Scotch Whisky Salvaged From 80-Year-Old Shipwreck To Be Sold At Auction

by Brad Japhe (02 August 2020)

“It’s called sunken scotch. And it’s practically a category unto itself: whisky rescued from the cargoes of a wrecked ship, resting for untold periods of time below the tides. Every few years tales of brown spirit raised from these depths grab headlines, while the liquor itself fetches top dollar at auction. The latest example happens to be scotch salvaged from perhaps the most famous shipwreck of the modern era. And it’s expected to earn as much as $20,000 in an on-going auction now live, online.”

Read the rest of the article at Forbes: forbes.com/sites/bradjaphe/2020/08/02/scotch-whisky-salvaged-from-80-year-old-shipwreck-to-be-sold-at-auction

Poster for the 1949 film

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: Toughest Pipe Smoking Tough Guy

by Chuck Stanion (17 April 2020)

Here are a few choice tidbits:

“Most people found him to be an engaging person, pleasant company, and a fluent and continuous speaker of obscenities that made an impression wherever he went. All of his adult life he was known for his abundant employment of profanity. Given the amount of scar tissue and shrapnel he carried with him, that’s little surprise. But he remained jovial and was an engaging and interesting conversationalist.”

“He was given an artificial eye but found it uncomfortable, wearing it only long enough to convince the medical board that he was fit for combat, and then he threw it out of a taxicab window, opting for a black eye patch instead, which he wore for the rest of his life. The patch perfectly matched his adventurous lifestyle.”

There are many more interesting/humorous/outrageous anecdotes in the article, so read the rest of it at Smoking Pipes: smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/sir-adrian-carton-wiart-toughest-pipe-smoking-tough-guy

Montana, Idaho 10th Mountain Division chapter closing down

by Kim Briggeman (01 March 2020)

“Brutal cold.

An almost impossible nighttime climb up a cliff high in the mountains of northern Italy.

The heavy backpack he lost, and with it all his ammunition, food, blanket, and letters from back home.

The artillery blast that crippled Orville Bjorge on Riva Ridge 75 years ago Thursday, Feb. 20. The dangling stretcher ride over a steep canyon on a makeshift tram.

He’s 97 now, retired from a life of cattle ranching and farming on his spread between Polson and Hot Springs.

But Bjorge is still standing, and he still remembering clearly his days with the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division in World War II.”

Read the rest of the article here, via the Army Times: armytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/03/01/montana-idaho-10th-mountain-division-chapter-closing-down

Chupplee, Chuplis, Chaplis, Chappal…

As I stated in an earlier post about Desert Boots, Nathan Clark was a British officer in the Royal Army Service Corps posted to Burma during World War Two. Before the war, he worked for his family’s company, C. & J. Clark LTD, of Street, Somerset, England. So, while serving in the military he kept a look out for any interesting footwear ideas that might benefit the company.

Nathan “discovered” the Chupplee (and Desert Boot) while serving in Burma, when he noticed locals and soldiers wearing them while he was on leave in northern India.

Nathan sent sketches and rough patterns back to his brother, but no samples were made until after he returned home from the war and made them himself, as the company’s board wasn’t keen on the designs.

As an example of their use, British officer/scientist, World War One veteran, and one of the founding members of the LRDG, Ralph Bagnold, had chaplis custom-made in Cairo, since standard-issue “ammo boots” weren’t always suitable for desert field use. The sandals show up in many of the photos of the LRDG (and SAS members in North Africa).

Said to be a traditional style of footwear in eastern India by Nathan Clark, they were more of a north west style of footwear, today mainly known as “Peshawari Chappal” footwear.

Das [Desert] Boot

Nathan Clark (see photo below) was a British officer in the Royal Army Service Corps stationed in Burma during World War Two. Before leaving for overseas service, his brother, Bancroft Clark, asked him to keep his eyes open for any interesting footwear designs that might be of use to their family’s company, C. & J. Clark LTD, while he was in the military. The Desert Boot (and the Chupplee sandal) was the result of this, albeit years later.

Nathan’s inspiration for his future “desert boot” was discovered while serving in Burma, where he noticed officers who had previously served with the Eighth Army in North Africa were wearing suede chukka-style boots that had been custom-made for them in the Cairo, Egypt, bazaar. Nathan sent sketches and rough patterns back to his brother, but no samples were made until Nathan was discharged and returned home after the war and made them himself.

The rather conservative company’s review board reacted negatively to Nathan’s concept shoe, believing it wouldn’t sell. However, while at the National Shoe Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1949, Nathan showed his creation to Oskar Schoefler, the fashion editor at Esquire Magazine. According to company lore, Schoefler was so enamored with the shoe that he wrote a feature on it in the magazine, complete with color photographs, in early 1950 [NOTE: I have been unable to find the article in Esquire]. Because of this, the boot became very popular in the US, but wasn’t available in the UK until years later.

What we know as “The Desert Boot” was a form of footwear roughly based on the South African veldschoen style of footwear (a.k.a. “vellies”), and the initial shoes or boots made in Cairo were for South African officers serving in the region.

There are extant photos of Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) soldiers wearing short suede boots and shoes that appear to be “desert boot” in style and construction (see image below, of the man on the left).

Want a pair? Of course, Clark’s Desert Boots are the obvious choice if one wants to obtain a pair of these excellent shoes (there are two versions, one of which is made in Italy and is around $200; the other is made in Vietnam and is around $130). They are no longer made in England, by the way, as supply couldn’t keep up with demand.

If price is an object, I found that American Eagle Outfitters desert chukka boots are an excellent alternative. They seem to be very well constructed (made in India), but have more of an “open lacing” style to the vamp, and they are sized prior to the insole being installed so they will likely be tight unless you go a size up or remove the insole. There are likely other great brands (one can be sure that Ralph Lauren and Nigel Cabourn have made some beautiful but expensive versions) but you’ll have to discover those on your own.

For more information:

https://clarksoriginals.com/the-clarks-desert-boot-made-in-england

https://www.clarksusa.com/c/Desert-Boot/p/26110054

http://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-return-of-desert-boots.html

https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/is-it-worth-it-clarks-boots

 

REFERENCES:

Mark Palmer. Clarks, Made to Last: The Story of Britain’s Best-Known Shoe Firm. Profile Books, 2013.

https://www.gq.com/story/dropping-knowledge-the-desert-boot

https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/is-it-worth-it-clarks-boots

https://www.clarksdesertboot.com/history

The Military Origins of Layering

by Rachel S. Gross (15 September 2019)

“The popular way to keep warm outdoors owes a debt to World War II–era clothing science.

I used to think of layering as a timeless concept. The idea of wearing many light articles of clothing rather than a few heavy ones was everywhere: my brother’s Boys’ Life magazines, advertisements from my local outdoors store, my summer camp’s suggested packing list. But, like any way of dressing, layering had to be invented.

In his 2005 memoir, Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, claimed that his outdoor-clothing company, founded in 1973, was the first to bring the concept to the outdoors community. But the idea goes back further than that. Almost every American’s understanding of layering comes from the mid-century U.S. military.”

Read the rest of the article here, at The Atlantic: theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/how-military-science-popularized-layered-clothing/597577

The US Army M-1943 field uniform “system”

The Ghost Road

by Mark Jenkins (October 1, 2003)

“Winding a thousand miles from India to China, the Burma Road was built to defend China in World War II, but the atomic bomb made it irrelevant and the jungle reclaimed it. Mark Jenkins vowed to do what no one had done for nearly 60 years—travel the entire Burma Road—and discovered the madness of present-day Myanmar.”

Read the 2003 article in its entirety here, at Outside: outsideonline.com/1909926/ghost-road

 

(For an update on the historic road, read this 2011 BBC article “Will the famous Indian WWII Stilwell Road reopen?” and this 2015 BBC article “The Stilwell Road 70 years on.”)

Gallagher of Nikumaroro: The Last Expansion of the British Empire

by Thomas F. King
(Earhart Project Research Bulletin, August 1, 2000)

“One thinks of British imperial expansion as a thing of the 18th and 19th centuries. By the early twentieth century the British Empire had achieved a sort of stasis, in uneasy balance with the colonial enterprises of the other great powers. Its days of expansion were over, and with the end of World War II of course, it began to dismantle itself, morphing into today’s Commonwealth.

On the eve of the War, however, there was one last push into new territory – technically the expansion of an existing colony rather than the establishment of a new one, but so like a new colony that it can justly be called the last expansion of the Empire. This last hurrah, effectively lost to history in the tumult of world war, is worth reclaiming as a small but poignant part of British history, and as a memorial to a dedicated colonial officer who died in its service.

The colonial enterprise was the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme (PISS), and its martyr was Gerald B. Gallagher, whose grave monument stands today in the coconut jungle of an uninhabited South Pacific island, Nikumaroro.”

Read the rest of the article here, via The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR): tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/25_GallagherNiku/25_GallagherNiku.html

Has Amelia Earhart’s crash site been located?

Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared more than 80 years ago, on July 2, 1937, during the second to last leg of their around-the-world flight. After taking off from Lae, New Guinea, in Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, the pair aimed for tiny Howland Island, just north of the Equator. But they couldn’t find it, and despite many attempts, no one has been able to find them.

Now Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic, is planning to search for signs of the missing aviators. On August 7, he’ll depart from Samoa for Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island that’s part of the Micronesian nation of Kiribati. The expedition will be filmed by National Geographic for a two-hour documentary airing October 20.

Read more about it here: nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/08/inside-search-for-amelia-earhart-airplane

And read previous articles about the search here: nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/amelia-earhart-bones-forensic-analysis

and here: nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/forensic-dogs-amelia-earhart-spot-where-died

A recent article in the New York Times about the search: nytimes.com/2019/08/12/science/amelia-earhart-search-robert-ballard.html

Also, read about extensive previous research, analysis, and the search here: tighar.org

The other Shackleton whiskey

Yes, it’s a blended whiskey and not a beloved single malt, but it is a whiskey that has some serious popular history and popular culture cred.

I earlier wrote about the Mackinlay’s whisky that Ernest Shackleton took on the 1907 British Antarctic Expedition, but it was Vat 69 whisky that he chose to take on the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

As the story goes, Vat 69 came into being in 1882, when William Sanderson, of Leith, Scotland, prepared one hundred casks of blended whisky and hired a panel of experts to taste them. The batch from the cask (or “vat”) with number 69 stenciled on it was judged to be the best, and this provided the whisky’s brand name.

No stashed cases of this whiskey from Shackleton’s 1914-1917 voyage will likely be discovered, as it’s at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, off Antarctica, with the ship Endurance, on which it was being stored. However, several expeditions to find the wreckage have been attempted, but none have been successful so far.

A resurgence of this whiskey’s popularity in the United States particularly was due to the book and 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, where World War II infantry officer Lewis Nixon III (played by actor Ron Livingston) of the U.S. Army’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, loves him some Vat 69. The show’s ninth episode Why We Fight centers on Nixon’s hunt for more whiskey, and his dealing with his alcoholism.

This might be my favorite conversation of the entire show:

CPT Richard Winters: [regarding Nixon’s drinking] Nix, what are you going to do in battle?

CPT Lewis Nixon: Oh, I have every confidence in my scrounging abilities, and I have a case of Vat 69 hidden in your footlocker.

Winters: [chuckles, thinking it’s a joke. Pauses, realizes that Nixon is not kidding] Really?

Nixon: Oh, yeah.