Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part IV

[Vixen]

So no medals for individual initiative, action or bravery?

Medals do get awarded awarded for team effort. In the Royal Navy it is taken that the Captain of a ship is awarded a medal for the action of the whole ship but individual awards to crew members are also given.
Medals are also awarded for individual acts of bravery and also for cumulative individual acts that form a larger narrative.
Here are examples from Victori Cross awards in WW2. (Yes I know we aren't talking about a wartime medal but these are the easiest examples to use.

For team effort, the Captain of HMS Campbeltown was awarded the Victoria Cross, it was seen as being awarded to the whole crew of the ship

From the Citation
"For great gallantry and determination in the attack on St. Nazaire in command of HMS Campbeltown. Under intense fire directed at the bridge from point blank range of about 100 yards, and in the face of the blinding glare of many searchlights, he steamed her into the lock-gates and beached and scuttled her in the correct position. This Victoria Cross is awarded to Lieutenant-Commander Beattie in recognition not only of his own valour but also of that of the unnamed officers and men of a very gallant ship's company, many of whom have not returned."

There was a double VC awarded to PO Gould and Ltnt Watkinson Roberts for a single act of gallantry, their actions in saving a submarine from an unexploded bomb

From the citation
"Roberts and Gould entered the confined space (which was no more than 2 feet (61 cm) high in places), and lying flat, wormed past deck supports, battery ventilators, and drop bollards. The petty officer then lay on his back with the 150 lb bomb in his arms while the lieutenant dragged him along by the shoulders. "It was then a matter of the two of us, lying horizontally, pushing and pulling the bomb back through the casing. It was pitch black and the bomb was making this horrible ticking noise while the submarine was being buffeted by the waves". They pushed and dragged the bomb for a distance of some 20 feet until it could be lowered over the side.
Thrasher was surfaced, stationary, and close inshore to enemy waters. If the submarine was forced to crash dive while they were in the casing, they must have been drowned. It was 50 minutes before they got the bomb clear, wrapped it in sacking, and dropped it over the side."



For cumulative effort the example is my own local WW2 VC Hero Stanly Hollis

From his citation
"In Normandy on 6 June 1944 Company Sergeant-Major Hollis went with his company commander to investigate two German pill-boxes which had been by-passed as the company moved inland from the beaches. "Hollis instantly rushed straight at the pillbox, firing his Sten gun into the first pill-box, He jumped on top of the pillbox, re-charged his magazine, threw a grenade in through the door and fired his Sten gun into it, killing two Germans and taking the remainder prisoners."

"Hollis pushed right forward to engage the gun with a PIAT [anti-tank weapon] from a house at 50 yards range. He later found that two of his men had stayed behind in the house and were pinned down by enemy fire.
In full view of the enemy who were continually firing at him, he went forward alone, distract their attention from the other men. Under cover of his diversion, the two men were able to get back."

"Wherever the fighting was heaviest he appeared, displaying the utmost gallantry. It was largely through his heroism and resource that the Company's objectives were gained and casualties were not heavier"

He was the landlord of the pub in Liverton Mines just over the railway from where we lived.

Each one of the actions from Hollis was worth a DSO or MM but together they added to something greater.

End of the diversion.

Now, that is real bravery.

 

[Mojo]

So if it wasn't specifically Y64 that was your supposed earlier flight that disappeared the crew, then why was Svensson given a medal as compensation for what his actions in disappearing the crew?

Why weren't the crews of your imaginary earlier flight given medals to compensate them?

Also, was Svensson singled out for a medal as compensation? He was, as you say, part of a search and rescue team. He couldn't have disappeared the crew on his own, the rest of the crew would have known what happened and were equally culpable, so why weren't they compensated with medals?

Maybe they were disappeared as well. Or maybe Vixen is just imagining the whole thing.

 

[Vixen]

What about hose that weren't taken to ships?

Was it the same man that made the list on all the ships and shore stations?

How did he get about between them to do it?

The On Scene Commander Captain Esa Mäkela ordered that all persons plucked out of the sea should be transferred to either one of the designated ships nearby or to Utö. Why any helicopter would therefore fly survivors directly to Stockholm, with SäPo police waiting to board as soon as it reached Swedish waters via four helicopters and not to mention the whole disaster was technically under Finnish jurisdiction is anyone's guess.

 

[Vixen]

Christopher Bollyn the Anti-semite truther who thinks 9/11 was done by Israel?

This is your source Vixen?

Certainly not. Just because an opportunist scumbag jumps on a public concern bandwagon to sell books, or to entertain, as the likes of David Icke does, it doesn't render a thing void. There are as many disinformation agents as there are conspiracy theorists.

I would just see them for what they are.

 

[Mojo]

Certainly not. Just because an opportunist scumbag jumps on a public concern bandwagon to sell books, or to entertain...

Or to troll?

 

[Vixen]

The two Egyptians did successfully bring suit against Sweden for deprivation of their right to due process. Which, of course, cannot happen if they are "disappaered." An element of enforced disappearance is the intent to deny the victims access to protection of the law. They had the protection of the law in Egypt (although with dubious efficacy), and had access to international courts.

However, the judgment enforced against the Egyptian deportees without due process was a judgment for expulsion from the country while an asylum claim was pending, not the action of enforced disappearance (which can never be lawfully enforced, even if due process is followed). It was further found that a result of their having been deprived of due process was exposure to the possibility of torture, a separate crime. That crime can be committed either by consciously deporting someone to place where they reasonably face torture, or negligently failing to determine whether that would be the case. Sweden's defense was that they had obtained assurances from the Egyptian government that the men would not be tortured. But insofar as the negotiation of those assurances had not involved the deportees, or seriously considered the evidence they might present, it was ruled to have been negligent.

Making a case for failed due process does not mean you can invent whatever the process should have been about, had due process been followed. Law is very rigidly about the minutiae. You can't just make up your own definitions and "findings" and pretend that's how the law operates.

The interesting thing about the Egyptian case is that it was the CIA who requested Sweden send the men to Egypt. Since when was Sweden a member of the USA?

 

[Vixen]

He wasn't "Disappeared". Everyone knew where he was every step of the way from his arrest, to the trial, to prison.

You can even write him a letter.

He wasn't dragged into a van, never to be seen a again...which is what "Disappeared" means...

And do you know who IS walking the streets today? Those two Egyptians.

I was talking about chronology. Posters are erroneously claiming that a person cannot have been disappeared if they turn up later. Terrible reasoning.

 

[Vixen]

Let me tell this to you in words that you might understand as you apparently are completely unwilling to understand English:

Kun valtio järjestää jonkun katoamisen, niin se tarkoittaa sitä, että henkilö katoaa kokonaan ja valtio kiistää tietävänsä hänestä mitään.

Tässä tapauksessa egyptiläiset karkoitettiin laittomasti, ja se kerrottiin heidän lakimiehilleen 48 tunnin kuluttua.

Ruotsi ei missään vaiheessa väittänyt, että heidän olinpaikkansa ei ollut tiedossa.

Voi, voi, sentään.

 

[Vixen]

Did you notice the word “release” there? Do you know what it means?

It doesn't release the buoy until it is under one to four metres (12 feet and a bit) of water. Hence the term hydrostatic release.


How can any crew member manually activate it when the ship is at that stage?



.

 

[Vixen]

I don't either, and that's not what I see as the claim. Vixen wants to claim that the Egyptian deportees were "disappeared" because it took one person 48 hours to find out what had happened to them, and therefore enforced disappearance is something we should believe Sweden routinely does and did in the case of both the MS Estonia officers and the Egyptian deportees.

The claim is that the ongoing absence of MS Estonia's captain and other officers is that Sweden abducted them and committed enforced disappearance upon them, which remains to this day. Certainly from 1994 to 2022 would count as a "prolonged period of time."

And what about the DC-3 pilots shot down by the Soviets in Swedish waters near Gotland? For over forty years, Sweden nonchalantly whistled and pretended it had no idea of the whereabouts or fate of the missing airmen.

 

[Vixen]

This all makes sense. It started as a rumor, and was never verified, but not sufficiently corrected.

Should be pointed out that the rescued passengers and crew were extremely hypothermic, which means their statements would be unreliable as their perception and judgement would be impaired.

So how come of those names that were supposedly listed in error, only one of them, Vahtras, was subsequently recovered as deceased?

 

[JesseCuster]

I was talking about chronology. Posters are erroneously claiming that a person cannot have been disappeared if they turn up later. Terrible reasoning.

No, posters are saying that those 2 Egyptians weren't disappeared, because they weren't disappeared.

You're saying that they were disappeared because you wilfully refuse to understand what being disappeared means.

Terrible reasoning.

 

[Vixen]

In which case what happens to your conspiracy theory about the medal?

Svensson got the highest medal of the Swedish Defence Forces - some ten years before the shot-down DC-3 pilots - so he must have done something.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Certainly not. Just because an opportunist scumbag jumps on a public concern bandwagon to sell books, or to entertain, as the likes of David Icke does, it doesn't render a thing void. There are as many disinformation agents as there are conspiracy theorists.

I would just see them for what they are.

Ok, two questions spring to mind.

1. What is your source then? Because it's been pointed out that your argument exactly mirrors his. I'm sure that you got your info from somewhere else though.

2. When you say you would see them for what they are, what exactly do you mean?

 

[Vixen]

Yup, forced disppearance is typically an act of extrajudicial killing where the state responsible simply does its nasty business without any acknowledgement that they had anything to do with it.

If people being visited by their mothers in prison, or are appealing their detention, or any other situation that involves anyone but the guilty party knowing what happened to the victim, then it isn't forced disappearance.

Vixen's conspiracy theory now seems to rest on simply wilfully refusing to understand anything that might go against her incoherent mess of ideas.

Not necessarily. Terry Waite disappeared as a hostage for several years. The fact he reappeared and was alive does not cancel out the fact he was disappeared by his captors.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Not necessarily. Terry Waite disappeared as a hostage for several years. The fact he reappeared and was alive does not cancel out the fact he was disappeared by his captors.

Are you wilfully ignoring what people are actually saying? It's almost like you don't speak English or something.

 

[Vixen]

So if it wasn't specifically Y64 that was your supposed earlier flight that disappeared the crew, then why was Svensson given a medal as compensation for what his actions in disappearing the crew?

Why weren't the crews of your imaginary earlier flight given medals to compensate them?

Also, was Svensson singled out for a medal as compensation? He was, as you say, part of a search and rescue team. He couldn't have disappeared the crew on his own, the rest of the crew would have known what happened and were equally culpable, so why weren't they compensated with medals?

This nonsense doesn't even come close to passing the smell test.

OK OK I guess for a Swede falling from a winch and having to treadwater until someone rescued him, would command the highest medal for bravery.






[NB that was a joke before anybody gets upset.]

 

[Matthew Best]

Certainly not. Just because an opportunist scumbag jumps on a public concern bandwagon to sell books, or to entertain,

You think you're entertaining?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The On Scene Commander Captain Esa Mäkela ordered that all persons plucked out of the sea should be transferred to either one of the designated ships nearby or to Utö. Why any helicopter would therefore fly survivors directly to Stockholm, with SäPo police waiting to board as soon as it reached Swedish waters via four helicopters and not to mention the whole disaster was technically under Finnish jurisdiction is anyone's guess.

How would passengers be transferred between ships in a storm?
Helicopters were unable to land on them after the fist couple of attempts because it was too rough.

Helicopter Y 65 had a damaged winch. It was returning to Berga for repair and took the survivor to hospital in Stockholm which is just 10 miles from the base. A nurse was taken on board to assist in the rescue work. After this, Y 65 proceeded to Berga to change the winch and wire before changing crew and returning to the search.

 

[zooterkin]

Svensson got the highest medal of the Swedish Defence Forces - some ten years before the shot-down DC-3 pilots - so he must have done something.

But you were so definite about the explanation before; are you having doubts?