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South African (Off-Topic) Quiz

DamhuisClan

By DamhuisClan
in South Africa

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VryBurgers

+VryBurgers

Posted
Posted

I think it was the ship that some very rich guy (like the USA's Oppenheimers and Ruperts, but I think it was the same guy that did the Sproose Goose and that was played by DiCaprio in the movie... I think it was Howard Hughes) built and said that he was going to mine the ocean floor. It was however a CIA cover story so that they could go and salvage a recently sunken Soviet submarine.

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geocacher_coza

+geocacher_coza

Posted
Posted
I think it was Howard Hughes) built and said that he was going to mine the ocean floor. It was however a CIA cover story so that they could go and salvage a recently sunken Soviet submarine.

Vryburgers got it correct.

 

There used to be a cache in Houston called the Jennifer Project that actualy took you to the offices of GSF and to the cross section display of the cable used in the operation. The cache is now archived (I have actualy done the cache)

 

The story below---

 

Hughes Glomar Explorer (HGE), as the ship was called at the time, was built between 1973 and 1974, by Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. for more than US$350 million at the direction of Howard Hughes for use by his company, Global Marine Development Inc.[4] She set sail on 20 June 1974. Hughes told the media that the ship's purpose was to extract manganese nodules from the ocean floor. This marine geology cover story became surprisingly influential, spurring many others to examine the idea. But in sworn testimony in United States district court proceedings and in appearances before government agencies, Global Marine executives and others associated with Hughes Glomar Explorer project unanimously maintained that the ship could not be used in any economically viable ocean mineral operation.

Because K-129 sank in very deep water, a large ship was required for the recovery operation. Such a vessel would easily be spotted by Soviet vessels, which might then interfere with the operation, so an elaborate cover story was developed. The CIA contacted Hughes, who agreed to assist.[5]

 

While the ship did recover a portion of K-129, a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery.[6] This lost section is said to have held many of the most sought items, including the code book and nuclear missiles. It was subsequently reported two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners, who were given a formal, filmed burial at sea.[7]

The operation became public in February 1975 when the Los Angeles Times published a story about "Project Jennifer", followed by news stories with additional details in other publications, including The New York Times. However, the true name of the project was not publicly known to be Project Azorian until 2010.

Red Star Rogue (2005) by Kenneth Sewell makes the claim "Project Jennifer" recovered virtually all of K-129 from the ocean floor.[8][9] Sewell states, "[D]espite an elaborate cover-up and the eventual claim that Project Jennifer had been a failure, most of K-129 and the remains of the crew were, in fact, raised from the bottom of the Pacific and brought into the Glomar Explorer".[

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VryBurgers

+VryBurgers

Posted
Posted

Cincol, I am going to give this one to you, but Carbon you were on the right track too. Here is a nice piece to read on the man. I really think we need to get some good film makers on this! Major Fredrick Craven was actually.... (it is a bit of a long piece to read, but so interesting!)

 

Fritz (Frederick) Joubert Du Quesne was born in the Cape Colony in 1877 and later moved to Nylstroom in the Transvaal Republic where his parents started a farm. When he was 17 years old, he left for University in London, and then attended the Royal Military Academy in Brussels.

 

Second Anglo-Boer War

When war broke out in South Africa in 1899 Du Quesne returned to South Africa to join the Boer commandos. He was wounded at Ladysmith and received the rank of captain in the artillery. Du Quesne was captured by the British at Colenso but managed to escape in Durban. He joined the Boers again for the battle of Bergendal but the Boers had to fall back to Mozambique where they were captured by the Portuguese and sent to an internment camp in Caldas da Rainha, near Lisbon.

 

At this camp he charmed the daughter of one of the guards, who helped him escape to Paris. From here he made his way to Aldershot in England where he joined the British army and got posted to South Africa in 1901, with an officers rank.

 

Hatred for Kitchener and Britain

While he was in the British army, they passed through his parent’s farm in Nylstroom which he found destroyed under Kitchener’s scorched earth policy. He also learnt that his sister was murdered and his mother was dying in a British concentration camp.

 

Du Quesne was horrified and outraged, and made it his life’s work to take revenge on Kitchener and the British.

 

He returned to Cape Town with plans to sabotage strategic British installations. He recruited 20 men, but was betrayed by the wife of one of them. Despite being an Afrikaner Duquesne was technically considered a traitor and subject to execution when captured, being born in the British Cape colony . He was put on trial but managed to escape the death penalty by volunteering to give (phony) Boer codes to the British.

 

Escape from Bermuda

Du Quesne thus got a lighter sentence and was sent to Bermuda as a prisoner of war. He managed to escape again, and swam to Hamilton. Here he was helped by one or more women, who put him in touch with German sailors who helped him escape from St. George's. About this time period he met and married Alice Wortley. Fritz was considered a very attractive man, but mysterious. When her family discovered he required her to have numerous abortions they advised her to divorce him, which she did.

 

Career in the USA

Having escaped from Bermuda, Du Quesne landed in New York City, where he found employment as a journalist for the New York Herald. He became known as a travelling correspondent, big game hunter and storyteller whilst in New York. The war ended with the Boers having lost, and with his family dead, Du Quesne never returned to South Africa. He became a naturalized American citizen in December 1913.

 

He was sent to Port Arthur to report on the Russo-Japanese War, as well as Morocco to report on the Riff Rebellion. By 1910, he became Theodore Roosevelt's personal shooting instructor and accompanied him on a hunting expedition. Later, he showed up in Australia, calling himself "Captain Claude Stoughton" of the Western Australian Light Horse regiment, giving lectures on the Great War.

 

Frederick Russell Burnham

For many years, starting in the Second Boer War, Du Quesne had wanted kill the highly decorated American, Chief of Scouts for the British Army, Frederick Russell Burnham. After returning to America, Burnham remained active in counter-espionage for Britain and much of it involved Du Quesne. Neither succeeded in gaining the upper-hand, but many years later in a letter to Burnham, Du Quesne wrote:

"To my friendly enemy, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the greatest scout of the world, whose eyes were that of an Empire. I once craved the honour of killing him, but failing that, I extend my heartiest admiration. One warrior to another, Fritz Joubert Duquesne, 1933".

 

First World War Activities

Having met a German-American industrialist in the Midwest around 1914, he was sent to Brasil as "Frederick Fredericks", under the guise of “doing scientific research on rubber plants”, but planted time bombs, disguised as cases of mineral samples, on British ships that disappeared at sea. Among these were the "Salvador", the "Pembrokeshire" and the "Tennyson", and one of his bombs started a fire on the "Vauban".

 

In 1916 he placed an article in a newspaper, reporting on his own death in Bolivia, at the hands of Amazonian natives. He claimed to have assumed the identity of Russian Duke Boris Zakrevsky (who was supposed to accompany Kitchener to Scotland and then to Russia) and travels to Holland to join Kitchener in Scotland. Du Quesne is supposed to have given a signal to German U Boats when Kitchener’s ship would be approaching.

 

Du Quesne claimed he escaped from the torpedoed and sinking "Hampshire" on a raft and received an Iron Cross for his deeds. He returned to America.

 

In December 1917 Du Quesne was arrested in New York on charges of fraud for insurance claims on “mineral samples that were lost” with the ships he sank off the coast of Brasil. By this time the British authorities were also looking at Du Quesne as the agent responsible for “murder on the high seas, arson, faking Admiralty documents and conspiring against the Crown”. American authorities agreed that they would extradite Du Quesne to Britain, if the British sent him back afterwards to serve his sentence for fraud.

 

Activities 1919 to 1939

In May 1919 while awaiting extradition, Du Quesne pretended to be paralysed and is sent to the Bellevue Hospital, from where he escaped, disguising himself as a woman.

 

About a year later he appeared in Boston, using the pseudonym “retired British Major Frederick Craven”. He is known to have used several more names, among them “Colonel Beza”, “Piet Niacud” as well as “Captain Fritz du Quesne” (his real name and rank).

 

Of this period in his life, little is known, only that he worked as a freelance journalist and an agent for Joseph P. Kennedy's film production company. It is also during this time that he worked with Clement Wood to write his “biography” known as "The Man who Killed Kitchener" with rights sold to a film production company.

 

In 1932 Du Quesne was betrayed by a woman who revealed his true identity to the FBI who arrested him. British authorities again requested he be extradited, but he fought this charge in court. The judge ruled that even though the charges had merit, the statute of limitations had expired.

 

Second World War Activities

in 1941 Du Quesne was arrested again by the FBI with two associates, on charges of relaying secret information on Allied weaponry and shipping movements to Germany.

 

During his trial, Du Quesne claimed that his actions were aimed at Britain as revenge for the crimes done to his people and his country during the Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa.

 

This time, the 64 year old Fritz Joubert Du Quesne didn’t escape and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He also received a 2-year concurrent sentence and payment of a $2,000 fine for violation of the Registration Act. He served his sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas where he was mistreated and beaten by inmates. In 1954 he was released due to ill health, having served 14 years, and died indigent, at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) on 24 May 1956 at the age of 78 years.

 

The Legend

It is not known which parts of his life were fiction and which were fact, since Du Quesne was a charismatic master of self-promotion as well as a famous storyteller, but different sources throughout the world mention him, albeit in different guises. It is known that he was handsome, charming, intelligent and fluent in several languages (Afrikaans, Dutch, English, French, German and maybe Spanish or Portuguese).

 

His charm was well-known with women, but he even made an impression on men. An Afrikaans pastor, A.J. van Blerk, who was interned with Du Quesne on Bermuda, described him as "a handsome man, well developed, with bright blue eyes and beautiful black hair that hung down to his shoulders" in his book "Op die Bermudas beland" (“On the Bermudas landed”).

 

On May 25, 1919, while confined in Prison Ward at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, awaiting extradition by the British Government on a charge of “murder on the high seas”, he escaped by cutting the bars of his cell. On a “Wanted” poster Du Quesne is described as such (facts regarding his height, weight, complexion and eye colour are erroneous):

 

"Frederick Joubert Duquesne alias Captain Claude Stoughton, Frederick Fredericks, Piet Niacud, Fritz Duquesne, Fordham.

Description – age 40 years, height 5’ 7’’, weight 155 pounds, dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark complexion.

Duquesne is of roving disposition. He is a writer of stories, an orator and a newspaper reporter and may apply for position as such. Is a good talker. Speaks Dutch, German, French and Spanish fluently.

This man is partly paralyzed in the right leg and always carries a cane. May apply for treatment at a hospital or private physician. He also has a skin disease which is a form of eczema. If located, arrest, hold and wire, Detective Division, Police Headquarters, New York City, and an officer will be sent for him with necessary papers. Richard E. Enright, Police Commissioner."

 

The life of Fritz Joubert Du Quesne was the subject of a 1999 documentary film by South African filmmaker Francois Verster that won six Stone Awards.

 

The 1945 film "The House on 92nd Street" was also a thinly disguised version of the "Duquesne Spy Ring saga" of 1941, but differs from historical fact. It won screenwriter Charles G. Booth an Academy Award for the best original motion picture story

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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted

Interesting character to say the least, albeit a shady and obscure individual that not many have ever heard about. Thanks for the inormation.

 

Now for something completely different. The new year is upon us and the WRC for 2012 is about to kick off. WRC = World Rally Championship. South Africa never had a WRC champion but we did have SuperVan! Sarel van der Merwe was one of the greatest rally drivers that SA produced. He retired in 2002 from competitive driving which even included a stint at NASCAR in the US and even competed in the Le Mans 24 hour in 1984.

 

How many times did he win the South African Rally Driver's Championship?

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Midgleys_ZA

+Midgleys_ZA

Posted
Posted

Interesting character to say the least, albeit a shady and obscure individual that not many have ever heard about. Thanks for the inormation.

 

Now for something completely different. The new year is upon us and the WRC for 2012 is about to kick off. WRC = World Rally Championship. South Africa never had a WRC champion but we did have SuperVan! Sarel van der Merwe was one of the greatest rally drivers that SA produced. He retired in 2002 from competitive driving which even included a stint at NASCAR in the US and even competed in the Le Mans 24 hour in 1984.

 

How many times did he win the South African Rally Driver's Championship?

 

Wild guess, 13.

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Carbon Hunter

+Carbon Hunter

Posted
Posted

Cincol, I am going to give this one to you, but Carbon you were on the right track too. Here is a nice piece to read on the man. I really think we need to get some good film makers on this! Major Fredrick Craven was actually.... (it is a bit of a long piece to read, but so interesting!)

 

Wow - an amazing story - had never heard any of this before. Would love to read a more comprehensive book on this.

 

Hope there is a cache in there?

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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted

OK. This one seems to have run its course now. I will give it to Tara and John for being the closest and for their perseverance. SuperVan won no less than 11 National Rally Championships during his career as well as numerous other titles in different forma of Motor Sport. He was no doubt one of our finest drivers in his heyday.

 

Take it away Tara and John.

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Midgleys_ZA

+Midgleys_ZA

Posted
Posted

OK. This one seems to have run its course now. I will give it to Tara and John for being the closest and for their perseverance. SuperVan won no less than 11 National Rally Championships during his career as well as numerous other titles in different forma of Motor Sport. He was no doubt one of our finest drivers in his heyday.

 

Take it away Tara and John.

 

Thanks cincol, that was a bit unexpected.

 

Which country has the highest number of Nobel Prize winners per capita?

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Midgleys_ZA

+Midgleys_ZA

Posted
Posted

How about some place like Monaco or San Marino then? Maybe Luxembourg or Lichtenstein could be included in the mix. :unsure::blink:

 

Luxembourg (pop ~500 000) does have more Nobel Prize winners per capita than Iceland (pop ~320 000), having collected a second late last year, after the quiz show in question was filmed. There is one country which trumps both though...

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