Race at war. In World War One, France’s black soldiers suffered a death rate 3x higher than their white comrades, because they were so often given suicidal tasks.
100 Mind-Blowing Comrades Facts
Unsinkable stoker. Arthur Priest was a stoker on the Titanic. Stokers were among the unlikeliest crewmen to survive a sinking ship, or even a badly damaged one. Sea water would flood their compartments first, drowning them. The rest of the crew would scramble to shut watertight doors to save the ship, trapping their comrades in the compartments below. Somehow though, in chronological order Priest survived: a collision on RMS Asturias’ maiden voyage, 1908; a collision on Titanic’s sister ship, RMS Olympic, 1911; the sinking of RMS Titanic, 1912; the First World War sinking of HMS Alcantara, 1916; the First World War sinking of Titanic’s other sister ship, HMHS Britannic, 1916; the SS Donegal First World War sinking, 1917