The Battle of May Island | Down the Rabbit Hole 

This WWI Bruh moment brought to you by the letter K.

That’s one of the best parts of the whole movie.

@@Aaron-hf5or Genuine question, no secondary meaning behind it: are you Romanian?

@@MCdouchbagcount

It's like a massive highway pileup but in slow motion and more lives at stake.

For real. Two submarines sinking with no survivors, even way after the battle. This is fucked

I felt a bit of relief every time those animations showed the subs and ships narrowly missing each other... just for it to zoom back out and show MORE subs and ships racing directly towards each other. And it just kept happening.

The first part is a big Fisher: But what if I do anywaaaay?

At least the Kamchatka wasn't present.

My heart goes out to you and your family mate. I hope this video gave you some comfort.

I thank you and your family for their service and sacrifices. Cheers!

@@silentotaku8 I thank you but I have never served. I’m proud to come from a family that served their country for generations and it’s them and countless others that deserve our thanks.

@@thomasjackson4059 I respect your modesty friend! I raise a mug in your honor and wish you a wonderful rest of the year, skål! (Cheers!)

@@silentotaku8 Cheers all round.

I call this "The very Inflexible"

Operation: Tiger

Back then “hell” was a much harsher swear, too

Vibin

Everyone's got that friend.

They say one of the few things that can match the size of human stupidity is human arrogance

unimaginable and eternal horror, back then you had no resources to heal from that

the nine survivors saw their crew mates get disintegrated into pools of bloody water. i think i'd go crazy after seeing something like that.

Sounds a lot like modern-day companies.

And what do they do with these deathtraps instead of dismantling them immediately? They slap ridiculous modifications on them and continue their use. "Put a big fuckin gun on it" *sinks, entire crew dies* "Now put a plane on it." *sinks, entire crew dies*

It wasn't even his fault, but I imagine he had an awful case of survivor's guilt after that and blamed himself for the accident. What an awful clusterfuck.

@@BigPuddin I dunno about that - obviously the poor visibility relieves him to some degree, but the lights on a ship are colour-coded by direction specifically so something like this usually wouldn't happen to a competent captain

Remember that the lights were pretty scheisse to begin with, being dim and shuttered, so maybe it took him a bit of time to realize what light it was. @@Nero_Karel

@@stevemc01Seconding this. The design of the lights was extremely subpar for emergencies due to their directional nature. This was essentially a Swiss cheese model disaster, too many holes lined up.

@@Nero_Karel they were also shuttered so you would be able to see it from the impact angle.

Bro went for the glass cannon build

​@@XXXTENTAClON227 da shin akuma ship

"Yes, chef." "Yes, chef."

Shitshow of any kind: **exists** Fredrik: It's free real estate

Fred, the master of diverse topics

"Oh by the way, I play hurdy gurdy"

We love a well-learned king~

Knudson: HOWEVER...

"Oh man i sure got lucky that this Destroyer missed me and didn't cut me into ribbo... wait is that 5 more of them?"

Its like a trainwreck spanning multiple tracks and dozens of trains... except depending on the severity of the crash the trains will sink into the earth killing literally everyone aboard.

wut

he’s finally free from it

I haven't watched it yet but I intend to it's just a fucking beefy video

Oh sweet! Looking forward to it.

thank you!

Thanks

I’ve never been so excited for a RU-vid comeback. The Eve online rabbit hole will definitely take you on through the looking glass.

Excellent. I was worried.

And, horribly, NOT missing each other...

Watch Historia Civilis, and you can get emotionality attached to occasionally spinning squares and rectangles.

Ngl I almost cried watching the ovals plough straight through the dots

RIGHT IM SWEATING

I can't believe 104 dots were killed by THEIR OWN FLEET of ovals. Holy shit. I hope someone got fired for that blunder.

Perfect summary

"What's the worse that could-" *after the massive pileup* "You just had to say it..."

What a shitfest

Murphy's Law, my friend.

Holy clusterfuck that I had never even heard of before ! It was like watching 10 episodes of the Three Stooges all at once.

Early air combat was pilots throwing bricks at each others propellers, and firing pistols and sawed of shootguns at each other.

Maybe the most ironic thing you can say about WW1.

It's such an absurdly British tactic, too. "I say old chap, submarines are unsporting!"

It was like Submarine Polo

WW1 truly was a GREAT War 😎

Not unheard of. during WW2 Germany lost to itself in an Aircraft/Ship engagement where both German sides confused each other for enemy.

depends if flares count

@Rafael Enriquez Thanks for the name of it. I only remembered the rough outline from Qxir's video on it.

It's almost like a real life Twilight zone episode.

@@arciks11 the royal navy also accidentally shot at each other during the chase of the Bismarck

That has to be some of the worst luck in the history of man.

Your pfp describes the whole video perfectly. *Pain.* Especially when K6 bisected K4. That was just....yeah...

Watchers: F**K!

"But this would not last"

especially at 41:21

Pretty much, had an old naval Leutenent Comander talk about CBDR ( we are on track to crash in layman) and he said the only thing you can do that is pretty much fool proof is slow down or stop.

@@Zombiewizard And then at 43:54 5th battle squadron arrived.

@@hiddenshadow2105 Insert Avatar narrator voice: "Everything was going to hell and then the 5th battle squadron showed up"

@@lyravain6304 Exactly.

This is why I always come back to vids I watch, even years later. Sometimes, the people involved, who are unknown or not popular, show up and share some extra/specific info. I LOVE knowing slightly more than others on various things. ^_^

The engineering wouldn't have been so disastrous if not for naval leaders demanding these ships be created to their exact specifications. Seemingly misunderstanding how these ships would work in practice, and regardless of the concerns many engineers raised. This is not how to spark competent innovation. Often they would simply replace concenered engineers with others who would do it, and were deterred from asking questions. Essentially telling engineers to just get it done, and figure it out somehow. They made these decisions without any understanding of how these ideas would be implemented, or their functionality at sea. Due to the nature of the war, wanting to gain an advantage quickly. These projects were rushed aswell, to a point where serious design flaws were not noticed until it was far too late. The ones that were noticed only had superficial fixes. They did not keep many well working ships from previous years British crews knew how to navigate well as back ups, preferring to scrap them in order to start a new. The technicalities weren't being considered heavily enough by naval leaders, and they were too stubborn to see how unreasonable their demands actually were. The navy also disregarded opinions of skilled sailors telling them these ships were unmanageable, and there were too many issues with the limitations of communication technology at that time. I'm not saying the engineering isn't at fault, but the navy also played a key role in how this tragedy came about. They are both responsible for what happened to those ships, and the crews aboard them. This was a disastrous blunder by the navy as naval leaders continuously made poor, ill informed decisions. Stuck by them despite the obvious, and severe problems. Then once something truly horrifying happened, costing the lives of many. They tried to cover it up rather than take any accountability, or confront the families of those who needlessly died. Their actions were not innocent in this. The navy had many many opportunities to prevent such an incident, but they opted to ignore them. Utterly cruel, and embarrassing behavior.

These subs weren't running on coal, they were running on heavy fuel oil. The problem was the preheaters needed to make it a liquid before it could be used. And the problems here weren't anything to do with engineering, they were to do with violations of proper procedure and driving a squadron of large vessels into an approaching fleet without any idea if it knew they were coming. Without that, this was a minor collision with two casualties.

@@EmoLozer500 ^This You can't fault an engineer if he's forced to design something against their judgement because someone higher on the command chain forced them to do so. As a Geological Engineer, the times I've heard stories of colleagues who had to leave good paying jobs in the Geotechnical/Civil engineering field because the one putting the cash tried to force them to build something against regulations/plain proven science facts that would go against the structure integrity and therefore the lives of the people using such structure is too damn high to not be concerning. Most of the times is exactly as you said, first you raise the issue to your boss and then they either ask for other options that can cut corners while still being legally "safe enough" or they just straight up force you to retire and then find someone willing to do the job/dirty their hands for a quick buck. It's actually sickening how some people play with other people's safety/lives just to save some money because they made a bad investment/didn't care from the start.

@@chonchjohnch No, what's being said is that the "steam" part isn't the problem, it's that the power source was boilers burning heavy fuel oil. That was what caused all the issues.

Because videos about lolcows are better. Other people have covered this better and in less time

@@aydon1276 why are they better?

Not nearly as many people want to hear about awful horrible war attrocities

@@aydon1276 'They aren't

@@aydon1276 Thanks for your highly subjective opinion.

Yeah same XD Probably why the monument puts the biggest quotation marks around the word Battle.

I was kind of expecting the germans to show up during the mess and just kill everybody.

"Battle"

The British Navy decisively battled with the Stupidity Empire. Stupidity won.

Thought therebwas gonna be redemption but ended just depressed

You dont know my laundry room. RIP Horatio from apartment 3C, you will be missed

"Except people died." Nearly as many as at the Pentagon in the September 11th attacks at that. (102 deaths in the May Island incident, 125 at the Pentagon in the September 11th attacks)

Life hack #833: Put a towel on top of the dryer and put laundry on top of that. Pick the towel up by it's corners. Button up shirts can work too.

Now the sock needs a giant gun or a plane.

I think the main takeaway I get from this is that night-time naval missions before radar were fucking suicidal. Even just going back and forth in the mist could result in death with no ability to know where other ships were. Something that just would never happen after this era.

My other takeaway from this is that most suffering of workers/soldiers come from the disconnected hubris of upper management. The unfortunate fact of war is that human lives are a resource to use and take away, but these admirals are so far removed from the war that they gamble away lives like a playboy just for the sake of proving they’re right. I’m not a war buff, but I think it’s also a huge mentality of the Great War, just throwing people at a barbed wall like a subtraction game, while the aristocrats of countries lie in comfort since “die” is a 3 letter word.

They didn't die for their country, they died by their country. I don't mean that their country killed them, which it definitely looks like, but from an existential standpoint the only thing you can really say for certain is that they died off the coast of their country.

and not only have you lost them, the government is so embarrassed that they refuse to acknowledge that your relative is lost for the rest of your life.

Like what about monoxide poisoning? Wouldn't that be a problem?

@@YBPaladin The steam engine was for running the sub on the surface, these were submersibles, not submarines. U-boats did the same thing but with a diesel engine. They had batteries for running underwater, but the demands for ventilation and cooling meant it was a time-consuming process to prepare the steam engine for a dive (shut it down, close off all the ventilators, etc).

@@YBPaladin Luckily, as this takes place in 1918, carbon monoxide had not been invented yet

@@YBPaladin nah, steam is just hot water. Idk about Diesel Engines though, ig that since they use batteries while they're underwater, they only run the generators while on the surface, so that the exhaust can be vented outside the ship

Aren’t most nuclear reactors just steam engines that use nuclear energy to heat the water instead of burning coal? Like the ones used on submarines.

An Australia, a New Zealand, an Indomitable, and an inflexible sail into fog...

New Zealand’s captain wore Maori war gear during the battle for good luck.

Vada a bordo, cazzo!

I see my fellow culturemen

“He cocks up at the worst possible moment”

"Wait, I've seen this trick before!"

No Schetinos on board these boats/subs, thank God.

The use of music and sound effects in this video elevates the tension of this seaborn tragedy so much.

when those destroyers were encroaching on the survivors in the watermy mouth was agape in disbelief and anticipation of the horrifying event that was to come.

Well they never identified the two unknown ships that set the dominoes off, maybe it WAS an enemy?

@@NotAGoodUsername360 One would think that if these ships were then they would have tried to engage the subs or that something else nearby would have been targeted, but it seems nothing like that was reported. It could have just been a pair of the mine sweeping ships went off course and didn't realise where they were or they might have been fishing ships or something. I suppose the key problem is that if they didn't find the answer at the time, there is little we can do now to find it either with any level of certainty.

Here on the internet we call it The Bruh Moment Incident

It's referred to as a "Battle" in a tone of mockery.

@@NotAGoodUsername360 Wikipedia says the two unknown ships were British minesweepers. Because of wartime secrecy, the minesweepers were not informed of this exercise, and had no idea about this. And the exercise navy had no idea about the minesweepers either.

He's working on a 6 hour long one

It's not just incompetence, it's pure hubris. Their higher ups refused to adapt to the changing times and the true methodology of warfare. Their refusal to break from their "one fleet" ideology, make death traps that were borderline impossible at the time and to an extent even today, and even after such a harrowing disaster, they refused to admit their defeat and would rather cover up their obvious mistakes then actually be punished for it. If I even heard about this at the time, I would make sure EVERYONE knows about this; these men should have been held accountable while they were alive, and those who died should have had their loved ones told about what happened.

Absolutely. Some of those maneuvers were intensely skilled, but there is only so much that skill can do for you in those conditions. There was no reason for such a horrific tragedy like this. None whatsoever.

"This could have been worse" is a haunting thought

That and that none of the surviving sailors shot their admirals.

I think that's basically the entire First World War, especially for the British (at least in our cultural memory). "Brave men sent to death by incompetent superiors."

Imagine having to be the guy to clean and salvage the turbines the men fell into..oh god..

@@asneakylawngnome5792 he probably had PTSD after looking at those turbines.

@@asneakylawngnome5792 Probably felt similar to the guys cleaning up tank crew remains out of the damaged tanks. Horrible.

He turned into an owl and talks to other animals on twitch

Tbf he's left a lot of traces he gives consistent updates on his Patreon

This was truly atrocious to hear

fuuuuk dude

During WW2, on more than one occasion, Allied ships not only ran over friendly sailors but also dropped depth charges into the water with them to try and sink enemy submarines.

And since the Admiralty decided to bury this incident and keep it a secret tells me they lied to the families of those who died in this incident about how they died. That's a lot of lying and that lying successfully added another fucked up kink in this story. Sorry for swearing but seriously there are no other words.

@@Wildstar40 The death reports given to families in the two World Wars very rarely reflected what actually happened to their loved ones. It was seen as being kinder to report that they died quickly and doing something brave. See for example the letters scene in _Memphis Belle_ . All of those letters are real.

In a battle between Britain and Britain, britain lost

@@phoebe5 The history of Britain, in one sentence.

the battle of the Superiors ego and the sub mariners lives....

Tyvm. I don't use twitter and was about to ask what happened to his channel.

@T teg Egg Too big to fail.

If you're going to F something up, do it so badly they put your name in the history book.

Corollary: If you're high enough to make a huge mistake, there is none above you to fire you.

Ego >> Everything

If you're doing something wrong, just keep telling everyone you're doing the right thing. -Might as well be a quote by Matt Hancock, current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for the UK; still in government nearing 4 months after being declared to have acted unlawfully by a High Court judge in regard to contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds. EDIT: Deleted a duplicate post that somehow occurred.

With the buildup and the horror of the previous shit, I felt a chill of terror and horrific realization when he said that

Harder?

God, 60 lives just burnt away for the sake of avoiding embarrassment.

NIGHT AND LOVE

@@Intestine_Ballin-ism YES!! you have a great taste in music my good sir

This was a great series. I wonder where he went?

@@Fionalah he's still working on his latest video, which hopefully should be out sometime by the end of this year. Unfortunately, he decided to do a video on a subject that's everchanging and constantly evolving, so the script just kept getting longer as new events began to unfold. I think once it's out, it'll be one of his best works yet, and hopefully he'll return to a more normal schedule.

@@crystalkami5166 Listen, I don't pay him a dime and his content is excellent so he can do what he wants... But what the f@#k are YOU doing? Are you paid to apologize for this guy? Do you have issues of your own that might be a more reasonable use of your time? It doesn't take two years to make a 100-million-dollar epic film! Do you foresee him being able to release something that undeniably justifies TWO YEARS without content? No. Nothing could do that. Obviously. Also, why not just sneak a couple of real quickie videos in while apologizing for the unjustifiable wait? Right? It's free to me, so fine, but this amount of delay CAN'T be legitimate.

@@TroubleToby3040 nah man, I'm just a fan who likes to keep up with his work. It's purely courtesy to tell people what's going on with the next video when they're out of the loop. iirc he sneaks stuff on his patreon and will post stuff about it on his twitter but when the subject he's doing this time (EVE Online) is such a fickle and everchanging one you'd understand the extreme delays. This is a five hour long video we're talking about, covering one of the most complex, rich, and interesting video game histories of all time, it's going to take a while. Take a chill pill and just wait.

ok he did

Yet submarines are boats not ships

"Did you say *BACKWARDS* ??!!"

Well... British. So, "....I beg your pardon?"

"well, normally submarines... wait.. did you say backwards!?"

(spits out their tea)

well you're in luck! :) get ready to lose 6 horus of your life

Just tag me next time bro

You know how road rage is fam

If you shouted that at me, then I would have no choice but to continue what I was doing *insouciantly*

Lol I thought that exact same thing

What the HELL are WE doing ? Just does not have the same punch tbh

“chugga chugga boom drown”

Ehhh im no engineer but that sounds pretty messed up idea.

@@d.aardent9382 it seems forever go down in history as one of those instantly recognisable bad ideas like the steam powered aircraft and the nuclear powered train Oh and that nuclear-powered bomber the Americans tried making that one time

they woulda been better off ramming them like they did everyone else

Unreal

What were your total?

Hey! Trains can't go in water. Only ships and subs do. More like a shipwreck.

I just keep saying “oh god no, oh god NO”

“Dude what the fuck?” Was mine.

How many times can a ship decide to steer port side to evade collision. Only to be met by chaos.

Leaves more to the imagination, which in turn makes it scarier.

I know! I was groaning and saying "Oh my god!" throughout the entire video.

I literally kept yelling OH NO everytime one of them was about to hit the other lol

I got terrible chills

I know. Just knowing that the dots were people, even with such simple drawings it was horrific.

🤣🤣🤣

The k12 plowed into k14 which was rapidly followed by sharks with bees in their mouths and the Martians landing their flying saucer on k22. After some time the meteor struck.

@@informitas0117 🤣🤣🤣 sounds accurate

Narrator: "you have no power here I control how your story starts and ends."

@@informitas0117 And then, the fire nation attacked.

It’s like if the power cut to a nightclub then from the darkness someone yells “FUCKIN RUN!”. Big lumbering drunks running in every which way and after time people crash there’s a long pause as their drunk brain tries to process what happened.

It's one of those things that, were you to see it in a movie, you'd think it's ridiculously exaggerated for cheap drama. And yet it happened...

@@nooneinparticular3370 This definitely needs a movie adaptation IMO. It would pay respect to all those sailors that died that didn't get the respect they deserved from their country at the time.

A chain reaction

Nearly been over a year since the last video. Miss his content.

ur wish has been granted

It really was so critical. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series on WW1 goes into it in fantastic detail. Politics and arrogance abound.

@@eddedmonds5753 “just run at the machine gun nest, it’s going to work at some point”

The only thing to match human ingenuity is human arrogance, after all.

A lot of Europe's generals were around the end of rank and file combat and were members of the upper class

That's what's it was all about

If this wasn't kept secret for so long we could have asked them.

He's making a video on the history of EVE Online. Supposedly it's going to be 5+ hours long.

@@austinwallett5140 holy shit that would be awesome

So do I :( but he regularly streams on twitch if you’re willing to listen for a few hours! :)

I believe May this year

Very true

That's the magic of Fredrik Knudsen for ya

I would argue the only reason it's called a "battle" is to sound more dignified than the series of unfortunate events it truly was

@@vangobango7627 agreed

as it was the details legitimately made me feel sick- i knew, vaguely, that there was a minimum of one collision/ramming incident (have been curious about AFV's/warship since primary school), but i had no idea the...whole thing was...such a ...mess.

yea i actually found myself almost laughing and then i just felt like a psychopath when he started talking about the destroyers going through the survivors of the sunken sub

That's what's tragic about this. Hundreds died and the whole thing felt like a circus event.

Same; my moment of "I shouldn't be laughing at this" came when I started imagining the utter fear of swinging and listing wildly through the dark as a mountain of nearly invisible battleship bears down on you, warning lights and fog horns and flares going off all around. And then it happens again fifteen minutes later.. and again

It wouldn't be so appalling if it wasn't at the expense of frankly completely innocent sub-mariners who were given such woefully inadequate submarines. The fact that the people at the top received no repercussions for this is unforgivable.

Or a plane!?

It added a new feature lmao

Haha jk *unless...*

Great idea! What else could possibly go wrong?

@@roberte2945 Crewman: What's the plane for? Captain: So I can escape. I mean... search for u-boats. 😏

He's been working on a HUGE six-hour one for the last year and a half

It was specifically like the video of that big 70 car pile up in Iowa. You think it's over and people are fine but it all gets worse. There are semi trucks scrapping out and sliding off the road, one even followed another in drifting between cars and both continued on their way like true pros like nothing happened. But then people start getting off their stranded cars and the vehicles coming behind hit the people walking in the snow or other cars and smush them into paste. Some cars try to go off the embankment to get out of the way of the ones still sliding behind but at the same time vehicles coming behind swerve off the road right into their side. Notably, much like in this case with the battleships and cruisers, the biggest trucks managed to avoid crashing into people due to being the only professionals there, likely saving lives. The one big vehicle that hit a car was a double decker travel bus that hit a minivan and sent it flying into the incoming traffic.

@@LuizAlexPhoenix I did not know this was a thing, but the description already makes me sick.

Good lord. You shits going down when he says that.

THE ILLUMINATI / CIA CREATE AN UNDETECTABLE MIND CONTROL SLAVE BOOK. (walk in the rain) on my channel :)

@@mysteriousknowledgetexts9809 Joke's on you, I can't read

@@ShermTank7272 Jokes on you, they probably can't even spell.

Not funny shut up

Sometimes some abstract demonstrations and your imagination is more than enough to give a terryfying image.

Now that could be a YT channel. Just some dude who loves naval battles and is willing to go through them frame by frame with black/white visuals overlayed.

@@jacobstallard2678 try drachinifel

@@Arvidus89 Look up "the first metal of honor ever recorded" if you have never seen it before.

"Sir, these ships are terrible." Admiralty: "Put a big gun on it lol."

@@CarrotConsumer "Sir, it's gotten worse" Admiralty : "You're right... Put a plane on some of them instead so they can't dive"

Ship too heavy to work properly? Put big gun. Still no work? Put plane hangar.

@@CarrotConsumer I've said this elsewhere, but Fred got that wrong. The M class weren't K class refits, they are a novel design. Most obviously, they didn't have a steam engine.

@@CruelestChris that somehow makes it worse. Because not only did they get one submarine obscenely wrong, they got two

I had honestly been expecting that after all this shit happened, they would finally be attacked by those two mystery boats from the beginning, making things worse. Truly, this was a "Battle" against the K-class, not the Germans... A worse fate than I had expected.

funfact they also applys to space during the space race the russians made a laser pistol specifally ment for cosmonauts to point blank shot america satiletes solar pannels to destroy them

@@wilmagregg3131 and launching the 30mm cannon from a BMP on a satellite

This kind of shit is what I worry about with the modern navy. Ffs, hitting modern radars is as easy as hitting the broad side of a barn, and I doubt that they are armored.

​@@userequaltoNull The solar panels are covered in thick plates of steel to protect them.

Had I been alive back then, I would have volunteered to be a 'smash-lad' and would have done it naked. Could you imagine the German's befuddlement peering through a periscope in the open ocean only to see a naked man with a hammer smashing your periscope lens? 'Un Gott in Himmel, Franz, I'm going mad.'

Well played there.

underrated comment

Absolutely splendid

What? Nietzsche for God's sake. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the name of the book. Why are so many people upvoting an embarrassing misquote?

@@SwitchTF2 I was hoping no-one would notice that the gaze ye not into the abyss wasn’t said by Zarathustra. Zarathustra is a character in Thus spake Zarathustra. But you’re right that the abyss quote is not from that book. I was only having some fun and hope you don’t find it to big a deal. Seeing as Zarathustra was a semi author insert character for the guy who said the abyss quote.