Captured Same (UNCLASSIFIED)

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Tue May 18 01:40:43 UTC 2010


No one in this thread seems to have consulted The Yale Book of Quotations, which attributes "Sighted sub. Sank same." to a message from Donald Mason to the U.S. Navy Department, Jan. 28, 1942.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Dan Goncharoff [thegonch at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 11:32 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Captured Same (UNCLASSIFIED)

LIFE has several earlier mentions, such as

http://bit.ly/9y7JOd
LIFE‎ - May 4, 1942 - Page 74
Magazine - v. 12, no. 18 - 112 pages
Ensign Mason reported the first sinking, when he dropped two depth bombs
on a
submerged submarine, with his famous message: "Sighted sub, sank same. ...

DanG

On 5/17/2010 11:25 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"<Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Captured Same (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
>
>>>> The report was from a US Navy plane, I believe.  Whether the sub
>>>>
> was
>
>>>> actually sunk is open to question.
>>>>
>>>> On a TV show, sometime in the 1950's, maybe it was "I've Got a
>>>>
> Secret", the
>
>>>> originator of the communication was the guest. (It was time when
>>>>
> WWII vets
>
>>>> were no older than, say, Gulf War vets today). He explained that,
>>>>
>> for a reason I don't recall, communications such as the one in
>>
> question were, for
>
>>>> that particular operation, to be phrased so that the initial letter
>>>>
> of each
>
>>>> word was to be the same...hence the alliteration.
>>>>
>>>> Bill Palmer
>>>>
>>>>
> Apparently the originator was Ensign Donald F. Mason of Rochester New
> York (per Dallas Morning News, 6/25/1942 p 3)
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>

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