Category:
War

The Mole Torpedo

Weapon tunnels through the earth to the enemy. Why is this not in constant use today? Too easy nowadays to sense seismic activity?


Full patent here.




Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 10, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Inventions, Patents, War

G.I. Hamlet

During WWII, Shakespeare's HAMLET was adapted for soldiers in the Pacific theater. As TIME magazine revealed:


The Theater: Hamlet in Hawaii
Monday, Nov. 27, 1944

The Army, taking the Bard by the horns in Hawaii, has come up with a G.I. Hamlet. Moreover, it has come up smiling. With Major Maurice Evans bossing the job and playing the introspective Prince for the first time since 1940, the effect on the dogfaces has been, for Evans, "simply staggering." They even rise above normal behavior by refraining from hollering or whistling when performers go into a clinch. Commented one G.I.: "They certainly must have done a lot of rewriting to bring that play so up to date."

A blue pencil, not a pen, helped do it: a third of the play has been hacked off.

The modernish costumes helped, too: Hamlet wears trousers instead of tights, delivers "To be, or not to be," in a dinner jacket with silver-brocade lapels. No help at all were the unpoetic sergeants who inevitably shattered the high-tragic mood of the soldier cast's rehearsals, with such prose passages as "Hey, Polonius, you and those other guys get some brooms and clean up the theayter."




Wikipedia reveals:

[the] highly truncated version of the play that he played for South Pacific war zones during World War II...made the prince a more decisive character. The staging, known as the "G.I. Hamlet", was produced on Broadway for 131 performances in 1945/46.


This interesting article has more details, and another picture.

Regarding the quote below, I can just picture Hamlet in a fistfight with his stepfather.

Evans’s romantic, extroverted, unneurotic, virile, and soldier-like Hamlet suggested Lord Byron.


Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 27, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Theater and Stage, War, Adaptations, Reworkings, Recastings and New Versions, 1940s

Belt ‘em one

Help beat Germany and Japan by... buying a belt?



Life - Nov 1, 1943

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 19, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: War, Advertising, 1940s

Woops!

A comedy about life after nuclear Armageddon.

Fox cancelled the series in late November. At the time, it was ranked 105th out of 108 weekly shows [54]. Only 10 of the 13 produced episodes were aired; the last was broadcast on December 6th.


Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 01, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Humor, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Television, War, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1990s

Shelter Suit

From 1939. Something casual to throw on when the air-raid signal sounds. Plus, "the wearer is safe from mustard gas, because it will stand penetration for one hour."

Wear it in a blast-resistant house and you'd have no worries.

Derby Evening Telegraph - Oct 24, 1939



New York Daily News - Oct 2, 1939



Related post: Air Raid Apparel

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 04, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Fashion, War, 1930s

Waterloo Teeth

Text from the British Dental Association:

The BDA Museum has several sets of 'Waterloo' teeth in its collection - some of these are teeth taken from dead soldiers after the Battle of Waterloo, which were made into dentures.

Replacement teeth were traditionally made from ivory (hippopotamus, walrus or elephant).

However such teeth did not always look natural and deteriorated more quickly than real teeth. If you wanted a really nice set of dentures these were made with an ivory base and then set with real human teeth.

These were expensive as it could take six weeks to make a complete set. They have subsequently become known as 'Waterloo teeth', as some were scavenged from dead soldiers on battlefields.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 16, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: War, Teeth

Miss Psywar

Alas, no info on this contest seems to have survived.



Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 23, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, War

Sgt. Reckless

With thanks to reader Sherry Mowbray.



The Wikipedia page.

Staff Sergeant Reckless (c. 1948 – May 13, 1968), a decorated war horse who held official rank in the United States military,[2] was a mare of Mongolian horse breeding. Out of a race horse dam, she was purchased in October 1952 for $250 from a Korean stableboy at the Seoul racetrack who needed money to buy an artificial leg for his sister.[3] Reckless was bought by members of the United States Marine Corps and trained to be a pack horse for the Recoilless Rifle Platoon, Anti-Tank Company, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.[2] She quickly became part of the unit and was allowed to roam freely through camp, entering the Marines' tents, where she would sleep on cold nights, and was known for her willingness to eat nearly anything, including scrambled eggs, beer, Coca-Cola and, once, about $30 worth of poker chips.

She served in numerous combat actions during the Korean War, carrying supplies and ammunition, and was also used to evacuate wounded. Learning each supply route after only a couple of trips, she often traveled to deliver supplies to the troops on her own, without benefit of a handler. The highlight of her nine-month military career came in late March 1953 during the Battle for Outpost Vegas when, in a single day, she made 51 solo trips to resupply multiple front line units. She was wounded in combat twice and was given the battlefield rank of corporal in 1953 and then a battlefield promotion to sergeant in 1954, several months after the war ended. She also became the first horse in the Marine Corps known to have participated in an amphibious landing, and following the war was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, inclusion in her unit's Presidential Unit Citations from two countries, and other military honors.


The home page.



Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 26, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Animals, War, Reader Recommendation, Twentieth Century, Courage, Bravery, Heroism and Valor

The best defense against an atomic bomb…

"... is not to be there when it goes off."

Advice which remains true to this day.

Manchester Evening News - Feb 18, 1949

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 18, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: War, Weapons, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1940s

Tank Pigeons

Tanks were first used in combat during World War I, but they often relied on a very old-fashioned form of communication: pigeons.

From military-history.org:

Where cumbersome, insecure, and unreliable wireless sets, along with telephones, signal lights, and flares failed, pigeons succeeded. When human runners could not pass through walls of barrage fire, pigeons rose above the explosions and the gas and flew swiftly to their lofts, bearing dispatches in tiny cylinders attached to their legs.

A pigeon about to be thrown from a tank during World War I

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 01, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Military, War, 1910s

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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