BONUS EPISODE: The Close Quarters Combat of the USS Buckley
Added 2025-08-13 08:19:16 +0000 UTCLIVESHOW TICKETS FOR OCT 4TH IN GLASGOW AVAILABLE HERE:
LIVESTREAM TICKETS FOR OCT 4TH HERE:
CHECK OUT THE MERCH STORE:
During WWII, the crew of the American Destroyer Escort, the USS Buckley, managed to get into a knockdown, drag-out fist fight with the crew of a Nazi U Boat while at sea. In what is probably one of the strangest naval battles in American history, crew armed with guns, knives, pots and pans, and the occasional coffee cup won the day.
Sources:
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/atlantic-battle-uss-buckley-german-u-66
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/uss-buckley-vs-u-66.html
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1988/july/hand-hand
https://www.uboatarchive.net/U-66A/U-66BlockIslandReport.htm
Comments
Apparently the movie The Enemy Below took a lot of inspiration from this incident.
Rosemary S Callahan Gray
2025-09-30 13:42:43 +0000 UTCOk but like. How is this not a movie?
Chelsea Key
2025-09-09 00:19:43 +0000 UTCWhat if we throw paper coffee cups?
Mitch Guerrerio
2025-08-29 00:05:57 +0000 UTC"nyah see? No, Nazis!" Petty Officer "Little Caesar" Bandello
Nadie Southpaw
2025-08-21 23:46:02 +0000 UTCMy cousin smokes spam and it's delicious. Tastes just like hammy burnt ends
Erin Sietstra
2025-08-20 20:57:03 +0000 UTCListening to this banger of an episode and then watching Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” was a good pairing. In the film the survivors of a sunken freighter are stranded in a lifeboat with a survivor of the U-boat that also sank. It’s wartime propaganda that’s also correct in that you can’t give Nazis quarter.
Scott
2025-08-19 14:27:14 +0000 UTCMarked with like ordinance numbers
Nadie Southpaw
2025-08-19 13:41:56 +0000 UTCI see your “Thoroughbreads” and raise you one “Pegasus” outside the gates of Fort Polk.
Luke Baumgartner
2025-08-17 12:58:48 +0000 UTCMy Great Grandpa served on a DE during WW2. He got a really good deal and spent much of his enlistment going between schools and getting assigned to new DEs because the one he was assigned to got fully crewed and deployed before he got there.
Jake
2025-08-17 11:56:38 +0000 UTCMerch Idea: USS Buckley coffee cups.
Thad
2025-08-17 04:30:05 +0000 UTCalright this is the episode that got me to join the patreon
Cora Drivick
2025-08-17 01:50:33 +0000 UTCAlso worth noting that IIRC U-Boat crews were noted for being anti-Hitler/anti-Nazi. They basically worked off the "what are you going to do, seal me in a steel tube and send me on a suicide mission with extra steps".
Andrew Ashe
2025-08-16 14:51:12 +0000 UTCWhat a fucking funny episode. Glad to occasionally have one like this!
James Gilboy
2025-08-16 13:17:54 +0000 UTCThe mouse-ssiah. Missed opportunity lol
Kyle Desseau
2025-08-16 00:05:57 +0000 UTCYou used to be able to sink submarines with helicopter door gunners in C:MANO.
Jonathan Grafton
2025-08-15 16:35:16 +0000 UTCHas Joe ever covered Operation Anaconda on the show? Feel like it's a perfect candidate - you have all of the fuck ups that went on with the Afghan column that was meant to make up the main force but fled following bad bombing runs, you have the rakkasans in "hells half-pipe", and then the snafu on Takhur Gar with a bad mission getting pushed ahead and the SEALS landing on the X due to time constrai ts, the consequences of that with Roberts, Chapman, the Ranger QRF getting lit up, and then the recent events with the Pred drone footage getting released and the ridiculousness of the Medal of Honor museum. I know Joe and Co have like a years long backlog at this point but it would be a perfect GWOT one-off.
Brandon P
2025-08-15 07:08:41 +0000 UTCThis is one of the best episodes to date by jove old boy
Riley Robertson
2025-08-15 04:42:51 +0000 UTCtoo drunk to say shomting...but hy
Ti Napalm
2025-08-15 04:38:39 +0000 UTCHey grandpa, why is there a dent in this coffee pot? Well, it got that dent cause I whacked a nazi submariner’s skull after we rammed his sub and they boarded us like they were pirates. Yeah, the war in the Atlantic got weird, grandchild
nughh
2025-08-14 23:00:47 +0000 UTCTushonka is the Slavic version of spam. there's a Ukrainian youtuber called the Kitchen Cosmonaut that does a taste test of modern Tushonka in English if anyone is curious.
Megan zietkiewicz
2025-08-14 22:48:34 +0000 UTCThis sailor thanks you for supporting ship workers 🫡
Paloma Alcala
2025-08-14 21:13:15 +0000 UTCDuring the ‘Master and Commander’ episode Tom said he was gonna make Joe watch it, but now that they’ve gone with the mecha anime theme for their side series I’m not sure it’s still on the table. That said, if you want something Terror-adjacent, Joe did a guest episode of “Failure to Launch” on Andrée’s Arctic Expedition.
Paloma Alcala
2025-08-14 19:33:04 +0000 UTCCan you imagine the amount of special edition Soviet Spam that's sitting untouched at the bottom of the Atlantic bc the fish would rather starve.
Grumpy Bowlart
2025-08-14 17:46:46 +0000 UTCGerman sailors weren't expecting some good ole fashioned gangster shakedowns.
Le Di Chang
2025-08-14 17:27:11 +0000 UTCThis one was an absolute banger for sure!
3 Toed Jim
2025-08-14 15:07:08 +0000 UTCThis might be my favorite LLBD episode ever. The chaos of the Nazi boarding party is crazy, but the imagery of the Nazis getting their brains smashed out by a coffee pot wielding Petty Officer and the Nazi getting Superman punched off the deck is outstanding!
3 Toed Jim
2025-08-14 15:06:51 +0000 UTCGreetings from Louisville. The strip clubs remain on 31, names and owners change. Hard to change the floor plan of a place with no windows.
Tyrone Slothrust
2025-08-14 12:37:44 +0000 UTCSeven minutes in and already a banger episode.
Saint Muerte
2025-08-14 03:29:38 +0000 UTCSo basically the no man’s land melee from the “The King’s Man” movie, but on a boat.
Matt Watterson
2025-08-14 01:27:34 +0000 UTCLike a grenade in the conning tower
Nadie Southpaw
2025-08-14 01:20:49 +0000 UTCOh gods, the Spam!! My dad got hooked on it during his time in the Marines at the end of WWII. He was banned from eating it after his double bypass. After he passed, my mom and I found cans of Spam stashed throughout the house. He just would not give that stuff up.
Queue
2025-08-14 01:04:25 +0000 UTCDon’t worry, the jokes always land.
Clinton K
2025-08-13 23:23:09 +0000 UTCI have two, of two different styles and I can confirm.
Cory Miller
2025-08-13 23:17:27 +0000 UTCU-boat x Destroyer Escort Forbidden Yuri (they r both ships and therefore both women)
Arueshalae Table Building Society
2025-08-13 20:04:38 +0000 UTCMy brain has been derailed by Destroyer (Escort / Sex Worker). But then that makes me think of how the Cock Destroyers would fit into this nautical framework. Destroyer (Cock) I suppose. At any rate a mess of seamen by the end of it.
Marc Bosse
2025-08-13 19:55:38 +0000 UTCHilarious. It could be a zany screwball comedy. I’d love to see it on the big screen
Snorks
2025-08-13 19:46:46 +0000 UTCOne of the difficulties with identifying who qualifies as a Nazi is that the Nazis repeatedly lowered their conscription age until, after nearly 6 years of war, by the end of the European theater, they were using literal child soldiers in active combat. A 22-year-old submariner in 1939, who was 17 in 1934, could reasonably be considered a Nazi. A 12-year-old tank crew member in 1945, who was 1 in 1934, probably could not reasonably be considered a Nazi. Where do you draw the line between these two extremes? The problem is you kind of can’t. (This is to say nothing of people from the Baltic states who resisted the Soviet invasion in 1939 only to be just as surprised as the Soviets by Operation Barbarossa in 1941. And Nazi conscription in occupied territories only muddies things further.)
Elsie Hupp
2025-08-13 17:28:55 +0000 UTCCoffee for the win!
Alistair
2025-08-13 16:27:55 +0000 UTCWhen it got to the coffee cup I just pictured Toni Storm telling Renee "chin up, tits out and watch for the cuuup"
Animal Crossing Sovereign Citizen
2025-08-13 15:43:53 +0000 UTCThose WW 2 Navy coffee cups are leathal projectiles. They are made out of heavy ceramic to keep the coffee hot and don't have handles, you can use to keep your hands warm if you are on watch. No handle makes for better areodynamics.
Doug King
2025-08-13 15:32:51 +0000 UTCCan we get Joe to at least like a horse by proxy through Umamusume?
Markus D
2025-08-13 15:31:38 +0000 UTCThat’s the story Mrs. Little is sticking with
Austin Arminio
2025-08-13 15:28:09 +0000 UTCMetal Gear Rising was NOT written by Kojima. It was written by Etsu Tamari, and he wrote a political satire that Kojima WISHES he wrote. Put respect on that man's name for giving Metal Gear the best writing it ever had.
Markus D
2025-08-13 15:25:48 +0000 UTCBy the Archer metric, its a sex worker while afloat & a hooker when sunk
Sasha MH
2025-08-13 15:13:05 +0000 UTCAin't no way you guys think spam tastes better than tushonka
brother bob
2025-08-13 14:07:54 +0000 UTC" these ships weren't meant to slug it out with japanese battleships ". ( looks at the battle off samar and looks away )
Schuylar Mills
2025-08-13 14:02:51 +0000 UTCAh hell yeah, we Navy-Pilled we’re Boatmaxxing in 2025 baby!!!! DONT CHA KNOW THE USS CREAM ALWAYS RISES TO THE TOP! Admiral Macho Man.
William Shackelford
2025-08-13 13:37:23 +0000 UTCRumor says the USS O’Bannon (yes, named after the hero of Derna) fought a Japanese submarine with potatoes.
ChipotleAway
2025-08-13 13:36:48 +0000 UTC[This episode was sponsored by Jackery: run your U-Boat for longer than ever using a Jackery Power Station! Use code SINKALLIEDSHIPPING20 at checkout for 20% off your first order.]
Elsie Hupp
2025-08-13 13:35:33 +0000 UTCyour coworker is the protagonist of a 90s FPS game
Gryphoneer
2025-08-13 13:17:31 +0000 UTCI work in dispatch for our local transit system and we have a guy named crash dangerzone
Lain of the Wired
2025-08-13 13:07:03 +0000 UTCi guess that's heavy-duty brainrot, but when joe said "i wanna fuck that horse" first thing that crossed my mind was "ah yes, uma musume". and then the escort bit made me remember there's at least one gacha game about anthropomorphized WWII ships
Gryphoneer
2025-08-13 12:23:42 +0000 UTCHell yeah, boats - boats - boats - boats. Aka exotic ships
iDoTechOK
2025-08-13 12:11:04 +0000 UTCUS subs were also interesting in that the captains had a lot of leeway to mess with their boats. Like putting three quad mounted 20mms on it. Or a 4 inch deck gun that had so much muzzle blast it blew the subs deck plates into the sea
Noblesse Oblahaj
2025-08-13 12:02:23 +0000 UTCFor what it's worth, despite having a much better training program and arguably better conditions, the US sub fleet also had an incredibly high casualty rate. This is for somewhat different reasons than the German losses. It also accounted for a staggering amount of tonnage sunk even compared to us surface ships and planes, of both commercial and military ships.
Noblesse Oblahaj
2025-08-13 12:00:03 +0000 UTCAt one point before WW2, someone in the navy theorized that the US Navy should aim to build 140 aircraft carriers. By 1945, they had over 120. If the war continued to 1946, they would have been projected to have around 152.
Noblesse Oblahaj
2025-08-13 11:25:57 +0000 UTCStuart Little’s biological father was also a human
Bees McBee
2025-08-13 11:14:36 +0000 UTCAll this scurvy discourse makes me ask again for a series based on the first season of The Terror.
Matt
2025-08-13 10:57:33 +0000 UTCCollins Class submarines that the (RAN) Royal Australian Navy use, are diesel-electric. Diesel isn't all that bad lol. The HMAS Rankin (Collins Class) managed to beat the US Navy at RIMPAC 2004 during exercise Silent Fury. The USN had 2 destroyers, a guided missile frigate, a nuclear submarine, Destroyer Squadron 31, 6 Patrol Squadron anti-submarine P-3C Orion combat crews and a chopper. Rankin still got close enough to snap pics of a US destroyer within range of engagement even when the USN cheated and used active sonar.
Alex
2025-08-13 10:37:23 +0000 UTCThank God this came out during a overnight inventory shift. Thank you for keeping me up.
Superpong
2025-08-13 08:56:54 +0000 UTC
