When the Ozzies invaded Alaska.

Yes, they did, the bastards!

It went like this, the Confederate ship Shenandoah was an iron hulled steam/sailing ship built in Great Britain and then purchased by the wily Confederates to raid Union commerce. They sailed from there unarmed and with only a partial crew because Britain was strictly adhering to the Neutrality Act, sometimes, when there was no money in it. So, anyway, away they sailed to meet another Confederate vessel at sea to take on guns and munitions (purchased in Great Britain), but that left them still with only a skeleton crew. Their first port of call was Melbourne, way down under, and sure enough as soon as word got out that anybody who wanted to enlist in the Confederate navy was welcome, everybody in Australia tried to sign up because, well, it was Australia wasn't it? The only thing going on in Australia back then was raising sheep and sweating profusely. Air conditioning wouldn't be invented for another 75 years.
So, they sailed off with a bunch of Ozzies, mongrel lot that they are, as crew. There was probably an Ozzie band playing (badly, and sweating a lot) as they departed, though the history books don't touch on that. I picture all the Ozzies waving goodbye to their girl, the same girl for the lot of them since they were all paroled prisoners and they hadn't brought in or bred enough women yet.
They sailed around for a while capturing Union merchant and whaling vessels, burning them, and sailing on eventually to Alaska where they fired the last shot of the American Civil War in June, 1865, capturing American whalers. Of course, the war was over for some time by then, but nobody on board knew it because somebody had let the newspaper subscriptions lapse. They didn't know the war was over until some British ship told them "Eh? The damned war has been over for months, you stupid wankers!"
They then sailed on to England because technically they were now pirates and would be hung if they sailed into a US port. Or, at least that's how the Union navy viewed the affair. I suppose the Ozzies then began herding sheep and shivering in Great Britain until they got deported back to Australia.

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We were bored...give us a break. We were promised more than one woman at the other end...someone lied.

 

I'm not sure I can forgive.

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And we don’t herd sheep...we have dogs for that...come around! Get back! Come around!...Around!
We are stupid wankers though...I’ll grant you that much...

 

Do we know for a fact that the Australian Confederate seamen were convicts or ex-convicts? There were numerous free settlers there as well, certainly by the middle of the 19th century.

 

Oh puhleeze! They were either convicts OR IRISH!

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theres a difference?

 

Actually...One was English, a ship captain, nonetheless.

The Rebs called them "stowaways," but I am at a loss on how the Rebs did not know on that 42 men snuck aboard the ship.

But, hey, the Ozzies were the smart ones...Britain wound up paying for these crimes in 1872.

 

It was probably the same ensign on watch that night, that later let the newspaper subscriptions lapse.

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My uncle mentioned having a bunch of stowaways on his last "combat" mission on a B-24. They were ordered not to look in the back until in the air.

 

I try to bring you guys the bare, unvarnished facts of history, and you turn it into wild speculation!

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Close, he was the Captain's Clerk.

 

What happened was...They were told that they were going to Tahitea, an old abandoned mining town on the Alaskan coast, and the Ozzies jumped to the conclusion that they were going someplace warm & sunny.

 

The bare unvarnished facts are that the Rebs were speaking Alabaman and the Ozzies were speaking Ozzie and so of course nobody had a clue. It was all "billabong this" and "Yoo-all that" right up until they were in Alaska where everyone was speaking Russian, which didn't help at all.

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Shouldn't this be in the US Civil War and tidbits or something-another thread, the one that the Historian is in charge of?

Well, I thought that it was a well written story. Read about the incident long ago, but it wasn't written quite so reverently as this version. Anyway, anyone who helped us shoot Yankees was good boys in my book. Damn Yankees.

 

Oh, missed the part about the "bunker." Sleuthing reveals that this 'bunker' is actually an old septic tank (a hole in the ground with a lid built over it) connected to some fixtures that indicate a trailer once stood out there many years ago. Upon that realization I decided that blowing even decades old poo into the sky was not a good idea.


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And I’m sure you know Australians call Americans ‘Seppos’...short for septic tanks...Yanks.

 

You might be a Redneck if...

You still have one of those.