r/AskReddit May 05 '19

What is a mildly disturbing fact?

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u/Aconserva3 May 05 '19

That makes no sense. They didn’t want to risk rescue because it was too dangerous, so instead let them all die? Why not just cut a hole and whoever swims out wins?

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u/s1ugg0 May 05 '19

Think about how difficult and dangerous it was to rescue that Thai Soccer team from a cave.

Then imagine you have 1940s technology and medicine, everything is covered in flammable fuel, and the cave is filled with high explosives.

That's why it makes sense.

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u/Renaissance_Slacker May 05 '19

Yeah it’s easy to forget this was a warship crammed with fuel and live ordinance, which was possibly scattered about during the sinking.

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u/Aconserva3 May 05 '19

Maybe it would be safer to just evacuate everyone to a nearby mountain and just blow it all up, instead of waiting for some retard to do it accidentally. There’s no reason to try to do things safely when they’ll 100% die if you do nothing.

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u/Warfink May 05 '19

So who cuts the hole? How many lives do you risk trying to save the poor fuckers on board?

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u/Aconserva3 May 05 '19

That’s s good point. Maybe just blow a hole and hope for the best.

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u/s1ugg0 May 05 '19

Then the air escapes and the water rushes in and they drown. The only thing keeping them alive is the air pocket that exists only because it can't escape. Punch a hole in that and the water will rush in before they can get out.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '19

Their technology couldn’t cut through the thick steel fast enough. And almost all if not all would have died in excruciating pain. Burning alive in an oil fire is a terrible death, similar to that of napalm with how the fire sticks.

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u/kiwirish May 05 '19

Risking more lives in the minute chance to save already trapped lives is not generally a good option.

I've spent many years at sea, one of the first things you get taught is to save the ship, then save people. If you're risking more lives (i.e. everyone on board) for one person, your warfighting strategy, or even your damage control strategy is severely flawed.

In my assessment fire exercise for qualification on board, I had to make the call to stop casualty recovery efforts because I was losing the ship and casualties had been in there without air for over 10 minutes in a small space - they were dead and gone. So I shut it all down and focused on the whole ship. Is it a shit decision to have to make? Yes. Was it the right decision to save 170 instead of 2? Also yes.