"The Secret Plot to Rescue Napoleon by Submarine" Topic
4 Posts
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Tango01 | 26 Oct 2016 3:53 p.m. PST |
"Tom Johnson was one of those extraordinary characters that history throws up in times of crisis. Born in 1772 to Irish parents, he made the most of the opportunities that presented themselves and was earning his own living as a smuggler by the age of 12. At least twice, he made remarkable escapes from prison. When the Napoleonic Wars broke out, his well-deserved reputation for extreme daring saw him hired–despite his by then extensive criminal record–to pilot a pair of covert British naval expeditions. But Johnson also has a stranger claim to fame, one that has gone unmentioned in all but the most obscure of histories. In 1820–or so he claimed–he was offered the sum of £40,000.00 GBP to rescue the emperor Napoleon from bleak exile on the island of St. Helena. This escape was to be effected in an incredible way–down a sheer cliff, using a bosun's chair, to a pair of primitive submarines waiting off shore. Johnson had to design the submarines himself, since his plot was hatched decades before the invention of the first practical underwater craft…" More here link Amicalement Armand |
iceaxe | 26 Oct 2016 5:03 p.m. PST |
As detailed in Clive Cussler's latest book! I had no idea it was based in fact. |
Tango01 | 27 Oct 2016 10:37 a.m. PST |
Glad you enjoyed it my friend. Amicalement ARmand |
Supercilius Maximus | 28 Oct 2016 7:14 a.m. PST |
Johnson had to design the submarines himself, since his plot was hatched decades before the invention of the first practical underwater craft… Even ignoring Bushnell and 150 years before him, Cornelius Drebble, surely James Fulton's "Nautilus" was the first practical underwater craft? Ironically, I believe it was rejected by Napoleon (whilst Emperor) as "ungentlemanly"; the Royal Navy of the time had no such qualms, it appears. |
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