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Authors: Forrest Aguirre
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button from each jacket of Intelligent Whale 's 39 victims. Brian Benford, PhD, an Emeritus Professor of Civil War History at Case Western Reserve, spent three days with us verifying the authenticity of each of these buttons, each of which shows the shield and anchor motif so common in Union naval uniforms of that provenance. Curiously, I found several of Professor Benford's shirt buttons in my bedroom after his departure. The irony is not lost on me! Ha ha!
April:
Back to Europe, this time to Germany. But we were not hunting U-boats, which are so commonly found that every naval museum has a spare in its basement (U must stand for Ubiquitous)! Rather, we were there for a much rarer specimen, scouring Bavaria for our next offering. "Bavaria!" you say, "What submarine could possibly have come out of Bavaria?" Well, come out of Bavaria it did. In 1851, Wilhelm Bauer, an artilleryman in the Bavarian army, travelled down the mountains and north to Kiel harbor. There he tested his submarine Brandtaucher . The submarine sank, but the crew effected an escape. Our host in the mountain community of Oberammergau was a dashing gentleman, Earl Karl Freithoff, whose great-great grandfather had provided much of the funding for Bauer's project. Before setting off for Kiel, in fact, Bauer visited the erstwhile Earl and shared his excitement with the benefactor just before going down the mountain, blueprints in hand. Freithoff showed us the exact location of Bauer's departure and shared with us a little-known family secret: Bauer's footprint was still intact in the soil! We asked for and obtained permission to make several plaster casts of Herr Bauer's bootprint, which should arrive at your home sat the same time as this letter. I am, at this moment, in Freithoff's study surrounded by a stunning collection of original prints by the renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, as well as an early manuscript copy of Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werther , reading and writing to my scholarly heart's content while the Earl takes Aimee on a tour of the mansion and its grounds. Until next month: Diver down and periscope up!
May:
South and Central America are known more for drug-smuggling submarines than any underwater vessels of historical interest, so we had to do some extensive searching for this month's artifacts. After many fruitless leads, we finally made contact with one Arrilio Pene, a sub-deputy in the Chilean Ministry of History, whose interests and expertise lie primarily in the realm of South American naval history. We spent several days with Pene making contacts and arrangements to procure items of interest from of Chile's most famous submarines, Flach , which sank in 1866 near Valparaiso. All 11 crew members perished in the wreck, but intrepid divers have, in subsequent years, retrieved certain objects of interest from the wreck. Now, I'm not much of a smoker, neither is Aimee. We reserve smoking only for our most private, intimate moments, not wanting to share secondhand smoke with anyone but each other. But I am excited about this smoking find! Those original 11 crew members aboard the Flach had with them a crate of cigarettes, which they planned to enjoy after a successful foray under the waves. Unfortunately, Poseidon was contrary. But just because they couldn't enjoy them it doesn't mean that you shouldn't! So we're sending out a Flach cigarette, each in a protective brass tube inscribed with an image of the submarine. These must be nearly irresistible, as Aimee came back smelling like smoke after an evening out with Pene and his wife – Ha ha! Seriously, you'll be too smitten by these original and unique historical artifacts to see your investment go up in smoke. Instead of smoking, why not lift a toast to those intrepid adventurers, Flach 's crew of 11.
June:
Continuing our quest for exotic submarine artifacts, Aimee and I traveled to Istanbul, a city whose sights and scents are, thus far, the most
April:
Back to Europe, this time to Germany. But we were not hunting U-boats, which are so commonly found that every naval museum has a spare in its basement (U must stand for Ubiquitous)! Rather, we were there for a much rarer specimen, scouring Bavaria for our next offering. "Bavaria!" you say, "What submarine could possibly have come out of Bavaria?" Well, come out of Bavaria it did. In 1851, Wilhelm Bauer, an artilleryman in the Bavarian army, travelled down the mountains and north to Kiel harbor. There he tested his submarine Brandtaucher . The submarine sank, but the crew effected an escape. Our host in the mountain community of Oberammergau was a dashing gentleman, Earl Karl Freithoff, whose great-great grandfather had provided much of the funding for Bauer's project. Before setting off for Kiel, in fact, Bauer visited the erstwhile Earl and shared his excitement with the benefactor just before going down the mountain, blueprints in hand. Freithoff showed us the exact location of Bauer's departure and shared with us a little-known family secret: Bauer's footprint was still intact in the soil! We asked for and obtained permission to make several plaster casts of Herr Bauer's bootprint, which should arrive at your home sat the same time as this letter. I am, at this moment, in Freithoff's study surrounded by a stunning collection of original prints by the renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, as well as an early manuscript copy of Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werther , reading and writing to my scholarly heart's content while the Earl takes Aimee on a tour of the mansion and its grounds. Until next month: Diver down and periscope up!
May:
South and Central America are known more for drug-smuggling submarines than any underwater vessels of historical interest, so we had to do some extensive searching for this month's artifacts. After many fruitless leads, we finally made contact with one Arrilio Pene, a sub-deputy in the Chilean Ministry of History, whose interests and expertise lie primarily in the realm of South American naval history. We spent several days with Pene making contacts and arrangements to procure items of interest from of Chile's most famous submarines, Flach , which sank in 1866 near Valparaiso. All 11 crew members perished in the wreck, but intrepid divers have, in subsequent years, retrieved certain objects of interest from the wreck. Now, I'm not much of a smoker, neither is Aimee. We reserve smoking only for our most private, intimate moments, not wanting to share secondhand smoke with anyone but each other. But I am excited about this smoking find! Those original 11 crew members aboard the Flach had with them a crate of cigarettes, which they planned to enjoy after a successful foray under the waves. Unfortunately, Poseidon was contrary. But just because they couldn't enjoy them it doesn't mean that you shouldn't! So we're sending out a Flach cigarette, each in a protective brass tube inscribed with an image of the submarine. These must be nearly irresistible, as Aimee came back smelling like smoke after an evening out with Pene and his wife – Ha ha! Seriously, you'll be too smitten by these original and unique historical artifacts to see your investment go up in smoke. Instead of smoking, why not lift a toast to those intrepid adventurers, Flach 's crew of 11.
June:
Continuing our quest for exotic submarine artifacts, Aimee and I traveled to Istanbul, a city whose sights and scents are, thus far, the most
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