World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

this video is sponsored by Skillshare [Music] hey kids now some philosophers have called boats the airplanes of the sea but while every glamorous Glennis has its slow motion so too does JJ the jet plane have his awful awful counterpart her legacy in many ways resembles my middle school career a three-year long travesty plagued by blunder after blunder due to both gross and competence and sheer misfortune with the only silver lining being that it's remembered by relatively few meet the USS William D Porter nicknamed the Willie D which was a perfectly acceptable alias in the days before don't-ask don't-tell she was a fletcher-class destroyers which if you know Fletcher as well as I do you know he's pretty high-class at destroying like when he snapped off my D s screen during summer camp because he was trying to get a better look didn't even apologize it was just like well you know supposed to bring video games to camp anyway even though everyone did [ __ ] you Fletcher you were a counselor you supposed to be more mature than us you're the reason I grew up with a lingering resentment towards Authority and my only reprisal is that I got to draw you as the disgusting fat lard for millions of people actually I think his name out of an airing anyway in July of 1943 the ship was commissioned by the Navy and led by Lieutenant Commander Wilfred a Walter as her first real job the Willie day was assigned to a top-secret escort mission across the Atlantic Walter was like all right man time to prove ourselves I want to see you all on your a-game and as its first act under military command the ship didn't raise anchor properly into a massive chunk out of the ship next to it while pulling out okay rough start but definitely not a sign of things to come the next day she met up with three other ships including two destroyers and a battleship known as the USS Iowa and the fleet set off towards Africa given the clandestine nature of the operation they were ordered to maintain total radio silence so as not to alert any subs that might be lurking below suddenly boom bang Worf Hari Krishna huge explosion off the starboard quarter they're like holy [ __ ] evasive maneuvers but after however many minutes the transmission comes in saying oh hi this is wolfred dia the Willie Walter I mean so a depth charge may have accidentally fallen off the ship and we may have also forgotten to turn off the safety mechanisms on said charge causing it to detonate immediately so if you heard a little noise a bit ago no cause for alarm also sorry for breaking radio silence love you bye shortly thereafter a strange phenomenon was spotted near the officer what lo rime of the ancient [ __ ] is that appears to be a large wave sir Jesus Christ they have that now basically everything that wasn't tied down ended up being swept off and one of the boilers in the engine room got fubar but fortunately no crew members were taken away except for the one that was later the four ships congregated in the waters east of Bermuda when the Iowa decided to test its anti-air abilities and launched a bunch of weather balloons for target practice a few of these drifted towards the Willie D and they took some potshots just for fun probably wrecking some happy albatross households in the process but Walter was like men it's time to redeem ourselves spit those crayons out do you know the purple ones are bad for you time for some impromptu torpedo drills on the Iowa yay that was nine are in the pow pow they're gonna douse their trousers when they see how good we toward those P toes say you guys remember to take it the primer out of all of them before launching right yes sir yep what fortunately the Iowa didn't really have much valuable cargo that could be damaged in the event that the torpedo struck except for 32nd President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was being escorted to Cairo as the whole point of the mission the next five minutes aboard the Willie D were just total [ __ ] chaos humid sacks of rice hogs and bats sniffing each other massive stereos commander we really should radio that no I am not breaking any more rules do the flashy light thing Hey incoming signal from all the iron brains a hook they're saying they're going to reverse at full speed what [ __ ] off a bow sprint this ain't working fine column facetime whoa I don't give a hoot the transmission arrived in the nick of time and the torpedo detonated a safe distance away in the Iowas wing of course that didn't stop the entire crew of the Willie D from being arrested for you know shooting a torpedo at the president Lawton Dawson the Ellmers eater from earlier was initially sentenced to 14 years hard labor till FDR came out was like no no it's okay boys will be boys but we are sending you in the rest of Carnival Cruise Line to Alaska where there's fewer things to ruin by being yourself get it Carnival Cruise Line because you're the worst and also clowns so they kicked it for a while in the Aleutians otherwise known as the tale of the pregnant rat that makes up Alaska this went on mostly without incident except for when they were anchored cite an officer's home during a New Year's Eve party and a sailor got drunk and decided to fire off one of the 5-inch guns for a laugh ended up sending a bunch of his geraniums straight to hell where they belong other than that smooth sailing then they hung out at the Philippines for a bit before Central Command was like RA looks like you smooth skins are ready for actual missions again except you you're going to Clown College and the Willie D was sent to the Battle of Okinawa under the leadership of some guy named Charles here they actually did some worthwhile stuff until June 10th 1945 when a kamikaze began to dive towards them they weren't able to shoot it down probably because it was an American but a crashed in the water some ways away there are like few crisis averted turned their attention elsewhere unintentionally driving right over where the bomber landed the plane was like the hell oh [ __ ] that's right Banzai about 3 hours of desperate repairs went by before the order to abandon ship was given and miraculously every crew member made it out alive by the time the ships sank just 12 minutes later so it just goes to show everything has its silver lining everyone on the dip ship gets to live every filthy chuck-e-cheese ball pit has the delicious prize at the bottom and the vast nexus of pointless diversions we call the Internet actually has a couple productive things to do on it to sponsor time Skillshare is an online learning community with over 25,000 classes in design business technology and more Premium Membership gives you unlimited access to high-quality classes on must know topics so you can improve your skills unlock new opportunities and do the work you love if you're like me you've been mildly interested in you know actual animation for years but felt too intimidated by the community to really get your hands dirty Skillshare has plenty of tools to smooth that learning curve down into a gentle exploratory slope how about this one simple character animation create a walk cycle with do week look at me Co AR goof shit's I'm off to autonomous Kurdistan join the more than seven million people already learning today with a special offer just for my viewers while skill share is already less than $10 a month the first 500 people who visit the link in the description can get a full year subscription for 40% off so please quit ruminating and start substantiating today anyway that's all for today till next time I'm salmonella and I'm a fellow with rubella [Music]

Channel: Sam O'Nella Academy

Views: 9,525,394

Keywords:

Id: zz0PYzzfixY

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/rockwell136]

MASSIVE STEREOS

[u/bpjimmyjohn]

clears throat uhh bonsai

[u/Dkva76]

Enjoyed this video, didn't mind the tin can mic, but volumn seem annoyingly louder and a bit distorted than other youtube channels like the daily show. Love the humor.

[u/MG87]

"The Dipship"

[u/thenuker00]

The kamikaze is a p51 lmao

[u/DiplomaticGoose]

Pls turn down your gain sam

[u/[deleted]]

Thank you sam, very cool

[u/buchasc]

I watched potential history’s video on this

[u/faraaah02]

Hey kids!!!!