“Dear Journal, today Master Oakenshield and I were assigned to buy parsnips from the market. As usual I had to lead Master Dwarf to Mr. Worrywort when we got los- whattheshit is that”
Charles Lightoller was in charge of lowering lifeboats on the port side of the RMS Titanic. Lightoller strictly enforced the “women and children first” evacuation policy, not allowing any male passengers to board the lifeboats besides auxiliary seamen. Lifeboats were lowered with empty seats with the intention of filling from the water, but sailed off under capacity. Lightoller ordered men occupying Lifeboat 2 off the boat, threatening them with an unloaded revolver. As the Titanic sank further, Lightoller made it to the overturned Collapsible B and took charge of the 30 survivors until rescued by another lifeboat. Lightoller was the last survivor taken aboard the RMS Carpathia and the most senior crew member to survive the sinking of the Titanic. He was portrayed by Jonathan Phillips in James Cameron’s Titanic.
In 1940, Lightoller with his son Roger and a young Sea Scout named Gerald Ashcroft, sailed his private yacht, the Sundowner, across the English Channel to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation. Lightoller brought back 127 servicemen on the boat which was licensed for 21 passengers. On the return journey, Lightoller evaded gunfire from enemy aircraft, using a technique described to him by his youngest son, Herbert, who had joined the RAF and been killed earlier in the war. His actions inspired the character Mr. Dawson, played by Mark Rylance in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
This is the man you must fight at the gates of Valhalla to prove you’re worthy of that mighty hall
It somehow gets crazier. this teenager trained for months. he staged fights in his parents’ swimming pool to train for this epic match. he choose halloween night for the final showdown. and it was for a school project. he could have chosen any seafood, but he decided on, in his own words, “that big fucking octopus.” magnificent bastard.
Y’all missed the part where he dragged it ashore and divers saw him, got upset and sent some pretty rough stuff to his family. Then, at the Washington Fish and Wildlife meeting, he showed up and was like “yeah, it should be protected.”
Except that the giant pacific octopus is nowhere near extinct and actually doing just fine.
So not only did he wrestle, kill, and eat a giant octopus– he got it protected from hunting in several locations even though the species doesn’t need protecting.
Fucking legendary indeed.
So the only person they need protection from is this guy.
…what sort of school project requires you to wrestle sea life?
That’s just how Washington is
to be clear, the school project was to “draw something from nature.” nobody asked him to wrestle an octopus.
…now, I have misunderstood the spirit of a lot of art projects before but
(I’m posting this less to correct the timeline portrayed in Bohemian Rhapsody, which I mostly really enjoyed, than simply to share a beautiful story that shines light on who Freddie actually was, up to the very end, via twitter.)
Consulting Witch 