the water and those still there were already dead.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's amazing how unprofessional Vixen thinks officers in the armed services are. Not only do they need to be bribed to keep their nation's secrets, they also apparently shove things in their superior officers' faces and scream at them whenever they don't get their way.

Apparently Swedish soldiers are 'gay' anyway.

 

[Axxman300]

Th Riksdag had to admit that Sweden had smuggled Soviet/Russian state secret material on at least two occasions in September 1994 on the Estonia passenger ferry.

This was ten years after the accident. Should not this activity have been declared to the JAIC or the public, who had a right to know their lives had been knowingly put at risk, knowing from the past that Russia was not averse to taking ruthless action (cf the whiskey class sub on Sweden's rocks).

Calm down.

1. You have posted nothing proving there was any smuggled material on MS Estonia on the night it sank.

2. Smuggling had nothing to do with the bow-visor being knocked off in rough seas.

You continue to be bad at this.

 

[LondonJohn]

Calm down.

1. You have posted nothing proving there was any smuggled material on MS Estonia on the night it sank.

2. Smuggling had nothing to do with the bow-visor being knocked off in rough seas.

You continue to be bad at this.

That's a whole new definition of "being bad at something". I'd have thrown in a few apt adverbs such as "being hideously, execrably and mendaciously bad at something"

 

[Reformed Offlian]

I presume they would have been court martialled if they'd stuck their faces in their superiors' faces and screamed, 'Where's my dash-dash medal, then, you so and so?!!!'

I'm not sure about Swedish armed services, but in the US Army this would definitely get some serious counselling, and possible a reprimand; a court martial, while possible in principle, would be excessive and unlikely.

Also, such medals wouldn't be in the gift of their commanding officer, anyway. Awarding them would be, I suspect, ministry or at least major command-level decisions. Even the recommendation would probably come from higher up in such an instance. Complaining to one's immediate superiors would be, among other things, pointless and silly.

 

[LondonJohn]

One has to admit, the level of comedy Vixen has provided is spectacular. I can't wait for the next wild claim so I can LMFAO again. The whole fiasco is so bizarre, it is almost a work of art. We have Spetznaz, submarines, explosives, mines, torpedoes, nuclear waste, corrosive pixies for all I know at this point. It is hilarious.

Now if it were you or me, by now we would have realised that perhaps we were wrong. Like normal people would. But it turns out not everyone is normal.

Like I said, I can put up with ignorant/misled/misunderstanding - even with a huge dollop of doubling down. And the sheer multitude and magnitude of wrongness from Vixen in this thread has been at once both hugely amusing and, frankly, beyond my own experience of wrong.

What I cannot put up with, however, is deliberate misrepresentation and flat-out lying. Vixen's now been shown to have done both of those things repeatedly within this thread. I really have no truck with dishonesty on this scale. Vixen is palpably not debating in good faith.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I'm not sure about Swedish armed services, but in the US Army this would definitely get some serious counselling, and possible a reprimand; a court martial, while possible in principle, would be excessive and unlikely.

Also, such medals wouldn't be in the gift of their commanding officer, anyway. Awarding them would be, I suspect, ministry or at least major command-level decisions. Even the recommendation would probably come from higher up in such an instance. Complaining to one's immediate superiors would be, among other things, pointless and silly.

Wouldn't asking an Anti Submarine helicopter crew to kidnap civilian survivors of a shipwreck be an illegal order anyway?

Why would they go along with it?