The First Ship That Fired During WWI Was Brought Back From the Deep — Twice
The first shot of World War I was fired by the SMS Bodrog, which then went on to do all kinds of exciting World War I stuff. When the war ended, this Austro-Hungarian ship now found itself owned by Yugoslavia, a country that formerly had not existed.
The ship was renamed the Sava, and it was still around during World War II to fight off some German planes. It got through that okay, but with no easy way to navigate out of the tight physical spot they’d maneuvered into, the captain figured it was best to just sink the ship. But that didn’t keep it out of Axis hands. The Independent State of Croatia raised the ship, got it working again, and renamed it the Bosna. Before the war ended, the crew of the Bosna said to themselves, “Wait. What the hell is the Independent State of Croatia?” And so, they scuttled the Bosna and defected to the communists.
After World War II, the ship got raised yet again, and it spent a decade back in the hands of the Yugoslav Navy. When Yugoslavia vanished into the nonexistence from which it originated, the Sava became a Serbian ship. Today, much like the Wilhelm Bauer, it’s a floating museum. Here’s a photo of it, where it looks like a video game asset that developers put zero effort into making look convincing:
Japan Shot Up an Airliner. People Refurbished It. Japan Shot It Up Again
Every time a country shoots a civilian airliner down, it’s a crazy story, whether it’s that Korean plane whose crash led GPS to go public or that Iranian plane that the U.S. still swears it was totally justified in mistaking for a fighter jet. The first-ever incident of this kind happened all the way back in 1938. Japan and China were at war, and Japan shot down a plane carrying 18 passengers and crew.
The plane, called the Kweilin, had been flying from Hong Kong to Chengdu. When he noticed Japanese planes looking menacingly his way, pilot Hugh Woods (an American on loan to this Chinese airline from Pan Am) landed in a river and slipped out into the water. Woods survived, as did a couple others, but the Japanese planes fired on the landed, unarmed plane, killing everyone else aboard. It’s possible that they believed the son of the Chinese president was aboard.
The Kweilin sank to the bottom of the river. The airline, China National Aviation, salvaged the plane and got it back into service, now under the name Chungking.
In October 1940, this plane was again in the air, again piloted by an American, this one named “Foxie” Kent. He landed the plane at an airstrip. Then Japanese planes showed up and shot it up — again. Kent died first, and the fighters shot passengers as they ran away from the wreckage. This time, the Chungking was not going to be refurbished. It burned up on the airstrip.
The day comes when every driver realizes it’s time to bid their vehicle goodbye. Just hope than when yours comes, you’re not inside the vehicle when it incinerates.
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