and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.

...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.

see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.

while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.

especially if the president of the united states is on board.

yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.

and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."

but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.

...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.

not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.

yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.

A B-52 from the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron is escorted by two US Navy F/A-18 Hornets as it flies past the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz - 23 April 2008

I think I'm going to put my non-fandom ocs here and retire the oc blog since Im not using it like I thought I would

First, the US deployed multiple warships to the Caribbean. Then, Donald Trump announced a deadly strike on a boat he said was carrying drugs.

What Washington has planned next is not entirely clear, but some analysts tell the BBC that the risk of escalation in the region is growing by the day.

Since the US president's return to office in January, the Trump administration has steadily intensified its anti-drug-trafficking efforts in Latin America. As part of that, the US has seemingly centred on Venezuela - an effort that has led to the mobilisation of military forces from both countries in recent weeks.

After Tuesday's bombing of a small vessel in the Caribbean that was allegedly travelling from Venezuela, officials in the US made it clear that military action in the region was not over - hinting at more operations that could target drug trafficking.

Venezuela's government has reacted with anger. President Nicolás Maduro denies American accusations that he is involved with drugs trafficking, while another official has questioned the veracity of footage posted by Trump.

Trump said the footage showed the killing of 11 "narcoterrorists" from the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, who he said were aboard a small boat.