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Lifeboat cannibalism

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Lifeboat Cannibalism Look around you. Who would you eat first if your life was depending on it?
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Page 1: Lifeboat cannibalism

Lifeboat Cannibalism

Look around you.Who would you eat first if your life was depending on it?

Page 2: Lifeboat cannibalism

Lifeboat CannibalismThis term refers to a rule of the sea.

If a group is lost at sea on a lifeboat and they are on the verge of starving to death it is acceptable to kill and eat one of the passengers so that all may survive.

The Mignonette was a cruiser built in 1867 and bought by Australian lawyer John Henry Want. The yacht could only reasonably be transported to Australia by sailing her there. Tom Dudley, the captain; Edwin Stephens; Edmund Brooks; and Richard Parker, the cabin boy, were given the job. Parker was 17 years old and an inexperienced seaman.

Page 3: Lifeboat cannibalism

Stage 1The ship sank on the 5th July.

The crew abandoned ship for the lifeboat, only managing to salvage vital navigational instruments along with two tins of turnips and no fresh water.

Page 4: Lifeboat cannibalism

Stage 2They were around 1,100 km from the nearest landDudley kept the first tin of turnips until 7 July when its five pieces were shared among the men to last two days.

The crew were resolutely avoiding drinking seawater as it was then universally held to be fatal

The crew ate the second tin of turnips on 15 or 17 July. With no other source of fluid, they began to drink their own urine.

On 20 July that Parker became ill through drinking seawater.

Page 5: Lifeboat cannibalism

Stage 3 Drawing lots in order to nominate

a sacrificial victim who would die to feed the others was possibly first discussed on 16 or 17 July, and debate seems to have intensified on 21 July but without resolution. On 23 or 24 July, with Parker probably in a coma, Dudley told the others that it was better that one of them die so that the others survive and that they should draw lots. Brooks refused.

The following day, with no prospect of rescue in sight, Dudley and Stephens silently signalled to each other that Parker would be killed. Killing Parker before his natural death would better preserve his blood to drink.

Page 6: Lifeboat cannibalism

Brooks, who had not been party to the earlier discussion claimed to have signalled neither assent nor protest.

With Stephens standing by to hold the youth's legs if he struggled, Dudley pushed his penknife into Parker's jugular vein, killing him.

Page 7: Lifeboat cannibalism

Stage 4 The crew sighted a sail on 29

July and were rescued. Upon arrival the mother of

Parker found out what had happened and demanded the men be tried for murder.

The sailing community staunchly supported the 3 men.

On 12 December, the court decided on six months' imprisonment.

Dudley and Stephens were advised the next day but were somewhat disappointed at so long in custody. Dudley never accepted the justice of his conviction.

Page 8: Lifeboat cannibalism

Other famous examples... The Donner Party A group of American pioneers who set off in

a Missouri to California in 1846, a journey that usually took about four months.

The party was eventually 87 members strong.

They chose to take the Hastings route, a shortcut that resulted in serious delays, the loss of many of the party's cattle and wagons, and fragmentation of the group into bitter factions.

The pioneers were a month and a half behind schedule when they reached Truckee Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains. An unusually heavy snowfall trapped the group, and their food stores ran out.

Eventually, the group ate some of its members who had succumbed to starvation and sickness.

Just over half of the party survived the trip to California; males aged between 20 and 39 suffered the highest mortality rate, and females fared proportionally better than males.

Page 9: Lifeboat cannibalism

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 When Uruguayan

Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the Andes on October 13, 1972, the survivors (including the national Rugby Union team) resorted to eating the deceased during their 72 days in the mountains.

Page 10: Lifeboat cannibalism

Cannibalism in Tasmania Alexander Pearce

(1790–1824) was an Irish penal convict in Tasmania who was hanged in Hobart in 1824, for murder and cannibalism

Page 11: Lifeboat cannibalism

Transported to Sarah Island in 1822, he escaped with seven other convicts, Alexander Dalton, Thomas Bodenham, William Kennerly, Matthew Travers, Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill and John Mather. Kennerly and Brown later voluntarily gave themselves up.

Pearce was captured later near Hobart and in custody made a confession that he and the other men had cannibalised each other over a number of weeks, with Pearce being the last to survive. The Hobart magistrate believed this to be a fabrication and that the other men were still alive and living in the bush as bushrangers. Pearce was then sent back to Sarah Island.

Page 12: Lifeboat cannibalism

“I kinda’ got into it....” Within a year Pearce again escaped, this

time with Thomas Cox. This time he was found within ten days, but with some of the remains of Cox in his pockets, even though he still had other food available to him. This time he was taken back to Hobart and eventually hanged in Hobart Town Gaol at 9am on 19 July 1824.

Page 13: Lifeboat cannibalism

In the Jungles of Vietnam

Australian war correspondent Neil Davis recorded that while under siege in a village during the Tet Offensive in 1967 food supplies ran out.

The South Vietnamese 6th regiment forces he was stationed with decided to sneak out at night and capture a North Vietnamese soldier, butcher him and eat him.

It was successful and was repeated several times. Davis recalled that lunges were the favourite of many.

Page 14: Lifeboat cannibalism

“They kinda got into it” The siege was lifted

when reinforcements arrived but the 6th regiment continued the practise on other battlefields... Even when food was plentiful.

The North Vietnamese began a policy of avoiding protracted battles with this regiment for the remainder of the war!!!


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