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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class somehow Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly frying Can, I'm Tracy Wilson. So we recently talked

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Speaker 1: about James Doolittle and the US Army Air Corps raid

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Speaker 1: that he led on Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor,

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Speaker 1: And if you listen to that episode, you may recall

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Speaker 1: that we spoke only briefly about Doolittle's cruise landing in

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Speaker 1: China and getting help from both civilian and military people

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Speaker 1: there in getting rescued and getting home. But while we

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Speaker 1: didn't talk about in that episode, that one was pretty

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Speaker 1: lighthearted overall, uh was the price that China paid for

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Speaker 1: assisting the US in this mission. And while US military

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Speaker 1: leaders knew that Japan would likely take action against China

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Speaker 1: for their part in the Doolittle raid, the extent of

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Speaker 1: that retaliation hasn't really gotten that much attention in terms

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Speaker 1: of the history of the war, and this particular episode

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Speaker 1: is going to deal with that, and we have to

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Speaker 1: put a pretty serious content warning on it. The atrocities

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Speaker 1: of war are often discussed, but the actual details are

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Speaker 1: often really incredibly difficult to contend with I mean even here,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to include every thing, because there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of horrible stories that got read in the research,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of times those kinds of things overall

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Speaker 1: get kind of left out or glossed over, and some many,

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Speaker 1: in fact, of the things that happened in China after

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Speaker 1: the Doolittle Raid we're challenging for me, I know, just

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Speaker 1: in the research process. But this is a really important

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Speaker 1: story to tell. So if you think some of this

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Speaker 1: we're going to get into some pretty rough experiments and torture,

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Speaker 1: We're not going to linger on them, but we will

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Speaker 1: describe some of them. So if you think that might

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Speaker 1: be too intense for you or for any younger history

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Speaker 1: buffs that you listen with, this is your official heads up.

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Speaker 1: This is basically a story about Japan punishing China, and

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Speaker 1: the Japanese plans have punished China began almost immediately after

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Speaker 1: the Doolittle Raid. There were already Japanese occupation forces many

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Speaker 1: Chinese locations, including commercial commercial centers, key coastal positions, and Manchuria,

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Speaker 1: and those occupation forces were in place because before World

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Speaker 1: War Two started, Japan and China were locked in their

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Speaker 1: own conflict, the Second Sina Japanese War. So we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that conflict, although this is

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Speaker 1: admittedly an abbreviated version. Japan had really been eyeing China's

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Speaker 1: national resources for quite some time, and in nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: one is China's internal strife between the nationalists and Mao

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Speaker 1: Zutungue leg communists uh Manchuria was invaded and occupied by

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Speaker 1: Japanese forces. This was by no means a small region

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Speaker 1: of China we're talking about. It's about the size of

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Speaker 1: Germany and France combined in the League of Nations got

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Speaker 1: involved after China requested their help. And while the League

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Speaker 1: condemned the actions of the Japanese, there really wasn't any

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Speaker 1: retribution for the aggression and for them just moving in.

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Speaker 1: But Japan did leave the League of Nations over the

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Speaker 1: whole report Japan contain and you to spread into territory

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Speaker 1: in China, working for a Manchuria as a foothold, until

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Speaker 1: just about all of northern China was occupied by Japan.

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Speaker 1: Because the Nationalists of their Shangkai check we're focused on

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Speaker 1: trying to subdue this communist uprising that was going on.

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Speaker 1: They weren't putting any They weren't really putting up any

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Speaker 1: resistance against Japanese troops, which is why Japan was able

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Speaker 1: to occupy so much of China during this time. But

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Speaker 1: eventually China's military did make a bigger effort to push

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Speaker 1: back against Japan's occupation, and the Chinese nationalists and Mao's

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Speaker 1: Communist Party actually joined forces against their foe in the

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Speaker 1: Sino Japanese War beginning in nine seven. I think we

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Speaker 1: might have touched on this, just really really briefly in

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Speaker 1: that four part series we did a while back about

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Speaker 1: China under Chairman Mouth, So if you're looking for that

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Speaker 1: part of that story, there's stuff on it in the archive. Um.

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Speaker 1: The Marco Polo Bridge incident officially catalyzed the war in

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Speaker 1: July nineteen thirty seven. On the evening of July seven,

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Speaker 1: shots were fired between Chinese soldiers and Japanese troops stationed

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Speaker 1: at the bridge while the latter were doing training exercises.

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Speaker 1: While the full details of this incident in terms of

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Speaker 1: what happened up to that point remained really unclear, there

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Speaker 1: was a Japanese soldier who was unaccounted for. When Japanese

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Speaker 1: soldiers tried to enter a small walled town outside of

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Speaker 1: Beijing to search for their missing man. They were met

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Speaker 1: with resistance. The situation soon escalated and gunfire erupted from

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Speaker 1: both sides. Negotiations failed to get anywhere, and Japanese infantry

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Speaker 1: moved in in greater numbers, eventually leading to his full

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Speaker 1: scale invasion. The Rape of Nine King, in which an

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Speaker 1: estimated one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people depending

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Speaker 1: on the source you look at, were killed by the

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Speaker 1: Japanese UH, thousands of which were women who were raped

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Speaker 1: prior to being killed, took place in December of seven,

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Speaker 1: early on in the Second Sino Japanese War. The brutality

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Speaker 1: of the Rape of Nine King, including practices such as

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Speaker 1: dismembering victims before killing them, burning people alive, brutally drowning

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Speaker 1: victims UH, set the tone for the entire Sino Japanese War,

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Speaker 1: and the conflict dragged on for years after that, well

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Speaker 1: into World War Two. The situation between China and Japan

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty, which was two years before the Doolittle Raid,

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Speaker 1: as often characterized as a stalemate. Both sides were struggling

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Speaker 1: and depleted, so while Japan couldn't make a true victory happened.

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Speaker 1: China also couldn't manage to push the occupying Japanese forces

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Speaker 1: out of the country. Japan's brutality throughout the conflict and

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Speaker 1: its walk out on the League of Nations hadn't really

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Speaker 1: helped the country's global reputation. In an effort to cripple

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Speaker 1: Japanese resources and assist China, economic sanctions against Japan had

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Speaker 1: ramped up progressively, and the Pearl Harbor attack was really

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Speaker 1: Japan's move when they felt that the US had gone

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Speaker 1: too far in limiting their trade options. We covered the

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Speaker 1: United State response to the Pearl Harbor attack in our

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Speaker 1: Do Little Rate episode, so we won't rehash that at

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Speaker 1: this point. But now we're going to talk about how

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Speaker 1: Japanese forces went about punishing China for helping Dolittle and

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Speaker 1: his men by offering landing fields although he and his

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Speaker 1: men did half the ditch before reaching them, and by

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Speaker 1: rescuing the scattered men after their mission was over. And

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Speaker 1: this is where things really do start to get quite ugly.

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Speaker 1: So before we go to the very dark places that

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Speaker 1: work can take people, let's have a break for a

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Speaker 1: word from one of stuff you missed in history classes

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Speaker 1: So in June two horrifying march of Japanese troops into

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Speaker 1: the city of Nunchung started in which they occupied for

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Speaker 1: a month. And I hope I got the pronunciation correct.

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Speaker 1: I never got one clear pronunciation on that online. You know,

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Speaker 1: we look things up, but often they are contrary. So

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Speaker 1: that's the school well. And there are so many different

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Speaker 1: dialects spoken in China that a lot of times, even

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Speaker 1: if you try to stick with one of the primary ones,

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Speaker 1: people with different accents say it in different ways. Yes, So,

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Speaker 1: according to accounts written by missionaries in the area at

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Speaker 1: the time, the Japanese soldiers turned this city into a

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Speaker 1: living hell for the fifty thousand residents who lived there.

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Speaker 1: During their occupation, Chinese soldiers corralled women and girls over

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Speaker 1: the age of ten into a warehouse in the city.

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Speaker 1: This was an estimated eight hundred people. The captives there

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Speaker 1: were repeatedly raped. This led to an ongoing problem of

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Speaker 1: sexually transmitted diseases among the few survivors of that occupation. Additionally,

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Speaker 1: occupation forces would wander the city, often inebriated, simply shooting

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Speaker 1: people at whim, capturing, addition, women and girls to take

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Speaker 1: to that warehouse, and just destroying property. And as their

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Speaker 1: time in the city ended, the occupation forces systematically destroyed

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Speaker 1: the infrastructure there. The electrical plant was completely destroyed, the

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Speaker 1: railroad lines into the city were pulled up, all radios

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Speaker 1: that they could find were confiscated, the hospital was looted,

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Speaker 1: and then the city was burned over the course of

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Speaker 1: three days with a special fire squad that came in

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Speaker 1: to lead the systematic incineration. This horrific course of events

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Speaker 1: was unfortunately not unique or an outlier. Over a period

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Speaker 1: of time lasting several months, multiple Chinese cities suffered the

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Speaker 1: same treatment. Livestock and humans alike were a shot and

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Speaker 1: left for dead as troops moved through villages and towns. Roads, bridges,

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Speaker 1: and air fields of which there was great concern because

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Speaker 1: of their potential military strategic value, were completely destroyed. Entire

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Speaker 1: fields of crops were set ablaze, and irrigation systems were dismantled,

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Speaker 1: crippling the country's food supply, and that's in addition to

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Speaker 1: them just shooting livestock and letting it rought on the ground,

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Speaker 1: so the food supply was really really completely gutted at

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Speaker 1: that point. Uh An estimated eight of the homes in

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Speaker 1: some targeted areas were destroyed, and medical facilities were looted

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Speaker 1: and then burned to the ground. If a specific person

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Speaker 1: or family was discovered to have aided New Little's Men,

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Speaker 1: they were targeted for the worst treatment. Often the gifts

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Speaker 1: that the United States soldiers had given to families to

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Speaker 1: thank them, which were small things like United States coins

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Speaker 1: or packs of cigarettes, they were the very things that

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Speaker 1: identified these families to the Japanese troops and sealed their fates.

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Speaker 1: There are reports largely written by missionaries that were there

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Speaker 1: at the time and that came in immediately afterwards to

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Speaker 1: try to help of just unreal torture. People were burned alive.

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Speaker 1: Often members of their families were forced to set those

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Speaker 1: fires and then watch as their loved ones burned. They

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Speaker 1: were also bullet contests, where multiple people would be lined

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Speaker 1: up together and then someone would fire a gun at

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Speaker 1: them to see how many bodies a single shot could

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Speaker 1: pass through. There were just so many different types of

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Speaker 1: humiliating and really unique torture that were enacted on these people.

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Speaker 1: And as the summer drew to a close, Japanese troops

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Speaker 1: were withdrawn from their occupation and then a second phase

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Speaker 1: of punishing retaliation began. This was Unit seven thirty one,

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Speaker 1: which is a name that you might have heard of before.

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Speaker 1: This was a biological warfare unit which was started and

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Speaker 1: occupied Mancheria. Not long after Japanese forces moved in and

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Speaker 1: n six construction began on its most well known location,

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Speaker 1: which was a massive, massive facility in Pinfong. This was

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Speaker 1: near Harbin, China, and it was branded as the Epidemic

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Speaker 1: Prevention Department. Under Unit seven thirty one, the Japanese Imperial

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Speaker 1: Army conducted medical experiments on par with the absolute worst

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Speaker 1: Joseph Mangelo performed at Auschwitz. More than ten thousand people,

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Speaker 1: primarily Chinese prisoners of war, but also Russians and allegedly

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Speaker 1: even captured U S military men were tortured each year

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Speaker 1: that Unit seven thirty one was operating. Uh, those numbers

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Speaker 1: are estimates that could be up or down since as

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about a little bit later. The records are

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Speaker 1: a little bit unclear um, but experiments were unfortunately not

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Speaker 1: limited to adults. According to accounts, even infants were used

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Speaker 1: for testing. These horrifying experiments included leaving people in freezing

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Speaker 1: temperatures to then experiment on their frostbite, injecting air into

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Speaker 1: their veins, hanging people upside down to see how long

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Speaker 1: it would take them to choke, observing deaths that took

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Speaker 1: place in gas chambers, and just innumerable vivisections. There were

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Speaker 1: studies that were conducted to determine how humans would respond

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Speaker 1: when injected with typhus, cholera, and thrax, and other infective agents.

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Speaker 1: New weapons were tested on subjects to determine how effective

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Speaker 1: those weapons were. Plague was introduced into groups of people

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Speaker 1: to see how many died and how how the disease

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Speaker 1: played out. Many of the biological weapons were also field

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Speaker 1: tested outside the compound on unsuspecting citizens of the Chinese countryside.

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Speaker 1: In short, it was a systematized torture center, all on

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Speaker 1: the banner of scientific discovery, and it operated, as we

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Speaker 1: mentioned a moment ago, under the guise of preventing disease outbreaks,

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Speaker 1: and in August of ninety two. As the occupation forces

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Speaker 1: that had been terrorizing Chinese villages, towns, and cities began

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Speaker 1: to leave, biological warfare developed at Unit seven thirty one

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Speaker 1: began in those places. Massive orders for paratyphoid and anthrax

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Speaker 1: were placed by the Japanese so that the germ warfare

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Speaker 1: phase could begin. Bottles of water were distributed seated in

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Speaker 1: flasks throughout the Chinese countryside and the hopes that they

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Speaker 1: would be found and used, but the water that they

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Speaker 1: contained was contaminated with typhoid and paratyphoid bacteria. Similarly, prisoners

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Speaker 1: of war were fed bread that had been contaminated with

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Speaker 1: typhoid and paratyphoid right before they were released, so that

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Speaker 1: the disease would spread thoroughly as they returned home. Additional

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Speaker 1: tainted food was left in places that troops were leaving,

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Speaker 1: so that the desperate and devastated people left behind, again

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Speaker 1: already hungry without livestock or crops, would naturally eat them,

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Speaker 1: thinking them to be harmless abandoned rations. In addition to

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Speaker 1: the disease that was purposefully spread through tainted food and water,

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Speaker 1: there was also the problem of the decaying dead everywhere,

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Speaker 1: which caused additional contamination of the water supply, and with

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Speaker 1: medical facilities virtually non existent thanks to their destruction that

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Speaker 1: proceeded this wave of disease, there really wasn't any way

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Speaker 1: to treat or prevent the diseases spread. Malaria, dysentery, and

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Speaker 1: cholera had all been problems in some of the targeted

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Speaker 1: regions of China before Unit seven thirty ones bacterial warfare efforts,

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Speaker 1: but by late nine two, typhoid and even plague had

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Speaker 1: been added to the list of health concerns, and treatment,

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Speaker 1: as we said, was scarce if it could be found

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Speaker 1: at all. There's also collateral damage for the Japanese Imperial Army,

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Speaker 1: dealing in germ warp air had also claimed some of

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Speaker 1: its soldiers who didn't manage to evacuate ahead of the

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Speaker 1: spreading waves of illness. Numbers of both the Japanese and

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Speaker 1: Chinese death tolls are all over the place. Estimates of

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Speaker 1: Japanese losses due to the purposeful spread of disease ranged

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Speaker 1: from between one thousand, seven hundred and ten thousand, depending

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Speaker 1: on the source. For Chinese military and civilian casualties. Some

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Speaker 1: estimates put the death toll of Japan's full retaliation efforts

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Speaker 1: post Dolittle raid at two hundred and fifty thousand. That number, though,

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Speaker 1: is incredibly foggy. There's really no hard data due to

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Speaker 1: the fact that so many people were shot and simply

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Speaker 1: left where they fell with no account taken of who

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Speaker 1: had been killed, and those that got sick and died

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Speaker 1: after the Japanese left weren't processed through medical facilities, so

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Speaker 1: there's no real paper trail for them either. As for

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Speaker 1: Unit seven thirty one towards the end of the war,

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about what happened after it um

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Speaker 1: The facility itself was incinerated by Japanese forces as they

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Speaker 1: fled when Shan National Military forces moved into the area

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Speaker 1: in so it had been there from the late mid

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Speaker 1: thirties up until forty five, so almost ten years coming up.

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Speaker 1: We're going to discuss what happened to Unit one as

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Speaker 1: the war ended and what may seem like an unlikely

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Speaker 1: beneficiary to all the research that was done there. But

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Speaker 1: first we'll pause for a word from a sponsor. It

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Speaker 1: is no secret that I'm a night owl. Yeah, I know,

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Speaker 1: it sometimes gets emails from me at like three in

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Speaker 1: the morning. But but you know what is keeping me

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Speaker 1: and covers history in a whole new way. So if

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Speaker 1: you're wondering what Join or Die with Craig Ferguson is,

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Speaker 1: I will let you know. It is a total departure

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Speaker 1: for history, and it is unlike any talk show you've

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Speaker 1: ever seen. Host Craig Ferguson debates historical figures, important events,

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Speaker 1: luminaries and comedians. So like Howard Bragman is on there,

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Speaker 1: Jordan Carlos, Michael Ian Black, and Dan Soder super funny

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Speaker 1: people that are super sharp. Then they decide who deserves

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Speaker 1: to join the ranks of history's most unforgettable and who

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Speaker 1: gets to die off and be forgotten like the mere

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Speaker 1: mortals they were. So they're asking big questions like who

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Speaker 1: committed history's biggest political blunder, or what was history's worst

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Speaker 1: medical advice? Or who were history's biggest enemies? So you

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00:17:24,119 --> 00:17:26,280
Speaker 1: too can join the debate on History's new late night

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Speaker 1: talk show Join or Die with Craig Ferguson. That's new

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00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:33,560
Speaker 1: episodes on Thursdays at eleven pm, ten Central on History.

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Speaker 1: You don't want to miss it. History is back on History.

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Speaker 1: There's a whole other side of this this issue that

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Speaker 1: certainly doesn't get talked about very much, and that that's

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Speaker 1: that the United States is not entirely blameless when considering

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Speaker 1: China's suffering at the hands of Japan's Imperial Army UH.

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Speaker 1: While Japan and China had plenty of problems between themselves

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Speaker 1: long before World War Two, the Doolittle Raid did catalyze

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Speaker 1: an absolute hell on Earth scenario for a lot of

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Speaker 1: people in China, and American military authorities knew that this

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Speaker 1: was a likely outcome, but they purposely withheld information about

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Speaker 1: this likelihood from Chinese authorities and went ahead with the mission.

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Speaker 1: We really should also point out that the actual men

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Speaker 1: who carried out the Doolittle raid were probably not privy

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Speaker 1: to this intelligence, or they would have almost certainly been

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Speaker 1: a lot more careful about leaving damning evidence of their

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Speaker 1: their connection to these towns and families around when they left.

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Speaker 1: They probably would have been much more secretive if they

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Speaker 1: had known. Yeah, I don't think those guys had any

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Speaker 1: clue about the retaliation intelligence. And additionally, the US, through

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Speaker 1: the work of General Douglas MacArthur, actually granted secret immunity

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Speaker 1: to many of the doctors and military leaders who worked

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Speaker 1: at Unit seven thirty one in exchange for exclusive access

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Speaker 1: to their research and biological weapons. Japan would not be

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Speaker 1: able to share that information with anyone else as part

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Speaker 1: of the terms of this agreement. There's only a small

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Speaker 1: gap between the end of World War Two and the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the Cold War. Tensions already existed between the

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Speaker 1: United States and the Soviet Union, and the Unit seven

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Speaker 1: thirty one research was part of the American portfolio of

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Speaker 1: plans in preparation for such a conflict. Yeah, sometimes you

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Speaker 1: will see it pitched in such a way that it

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Speaker 1: was both the idea that no one should have access

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Speaker 1: to this information because it is so dangerous, so we're

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Speaker 1: going to be the custodians of it. But then it

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Speaker 1: was also intended as part of this, like we will

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Speaker 1: have biological weapons research if we get into something with

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. So it's a very complex and convoluted thing.

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Speaker 1: But because of that immunity that was offered to the

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Speaker 1: leaders of Unit Set one. Many of the men who

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Speaker 1: had run those horrible experiments there went on to prestigious

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Speaker 1: careers in science, many of them heading up companies that

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Speaker 1: produced pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. Japan's cruel retaliation against

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Speaker 1: China was reported than the United States. Newspapers. Both the

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Speaker 1: New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ran stories

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Speaker 1: about the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children, but

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Speaker 1: coverage really went quiet after the original first wave of

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Speaker 1: condemning pieces ran. Yeah, there were a couple of articles

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Speaker 1: and then not really much else. Um and why the

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Speaker 1: workings of Unit seven thirty one have gotten such little

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Speaker 1: attention in comparison to say, the war crimes of the Nazis,

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Speaker 1: which they are often compared to, you, is an issue

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Speaker 1: that's debated and discussed at lengths. And for one thing,

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Speaker 1: there really wasn't much information available for a long time. Then,

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Speaker 1: is the twentieth century neared its end, people started to

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Speaker 1: come forward to tell their stories of working there. In

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Speaker 1: the early two thousands, more and more accounts emerged from

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Speaker 1: people who had worked in Unity one. For the most part,

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Speaker 1: these are people who were very young when they were

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Speaker 1: ordered to engage in many of the really awful experiments

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Speaker 1: by their superior officers. Yeah, there was one account that

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Speaker 1: I was reading, and I don't remember which my sources

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Speaker 1: it was from, but it was a man who was

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Speaker 1: now elderly, but he was talking about how he he

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Speaker 1: knew as he was doing this particular thing that it

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Speaker 1: was horrible, but he didn't know how to possibly like

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Speaker 1: resist a direct order. So you know, it gets into

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Speaker 1: a whole arena we could discuss about, like what war

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Speaker 1: does two people mentally, And that's like a whole psychological

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Speaker 1: angle to it that is not so much maybe in

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Speaker 1: our purview, but certainly other house to works podcast could cover. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there has been ongoing tension between China and Japan

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Speaker 1: regarding Unit seven thirty one. So while the Japanese government

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Speaker 1: has formally apologized on multiple occasions for its actions in

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Speaker 1: World War Two, there has never been specific acknowledgement of

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Speaker 1: the work of this biological warfare unit and the Tokyo

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Speaker 1: War Crimes trial, which began in nine While more than

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Speaker 1: two dozen Japanese civilians and military officers were tried for

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Speaker 1: their actions during the or, biological Warfare was not a

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Speaker 1: major player in the prosecution's case was barely touched on,

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Speaker 1: much to the dismayed the Soviet Union, which felt it

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Speaker 1: had provided ample information to build a germ warfare case

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Speaker 1: around In nineteen forty seven, the Soviet Union still pretty

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Speaker 1: dismayed that uh that Tokyo War crimes trial had not

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Speaker 1: really run with the evidence that they had provided, held

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Speaker 1: its own trials against twelve of Unit seven thirty ones,

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Speaker 1: captured military officers and scientists, and ultimately found those participants guilty.

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Speaker 1: But the US played down the entire Soviet trial, kind

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Speaker 1: of labeling it as propaganda for the communist cause. And

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Speaker 1: remember we are righting on the cusp of the Cold

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Speaker 1: War here, So this is as as the escalation is

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Speaker 1: starting to happen of the US and the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: denouncing the moves each of the other makes. The head

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Speaker 1: of Unit see General Shi wrote Hi lived the rest

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Speaker 1: of his life in relative peace and then died of

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Speaker 1: throat answer in nineteen fifty nine. And today there is

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Speaker 1: a Unit one museum in Harbin, China where the occupation

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Speaker 1: compound once stood, and the exhibits there recreate the horrific

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Speaker 1: experiments that took place in the nineteen forties. But in

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00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: a very stylized way so that visitors will fully grasp

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Speaker 1: the extent of the cruel treatment people are received there.

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Speaker 1: Much of the information used to recreate the scenes in

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Speaker 1: the museum was garnered from interviews with former guards and

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Speaker 1: other tertiary employees who came forward with their stories long

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Speaker 1: after the war was over. It's such a horrific thing.

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Speaker 1: I can't even h um. Yeah. Uh. There are pictures

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Speaker 1: of some of the displays of the museum online. There

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Speaker 1: are also pictures from during the war that are horrifying,

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Speaker 1: but the displays are laid out in a very interesting

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Speaker 1: and like I said, it's a very stylized way, so

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Speaker 1: people are curious. Go online and look for those. Do

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Speaker 1: you want to bring up the room with some less

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Speaker 1: death and destruction? Listener mail, you have some pretty interesting listening. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This listener mail is going back to our episode about

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Speaker 1: the USS Cyclops and it is from our listener Richard,

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Speaker 1: and he says, Hi, my name is Richard. I'm a

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00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,439
Speaker 1: regular listener to the podcast and a big fan of

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Speaker 1: YouTube ladies. I recently listened to your show about the

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Speaker 1: disappearance of the USS Cyclops. I am an ex navigation officer,

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00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: having sailed up to the rank of first officer and

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00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: a seagoing career lasting eleven years. I have my own

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00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: theory for the reasons of cyclops disappearance. I currently work

427
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: in the maritime insurance industry, which has exposed me to

428
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: the issue of cargo liquefaction. Cargo liquefaction is the process

429
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 1: whereby the moisture content of a bulk cargo similar to

430
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,719
Speaker 1: that carried by the USS Cyclops, coalesces to change the

431
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: state of the cargo from a solid state to a

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Speaker 1: liquid state. This change of state is caused by movement

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00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: and vibration. When this happens, the newly fluid cargo slashes

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00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: around inside the ship's cargo hold, causing it to capsize suddenly,

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00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: without war n and with no time to respond. This

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00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: problem affects modern ships and most recently is thought to

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00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 1: be the cause of the loss of the bulk Jupiter

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00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: with all but one of its hands. The reason I

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00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: believe that we can apply this theory to the USS

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00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: Cyclops is because she was carrying manganese or manganese or

441
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: in modern shipping, is a quote group a cargo, which

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00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: means a cargo prone to liquid faction. If the moisture

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00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: content of the cargo is too high. Modern ships closely

444
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 1: monitor the moisture content of Group A cargoes before they

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00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,240
Speaker 1: load them to ensure they do not load a cargo

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00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: which is dangerous. In my basic research into the USS

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00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: Cyclops disappearance, I noted she loaded up cargo in Rio

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00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: de Janeiro in February. In Rio February is part of

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00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: the rainy season. If the cargo of manganese or had

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00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: not been protected from rain on the dock side prayer

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00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: to loading it, it could have become water logged. So

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00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: it seems possible that she may have loaded cargo with

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00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,880
Speaker 1: too high and moisture content and suffered from liquefaction, resulting

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00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: in her sudden capsize and mysterious loss. I hope this

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00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: explanation may be of some use to you, kind regards, Richard.

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00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: That's awesome, um uh, and I looked into liquid f

457
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: action a little bit after Richard sent us this note.

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00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: It certainly is a valid theory. I mean, he clearly

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00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: knows what he's talking about, so it's one more possible

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00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: explanation for a history mystery. I always love those. Uh Again,

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00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Richard. Those informative and illuminating. Uh.

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00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, you can

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00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.

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467
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468
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Speaker 1: If you would like to visit us online, you can

469
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: do that at misston history dot com, where we have

470
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: an archive of every episode Tracy and I have done together,

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Speaker 1: as well as those of previous hosts. We also have

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Speaker 1: show notes for the Tracy and Holly era episodes and

473
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474
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479
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Speaker 1: parents site, which is how stuff works dot com, so

480
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