Latest / Crime and Horror / Russian Naval blunders are stranger than fiction - MrBallen
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- 0:00Speaker 1: No matter how absurd this story gets, just remember it's true.
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- 0:34Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. Around the turn of the
- 0:49Speaker 1: twentieth century, Russia and Japan got into a dispute over
- 0:52Speaker 1: who should be in control of Korea and China. Looking
- 0:55Speaker 1: to avoid an armed conflict, the Japanese set the Russians
- 0:59Speaker 1: a deal that came with reasonable concessions on both sides,
- 1:03Speaker 1: but the Russians didn't like it. They rejected the deal,
- 1:05Speaker 1: and they countered with a pretty unreasonable deal that came
- 1:08Speaker 1: with lots of concessions for Japan and not so many
- 1:11Speaker 1: for Russia, and so Japan rejected that deal and then
- 1:14Speaker 1: promptly launched a devastating surprise attack on the Russian navy
- 1:18Speaker 1: stationed at Fort Arthur in China. This attack would officially
- 1:21Speaker 1: start the one year long Russo Japanese War. The Russians
- 1:24Speaker 1: knew they would need to send a replacement naval fleet
- 1:27Speaker 1: up to Fort Arthur to reclaim it from the Japanese,
- 1:30Speaker 1: but unfortunately, the attack at Fort Arthur had totally wiped
- 1:35Speaker 1: out all of Russia's best sailors and all their best ships,
- 1:37Speaker 1: putting Russia at a major disadvantage to start this war.
- 1:41Speaker 1: And so as Russians are wondering what they're going to
- 1:43Speaker 1: do next, the Russian Emperor Zar Nicholas the Second authorizes
- 1:47Speaker 1: an unbelievable mission. He orders the Russian Baltic Fleet to
- 1:51Speaker 1: set sail from their harbor in northern Europe and sail
- 1:54Speaker 1: eighteen thousand miles around the world to Japan, where they
- 1:57Speaker 1: will defeat the Japanese and then re claim Fort Arthur.
- 2:01Speaker 1: The fact that none of the Baltic Fleet ships were
- 2:03Speaker 1: designed to sail that far of a distance, or that
- 2:06Speaker 1: there were literally zero refueling points along their massive projected
- 2:10Speaker 1: path was considered largely inconsequential and ignored. What was also
- 2:14Speaker 1: considered inconsequential was how absurdly unqualified the Baltic crew was.
- 2:20Speaker 1: The sailors were mostly illiterate peasants that did not grow
- 2:23Speaker 1: up on the coasts, and so they showed up for
- 2:25Speaker 1: military training with no seafaring skills, and then after their
- 2:29Speaker 1: military training, they still had no seafaring skills because the
- 2:33Speaker 1: Baltic Fleet's harbor was frozen solid almost year round. But
- 2:36Speaker 1: the Czar believed the man he had put in charge
- 2:38Speaker 1: of this crew, Admiral Rojasfensky, would make up for their deficiencies,
- 2:42Speaker 1: and this belief was not unwarranted. Admiral Rojasfensky was the
- 2:46Speaker 1: best Russian officer that had not been killed in that
- 2:49Speaker 1: Japan surprise attack. He had significant combat experience, and he
- 2:53Speaker 1: had a wickedly bad temper. He didn't care who you were.
- 2:56Speaker 1: If you were doing something he didn't like, he was
- 2:59Speaker 1: going to beat the crap you literally, And when he
- 3:01Speaker 1: was told he was going to be in charge of
- 3:03Speaker 1: this fairly inexperienced crew, he was certain his rough style
- 3:08Speaker 1: would whip these Baltic boys into shape. And they would
- 3:10Speaker 1: be very successful. But when he laid eyes on the
- 3:14Speaker 1: Baltic Fleet, he realized this was going to be a
- 3:17Speaker 1: little bit more challenging than he realized. In addition to
- 3:20Speaker 1: being less than satisfied with his fighting crew, he was
- 3:23Speaker 1: equally dissatisfied with the two senior officers that were assigned
- 3:26Speaker 1: to be his direct support, and he immediately gave them nicknames,
- 3:30Speaker 1: and he would only refer to them by their nicknames
- 3:33Speaker 1: right to their face. The first one was the manure
- 3:36Speaker 1: sack and the other was a vast empty space. As
- 3:40Speaker 1: for the Baltic Fleet's forty five ships, they were terrible
- 3:44Speaker 1: because this unit never went out on the ocean because
- 3:47Speaker 1: their harbor was always frozen. Russia didn't waste their good
- 3:50Speaker 1: ships on them, so all they had were really old,
- 3:54Speaker 1: obsolete warships and then non military ships like ferries and
- 3:58Speaker 1: yachts they just slapped random guns onto. They also had
- 4:02Speaker 1: ships that the Baltic Fleet crew enthusiastically called futuristic, which
- 4:07Speaker 1: were these ships that came out of Russia briefly copying
- 4:10Speaker 1: French engineering, which involved these crazy top heavy ships that
- 4:15Speaker 1: sat so low in the water that their lowest rung
- 4:19Speaker 1: of weapons they're cannons that poked out the windows at
- 4:22Speaker 1: the bottom of the ship. They didn't work because they
- 4:25Speaker 1: sat under the water permanently. But regardless of their shortfalls,
- 4:29Speaker 1: the Baltic fleet was what Rojasfensky had been dealt, and
- 4:33Speaker 1: so he had to just get them moving if they
- 4:35Speaker 1: were going to win the war. And so on October sixteenth,
- 4:37Speaker 1: nineteen oh four, Admiral Rojasfensky ordered all of his men
- 4:41Speaker 1: to take their positions in all of their ships, and
- 4:43Speaker 1: they set sail and immediately, thirty seconds into their trip,
- 4:47Speaker 1: the lead ship ran aground and another ship lost its anchor,
- 4:51Speaker 1: even though it should not have been casting its anchor
- 4:53Speaker 1: to begin with. And so while one ship is trying
- 4:56Speaker 1: to refloat and the other is trying to find its
- 4:58Speaker 1: anchor in the ocean, a third ship comes along and
- 5:01Speaker 1: broadsides a fourth ship, and it does so much damage
- 5:05Speaker 1: to this fourth ship that ship had to go back home.
- 5:09Speaker 1: But once they overcame these initial obstacles, the Baltic fleet,
- 5:13Speaker 1: that now numbered forty four ships, made it out of
- 5:16Speaker 1: the harbor without any more issues, and then set sail
- 5:19Speaker 1: for the narrow waters between Denmark and Sweden. As they
- 5:22Speaker 1: drew closer, Manuresak informed Rojasfensky that there might be an issue.
- 5:26Speaker 1: That he had heard rumblings amongst the crew that they
- 5:29Speaker 1: believed Japanese torpedo boats were stationed off the coast of
- 5:32Speaker 1: Denmark waiting for them to get there. Rojaspensky told Manuresak
- 5:36Speaker 1: that that was impossible. The Japanese torpedo boats did not
- 5:39Speaker 1: have the capabilities to sail eighteen thousand miles to Denmark,
- 5:44Speaker 1: and even if they did have the ability to do that,
- 5:47Speaker 1: they could not have gotten there in such a short
- 5:49Speaker 1: period of time. But Manuresak told Rojasfensky that unfortunately, even
- 5:53Speaker 1: though logically that makes sense, this rumor had spread all
- 5:57Speaker 1: across the crew, and so Rojasfenski began sending out messages
- 6:00Speaker 1: to all the other ships telling them there are no
- 6:03Speaker 1: Japanese torpedo boats waiting for us off the coast of Denmark.
- 6:06Speaker 1: Everybody just needs to calm down. And these messages did
- 6:10Speaker 1: appear to work at first, because eventually another rumor began
- 6:14Speaker 1: to circulate, one that Rojaspensky was not really aware of
- 6:17Speaker 1: as it was happening, and that was that the crew
- 6:19Speaker 1: began to believe there was a huge minefield underneath them.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Everywhere they went there was a minefield, and everybody got
- 6:27Speaker 1: so worked up about it that it made its way
- 6:29Speaker 1: back to a lot of the captains actually piloting the
- 6:32Speaker 1: different ships, and at some point the pilots just began
- 6:36Speaker 1: doing these evasive maneuvers and Rojesfensky's looking around wondering what
- 6:39Speaker 1: they're doing, and they began crashing into each other trying
- 6:43Speaker 1: to avoid this minefield. When Rojasfensky finally figured out what
- 6:46Speaker 1: was going on, he sent out even more messages telling
- 6:49Speaker 1: them that there's no minefield under us, It's totally safe.
- 6:52Speaker 1: Everybody just needs to calm down. And so it took
- 6:55Speaker 1: Rojaespensky going out on deck and firing shots into the
- 6:59Speaker 1: air to finally get people to stop believing they were
- 7:02Speaker 1: on top of a minefield. But just a couple of
- 7:04Speaker 1: hours later, after Rojaspensky had gone back up to the
- 7:07Speaker 1: bridge and was just looking out surveying his fleet as
- 7:10Speaker 1: they carried on towards Denmark and Sweden, when all of
- 7:12Speaker 1: a sudden, towards the very front of his fleet, he
- 7:15Speaker 1: heard this unbelievable barrage of cannon fire. One of his
- 7:19Speaker 1: own ships was engaging something out in front of the fleet,
- 7:23Speaker 1: but Rojaspensky was too far away to see what it was.
- 7:26Speaker 1: And then a message came through from the attacking ship,
- 7:29Speaker 1: whose name was Kumchotka, and they said they were surrounded
- 7:32Speaker 1: on all sides by at least eight Japanese torpedo boats,
- 7:35Speaker 1: and so Rojaspensky runs out onto the deck looking out
- 7:38Speaker 1: towards the horizon, expecting to see these eight Japanese ships,
- 7:42Speaker 1: but he doesn't, and then all of a sudden, the
- 7:44Speaker 1: shooting just completely stops and it's silent, and then Rojasfensky
- 7:47Speaker 1: notices on his right side a small little fishing boat
- 7:50Speaker 1: is making its way right up alongside his It would
- 7:53Speaker 1: turn out Kumchotka, the attacking ship, had confused this little,
- 7:58Speaker 1: unarmed Russian fishing ship with eight Japanese torpedo boats and
- 8:03Speaker 1: had opened fire. But luckily, even though they fired hundreds
- 8:07Speaker 1: and hundreds of rounds that this little boat, none of
- 8:11Speaker 1: them hit the boat, and so the fishermen were fine.
- 8:13Speaker 1: And the fishermen had actually been sent to the boat,
- 8:16Speaker 1: specifically by Zar Nicholas the Second to tell Rojaspenski that
- 8:20Speaker 1: he had been promoted, and so Rojasfenski apologizes to the
- 8:22Speaker 1: fishermen for having shot at them hundreds and hundreds of times,
- 8:26Speaker 1: and they said it was okay, and the fishermen carried on.
- 8:29Speaker 1: After Rojasfensky chewed out the crew of the Kumchatka, the
- 8:33Speaker 1: rest of the Baltic fleet gathered up and they continued
- 8:36Speaker 1: towards the narrow waters between Denmark and Sweden. When they
- 8:39Speaker 1: got close, a Danish resupply ship came out to meet
- 8:42Speaker 1: them to give them fuel and food and water, and
- 8:45Speaker 1: the Baltic fleet mistook them for a Japanese torpedo boat,
- 8:49Speaker 1: causing them to ram them repeatedly, and then they realized
- 8:52Speaker 1: their mistake, but at that point they had done severe
- 8:54Speaker 1: damage to the resupply ship, who had to immediately turn
- 8:57Speaker 1: around and go back to shore. After that, the Baltic
- 9:00Speaker 1: Fleet did manage to get past Denmark and Sweden and
- 9:02Speaker 1: they made it out to the North Sea. But as
- 9:04Speaker 1: soon as they got out there there was trouble. One
- 9:06Speaker 1: of the captains of the ships that was towards the
- 9:08Speaker 1: front of the Baltic Fleet's formation spotted four Japanese torpedo
- 9:12Speaker 1: boats coming right at them, and so this ship, along
- 9:15Speaker 1: with six others, immediately just began engaging these four ships
- 9:19Speaker 1: with everything they had, cannons, big guns, small guns, everything.
- 9:23Speaker 1: It was absolute chaos from the front of this formation,
- 9:26Speaker 1: and the amount of gunfire that was going off towards
- 9:29Speaker 1: the front caused the rest of the ships that were
- 9:32Speaker 1: not part of the attack to begin to panic, and
- 9:35Speaker 1: the other ship captains began ramming into each other to
- 9:37Speaker 1: try to get away from this attack. And so while
- 9:40Speaker 1: that's going on, all the crew members on all the
- 9:42Speaker 1: ships began drawing their swords and running around expecting the
- 9:46Speaker 1: Japanese to board them at any moment, and the others
- 9:49Speaker 1: that did not draw their swords put on life jackets
- 9:52Speaker 1: and laid down on their back on the deck of
- 9:54Speaker 1: the ship, believing that was procedure for how to survive
- 9:57Speaker 1: a sinking ship. And so for the next twenty minutes
- 10:00Speaker 1: it was just continuous gunfire coming from the front of
- 10:03Speaker 1: their formation. One of the attacking ships sent a message
- 10:06Speaker 1: back to Rojasfenski that said they had been hit by
- 10:08Speaker 1: a torpedo and they were taking heavy fire and it
- 10:11Speaker 1: was just absolute bedlam up there. And then all of
- 10:13Speaker 1: a sudden, it just totally stopped, and when the smoke cleared,
- 10:16Speaker 1: Rojasfensky and his ship had been able to maneuver up
- 10:19Speaker 1: a little bit closer and they could see what they
- 10:21Speaker 1: were shooting at, and it would turn out, once again
- 10:24Speaker 1: it was a case of mistaken identity. They were not
- 10:27Speaker 1: being attacked by Japanese torpedo boats. They had spotted four
- 10:30Speaker 1: small British fishing boats, and in the chaos of the gunfight,
- 10:35Speaker 1: the Baltic fleet had inadvertently begun to fire at each other,
- 10:39Speaker 1: killing several crew members and badly damaging their ships in
- 10:42Speaker 1: the process. As for the British fishermen, only one of
- 10:44Speaker 1: their boats actually sunk, despite the fact that the Baltic
- 10:48Speaker 1: Fleet had fired thousands and thousands of browns at them
- 10:51Speaker 1: and they had been stationary the entire time. The Russians
- 10:54Speaker 1: are immediately apologized to Britain, but the British media went
- 10:58Speaker 1: crazy and the British people called believing that this type
- 11:02Speaker 1: of attack could not possibly be an accident. But Russian
- 11:05Speaker 1: diplomats leveled with the British and said no, this really
- 11:08Speaker 1: was an accident, and eventually they convinced them. Avoiding starting
- 11:12Speaker 1: yet another war, Rojaspensky and his Baltic fleet were allowed
- 11:15Speaker 1: to continue in their journey, and after a couple of
- 11:17Speaker 1: weeks they were getting close to Africa when one of
- 11:20Speaker 1: his ships, the Kumchotka, the same ship that believed they
- 11:23Speaker 1: were surrounded by eight Japanese torpedo boats. They got separated
- 11:27Speaker 1: from the main fleet and got lost, and so Rojaspensky
- 11:30Speaker 1: and the other officers did what they could to try
- 11:32Speaker 1: to locate them, but nobody had seen where they went,
- 11:35Speaker 1: and there wasn't great technology to try to locate them,
- 11:37Speaker 1: and so unfortunately Rojasfensky and the Baltic fleet just had
- 11:41Speaker 1: to continue on and hope that at some point the
- 11:43Speaker 1: lost ship would find them again. A few days later,
- 11:46Speaker 1: the main body arrived in Tangier and Lo and behold,
- 11:49Speaker 1: Kumchotka showed up and they informed Rojaspensky that they had
- 11:53Speaker 1: gotten lost, and they didn't really have a good answer
- 11:55Speaker 1: for that. But once they were lost, they managed to
- 11:58Speaker 1: engage three Japanese torpedo boats, but it would turn out
- 12:02Speaker 1: they were not Japanese torpedo boats. They were in fact
- 12:05Speaker 1: a German, a Swedish and a French fishing boat, but
- 12:08Speaker 1: none of Kamchaka's rounds actually impacted any of the three vessels,
- 12:12Speaker 1: and so three more wars were averted. And so, now
- 12:15Speaker 1: that Rojasvenski had his lost ship back, he gathered up
- 12:18Speaker 1: his full Baltic fleet and they left Tangier. But on
- 12:21Speaker 1: their way out, one of the ships managed to cut
- 12:24Speaker 1: the underwater telegraph line to Tangier, cutting off Tangier's communication
- 12:28Speaker 1: with Europe for the next four days. By now, the
- 12:30Speaker 1: Baltic fleet was very low on coal, but they had
- 12:33Speaker 1: a planned rendezvous with a German resupply ship off the
- 12:36Speaker 1: coast of West Africa. When they got there, the crew
- 12:38Speaker 1: decided they didn't want to do another resupply later on,
- 12:41Speaker 1: and so let's just take double coal this time. And
- 12:44Speaker 1: so they hauled all this extra coal onto their ships
- 12:47Speaker 1: despite not having a place for it, and so naturally
- 12:50Speaker 1: they began throwing it in the halls and in their
- 12:52Speaker 1: bedrooms and basically anywhere there was space. And what that
- 12:55Speaker 1: did is it led to a fine layer of coal
- 12:57Speaker 1: dust all over everything in the ship, and that, combined
- 13:01Speaker 1: with the intense humidity off the coast of Africa, led
- 13:04Speaker 1: to this black, cold gunk getting trapped inside of all
- 13:07Speaker 1: of the sailor's lungs, which began killing several of them.
- 13:11Speaker 1: A couple weeks later, as they rounded the southern tip
- 13:13Speaker 1: of Africa, it finally rained on them, washing away a
- 13:16Speaker 1: lot of that cold dust on their ships, which was
- 13:18Speaker 1: a big relief. But the rain turned into a pretty
- 13:21Speaker 1: bad storm, and so Rojazwenski decided he just wanted all
- 13:24Speaker 1: of his ships to call in and say they were okay,
- 13:27Speaker 1: And so one by one, each of the ships were
- 13:29Speaker 1: told to message him saying the words we are okay,
- 13:32Speaker 1: And so one by one each of the ships did
- 13:34Speaker 1: this until it got to come Chotka's turn, and they
- 13:38Speaker 1: accidentally sent the message do you see Japanese torpedo boats?
- 13:42Speaker 1: And of course this message spread like wildfire across the
- 13:45Speaker 1: entire crew, which led to mass hysteria and rose Jaspensky's
- 13:49Speaker 1: trying to send out messages to say no, there's no
- 13:51Speaker 1: Japanese torpedo boats, but it's too late. The other captains
- 13:55Speaker 1: are panicking and they're ramming into each other and firing
- 13:57Speaker 1: blindly into the wind. From that point point forward, every
- 14:01Speaker 1: night rose Jaesvensky would go up onto the bow of
- 14:03Speaker 1: the ship and he would scream obscenities at Kumchotka. When
- 14:07Speaker 1: the Baltic fleet finally made it to Madagascar, the morale
- 14:11Speaker 1: amongst the crew was very low, and so when they
- 14:14Speaker 1: docked in Madagascar, the crew decided it would be a
- 14:17Speaker 1: good idea to boost their morale by buying some pets
- 14:20Speaker 1: to bring back on board the ship with them. And
- 14:22Speaker 1: the pets they decided to bring back were crocodiles and
- 14:26Speaker 1: poisonous snakes. When their handlers smuggled them back on board
- 14:30Speaker 1: their ship, they immediately escaped down into the bowels of
- 14:33Speaker 1: the ship. When they went looking for them, they couldn't
- 14:36Speaker 1: find them because the ships were in such bad shape
- 14:39Speaker 1: there were all sorts of cracks and holes all over
- 14:41Speaker 1: the interior for these animals to escape to, and so
- 14:45Speaker 1: the men just had to accept there were very dangerous
- 14:47Speaker 1: predators just living on their ship with them, and so
- 14:50Speaker 1: most men were unable to sleep at night in fear
- 14:53Speaker 1: of being attacked by these animals, which led a number
- 14:56Speaker 1: of them to go for reel insane, and so the
- 14:59Speaker 1: pets idea he didn't really boost morale amongst the Baltic fleet,
- 15:02Speaker 1: and so one of the officers decided he would take
- 15:04Speaker 1: another crack at boosting spirits, and so he went to
- 15:07Speaker 1: a vendor in Madagascar and he purchased two thousand of
- 15:11Speaker 1: their finest cigarettes to bring back on board. So he
- 15:14Speaker 1: brings them back on board, he hands them aloud, and
- 15:16Speaker 1: everyone's so thankful. But it turns out those cigarettes were
- 15:19Speaker 1: laced with enormous amounts of opium, which led to hundreds
- 15:23Speaker 1: of the crew members becoming hopelessly addicted to opium. Also
- 15:27Speaker 1: in Madagascar, these sailors picked up dozens of diseases that
- 15:30Speaker 1: began wiping them out in droves. During one funeral for
- 15:34Speaker 1: a crew member, the Kamchatka asked if they could fire
- 15:37Speaker 1: a salute with blank rounds. They were given permission, but
- 15:40Speaker 1: they accidentally fired live rounds into the ship right next
- 15:43Speaker 1: to them. When Rojasbinski and the rest of the Baltic
- 15:46Speaker 1: fleet finally left Madagascar, their only refrigerator on board one
- 15:50Speaker 1: of their ships broke, which spoiled all of their meat,
- 15:54Speaker 1: tons and tons of meat, and so they began throwing
- 15:56Speaker 1: it overboard, which attracted hundreds and hundreds of sharks, which
- 16:00Speaker 1: circled their ships for the rest of their journey. Rojasfensky
- 16:03Speaker 1: desperately wanted to find a way to somehow train the
- 16:07Speaker 1: remainder of the Baltic Fleet how to be somewhat militarily competent,
- 16:11Speaker 1: and so he decided he would make them all do
- 16:13Speaker 1: target practice, because that had been a big issue on
- 16:16Speaker 1: this trip so far. And so he had one ship
- 16:19Speaker 1: attach a long line that was connected to a target
- 16:21Speaker 1: in the water, and that ship would pull the target
- 16:24Speaker 1: along and the other ships would take shots at the target.
- 16:27Speaker 1: And so all of the ships on Rojazfensky's call began
- 16:31Speaker 1: firing at this target, and after thousands and thousands of rounds,
- 16:35Speaker 1: they didn't hit the target once. However, they managed to
- 16:38Speaker 1: continuously shoot the ship that was pulling the target. For Rojasfensky,
- 16:43Speaker 1: this was the final straw. He felt like he could
- 16:45Speaker 1: do absolutely nothing to make the Baltic Fleet an actual
- 16:49Speaker 1: military force, and so he sent a message back to
- 16:51Speaker 1: the Tzar and said, you got to replace me. I
- 16:54Speaker 1: need to resign and somebody else needs to come in
- 16:56Speaker 1: and take over. And the Tsar said, no, this is
- 16:59Speaker 1: your fleet, and so grudgingly Rojasfenski continued on leading the
- 17:02Speaker 1: Baltic Fleet until they finally, after seven total months on
- 17:06Speaker 1: the sea, were within striking distance of their target in Japan.
- 17:10Speaker 1: The night before, as they prepared for their attack, they
- 17:13Speaker 1: went into stealth mode, where all the ships killed all
- 17:15Speaker 1: of their lights, so they're totally dark, with the exception
- 17:18Speaker 1: of their hospital ship that kept their lights on. This
- 17:21Speaker 1: was considered a rule of war at the time, which
- 17:23Speaker 1: both sides abided by, and so while the Baltic fleet
- 17:26Speaker 1: was sitting out in the waters outside of Japan, a
- 17:29Speaker 1: small fishing boat began coming towards them. Now, the fishing
- 17:32Speaker 1: boat could only see the lit up hospital ship that
- 17:35Speaker 1: could not see the forty three other darkened ships, and
- 17:38Speaker 1: so a crew member on board this hospital ship came
- 17:40Speaker 1: up to the railing and he recognized the fishing boat
- 17:43Speaker 1: was actually a Russian fishing boat, and so he waved
- 17:45Speaker 1: them down, and when the Russian fishermen came outside, the
- 17:48Speaker 1: crew member told him, you got to stop because there's
- 17:51Speaker 1: forty three ships behind me that have their lights off.
- 17:53Speaker 1: Do not go this way, go around, And so the
- 17:56Speaker 1: Russian fishermen thanked him and turned around and went on
- 17:58Speaker 1: his merry way. Except that wasn't a Russian fisherman. It
- 18:02Speaker 1: was a Japanese sailor on board a Japanese torpedo boat,
- 18:06Speaker 1: and now they knew exactly where the Baltic Fleet was,
- 18:09Speaker 1: and so that night the Japanese navy completely surrounded the
- 18:12Speaker 1: Baltic Fleet and then the next day, at daybreak, they
- 18:15Speaker 1: launched their attack. It was called the Battle of Tsushima,
- 18:18Speaker 1: and it was obscenely lopsided. The Japanese navy completely wiped
- 18:22Speaker 1: out the Baltic Fleet, killing four thousand of their crew
- 18:25Speaker 1: members and capturing seventy three hundred others, which included Rojaspensky,
- 18:29Speaker 1: who had been badly wounded in the battle, but he
- 18:31Speaker 1: would survive. In contrast, the Japanese only had one hundred casualties.
- 18:35Speaker 1: This victory for Japan really marked the end of the
- 18:38Speaker 1: war for Russia, and shortly after the Battle of Tsushima,
- 18:42Speaker 1: the Russians agreed to surrender. So that's going to do it, guys.
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- 19:15Speaker 1: of our weekly three or four video uploads. If you
- 19:18Speaker 1: want to get in touch with me, you can direct
- 19:19Speaker 1: message me on Instagram or on Twitter. My username for
- 19:22Speaker 1: both platforms is the same. It's John Ballin four one six.
- 19:25Speaker 1: I also have a ton of content over on TikTok,
- 19:27Speaker 1: where my username is mister Ballin. I also have a
- 19:30Speaker 1: second YouTube channel called mister Ballin Shorts, where I post
- 19:33Speaker 1: random short videos as well as lost episodes. If you
- 19:37Speaker 1: have a story suggestion, please submit it to our subreddit
- 19:39Speaker 1: just called mister Ballin. It's linked in the description below.
- 19:42Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube,
- 19:45Speaker 1: or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your
- 19:48Speaker 1: support and until next time, that's going to do it.
- 19:50Speaker 1: See you