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| Admiral Yi Soon Shin (이순신) (Source) |
Now about that title, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Really Sarge? Never heard of this guy, and you're hinting that he's better than the great Nelson?" Well, yeah, I am sort of leaning that way, but what did an admiral of the Royal Navy have to say?
It is always difficult for Englishmen to admit that Nelson ever had an equal in his profession, but if any man is entitled to be so regarded, it should be this great naval commander of Asiatic race who never knew defeat and died in the presence of the enemy; of whose movements a track-chart might be compiled from the wrecks of hundreds of Japanese ships lying with their valiant crews at the bottom of the sea, off the coasts of the Korean peninsula... and it seems, in truth, no exaggeration to assert that from first to last he never made a mistake, for his work was so complete under each variety of circumstances as to defy criticism... His whole career might be summarized by saying that, although he had no lessons from past history to serve as a guide, he waged war on the sea as it should be waged if it is to produce definite results, and ended by making the supreme sacrifice of a defender of his country. (The Influence of the Sea on The Political History of Japan, pp. 66–67, Admiral George Alexander Ballard, Source.)Although I might wax eloquent and sing the praises of Admiral Yi myself, I found an accurate (and rather humorous) account of the Admiral's career over at Bad Ass of the Week (which I really need to add to the Blog Roll). For the faint of heart, they use adult, sergeant-like, and longshoreman-like words over there, ye have been warned. With that in mind, go read this.
I hope you found that edifying and educational. I know I did.
Going into battle against 130 warships escorting numerous transports with only 13 ships under his command, none of them the first ironclad in history (sorry CSS Virginia and USS Monitor, the famous 거북선, or "Turtle Ship" was first) takes some very big, brass cojones. Not to mention which, he won!
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| (Good article about the Turtle Ship at the source of this photo.) |
Admiral Yi is one of Korea's most honored heroes, in both halves of the peninsula. A guy you should know. As to him being better than Nelson? Let's let Admiral Togo (victor of the Battle of Tsushima Straight over the Russians in 1905) give his opinion -
Admiral Togo regarded Admiral Yi as his superior. At a party held in his honor, Togo took exception to a speech comparing him to Lord Nelson and Yi Sun-sin.
It may be proper to compare me with Nelson, but not with Korea’s Yi Sun-sin, for he has no equal. (The Imjin War, by Samuel Hawley, pg. 490, Source.)So there's your first taste of Korean history, there will be more!
There, moored at the harbor in Chinhae. The turtle ships were remarkable and General Yi needs to be remembered.
ReplyDeleteFast by the Korean Naval Academy I think.
DeleteThere's a Korean naval museum that is walking distance from the turtle ship and it's worth the visit if you are there.
DeleteI need to get back there one of these days. Haven't been to Korea since '95.
DeleteI watched a show on History about the Turtle ships. Quite a clever idea! Still, he was no Harriman Nelson, and turtle ships are no SEAVIEW.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall the Seaview taking on an entire fleet of samurai warships. Perhaps I missed that episode?
DeleteExcellent post Sarge.... that Badass site is certainly...ah... enthusiastic and another one to add to the reading list, thanks!
ReplyDeleteHahaha! I like that, enthusiastic. Describes it well.
DeleteI like the fact that he doesn't sink to using hyperbole to make his points. Strictly the facts. For instance "...sucked the bullet out of his wound and spit it with enough velocity to explode two Japanese battleships." I mean, you can just see someone doing that!
DeleteHahaha! Indeed, very reserved he is with his prose.
DeleteHigh praise from some high ranking folks! There's quite a bit of history happening on the Korean peninsula right now. Have you been as enthralled as me? We may suck at skating, but snowboarding is a different story for sure.
ReplyDeleteI haven't really been watching the Olympics, trying to keep up but just don't have the time lately.
DeleteDid you hear about the guy who looks kinda like Kim Jong Un who was trolling the NORKs at the Olympics. Apparently a fella from Oz. Sure, he got thrown out but it's a better story than our leftist media gushing over Bad Haircut's sister.
Too funny. I'll have to look him up.
DeleteI can't remember where I saw that, might have been someone's blog.
DeleteHe did what he meant to do, to take all the glitter off the Norks and the way the Sorks (bad South Koreans) are acting about that feral, evil nation.
DeleteI remember back when South Africa was not the darling of the world and its athletes were not allowed to compete. The same should apply here. And I love the Nork ice skaters skating to music that would get them put into prison at home. WTF?
As to the sister of the fat evil one, she's hideous. She looks like you would expect from Central Casting if you wanted an evil, despotic psycho chick who happened to be of Asian decent. And I love how everyone jumped on our Vice President for not standing during everyone's march on opening day, but said nothing as she looked like she was farting a big one when our athletes walked by the reviewing stand. Hate the MSM.
(And the talking head that said the Koreans have forgiven Japan for that whole 40 years of oppression thingy. Ha. He got sent home quick-quick.)
Sent home Aye! Deserved it he did.
Delete(Bad Haircut's sister is nasty.)
To me she's uglier than your typical street-whore. Which is pretty friggin ugly. (I worked at the local PD and was one time responsible for maintaining a database of street-hos and lot-lizards. Yuuuuuck.)(Just in case you were worried about my moral fiber.)
DeleteThe LameStreamMedia has shown it's complete lack of understanding of the two Koreas. They seem to think that the NORKs are more free than the South Koreans, and the constant fawning has made it nigh impossible to watch.
Always remember, it's what they want for all of us, they think that if that happens they'll all have jobs in the Propaganda Ministry. In reality, they will all have jobs, as fertilizer.
DeleteUseful idiots up - until the moment they're no longer useful.
I don't know what you mean, Andrew. She's quite charming. Perhaps not quite so beautiful and graceful as our own Hillary, the eternal President-in-Waiting from Chappaqua(ha-ha), and not so refined as that East German beauty, Frau Merkel. But with some make-up and a giant Kirby vacuum-cleaner bag to wear, she'd be hot to trot for any G.I. with a B.A.C. > 0.40% (who'd already lost his B.C.G.s in the taxi downtown). Like the beauty of a female praying mantis with trophy heads to hunt.
DeleteBesides, we all know what "maintaining a database" means. It was all a collection of "after" shots from bar runs, correlated with a list of visits to the urologist. Right? ;-) At least, that's what it looked like to those of us at Clark A.B., P.I., who got a peek at per unit stats for STDs, Article 15s, and courts martials. The Security Police outdid themselves in the competition, but they also didn't exactly have the pick of the litter, either. I never had any problem with them, but even the S.P.s did sometimes. Like when two of their brethren came back on base (very drunk) in a local-built jeep and, while driving past the S.P. building during some sort of formation outside, yelled out obscenities and hurled empty beer bottles at the formation. They almost made it back out to Friendship Gate before getting stuck in a ditch trying to get around a road block. :-D
Uh, wait. Hold on. The prior post is missing the tag, in case it wasn't obvious,
DeleteThe Eternal President-in-Waiting...
DeleteNow that right there was funny.
Tag?
DeleteHuh. It got deleted. Let me try it differently. [/sarc]
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteStuff vanishes from time to time. Blogger is fickle at times.
Interesting, I had not known about the Admiral at all. Sounds like a perfect story for a dashing Hollywood spectacular complete with the underdog winning the bout.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the Koreans made a movie (or twelve) about the Admiral. But you know what Hollywood would do, right Aaron? Probably have some Westerner wash ashore and help the poor benighted Asiatics out of a jam. Yes, I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to Hollyweird.
DeleteOr they would treat poor Yi like they did Heimdall, the whitest of the gods of Asgard...
DeleteHate Hollywood. Makes it hard to watch anything coming out of that cesspool. I can only hold my nose for so long.
You're probably both right that they'd mess it up today.
DeleteThey'd likely make Yi at the very least a cross-dresser to capture the vital trans demographic, and they'd have to throw in an African-American actor as comic relief or as a wise counsel, for diversity. The lack of Caucasians in the story would be a selling point to Hollywood today I would think.
Yep, they'd mess it up alright.
Andrew - What? No modifying history (or Norse mythology in this case) to mollify and please certain demographics? Heresy!!
Delete(In other words, concur.)
Aaron - No doubt Hollyweird would create a trusty sidekick for the Admiral to meet those demographics and of course said trusty (and totally ahistorical) sidekick would actually be the brains of the operation and Admiral Yi would simply be a tool of the white patriarchy, even though he's Korean.
Delete>an African-American actor as comic relief or as a wise counsel
DeleteComic relief? Not a chance. Wise counsel would be a start, but only a start. But it's all irrelevant anyway because the good Admiral WAS black. Just like Beethoven. And Mozart. And Alexander the Great.
(Incidentally, I'm glad I'm nowhere near any actual Koreans right now, after even joking about one of their national heroes being black. East Asians overwhelmingly have strong feelings about that sort of thing that would give any GoodWhite the screaming meemies.)
>hard to watch anything coming out of [Hollywood]
Hah! I've already NOT seen the greatest superhero movie ever (past, future or imaginable). I'm thinking that soon I will not go see it again. A mere 98% positive aggregate on Rotten Tomatoes? Sounds like the sort of margin by which communist dictators used to win free and open elections back in the 1970's and 80's.
Sigh, all too true...
DeleteCome on, guys! It's not like the movie about Hannibal (the Carthaginian general mass murderer, not the cannibal mass murderer) [seems like all generals back then were mass murderers and enslavers, though GAIUS IULIUS CAESAR [for classical spelling; for classical pronunciation pronounce 'I' like 'I' and 's' in CAESAR liker Kaiser like 's' not a 'z'] was unusually merciful towards fellow Roman citizens and paid with his life. Probably the reason why with the accession of his nephew 'Octavian' non-approved histories and variant accounts thereof tend to disappear...
DeleteUh, the movie about Hannibal the general that I forgot to paste back in after a cut was written for Denzel Washington. Ideally. Any black actor would've worked. Cause they're African, see? Sigh... It died, thank God. Apparently with a knife in its heart since it hasn't been resurrected since 2000-2001. Some stupidity is apparently even too stupid for Hollywood, Who'd a thunk it?
DeleteGAIUS IULIUS CAESAR...
DeleteI love traditionalists.
As to the movie...
DeleteSeriously? Has anyone told the Berbers that they're black?
Hard to believe that Hollywood has standards, even if the bar is set pretty low.
Oh yawn, another outstanding post. Along with commenters that other sites would pay big bucks for. All number one.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Paul L. Quandt
Hahaha!
DeleteThanks Paul.
Whatever you do, avoid the movie, "The Admiral: Roaring Currents". That movie absolutely sucked as entertainment or history.
ReplyDeleteWe toured the Turtle Boat at the Naval Academy in Chinhae a couple of times. The ROK Fleet were very impressed with Yi and the turtle boats. If you want to see the immutability of history look at what the ROK navy uses for its estuary defense platforms. They're basically turtle boats in steel with turrets on top.
I couldn't get through that movie. It was horrid, simply horrid no matter how you looked at it.
DeleteThe Japanese fleet was also impressed with the turtle ships. 😉
We tried a couple of 'popular' Korean historical flicks (including that one, based only on my idea that it looked interesting in the Netflix CD catalog because I knew about the good general/admiral/flag-ossifer) and a series that we quit so quick I can barely remember it. Damn you all for making me remember even trying to forget it!!!
DeleteSorry Larry, I know those memories must be painful.
DeleteSome things are hard to expunge from memory.
Best Admiral I ever had was a 21" diagonal black and white, in an oak cabinet with doors that closed over the screen.
ReplyDeleteRich folks bought RCAs.
Well at least it was diverse...
DeleteOkay, turtle fleet movies, there was one on utube. Not ROK, but Chinese. And it was a normal movie, not the flinging and flying, but tactics. That must have been one of my really wierd, obscure searches way back when, prior to yesterday's. Durn, wish I could find it again.
ReplyDeleteI shall need to keep a eye open for that.
DeleteRe: Hollywood treatment of movie about the good Admiral. Where is Yul Brynner when you need him?
ReplyDeleteHahaha!
Delete