u/DariusPumpkinRex

Both were on GM's U-platform, so not a difficult DIY project

(repost, accidentally deleted the wrong post)

The airflow around Mt. Fuji would often fold into itself and cause a circular current of fast-moving wind known as a mountain wave. The impact of the plane flying into this wave may have even instantly killed some passengers and crew through sheer force alone. The immediate loss of so many vital components had left the pilots no chance to save the plane. When the plane broke up, photographers and witnesses reported seeing luggage and people falling out of the plane.

75 of those onboard were employees of the American company Thermo King, who's primary product was and still is refrigeration units for trucks and trailers used to transport perishable food. As most of those employees had brought their spouse with them, 63 kids were orphaned by this plane crash.

The winds around Mt. Fuji were known of at the time but none had downed a commercial airliner and in 1966, the mountain wave phenomenon was not well-enough understood for it to be included in pilot training or taken into account for flight plans. It was one of those things that seemed perfectly fine and harmless until the one day that it wasn't.

Prior to takeoff, Flight 911 had actually taxied past the wreckage of a plane that had crashed the previous day; a Douglas DC-8 flying as Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 had crashed while coming into landing due to fog causing low visibility, leaving only 8 survivors out of 72 onboard.

BOAC Flight 911 was the third of five airplane crashes that Japan saw in 1966; preceding Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 402 was All Nippon Airways Flight 60, a Boeing 727 that crashed into Tokyo Bay on February 14th, killing all 133 onboard in what was Japan's deadliest single-plane crash.

After BOAC Flight 911 were the August 26th crash of a Japan Air Lines Convair 880 during flight training killing all 5 crew, and finally the November 13th crash of a NAMC YS-11 turboprop flying as All Nippon Airways Flight 533 into the Seto Inland Sea during a go-around at Matsuyama Airport, killing all 50 onboard.

Charles Joseph Whitman was born on June 24th, 1941. His childhood was spent participating in the Boy Scouts and hunting with his dad, among other things. His skill with a gun earned him a sharpshooting badge and he enlisted in the Marine Corps, where he earned 215 of the 250 possible points on marksmanship tests and ultimately got a scholarship intend for enlisted servicemen to earn degrees in engineering. However, Whitman also had been struggling with violent impulses for much of his adult life after having grown up with an abusive father who was also abusive towards his mother. Some of Whitman's friends were unnerved by morbid and chilling statements he'd made, one of which was "A person could stand off an army from atop of [the Main Building's clock tower] before they got him." However, Whitman didn't just keep these feelings to himself; he was concerned enough that he might snap and hurt somebody that he sought out psychiatric help from five different doctors but was not taken seriously enough. He also was frequently dealing with anxiety along with increasingly violent and irrational thoughts. He even went to the University psychiatrist and flat-out confessed that he was considering going to the top of the University Tower and picking people off but the psychiatrist simply said there was nothing he could do. The day before his rampage, Whitman murdered his mother and wife. He wrote that he knew he had no good reason to kill them but theorized it may have been to save them the shame of his actions.

Several hours after his wife and mother, the next victim of Whitman was receptionist Edna Townsley, whom Whitman violently beat unconscious with the butt of his rifle when he encountered her after gaining access to the upper floors of the tower while posing as a deliveryman. This didn't kill her outright but she would later die of her injuries two hours after Whitman's own death. The next people killed were a woman and her high school-aged nephew, who attempted to gain access to the clocktower's observation deck while Whitman was getting set up. Whitman heard the door open, turned, and blasted it with his shotgun, striking 16 year-old Mark Garbour and his aunt, 56-year-old Marguerite Lamport. Garbour was hit in the head and kill```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````ed instantly. Lamport survived the initial shooting but was pronounced dead upon arrival at Brackenridge Hospital. Two other members of the Garbour family survived, but were left with life-altering injuries; Mary Garbour (41) was hit in the head and spine, leaving her paralyzed and legally blind. Mike Garbour Jr. was left with injuries that meant he was not able to complete his training for the US Army.

After reinforcing his barricade, Whitman took aim at the crowd below and at 11:48 am, the first shots rang out. The first people shot at this point in Whitman's rampage were Claire Wilson and her fiance, Thomas Frederick Eckman. Claire was eight months pregnant with their child when she took the first bullet Whitman fired from the tower. Tragically, their unborn son was the first fatality of this sequence of Whitman's rampage. Thomas Eckman was shot next and died on the ground seconds later. Claire ultimately survived, though the damage left by the bullet rendered her infertile.

At first, people in the crowded campus below didn't know what was going on. They heard distant bangs and saw people falling over. A witness interviewed later stated he believed it was some form of a protest or a peace demonstration (keep in mind, the Vietnam War was happening at the time). But as the bangs continued and people kept getting hit, it soon dawned what was happening and chaos ensued. Motorists who happened to be in the area found their cars being hit with gunfire and people were further frightened by storefront windows being shot out as others fled for safety.

Claudia Marilyn Rutt, Carla Sue Wheeler, and Paul Bolton Sonntag (both 18) took cover behind a construction barricade on a nearby street. When Paul stood up to see if the coast was clear, Whitman immediately shot him through the mouth, killing him instantly. Claudia Rutt, his girlfriend, immediately went to Paul's aide but was immediately shot in the chest by Whitman and died hours later. The third of them, Carla Sue Wheeler, was shot in the hand while desperately attempting to restrain Claudia from breaking cover to assist Paul, but survived.

At this point, the police had been alerted and were rushing to the scene. 23-year-old patrolman Billy Speed was first on scene and took cover behind decorative masonry, but was shot and killed by Whitman through a hole in the masonry. Most of the people shot by Whitman were hit during the first 15 minutes. After this point, Whitman had to contend with civilians who had armed themselves with rifles and were shooting up at the tower both in a bid to try and pick Whitman off but also to provide covering fire for the many ambulances that had showed up, as well as an armored truck which was being used as a makeshift ambulance. A biplane with a sharpshooter as a passenger even took to the air and flew by the tower several times in a bid to pick Whitman off in a fly-by shooting. However, eddying thermals bounced the plane around a bit which made aiming difficult and after Whitman fired off a few shots which had actually hit the plane, it was forced to retreat to a safe distance but remained nearby to distract Whitman.

Eventually, two police officers along with a deputized civilian, Allen Crum, snuck into the tower and made their way up to where Whitman was hiding, McCoy with a shotgun, Martinez and Crum with revolvers. When they emerged, Whitman and the three men were on opposite sides of the tower. One of them, thinking they heard footsteps, fired off a shot, which alerted Whitman. He was not able to do anything before the three men rounded a corner and came face to face with Charles Whitman. Martinez immediately opened fire on him. Most of his shots missed but one bullet did hit the rifle Whitman was holding. Before Whitman could react, McCoy's shotgun blast hit him square in the face. Though he likely died instantly, Martinez wasn't taking any chances and grabbed the shotgun from McCoy, let out a wild scream and then blasted Whitman's prone body. It was over. The Texas Tower sniper was dead.

While not the first mass shooting to have occurred in the U.S., this was the first one to be extensively covered nationwide as it took place. While 15 people were killed that day, one of the wounded, 17-year-old Karen Joan Griffith had been struck in her right lung and died the next week from her injuries and a 17th victim, David Hubert Gunby, suffered severe damage to his only kidney and died 35 years later in November 2001 a week after discontinuing dialysis treatments due to kidney disease and chronic pain he'd been suffering since that day. His death was ruled a homicide.

The Texas Tower shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. until the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre in 1984 and the deadliest school shooting until the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. The image of a crazed clocktower gunman entered pop culture and several movies and TV shows in the following decades alluded to Whitman's rampage, such as Parenthood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 9 years later in 1975, a made-for-television re-enactment entitled "The Deadly Tower" aired on NBC with Kurt Russell as Charles Whitman. The film did alright with critics, though some questioned whether such a gruesome point of history should have been recreated.

One final note, in a letter written before his rampage, Whitman wrote that he wished to have an autopsy performed on him to hopefully find a plausible explanation for his actions. An autopsy was performed and they did find a plausible explanation; a brain tumor the size of a small walnut pressing hard up against his amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear and anxiety. While it is likely this contributed to Whitman's actions that day, whether or not for certain if it had anything to do will never be known.

Rest in peace to all the victims of Whitman's insanity, and condolences to the families left behind.

The Stockholm had broadsided the Andrea Doria at almost a 90-degree angle. While the Andrea Doria had been doomed by the impact, the Stockholm remained afloat and capable of operating under it's own power, but with the bow badly telescoped. Most of the fatalities happened during the initial impact, though several did later die of injuries sustained during the collision and evacuations.

The decision was made to abandon ship half an hour after the collision. Although the ship had enough lifeboats to evacuate everyone onboard, half of them were rendered unusable by the 18-degree list, as the ones on the port side would come into contact with the exposed hull and tip over. While the decision to abandon ship had been made, the order to abandon ship was decided to be delayed until help had arrived.

Fortunately, the collision had happened in a busy shipping lane so the Andrea Doria's radio distress calls, though having limited range, were still able to be relayed from ship to ship. The first ship to respond to the distress calls was the 390-foot Cape Ann, a freighter owned by the United Fruit Company. With only 44 men and two 40-person lifeboat, it's ability to assist was limited but again owing to the location of the collision, numerous other ships were on their way. The next two ships to arrive both belonged to the US Navy, transport USNS Private William H. Thomas and the destroyer escort USS Edward H. Allen.

The next ship to arrive was the French Line's Île de France, herself almost 100 feet longer than the Andrea Doria and heading back to her native France ahead of the Doria. Commanding the vessel was Captain Raoul de Beaudéan, a highly-respected veteran with over 30 years of service with the French Line under his belt. He was skeptical at first upon hearing of the Andrea Doria's peril; he didn't think it feasible that a ship like the Doria could founder and that if he went to the scene only to find that the Ile de France was not needed, the return to New York to refuel and the resulting delay could cost the French Line a lot of money. However, after communicating with the three vessels already on-site, he realized that over 1'600 lives were at risk and ordered the ship to be turned around, making it to the site less than three hours after the initial collision. While there was concern at first in regard to navigating around the other ships and the survivors and lifeboats in the water, the fog lifted, allowing the large Ile de France to position itself alongside the Andrea Doria, protecting it from the wind and waves.

The Ile de France took on the vast majority of the Doria's evacuating passengers; taking on 753 survivors, with the badly-damaged Stockholm taking on 545, 234 of which were members of Andrea Doria's crew, 129 survivors by Cape Ann, 159 by Private William H. Thomas, 77 by Edward H. Allen, including Captain Calamai and his officers, and a single American soldier who had managed to sleep through both the collision and evacuations was rescued by the tanker Robert E. Hopkins.

Ultimately, the crew of the Andrea Doria was found to be at fault for the disaster, having not followed proper radar procedures or calculated the Stockholm's speed and course, in addition to turning to port despite a long-established rule dictating that ships heading towards each other head-on both turn to starboard. Captain Calamai was also speeding through the fog, though this was common practice at the time. Among other causes, the ship's fuel tanks were half empty and not pumped with ballast to keep the ship stabilized.

The collision, evacuation, and eventual sinking of the Andrea Doria received extensive media coverage as it unfolded, with newspapers, radios, newreels, and television broadcasts informing the public of what was going on, leading to the ship's sinking becoming common knowledge, with the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure even mentioning the Andrea Doria by name.

One of the ship's notable items of cargo was the Chrysler Norseman concept car, an advanced "one-off" that had been built by coachbuilder Ghia. The car cost Chrysler $150'000 and had been announced as a major attraction for the 1957 show car circuit. It was found in the Andrea Doria's number 2 cargo hold by a diver in 1994 but almost 40 years in saltwater had reduced the show car to a pile of debris, with the only recognizable feature still left being the wheels.

In the years since the sinking, the ship's wreck, located 162 feet beneath the ocean's surface, has been visited many times over the years by divers and artifacts have been removed, including at least one of the ship's bells, a statue of the ship's namesake Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, a bank safe that was later opened on live television and found to contain thousands of American silver certificates, Canadian bank notes, American Express travelers checks, and Italian bank notes. Also recovered was one of the ship's foghorns, which was restored and sounded off for the 65th anniversary of the sinking in 2021. The wreck site has become known as "The Everest of Wreck Diving" as 15 divers have lost unfortunately lost their lives while visiting the wreck.

As the plane, named "Clipper Endeavor" was going down, Captain John Burn alerted the control tower that two engines had failed and that he would attempt a water landing seven miles North-Northwest from Isla Grande. The tower passed the message along to the United States Coast Guard, who deployed two PBY-5A Catalina flying boats, one of which was pulled from maintenance and underwent rescue operations with no auxiliary power unit or bilge pump due to how serious and urgent the situation was, all under the command of Lieutenant Commander Ken Bilderback.

The USCG buoy tender Bramble with medical staff onboard and SA-16 amphibious aircraft from Ramey Air Force Base were also deployed, resulting in the successful rescue of all 17 survivors, though the survivors onboard the second Catalina had to be transferred to the Bramble, as the Catalina had taken on water due to it's lack of a bilge pump.

Faulty engine parts and the pilots' attempt to re-establish the climb without the remaining engine using all of the remaining power were found to be the cause of the accident, though Captain Burn was cleared of any wrong-doing, as the defective parts and improper maintenance were found to be the primary cause of the crash.

Several of the servicemen involved in the rescue were rewarded for their efforts; Lieutenant Commander Bilderback was awarded his second Air Medal. His co-pilot, Lieutenant Commander Jack Natwig, was decorated with the Silver Lifesaving Medal for jumping into the sea to rescue a small child, while Air crew members Bill Pinkston, Jim Tierney, Peter Eustes, and Raymond Evans were all commended by the Commandant of the USCG. Of the 52 who died when the plane sank, 39 of them are still on the wreck and there are no current plans for recovery.

The car is a 1958 Dodge Mayfair, a Dodge with a Plymouth body that was only sold in Canada.

Dr. Fu Manchu was played by Peter Sellers (unfortunately in yellowface) in his final movie released on August 8th, 1980, two weeks after his death on July 24th from a heart attack at only 54 years old. This was also the final film of Disney legend David Tomlinson (Mary Poppins, The Love Bug, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, etc.) before he retired from acting to spend time with his family. The film was a critical and commercial failure.

This is also the most recent film about Dr. Fu Manchu, owing to the racist nature of the character. The character's most recent cinematic appearance was in a trailer that Rob Zombie made for a fictional film called "Werewolf Women of the SS" for the 2007 double-feature Grindhouse, where Manchu was played by Nicolas Cage.