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It is a fake story propagated first by Christian missionaries and later by Communist intellectuals for ulterior reasons. Of late, some Dravidian intellectuals have appropriated the same.The biggest hole in the story is the concept of a Mulakaram(Breast Tax). There is no contemporary record of anything called the breast tax from that period, not even in the writings of the Christian missionaries.[1] [2] [3] No mention of the same can be found in the literature of the Kerala Renaissance Period, which is quite puzzling.Most academic works that mention the Nangeli incident cite a report of the London Missionary Society dated 1819, in which the event is said to have happened around 1803. I could not find the original report on the internet. However reading the academic works citing this source, it is clear that even this report does not mention anything called the breast tax, but only says that lower caste women were not allowed to cover their breasts and a certain woman(who is claimed to be from the Ezhava community) cut off her breasts in protest and died of bleeding. It is not clear whether the even the name Nangeli was mentioned in the report.Which brings me to my second point - the Shanar revolt.The Shannar revolt started when poor people from the Shanar(Nadar) community who had migrated to Kerala to work as toddy-drawers and embraced Christianity. The Christian missionaries frowned upon the Shanar womenfolk who(like most women from Kerala, irrespective of the caste divide) didn’t wear any upper garment and turned up for Mass in the Church. They began ‘educating’ the Shanar women about their right to wear upper garment.In addition, the missionaries also got involved in labour disputes involving the Shanar workers and their Nair and Namboodiri landlords. This was the main cause of the ‘Shanar Revolt’.Since the upper cloth in those days was seen as a sign of wealth(rather than caste), it soon began to lead to tensions between the well-to-do Nairs and the Shanars(who considered themselves Kshatriyas, but had a lower economic stature in Kerala).Combined with the issue of labour disputes, this was perceived by the locals as the missionaries’ unnecessary intervention in domestic affairs by piggy-banking on British military power.This led to several attacks on churches and Shanar women. These sporadic incidents lasted from around 1810’s to until 1859, when after the British had crushed the 1857 revolt, they issued a diktat asking the King to allow low-caste Christian converts to wear the upper cloth. The King of Travancore reluctantly agreed by adding the caveat that could as long as they didn’t try to imitate the dress code of the upper castes.The Ezhava community was in no way involved in this struggle. There is no record of it anywhere. On the contrary, they joined the upper castes in attacking the Shanar women, as they considered the Shanars to be of a lower stature than themselves(comparable to the Pulayas)[4] .The Shanars did not keep quiet either. They retaliated with equal brutality. They raised an army with the help of the Shanar community in the neighbouring Thirunelveli district(and also very probably the British) and had planned an organized uprising against the Travancore state. However, they were thwarted by timely action from the Travancore armed forces.One must remember that wearing the upper cloth was not a statement of caste but rather that of wealth. Even upper-caste women never wore the upper cloth, unless they were from wealthy families or it was a special occasion. Even Namboodiri women used to go bare-chested when entering temples. An exposed breast was not considered taboo. It was only after the British started propagating their Victorian morals, that it became a taboo.The following are photographs of women from the Namboodri and Nair castes taken circa 1900’s(some 50 years after the Shanar revolt):PS: Quora Moderators are requested to exercise discretion with respect to the following images. They are historical images, don’t fall in the category of sexual images or porn or adult images and are relevant to the question.Topless Nambudri lady and a Bride from The Cochin Tribes and Castes Volume-2’ by L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer [5]A Nair woman from Malabar (Kerala) - Basel Mission Archives[6]Nair girls with ornaments from The Cochin Tribes and Castes Volume-2’ by L. K. Anantha Krishna IyerNair girls in a temple procession, from the book ‘The Cochin Tribes and Castes Volume-2 ’ by L. K. Anantha Krishna IyerOn the other hand, there were several Ezhava families in the service of the Kings of Travancore, who were very wealthy and enjoyed high stature in society. The women belonging to these families used to wear the upper cloth.An Ezhava family from the book titled ‘Glimpses of Travancore’ by N. K. Venkateswaran[7]An Ezhava bride and her party from the book Travancore Tribes and Castes, Volume - 1, by L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer[8]The argument that the fictional Nangeli incident led to lower caste women wearing upper cloth is false as the writings of the Christian missionaries state that the law of 1859 only affected Christian Shanar converts and lower-caste Hindu women(along with upper-caste Hindu women) still didn’t wear any upper cloth(as they didn’t feel any need to).The following are photographs of Thiyya women taken circa 1900’s(some 50 years after the Shanar revolt):Source for both photographs below - Castes and Tribes of Southern India by Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Volume - 7[9]If the Nangeli story were true, then the Shanar revolt wouldn’t have happened at all, as it occurred on a much later date.ConclusionSo in all probability, the story of Nangeli is fake. It is very probable that the overzealous LMS missionaries took a particular incident from the Shanar revolt, dramatized it and transplanted it to the Ezhava community to create an urban legend. In an era of poor connectivity and literacy, it was easy to plant such tales among an uneducated populace and brainwash them.Later the Communist intellectuals appropriated the same story to whitewash the role of the Ezhava community(which forms the largest vote-bank of the CPI(M)) in the Shanar revolt. Nowadays the story makes an appearance whenever the Communist party wants to peddle an agenda. During the Kiss of Love protest in 2014, this story made an appearance in several media. Recently during the Sabarimala protests, it again made an appearance in Left-leaning media.Nowadays, some Dravidian activists have also started appropriating the story(The following video is in Tamil):Apparently the place behind the woman is where Nangeli died. :DMythology is mythology whether written 5000 years ago or 200 years ago. You cannot have one set of rules for analyzing one and a different set for the other and then claim to be a historian.Some Additional Points1. For those citing Anantha Krisha Iyer's book The Travancore Tribes And Castes Volume I , I must point out that the Thalakkaram and Mulakkaram were tax imposed on the Malarayan tribe in return for the right to the lands. This money was paid per head and was called Thalakkaram in the case of men and Mulakkaram in the case of woman. Mulakkaram when literally translated, means breast tax, but this is a wrong translation. Women were referred colloquially as Mula(breast) in those days. This may seem lewd now, but was normal in those days.I am quoting a passage from the book which clarifies this:The Malayarayans appear to have suffered from heavydisabilities in former times. “The Puniat Raja, who ^ruled over those at Mundapalli, made them pay headmoney— two chuckrams a head monthly as soon as theywere able to work and a similar sum as ‘presence money’besides certain quotas of fruits and vegetables and feudalservice. They were also forced to lend money if theypossessed any, and to bring leaves and other articleswithout any pretext of paying them, and that for days.The men of these villages were placed in a worse posi-tion than the slaves. The petty Raja used to give asilver-headed cane to the principal headman, who wasthen called ‘ Perumban or ‘caneman’.”- The headmoney was popularly known as Thalakkaram in the caseof males and Mulakaram in the case of females. It issaid that these exactions came to an end under verytragic circumstances. Once, when the agent of the Rajawent to recover Thalakaram, the Malayarayan pleadedinability to pay the amount, but the agent insisted onpayment. The Arayans were so enraged that they cutoff the head of the man and placed it before the Agentsaying here is your Thalakaram. Similarly, inabilitywas pleaded in the case of an Arayan woman for pay-ment of Mulakaram, but the Agent again persisted. Onebreast of the woman was cut off and placed before himsaying ‘here is your Mulakkaram. On hearing this inci-dent, the Raja was so enraged at the indiscretion of theAgent that he forthwith ordered the discontinuanceof this system of receiving payment.It is very much possible that the above story of the Malayaran woman’s breast being cut off, formed the germ of the story propagated by the LMS missionaries. There is reason to believe this hypothesis, because Rev. Samuel Mateer of the LMS had spent a lot of time amonsgst the Malarayan tribes and had written about his experiences in his well known book, Native life in Travancore .But as you can see, it had nothing to do with breast tax. And exactly how a Malarayan woman in the Sabari forests became an Ezhava woman in Cherthala is a mystery.2. Rev. Samuel Mateer’s book also mentions the taxes prevalent in Travancore at the time. Quoting from his book:Burdensome taxes were also imposed, a poll-tax being a favourite mode of levying rates. In 1754, for instance, a head tax was imposed on the Shanars to meet the military expenditure. In 1787, a poll tax was imposed on the Syrian Christians. Fees were levied on low-caste marriages. The Administration Report for M.E. 1040 gives a surprising list of no less than 110 distinct taxes, which were in that year happily abolished with a stroke of the pen, to the unspeakable relief of a great multitude of the industrious poor.A perusal of this curious list is very suggestive as to what must have been the previous state of the country, and the miserable interference with trade and industry, social freedom, and domestic comfort. Everything at all taxable was availed of, and every special occasion made an excuse for squeezing the laborious classes of their hard earnings. They produced small revenue at the cost of great vexation, partaking often of the character of poll taxes and taxes on implements of industry, and the proceeds were wasted on Brahmans, temples, and ceremonies. “These taxes,” the Report modestly says, “used to be a source of vexation and embarrassment.” Yet their total proceedsamounted to but 800 rupees annually. Their very tides are suggestive, though not in all instances explanatory of the actual import. Kuppa katcka, ‘refuse offering,” was so called because it was the meanest tax — really a house tax — one fanam for each hut. Pariahs, Pallars, and some Shanars paid this. There was also a house tax on Ilavars. Grass cutdng” was paid by Pariahs only in Nanjinad. The widow of a weaver continued to pay the tax on the loom (about a rupee per annum) long after the death of her husband and the cessation of the work. The catalogue goes on enumerating variousforms of house tax, taxes on oil-mills, bows, iron and forges, exchangers, palankeens, boats and nets, hunting, keeping civet-cats, on the industries of goldsmiths, fishermen, musicians and drummers, bearers, dyers, schoolmasters, Kuravar dancers, &c.; dues at the festivals of Onam, Dipavali, harvest, the end of the year, and various anniversaries,and on occasion of royal marriages, birthdays, &c., besides more defensible fees on royal grants, on agreements, on timber cutting, &c. A little oil was taken from each oilmonger; and service in village watching was demanded.Though these cesses were professedly relinquished under a RoyalProclamation, many of them are still retained and partially collected, the people being ignorant of their rights, and the inferior officials grasping and oppressive.Where is the mention of ‘breast tax’ in this memoir? How could someone like Rev. Mateer with his Victorian morals miss something like a ‘breast tax’?3. Some people like the Communist intellectual T.Murali have apparently traced Nangeli’s descendant.[10] He has apparently met Nangeli’s great great grandniece aged 67 years. :DConsidering that Nangeli died 200 years ago, atleast 8–10 generations should have passed away. This is a conservative estimate, considering the average age of marriage today. In the olden days, people used to marry young and girls would be mothers before the age of 20. So how come the lady in question is the 4th generation descendant of Nangeli?Footnotes[1] A hundred years in Travancore, 1806-1906 : a history and description of the work done by the London Missionary Society in Travancore, South India during the past century : Hacker, Isaac Henry : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[2] Christianity in Travancore : MacKenzie, Gordon Thomson : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[3] Native life in Travancore : Mateer, Samuel, 1835-1893 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[4] The Travancore state manual : Travancore (India) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[5] The Cochin Tribes And Castes Vol. 2 : Iyer, L. K. Ananthakrishna : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[6] Nayer girl from Malabar. :: International Mission Photography Archive, ca.1860-ca.1960[7] Page on gipe.ac.in[8] Cochin Tribes And Castes Vol. 1 : Iyer, L. K. Anantha Krishna : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[9] Volume VII-T to Z[10] Dress code repression: Kerala's history of breast tax for Avarna women

I presume that you are referring to the hunting down and destruction of the German armored cruisers Scharnhort and Gneisenau by the battle-cruisers HMS Invincible and HMS lnflexible in 1914 and the unusually-large number of shells it took to sink them. I.e., was the Royal Navy's gunnery technology lacking?Gun duels at sea are nothing like their equivalent on land. The firing and target ships are moving, almost always at different speeds and courses, and the pitching and rolling of the shooting ship adds another factor. Prior to WW1 guns were fired by “local control” - the gunners sighting their targets by eye, or in the case of a turret, aided by early range-finders. They had to estimate the elevation of their guns so that the trajectory of their shells coincided with the target, making corrections according to the shell splashes (under, over or straddle), which was often difficult because multiple guns on their own ship and others in their fleet would be causing their own splashes. In addition, a canny captain of a target ship would “steer for the splashes,” the idea being to cancel out the correction for range the gunners made.Local control remained in use on smaller warships and auxiliaries even through WWII. But for battleships and cruisers, centralized naval fire control systems were first developed, just before WW1, by the Royal Navy. Beginning with the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnaught, which made all existing battleships obsolete on her launch in 1906Note the tripod foremast, a characteristic of all future Royal Navy capital ships until the 1920s, and the gunnery-director station below the wireless antenna and flagstaff.She dispensed with the previous practice of battleships mixing calibers like 12″, 9.2″, 8″ etc., instead mounting ten 12″ guns and some smaller ones to repel small craft like gunboats. All future large warships followed suit, with at least six similar big guns, facilitating central fire control. At the heart of this was the Dreyer Table, an analogue computer designed by Commander (later Admiral Sir) Frederic Charles Dreyer, that calculated rate of change of range and bearing.It was to be improved and served into the interwar period, at which point it was superseded in new and reconstructed ships by the Dumaresq rate-solver, and after WWII by the Admiralty Fire Control Table.Director-controlled firing, together with the fire control computer, moved the control of the gun laying from the individual turrets to a central position, usually high on the superstructure or foremast, which had a better view of the enemy than a turret-mounted sight, and the crew operating it were farther from the deafening sound and shock of the guns. However, individual gun mounts and multi-gun turrets retained a local control option for use when battle damage limits director control or information to the turret commander. Under director-control, guns could be fired in planned salvos of some, or all, turrets, either simultaneously or in a sequence. Firing a complete broadside of all main guns could and sometimes did cause damage to their own ship, especially of more delicate items like optical rangefinders. The ideal sequence would be fore and aft turrets firing together, then turrets closer to the ship’s center together, to avoid transient distortion of ship structure in reaction to the discharge of tons of shells and propellants from one end, an undesirably large factor at extreme naval engagement ranges.Dispersion of shot was caused by several factors, including differences in individual guns, individual projectiles and powder ignition times. Uncontrollable ballistic factors like air and powder charge temperatures, humidity, barometric pressure and wind direction and velocity required final adjustment through observation of fall of shot which, as mentioned above, could be difficult. The British favored coincidence rangefinders, while the Germans and the U.S. both preferred the stereoscopic type. The former were less able to range on an indistinct target but easier on the operator over a long period of use, the latter the reverse. Visual range measurement (of both target and shell splashes) was vastly improved with the availability of radar.Other factors influencing the range and azimuth of the shell in flight that were taken into account were the Coriolis effect (due to the Earth’s rotation), and precession - the offset from a straight line from the spin of the projectile caused by the gun barrel rifling (these last two being more pronounced at very long ranges) - and the size, weight and shape of the shell. Note that, counterintuitively, the Coriolis effect is greatest at the poles [imagine standing on one of the poles; it would be like being in the center of a merry-go-round] and zero at the equator. The Battle of the Falklands was at 52 degrees south of the equator, which is more than half way to the South Pole [90 degrees south], so the Coriolis force would be of moderate effect.Radar-directed gunfire came into its own in WWII and was largely responsible for the sinking of the Second World War battleship, perhaps tempting fate by also being called Scharnhorst.For those interested in naval history, the Falklands Battle in 1914 was a result of the earlier destruction by armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau of the British armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth at the Battle of Coronel. To use the same type description for these last two is like saying a weekend golfer is playing the same sport as Tiger Woods. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were bigger, faster, had thicker armor and (with one exception) bigger guns.Scharnhorst (left) Good Hope (right.)In addition, all the Germans’ guns were mounted on the upper decks, while, other than the exception mentioned above, Good Hope’s and Monmouth’s were in casemates along the hull (reminiscent of the old wooden men-of-war), unusable when the ship rolled in a heavy sea and swamped by waves in stormy weather that also rendered their rangefinders next to useless because of spray and salt. They were old ships, launched in the late 1800s.The two German armored cruisers, commanded by Rear-Admiral Graf (Count) von Spee, along with the light cruisers Dresden, Nuremburg and Leipzig,had been conducting commerce raiding in the southern Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The British Admiralty was determined to remind Germany that Britannia Rules the Waves. However, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau mounted 8.5″ main guns, and 5.9″ secondary batteries. The one exception, on the British flagship, Good Hope, was a single 9.2″ gun fore and aft on the upper deck. The rest of her guns, and all of Monmouth’s, were relatively puny 6″ ones. The German 8.5″ main battery shells were twice as heavy and contained double the explosive power of the 6″. The two 9.2″ on Good Hope were old designs, and well outranged by the German 8.5’s. (In fact, the German 5.9″ secondary armament would probably have won the battle alone.) In addition, while the British ships were largely manned by reservists and cadets, the Germans were all top-class experienced officers and seamen, and the two armored cruisers were the champion gunnery ships in the Kaiser’s navy.So why were these two old crocs sent against far superior enemies? Because at the time they were all that the Royal Navy had in that part of the world. The Admiralty ordered the equally old battleship Canopus with her 12″ guns to join the two. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty (the chief government minister in charge of the Navy) rather optimistically called Canopus “a citadel around which Good Hope and Monmouth will be secure,” and it was true that the Germans, thousands of miles from home, would not risk coming within range of her big guns. The problem was that Canopus was a couple of hundred miles away and its ancient and ailing engines, between frequent breakdowns, could only push her along at the jogging speed of about 11 kts on a good day [the ship’s chief engineering officer was so distraught at trying to even keep them running that he eventually had a nervous breakdown and locked himself in his cabin. He was eventually invalided out of the Navy.]The commander of the two old RN armored cruisers, Vice Admiral Chris Craddock,was faced with a dilemma. With Canopus he could not hope to catch the German warships; without her he was almost certainly facing death. In any event, it would take the old battleship a week or more to join him. He didn’t hesitate. When radio messages were received of the German ships’ position off the Chilean port of Coronel, he went after them. Churchill wrote: “And now began the saddest of naval action of the war. Of the officers and men in both squadrons that faced each other in these stormy seas so far from home, nine out of ten were doomed to perish. The British were to die that night; the Germans a month later.”The German ships stayed close to the Chilean shore, while Craddock’s were outlined on the horizon by the setting sun like ducks in a shooting gallery. The RN gunners could only try to guess the position of their enemies against the gray coast, while the German gunners were essentially at artillery practice. Good Hope’s forward 9.2″ gun was disabled almost immediately, and no shells from the aft one came anywhere near their almost invisible targets. Both British ships were sunk with all hands. German reports speak of the utter gallantry of Good Hope as, blazing from every gash in her hull, she turned toward her tormenters in a vain attempt to ram. 1,575 men died on Good Hope and Monmouth. There were no German casualties. It was the Royal Navy’s first defeat in a fleet action in a couple of centuries.Meanwhile Canopus, in a last gasp of its engines, managed to make it to Port Stanley, capital of the Falklands, and was beached on the mud of its harbor. An observation post on a high promontory outside the harbor, with telephone communication to the old ship, was set up by some inspired officer.After Coronel, Adm. Spee’s squadron had vanished into the blue. With a mixture of shame and vengeance, Churchill ordered (over the objections of some admirals) two of the Grand Fleet’s most powerful Dreadnaughts to sail south, the battle-cruisers Invincible and Inflexible - modern, fast and armed with eight 12″ guns. They were ordered to sail within 48 hours, scant time to replenish coal bunkers and ammunition, and recall crew from shore liberty. Inflexible still had civilian workers on board when she sailed, fixing various faults.HMS Invincible. Note “crows’ nest” primary fire control station on foremast, secondary on mainmast. (Gunnery director officers and ratings had to climb over 100 steep steel steps inside one of each tripod mast’s three legs to reach their posts, and the reverse when a relief crew took over. In any kind of sea, with the ship pitching and rolling, quite a task.)Reaching the Falklands, they moored in Post Stanley, being joined by cruisers Carnarvon, Cornwall and Kent, the squadron commanded by Adm. Sir Doveton Sturdee. All five ships needed to refill their coal bunkers and some began repairs. (One can understand why these remote, windswept islands 8,000 miles from England were of crucial importance in WW1, as most of the Royal Navy fleet was coal-fired and they also represented the only British radio communications center in the S. Atlantic.) One can also perhaps understand the long affection the British have had for them, and why they were determined to eject the Argentine occupiers in 1982.A week later, Spee’s squadron approached the Falklands with the intention of destroying its radio station and, after filling their bunkers, setting fire to its vast coal stores. Gneisenau’s captain, second in command to Spee, had been against the idea, urging, instead a return to Germany in triumph. As his ship, leading the squadron, rounded the entrance to the harbor, as Churchill wrote: “A terrible apparition broke upon German eyes: Rising from behind the promontory, a pair of tripod masts. One glance was enough. They meant certain death. There was no hope of victory. There was no chance of escape. A month earlier, Chris Craddock and his sailors had suffered a similar experience.”At the Admiralty in London came this radio message from Port Stanley: “Admiral Spee arrived at daylight this morning with all his ships and is now in action with Admiral Sturdee’s whole fleet, which was coaling.” Churchill: “These last words sent a shiver up my spine. Had we been taken by surprise, and in spite of our superiority been mauled, unready, at anchor?” Ships moored and in the narrow confines of a harbor cannot maneuver, especially when they are filling their bunkers and fixing mechanical problems. It was just possible that Spee might stand off and bombard the British ships, who could not see them, in the same way the British did to the French in Mers-el-Kebir in 1940 (to prevent thse warships, after the rise of the collaborating Vichy government, falling into German hands.) It would take Sturdee’s ships two hours to raise steam.Here, old Canopus played a crucial part. The spotter on the promontory phoned the battleship’s gunnery officer and, to the consternation of the Germans, two enormous waterspouts from exploding 12″ shells appeared a few hundred yards away, followed a minute later by two other, closer, ones. Von Spee couldn’t risk his ships to observer-directed gunfire by heavy shells. There would be no bombardment of Sturdee’s squadron; the ships turned and set off at their best possible speed. With some 16 hours of daylight in winter at these far-south latitudes, their only hope was to disappear into one of the frequent fog and rain storms common to the south Atlantic. It was not to be.Invincible, Inflexible and the cruisers left harbor at 10 am, the position of the German ships being betrayed by tall columns of coal smoke 15 miles away. By 12.45pm the battle-cruisers were close enough to open fire.HMS Inflexible opens fireThe battle-cruisers’ 12″ guns outranged the German 8.5s by several miles, and when von Spee turned to try to close the gap the Brits turned away. Light cruiser Leipzig, the slowest of the German ships, began to lag behind and at 1pm Inflexible opened fire on her. Confronted by his ships being devoured one by one, von Spee ordered the light cruisers to flee and turned his two armored cruisers to face his opponents. At the long range necessary to hit the Germans while keeping his own ships as immune as possible, it took a considerable time and a great deal of ammunition to achieve their destruction, and coal smoke from Invincible often obscured Inflexible - second in line - forcing her to cease firing for a time, and the prevailing wind caused smoke from all five RN ships to obscure von Spee’s several times [these problems may possibly be the reason for the question prompting this reply.] At the cessation of firing, Invincible had only enough shells left for three full broadsides, and Inflexible for two. In the confusion of the British ships’ inadvertent smoke screen, several times Scharnhorst and Gneisenau managed to come close enough for 40 of his 8.5″ shells to hit the battle-cruisers, but their armor resisted the impacts. One British sailor was killed, the sole fatality on the RN side.The ultimate results were never in doubt. Scharnhorst, with all hands, including von Spee, sank at 4.17 pm, after signaling to Gneisenau “try to escape if your engines are still intact.” The very last signal Spee sent to her captain was “you were right” [about not attacking the Falklands.] Now the target of both battle-cruisers, Gneisenau fought on despite the hopeless odds, and at 6pm also sank, taking 598 men with her. The British ships rushed to the spot and managed to save 187 men from the sea, including the executive officer Carl Pochhammer, the highest-ranking German officer to survive.HMS Inflexible picking up survivors. Her boats can be seen on the middle right of the photo.Meanwhile, the chase was on to sink the German light cruisers. Leipzig was finished off by Cornwall, but Nurnberg, the fastest, was racing away. HMS Kent went after her, and what occurred during the chase would have made a Peter Sellers comedy had the implications not been so serious.Kent was the “runt of the littler” of the County-Class cruisers - she had never reaching her designed top speed in trials. She had also not had time to coal and her bunkers were less than one quarter full. In the race, Captain Allen ordered the boiler safety valves screwed down and, when the coal ran out, every piece of combustible matter on the ship went into the roaring furnaces - shoring timber, gang planks, bunks, shelves, tables and chairs, the chaplain’s lectern and even the wardroom piano. Eventually even deck timbers were being torn up. Kent ended up breaking the speed record for her class, and overtook Nurnberg. Despite Kent ceasing fire several times and signaling: “We wish to save lives,” the Germans continued to fire with their one remaining working gun and refused to surrender. When their ship foundered a group was observed on the stern before it disappeared under the water, waving the German flag. There were no survivors.The Dresden was the only one of von Spee’s ships to escape the battle, but was hunted down and destroyed three months later at Mas-a-Fuera, Chile.P.S. Two of von Spee’s sons were also lost in the battle in various of his ships that day.

It would be a taxing intellectual exercise to recall a challenger for president that has created more controversy in recent memory than Donald Trump. The demise of his candidacy has been predicted many times after each successive apparent brash and politically incorrect statement. Yet like some 1950's science fiction alien monster, the laser cannons and rockets fired at the beast to fend off the invasion of Earth is simply absorbed and catalyzed into some strange new form of fusion energy not yet understood by our simple scientists making him bigger and stronger. Try as they might to malign "The Donald" by waxing eloquent and rightously on his reputation and moral character, the media is left dumbfounded and ineffectual as Trump's support grows eclipsing his nearest competitor. And it has certainly not been due to lack of effort. Donald Trump’s critics have attempted to exploit an endless array of apparent weaknesses and bad judgment on issues such as his business history of bankruptcies, multiple divorces, lack of conservative credentials, evolving political positions, attacks on fellow politicians, disregard for the war hero status of John McCain, a lack of sensitivity towards a disabled reporter and finally critical commentary for Muslim refugees and Latino immigrants. But because the media did not create Donald Trump, it is beyond their ability to destroy him. And like the appearance of Fortinbras at the end of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, it appears Donald Trump will ride victorious to the crown as the divided contenders for the nomination destroy each other one by one.Yet for all of his controversy and media attention, his critics would be loath to admit one very important critical fact, a majority of American voters are in agreement with most if not all of Trump’s positions:A plurality of American’s feel we are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own benefiting large corporations while driving down wages for working class Americans. They agree with the construction of a border wall, the mandatory return of all criminal aliens, the implementation of nationwide E-verify, the cessation of the Obama Administration’s catch-and-release detention policies, the abolishment of sanctuary cities, the implementation of a visa tracking system and criminal penalties for illegally overstaying a temporary visa.Most agree that there should also be a pause on immigration from countries such as Syria with a large Islamic extremist population.A plurality of Americans believe that we should bring foreign trading partners, especially China, to the bargaining table addressing it’s currency manipulation, protect American ingenuity and investment by forcing our partners uphold intellectual property laws, reclaim millions of American manufacturing jobs by ending illegal export subsidies and lax labor and environmental standard, and finally agreeing to no more sweatshops or pollution havens stealing jobs from American workers.Many Americans believe that lowering our corporate tax rate on domestic profits and the repatriation of foreign earnings will help keep American companies and jobs here at home, attacking our debt and deficit.Most Americans agree in strong national defense, supporting our allies abroad, supporting our veterans and protecting our second amendment rights.Many critics are also quick to point out Donald Trump’s lack of experience in government. Let’s pause here and think for a moment on the resume of our current president, Barack Obama; a one term state Senator from Illinois whom served just 143 days in congress before becoming president. Prior to this, his only experience of any importance was that of community organizer. Compare this to Mr. Trump’s administrative experience directing a host of businesses making several billions of dollars. Clearly Mr. Trump’s business experience and acumen vastly exceeds that of someone these same critics regard as an effective and admired President.In the end, the chorus of voices that consume the public debate wanting to dismiss supporters of Trump as ignorant, xenophobic or racist harkens back to a once new presidential candidate Obama, reflecting on naïve misguided voters describing them as bitter clingers to guns and religion. However most people from all backgrounds understand immigration control is about jobs. These same critics should note that it’s not just white Christian blue collar Americans that represent the current of dissatisfaction with politics as usual on Capitol Hill failing to listen to the voters that sent them to Washington. Supporters for Trump include a breathe and depth of all ages, genders, races, backgrounds, religions and educations.The best way to show support then is simply stick to the issues. Competition in the marketplace of ideas are what open elections are about. And Donald Trump is not as divisive as you might believe. He has growing support from blue collar democrats and is centric enough to win the presidency.