Island with a big secret
QUESTION Why is Deception Island so-called?
DECEPTION Island is an island in the South Shetland Islands archipelago lying north of Antarctica. It was first located by sealers William Smith and Edward Bransfield, who was from Co. Cork, on the brig Williams in January 1820. The first person to land there and explore the island was American sealer Nathaniel Palmer on the sloop Hero on November 15, 1820.
Palmer spent two days exploring and chose the name Deception Island. The name becomes clear if you look at a map of the island. When Palmer sailed through the entrance, known as Neptune’s Bellows, he found a large natural bay.
The horseshoe-shaped island is a caldera, a form of volcanic crater, formed more than 10,000 years ago by a huge eruption. Part of the crater remains above sea-level, enclosing a bay called Port Foster. Deception Island is one of two volcanoes in Antarctica, the other being Mount Erebus.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Argentina, Chile and Britain vied for sovereignty of Deception Island, valued for its whaling and sealing.
Fearing a German incursion of Antarctica, and wary of Argentina’s sympathies toward Germany, the British commandeered the island’s whaling station in 1944, removed the Argentine flag and hoisted the Union Flag. The Germans never came, but the British takeover of the whaling site provoked Argentina and Chile to establish bases nearby.
Volcanic eruptions forced the abandonment of the British base in 1969. Today, the island is a tourist destination and the location for summertime scientific research by Spain and Argentina.
It is home to tens of thousands of chinstrap penguins, as well as rusting relics of the whaling era.
Tourists can also experience one of the world’s more unusual attractions – a thermal bath on an Antarctic beach.
The island does not belong to any country, but is maintained by the Antarctic Treaty system. L.S. Pohl, Kendal, Westmorland.
QUESTION What is the story of the Japanese medical Unit 731?
DURING the late Thirties, when the Japanese were expanding their empire across South-East Asia, they embarked on a terrible series of experiments into the nature of death and the extremities of the body.
Unit 731 was set up near the Manchurian city of Harbin at Pinfang under the leadership of Shiro Ishii.
He sanctioned dissections and evisceration of living prisoners and the crucifixion of captured prisoners of war in a bid to discover the most effective way to mass exterminate its enemies. By 1945, Unit 731 carried out thousands of experiments on prisoners known as ‘logs’, including live vivisections without anaesthetic. Prisoners were starved to discover how long it took them to die. They also experimented with plaguebearing fleas to be dropped by plane on to Chinese cities that had not been subjugated by their armed forces.
British, American and Australian prisoners of war were subjected to Unit 731’s biological experiments.
Towards the end of the war, Ishii closed down Unit 731 and tried to eliminate all evidence of its existence. Disgracefully, he was granted immunity from trials as a war criminal by the Americans on the understanding he would pass on the medical knowledge he had gained from his experiments.
Cecil Lowry, Stockport, Cheshire.
QUESTION What was the Black Friday scandal of 1869?
ULYSSES S. Grant (1822-1885) is best known as the general who led the Union to victory over the Confederate states during the American Civil War.
He became the 18th US President in 1869 and served two terms. However, his administration was shrouded by wrongdoing, including the Black Friday scandal.
On assuming the presidency, Grant’s great challenge was the need to restore the country’s post-Civil War finances.
He was determined to return to a gold standard and pay down the war debt. The days of easy-money, paper ‘greenbacks’ that Lincoln had used to finance the Civil War, were over. ‘To protect the national honour,’ declared Grant in 1869, ‘every dollar of Government indebtedness should be paid in gold.’ He believed that a strong dollar would help push down interest rates and lower long-term government borrowing costs.
Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, two corrupt financiers infamous for their involvement in a bribery and fraud scandal surrounding the Erie Railroad, were attempting to corner the market by buying up gold, driving up its price and selling it on for profit. Therefore, an increased supply of gold into the markets would depress the price and ruin their plan. Gould and Fisk tried to fix the market.
They enlisted the help of Grant’s brother-in-law, Abel Rathbone Corbin. He persuaded General Daniel Butterfield, assistant US treasurer, to give Gould, Fisk and Corbin notice of government gold sales in exchange for a cut of the profits. Grant got wind of the plan and quietly ordered a government sale of $4million of gold.
When the gold hit the market on Friday, September 24, 1869, the price fell and panic ensued. Not only did gold investors face financial ruin, but foreign trade and other commodity prices were destabilised.
Fisk was shot dead by another financier, Edward Stokes, in 1872 and Butterfield was fired following a Congressional investigation. Jay Gould, on the other hand, became fabulously wealthy as a notorious robber baron. Leslie Gordon, Melrose, Scotland.
QUESTION During the world wars, how were conscientious objectors treated in Germany?
BECAUSE of their neutral stand, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany suffered brutal and sadistic treatment in prisons and concentration camps during World War II. Many were executed by firing squad, guillotine and hanging.
A Jehovah’s Witness could walk free by signing a declaration renouncing their faith.
One notable incident occurred in Sachsenhausen camp in 1939 when August Dickmann was shot in front of 400 fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses. After the execution of Dickmann, the camp commander demanded with great emphasis: ‘Who is ready to sign the declaration?’ None responded. Rob Price, by email.