By Judith A. Klinghoffer"On this sad post Fort Hood massacre Veteran’s Day, it seems appropriate to recall that political correctness and excess legalism are nothing new."
.. . stunning was the visit of the U-53, a new German vessel with its ballast tanks modified to accept extra diesel fuel. It surfaced one October afternoon in 1916 at Newport, R.I., where its commander paid his compliments to the USN Commandant and calmly picked up the local papers. A train of curious naval officers, journalists, and photographers accompanied him aboard the U-53 for a tour of the vessel’s appointments; then, scrupulously observing the protocol for a belligerent visiting a neutral port, Capt. Hans Rose upped anchor and motored to the vicinity of the Nantucket Lightship.Hovering just in international waters, he began picking off the ships he had identified in the shipping news of the papers he had purchased in Newport: by day’s end he had dispatched 7. Though no lives were lost, the episode inspired helpless outrage in Americans and rage among the British — rage largely directed at the Americans, whose destroyers picked up the lifeboats but failed to interfere with the sub’s grisly operations."
On October 18, 1916 the NYT reported -
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