Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that promises 2021 will be a better year… and if you believe that, we’re also the podcast that would love to sell you some swamp land in the sahara…

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with here, the only place you’ll find this particular cryptid, Shea the Yeti—and his little fluff too!

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that this is the first time a sitting president has been banned from Twitter going back to 1812.

I’m Jenn and this week I learned that Dire wolves aren’t actually wolves at all. They are actually more closely related to jackals, and broke off from the lineage with wolves millions of years ago. So, something...something...you REALLY no nothing Jon Snow.

Rough Seas Ahead…

Despite my plucky intro 2021 has already told 2020 to hold its beer so we may as well sit back and watch as Rome burns—or to make it relevant to today’s story, play on as the ship sinks…

Lots of ships have sunk, but few as impressively as the Doña Paz.

You may have heard the story of the Doña Paz wreck as it was the most deadly wreck of a ship not at war. That record, in the 20th century anyway, goes to the Spanish Castillo de Olite which sank on the 7th of March, 1939, taking 1,476 of her 2,112 sailors to Davy Jones' Locker. Still, the Doña Paz would have beat that handily.

For you history buffs Wikipedia lists the Battle of Tsushima as the 20th centuries deadliest nautical event. In the Russo-Japanese War between 1904-1905 two-thirds of Russia’s fleet was lost along with 4,380 sailors. 5,917 more were captured. So that’s all… horrible.

Still, the Doña Paz… just barely wins this entirely dreadful race as well.

Also known as “Asia’s Titanic” the Doña Paz took four thousand, three hundred, and thirty-six down with her—nearly 3 times as many as the Titanic.

So, what happened?

First, the Doña Paz was launched on April 25th, 1963 from Hiroshima, Japan, as the Himeyuri Maru. Which had a passenger capacity of 608. In October of 1975 it was purchased by Suplicio Lines and renamed the Don Suuplicio. Following a fire it was restored and renamed Doña Paz.

It made a ferry circuit of Manila → Tacloban → Catbalogan → Manila twice a week. On December 20th, 1987, the Doña Paz left Leyte island for the capital, Manila. Officially, the Doña Paz could carry 1,518 passengers and it’s sixty six crew members. However, most sources I found noted that this official passenger manifest—listing 1,493 people—didn’t include the nearly 1000 children under four on board, nore did it list the battalion of soldiers they picked up at the last minute because “why the hell not.”

So the Doña Paz set off on the last leg of its journey with an estimated 4,386 passengers. Which is, by my math, way, way, too many. Apparently, people were packed into the vessel’s three levels so tightly that it was standing-room-only on basically every flat surface except the bridge. One survivor, Luthgardo Niedo, a military officer said “it was so crowded, the Doña Paz tilted to one side” reasoning it was only slight overcrowding for Christmas.

Now, I mention the bridge because, like the Titanic we know and love to make movies about, there was negligence afoot in the form of a f*cking rager. The Captain and some of the crew, along with a number of the military men, were rocking out on the bridge. This left the job of… steering the ship… to the much less experienced… whoever drew the short straw.

Luthgardo recounts meeting another soldier at the side of the vessel… the bathrooms being full of people as well. While they warmed the water the soldier told him “I heard some music and laughter. [...] The captain of the ship was at the party,” the other soldier being there to break the seal. Fortunately for Luthgardo,