Yamashiro Maru – Maritime Accident Casebook

Magdeburg vs Yamashiro Maru – Plot and Clots

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Dec 182014

Recent steps to normalise relationships between the United States and Cuba reminded MAC of an old post that bears republication as a reminder of darker days and the conspiracy theories surrounding the collision between the Magdeburg and the Yamashiro in the Thames.

MAC’s eye for mystery was caught by a recent report in the Observer retailing claims that the CIA was responsible for a collision of two vessels on the Thames in 1964. Real sea mysteries are fascinating, one of these days we’ll nose around the tale of the Mary Celeste, non-mysteries like the fraudulent ‘Bermuda Triangle’ we don’t have time for. Are tales of the CIA sinking ships in the Thames evidence of a plot, or the tales by a clot? Continue reading »

Magdeburg vs Yamashiro Maru – Plot and Clots – Part 2

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Nov 202008

Following MAC’s forceful comments on claims regarding the capsize and sinking of the east German cargo ship Magdeburg after a collision with a Japanese ship, Yamashiro Maru, made by journalist Andrew Rosthorn and ‘naval historian’ E. John McGarry that the Central Intelligence Agency created the incident, implicitly with the aid of a Thames River pilot and the master of the Japanese vessel, two pilots offered to study the data presented to consider whether such an operation was technically feasible and what might have actually caused the incident.

John Clandillon-Baker is editor of The Pilot, the publication of the UK Pilots Association:

Magdeburg vs Yamashiro Maru – Plots and Clots

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Oct 292008

To set the scene for younger readers, 1964 was the height of the Cold War between capitalism, led by the US, and Communism, led by countries mainly belonging to the Soviet Bloc. Five years earlier, the corrupt Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown in a revolt lead by Fidel Castro, not a communist at the time, who appealed to the US for help rebuilding his country, was turned down and who turned to the Soviets for h only announcing two years after the revolution that Cuba was to be developed as a Soviet-style state. Subsequently, US President John Kennedy authorised an invasion of Cuba, a fiasco now know as the Bay Of Pigs, for which the Cubans have never been forgiven. The Cuban missile crisis didn’t improve their temper either.