Transcript

BEST OF 2025: Queen of Sinking Ships + The Great Emu War

From My Favorite Murder · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 57 min · 9,965 words · 98 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "BEST OF 2025: Queen of Sinking Ships + The Great Emu War", an episode of My Favorite Murder published January 7, 2026 (57 min, about 9,965 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Titanic, Britannic, World War One, Charles Johnson, Violet Jessop.

What this episode is about

The content explores the infamous sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, emphasizing the stories of survivors and the human experiences during the disaster. It highlights notable figures, such as the Unsinkable Molly Brown, who played a crucial role in supporting fellow passengers during the chaos.

Key takeaways

  • The Titanic sinking was a catastrophe, but some survivors turned terror into tales of resilience.
  • Molly Brown’s bold leadership on lifeboat six proves that sometimes, survival is about rallying the troops.
  • Who knew getting drunk could be a life-saving strategy? Cheers to Charles Johnson's unexpected warmth!
  • Violet Jessop: the 'queen of sinking ships'—her maritime resume puts James Bond to shame.
  • Early 20th-century infant mortality was brutal, but Violet Jessop turned her childhood struggles into a survival legacy.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Titanic, Charles Johnson, David Kennedy, The Unsinkable Molly Brown
  2. – 10:00: Titanic
  3. – 15:00: Titanic
  4. – 20:00: Titanic, S.S. Carpathia
  5. – 25:00: Britannic, Titanic, World War One
  6. – 30:00: Britannic
  7. – 35:00: Britannic, Titanic
  8. – 40:00: Joseph Lyons, Violet Jessop, World War One
  9. – 50:00: World War One, Crypto.com Arena, James Meredith
  10. – 55:00: Joseph Lyons
  11. – 57:20: James Meredith, Korean War, World War One, World War Two

Notable quotes from "BEST OF 2025: Queen of Sinking Ships + The Great Emu War"

  • We're in the middle of the North Atlantic where the Titanic is sinking.
    about Titanic · at
  • At this same moment that she's doing that over on lifeboat six, the Titanic's baker, Charles Johnson, you might remember he was the drunk one.
    about Charles Johnson · at
  • This is the story of stewardess Violet Jessop. Yes.
    about Violet Jessop · at
  • At one point, she worries that both she and the infant are going to freeze to death in lifeboat 16, and then the rescue ship, the S.S.
    about S.S. Carpathia · at
  • In late 1916, she's assigned work on the Britannic, which is the third of the White Star Line's signature luxury vessels.
    about Britannic · at
  • That's Joseph Lyons and the global price of wheat tanks.
    about Joseph Lyons · at
  • It's the exact capacity of the Crypto.com Arena.
    about Crypto.com Arena · at
  • When Aubrey Meredith is his name.
    about James Meredith · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

  • Titanic — Concept · 23 mentions · first at
  • Britannic — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
  • World War One — Concept · 5 mentions · first at
    World War one begins sort of a violet is 27, and as we all do at age 27, she decides to pivot.
  • Korean War — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    He also serves in World War two and in the Korean War with distinction.
  • World War Two — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    He also serves in World War two and in the Korean War with distinction.

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

Lives where you love me. You. So we're going to go back in time a little bit. We're going to go to a place we've been to before that I've actually forced you to come to twice before, but I need to go back and you'll see why. Okay. So it's 2 a.m. on April 15th, 1912. Okay. You get a sense of what we're about to do. Nope. We're in the middle of the North Atlantic where the Titanic is sinking. Mother fucker. Yeah. So, Titanic. We're going back to the Titanic. I love that you guys love the title. You love that vessel.

A lot of stuff happened on that vessel that I want to tell you about. It's funny that you say 2012, and I'm in the middle of the night and I'm like, I don't know, 1912, but I say 2012. That was a bad year, too. So 2012 was rough. I totally agree. I love your Titanic stories. It's just so funny. Yeah. Here's the thing about me and the Titanic. I love to talk about the people that made it off of the Titanic. Yeah, it's. Pretty an amazing topic. Yeah, I have no interest to go down and look at that Titanic. No, a. Lot of people want to.

I think photos are cool, but they never are. They never give you what you want. You know, they. Don't put you there. They don't put you there. Maybe like, a dish is so exciting, but like, that's about it. Yeah it's. And it's got all those weird algae on it that. There's so. Much algae and a. Couple snails. Yeah. Okay. All right here we're going to 1912. Everything is snail free. The Titanic is sinking. And when it finally disappears under the water, it will take the lives of more than 1500 people with it. Yeah, there will be around 700 survivors.

The survivors we've talked about on this show, episode 411, which was entitled eight years, one episode. That's when I talked about The Unsinkable Molly Brown. They actually called her Margaret Brown, but everyone knows her as the Unsinkable Molly Brown. She makes known to lifeboat six, and she spends her time on that lifeboat, rallying the terrified passengers and urging them to keep rowing. When the officer in charge starts to spiral in the midst of all the terror of what's going on around them, Molly threatens to throw him overboard.

It's great for morale. Everybody keeps going. They survived. Got it girl. At this same moment that she's doing that over on lifeboat six, the Titanic's baker, Charles Johnson, you might remember he was the drunk one. Oh, I guess we learned that drunk when he was, everyone was shitfaced. I mean, that, you know, that band was barely able to, like, keep the bow to the strings. Oh, my God, so much good champagne. If you want to hear me talk about Charles Johnson, it's episode 348. It's called Old Biscuit, and we learn on that one that basically the thing that saved Charles Johnson's life, they think, is that he got super shitfaced.

Basically as the ship sank. He jumped up onto the railing and rode it down as the ship was going into the water. Then he basically tread water in 28 degree waves for several hours and lived. And it's like defy science. And they think it's because, the liquor that was in his system just kept his body warm, almost like tricked him into being warm. That's why I drink is just to stay warm. Same like. Don't tell anybody. We got to stay warm, guys. On this fucking Titanic. That we're on. Yeah. So when Charles Johnson is finally rescued and we talked about this on that episode.

But I still love this. He has two swollen feet, and that's it. That's the only thing wrong with that man who tread water in 28 degree ocean for hours until he got dressed. I mean, I wake up in my bed in worse shape. I, you know. Two swollen feet. I wish that's what. Okay, so it's what character is that? So some of our favorites. But today I'm going to tell you about your new favorite Titanic survivor. She's a third Titanic survivor whose story is more unbelievable than the first two put together. Throughout this woman's life, she'll be involved in not one, not two, but three historic maritime disasters.

The sinking of the Titanic, arguably, is not even the worst one for her. Some people call her the queen of the sinking ships. This is the story of stewardess Violet Jessop. Yes. Main sources that Marin used for the story are Violet's memoir, entitled Titanic Survivor The Memoirs of Violet Jessop, comma stewardess. She fucking worked on the Titanic. Incredible. And also a National Geographic article by journalist David Kennedy entitled She Survived the Titanic. But it wasn't the only time she faced death at sea. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes.

Okay, we start the story 25 years before the Titanic sinks with an Irish Catholic couple from Dublin named William and Kelly Jessop. They have immigrated to South America and now they have a sheep farm in Argentina. And in 1887, they welcome their first child, Violet. They will have eight more children in the coming years. Only six will survive childhood. So this was the horrible infant mortality situation of the turn of the 19 20th century. So Violet herself nearly dies of tuberculosis when she's little. She is sick for weeks, and later she'll describe this time as, quote, a dim awareness of being plunged into a very hot bath, then wrapped in cold, wet sheets followed by long periods of nothingness.

Yikes. So scary and sad for a child. Yeah. And speaking of her, coughing fits are so intense at this time. That, quote blood seemed to be on everything, and her eventual recovery from this is said to be miraculous. Yeah. So normally, Violet's day to day involves helping her family. She's the oldest sister in a big family, which means she's doing cooking, cleaning, taking care of her younger siblings. The whole. Nine. Then in 1903, when Violet is 16 years old, her father William dies while undergoing some kind of a surgery.

It's sudden. It's shocking. The loss hits Violet especially hard. She was her father's favorite child. And she will later write quote. In my grief, I was tongue tied and stunned. Whenever I tried to speak, I discovered I had lost my voice completely. So sad. But of course, the family has no time to mourn. Because now Violet's mother, Kelly, is a widow with. Six kids. Who has to find a way to support the family. So she moves the family back to Europe, where they settle in England. And Kelly gets to work on ocean liners sailing between the UK and America.

She's hired as a stewardess, and that means she's doing things like cleaning cabins, serving meals, and even some light nursing duties. And while she's at sea, Violet is left to raise her siblings by herself. Wait, her mom left to do that? Yeah. Okay. And she's home with the five other kids. And the youngest is an infant. Oh, no. So they were just making do? Yeah. For the next several years. Violet's basically a stay at home mom dreaming about the day her mother will come home for good. And when she does, Violet plans that she will join the convent.

But that dream never pans out. Because instead, in 1908, when Violet is around 21 years old, her mother gets very sick and it's serious enough that she has to stop working. So to keep food on the family table, Violet again steps up, and even though she does not like the ocean, she does not know how to swim. And she is kind of freaked out by the vast openness of the sea. She starts looking for stewardess work. She knows it's a good job if she can get paid well. She her mom can tell her how to do it. Yeah. And she not only has years of caregiving experience raising her brothers and sisters.

She's fluent in Spanish from having been raised in Argentina. Right. But at the time, she struggles to get work as a stewardess, partly because she's so young. Much younger than most of the stewardesses who are working at the time. But also, Violet is very beautiful, which works against her because in a job like that, you're supposed to blend in and just be part of the wallpaper, right? And whether she wants to or not, Violet does not blend in. I get it. Night sick. I think. I've been through it, I. Feel. Bad. I've never been a stewardess for that very reason on the Titanic.

So after she gets interviewed a couple times and gets rejected. She starts dressing down for the interviews. She stops wearing makeup altogether, and it works. She ends up landing one job after another. And by 1911, 24 year old Violet is hired by the White Star Line to work aboard the RMS Olympic. So at the time, the RMS Olympic is the largest passenger ship in the world. It's completely state of the art. It has electric elevators, Turkish baths, a swimming pool, and ornate features like crystal chandeliers and marble statues and plush velvet furniture.

Amazing. They really went all out as like the Empire State Building on the sea. Yeah, not that. Tall. But anyhow, Violet isn't all that impressed. She's just there for the money. And that's what keeps her going when she has the experience that she really doesn't like, which is the passengers treating her like their servant. Which happens often. And rich male passengers leer at her. They propositioned her. Some even propose, like the second they meet her while the women passengers can be extremely cutting. Very condescending.

Later on, Violet will write. Quote. I often reflected that there must be some quality in a sea trip that affects character. Or maybe it's enforced. Propinquity emphasizes how awful normal folk can become. Mean, paltry, and selfish to a degree when they are in the position of indiscriminate power. It's like what happens on the Titanic stays on the Titanic. Yeah. And also it's like just because we're stuck on this boat together doesn't mean I got to do everything you're saying. Yeah. Marin made a note to me. Propinquity means physical closeness or nearness.

Yeah. And then she was like, I've never heard this word before. Thank you again. Propinquity. It's your continual. Propinquity that causes the problem. Say it in Azzam. Asmaa, if you have a tendency toward propinquity, toward. Tapping your nails on stuff that's misused. Okay, so now it's September 1911. Violet's been working as a crew member on the Olympic for months. And then one night, the boat she's on, the Olympic collides with a British warship called the Hawk off the coast of the Isle of White. So the hawk is this little.

It's like a sixth of the size of the Olympic. And it's actually specifically built to ram and sink enemy vessels. So it's very strong. The two boats collide and the hawk nearly capsizes, but it still manages to leave a 40ft gash along the side of the Olympic. Water rushes into the bottom of the ship, and it actually downs a propeller. And of course, from her room, Violet hears and feels this horrible impact. Although no one's injured or killed from this crash. And the ships aren't very far from land. And even with that propeller down, the Olympic is able to just hobble back to port.

So no one has to evacuate on lifeboats. So, comparatively, this is probably the tamest of all the, ship. Horrible ship accidents that Violet is involved in. She gets reassigned to another White Star Line ship. And it is the company's brand new luxury ocean liner that's gearing up for its maiden voyage. It is the. Titanic. Hey, so we're back on the North Atlantic. Just before midnight on April 14th. Violet is in her corridor. She is getting ready for bed after being a stewardess all day on the Titanic. The feet, the feet pain. Just the feet.

The work, the, Over here. You get me a role? Yeah. Snap snap snap snap roll. So Violet's back in her quarters. She's holding a piece of paper that has a handwritten prayer on it. And it's one that's supposed to protect her from fire and water. So. Which is. Very. Catholic. We have saints. They do very specific things. Very specific people. I guess there's a fire and water saint. Okay, I'll look up who it is later. And as all of that is going on, Violet hears a huge crash followed by a quote, low rending, crunching, ripping sound.

So, of course it's a scary thing for her to experience. But like everyone else on board, they've been told time and again that the Titanic is unsinkable. So no one's panicking. She certainly has not. But, eventually, a shellshocked Violet is called up to the deck. This will be her very last assignment on the Titanic. She's told to translate evacuation instructions for the Spanish speaking passengers and then to assist women and children getting on the lifeboats. So that's what she does until she herself is loaded onto lifeboat 16.

Wow. Moments before her group is lowered into the ocean, an officer rushes over and says to Violet, quote, here, Miss Jessup, look after this. And then basically hands her a baby girl. The baby had been left alone on deck. And so the officer just basically made the hasty decision to grab this baby and throw it to Violet for safekeeping. So as their boat is lowered some 60ft in the dark to the freezing cold ocean below with icy wind whipping at their faces like, quote, a knife in its penetrating coldness. Violet is trying to soothe this baby girl.

Yeah. But the lifeboat hits the water hard. You don't think about the heart of it. It's like, yes, you're being saved in a way. Yeah, but. Off of a sinking ship. Right. Into in a hurry. The North Sea. Yeah. That we've all seen TikToks about. Is it the North Sea? Yeah. Well, the North Atlantic. Yeah. So the baby starts crying when the when the lifeboat hits the water again. Just quick reminder. Violet does not know how to swim. And she's of course, terrified herself. But she focuses on the baby. She pulls the baby to her chest, hoping to keep her warm.

And she just watches us as the Titanic sinks into blackness. And here's how Violet will later describe this moment. She says, quote, I watched the Titanic give a lurch forward. One of the huge funnels toppled off like a cardboard model falling into the sea with a fearful roar. A few cries came to us across the water, then silence as the ship seemed to write itself like a hurt animal with a broken back. She settled for a few minutes, but one more deck of lighted ports disappeared. Then she went down by the head and a thundering roar of underwater explosions.

Our proud ship, our beautiful Titanic, gone to her doom. God, what a sight. I mean. And you're like, however many feet away you could get away. Totally looking. At that. I. I don't like it. It's too big and it's too vast. I'm on Violet's. Side. I don't like that. That's why I need to keep talking. Okay, I get it. So for the next several hours, as traumatized Titanic survivors wait to be rescued, Violet clings to this baby as you would. At one point, she worries that both she and the infant are going to freeze to death in lifeboat 16, and then the rescue ship, the S.S.

Carpathia, shows up around 4 a.m.. So it's like about two hours. Did you? Did we ever have the discussion about, like, the, magnets? How do they work? How do they work? How do they maybe affect the Titanic's, scouting system? Yeah. Do we. Talk about that in any of. These? I don't think so. Well, do you want to throw some theories out? I'll do it another day. Have you been listening to RFK podcast? What's happening? It's all magnets. It's all magnet. You think something interfered, and that's how it. Goes into. The ice.

But a natural phenomenon interfered. And that. Yeah, that's why. Some like Bermuda Triangle. Exactly. So if you know what I'm talking about, send me the article that I write about. Please. Cause I don't remember if you know what we're talking about. You're in the North Atlantic right now. Tell me. Tell me what I'm telling you. Tell me, was this just an episode of Below Deck? And I'm totally. If I could be. Wrong, it could be. I slept with him because of the magnets. They drew me toward his cabin. His dick is the. Bermuda. Triangle.

It's not my fault that the draw is so strong. It's like two cartoon magnets pulling wily peyote off a. Dick was the lifeboat. Okay. Stop it, stop it! Serious podcast. I was just. Talking about a baby. Okay. You're playing this for your mom, and now she's horrified. Okay, we're going to do a quote from Violet about the moment that she and the baby are safe. Okay. Ready? Okay. Quote I was still clutching the baby against my hard core life belt when a woman leaped at me and grabbed the baby and rushed off with it. Hey.

It appeared that she put it down on the deck of the Titanic while she went off to fetch something, and when she came back, the baby had gone. I was too frozen and numb to think it strange that this woman had not stopped to say thank you. End quote. Oh so. So the mom came. The mom was like, you have my baby. That's my baby. Okay, well, everyone's panicking, so. And nobody would blame. She thought she. Lost the baby totally. Entirely. And there's a lady that has the baby. But also, like. Babies all look the same to me.

Like carrying on baby the same like such babies. Beatitudes. Years later, Violet will receive a very short phone call from a woman claiming to be that baby. Oh the baby. The baby called her back. I know it's a baby. Can't call us caller ID it's the baby. That baby, baby. Your favorite baby. Titanic baby from the North Atlantic. Some people say that that call was either a hoax or it wasn't really. Violet seemed to believe she really was the caller. Sure. Why not? The Carpathia spends four hours pulling Titanic survivors from their lifeboats.

Ultimately, they deliver around 700 people to safety in the New York harbor. I thought they went to Canada. I think they took the dead bodies to Canada. Oh, that's where the big mark was. Okay, but sorry. That's just what it said here. So you could be right. Okay. That's probably below deck. Okay. Gone. That's more. Below deck. Newfoundland. From there, a violet catches a ship back to England, and not two weeks later, she signs back up to go out to sea to work as a stewardess once. Again because, like, what are the chances, right?

I'm sure. And she's kind of like, this is a real skill. She probably can make good money comparatively, and. She needs the money she's not like, has to take time off. Now. She can't go find herself and do a year abroad. I think there was a Titanic survivor fund or something. No, they didn't do that then. I mean, you would think something. But anyway, she's kind of like all business, which. Sorry, I do love that. Yeah. We're just like, hey, look. Irish man, it. It really is. It's Irish Catholic because it's like, I'll get my reward later.

I'll go back on to the thing that tried to kill me last two times. Okay? She will say, quote, I knew that if I meant to continue my sea life, I would have to return at once. Otherwise I would lose my nerve, for I had no love for it. But I needed the work. Girl. Yeah. Intense. So Violet will later write about how the sinking of the Titanic changes her entire perspective on life and strengthens her already very deep faith. What it does not do is change how much she hates being at the beck and call of rich travelers.

There's no faith strong enough to get you over rich people snapping their fingers at you. Absolutely not. Violet writes on that topic. Quote I wanted the quietness of happy contentment, not the hectic turmoil of riches which sapped simplicity and spontaneous kindness out of people. I wanted desperately to shut out the encroachment of sea life on my inner self, to retain something I feared I was losing, a kind of action that's performed for the love of pleasing and not for gain. Wow. I had gained one thing. I learned how to look very deeply into people and to value them for what I found.

Famous names and possessions no longer moved me. I was more confident when confronted by some powerful woman whose cold eyes, as I served her breakfast might once have shattered me, but each day she's literally talking about my career. But each day it was more. But each day it was more difficult to be my simple self, to ignore the pettiness, artificiality and frothy gaiety that encompassed a stewardesses life on board a ship. I fucking totally hear that. Yeah, I as an ex waitress, I fucking hear it. Come on. Like it's not.

Titled motherfuckers. On Vacation being like, you make my vacation. Totally. So it's the literal opposite of a vacation. You are here to serve, to serve me. And that's your purpose. Snap snap. Snap fuck. You know, it's 1914. World War one begins sort of a violet is 27, and as we all do at age 27, she decides to pivot. So what she does is become a war nurse. Definitely. That's what you did. You got to. So she's in the hospitals, both on land and at sea. Oh, honey, she can't stop. In late 1916, she's assigned work on the Britannic, which is the third of the White Star Line's signature luxury vessels.

This sister ship to the Olympic and to the Titanic. Don't they know when to quit. Or, like, change the name of the company? So with this assignment, Violet will have worked on all three. Wow. The White Star Line's got a navy ship. That's got there. Can't be a lot of them. No, I bet you they gave her a nice pocket watch for it. So during the war, the Britannic is repurposed into a hospital ship. And on November 21st, 1916, it's moving through the Aegean Sea on the way to the battlefields in Turkey to treat wounded soldiers there.

So they go pick up all the wounded soldiers and take them back away from all the war. At a little after 9 a.m., Violet has just left mass. Church, and she's now quietly eating her breakfast. You mean temple? Yes. Oh, do I have. To translate it for you? Thank you, thank you. Eating breakfast post mass post. Mass and not Massachusetts and its inner. Her breakfast is interrupted by a loud boom. We're doing it again. For years, the cause of the blast will be unclear, but today, in 2025, it's believed that the Britannic hit a mine.

No way. Yeah. So the ship shakes violently, begins to sink. Violet yawns, shakes her watch, looks around. Is there baby? Does anyone wanna give me a baby? I'm crying. It's not that big of a deal. I've seen worse. It's even funny of a baby mama. I'll be. I'll take the baby. And the babies over here, please. She's finishing her English muffin. Officers immediately start moving people on to lifeboats, but Violet runs back to her room to get a prayer book and a toothbrush, honey, which is something she's sorely missed.

After surviving the Titanic sinking, a friend had jokingly told Violet to, quote, never undertake another disaster without first making sure of your toothbrush. That's how much she complained about not being able to brush her teeth after surviving the sinking of how much were. Toothbrushes back then? I can and what day and what money and what and then money. What the toothbrush. Cost. I think she was just like it was no one's priority to get me a toothbrush after we got back to land. And so she's like, never again. Okay.

All right. Girl, seems like you can use your finger like we all did when we crashed at dude's house in our 20s. So now Violet's loaded onto a crowded lifeboat. This is, for if you are, the kind of person that doesn't understand why you listen to true crime podcasts. Because they're upsetting. Yeah, this part might upset you. Oh, okay. Got it. This is a very upsetting part. Oh, especially if you have ocean issues. Okay. Or you're on a boat. Or if you're on. A boat right now. So they're slowly being lowered into the water, which is not a smooth journey.

The ship starts tilting, the lifeboat gets snagged on an open porthole. It almost flips upside down, but the people on the lifeboat managed to get it uncaught. Now it's scraping down the side of the Britannic as it's lowered. At one point, the ship takes another hard tilt and the lifeboat goes out and swings into the ship's green hospital band, which is made of glass. So it's it's a hospital ship? Yeah. The green band around it is actually made of glass. I didn't know that. So there's like a red cross up here. Red cross back there. That's, you know.

Hey, don't bomb this ship canvas. Yeah, it was. A shortage of canvas. I don't know who planned that, but they smash into it and glass shatters and Violet and the other people on the lifeboat are sprayed with shards of glass. Okay. All the while, Violet is looking down at the water. She can see two lifeboats are already down there, and the people who are on those lifeboats are doing everything they can to row away from the ship itself. But the captain is still trying to move the Britannic towards shallower waters, and he has not turned off the ship's propeller.

Oh, no. Yes. No. The propeller is now sucking the evacuees and their lifeboats. Toward. Itself, toward the ship. The violet watches as the worst case scenario plays out in front of her. One of the lifeboats gets sucked into the ship's blades and the boat and all of the people on it are hacked to pieces, and the water then turns red with blood as she. As they're dangling over the water, they're supposed to go down into. Oh no! Violet will later say, quote, I gave that foolish, nervous laugh, as people sometimes do when faced with an unpleasant discovery and a doubtful alternative.

That's a beautiful way of putting oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck fuck, Holy fuck her. Just sitting there looking down. Oh my God. Violet's lifeboat is finally dropped into the same water. Almost on cue, everyone except for Violet and one other man jump out of the boat and into the sea. Yeah. Violet will later write about this quote. Not a word, not a shout was heard. Just hundreds of men fleeing into the sea as if from an enemy in pursuit. It was extraordinary to find myself in the space of a few minutes. Almost the only occupant of the boat.

I turned around to see the reason for this exodus, and to my horror, saw the Botanics huge propellers churning and mincing up everything near them. Men, boats and everything were just one ghastly whirl. Oh man, did shut it off. So she turned around to see why everyone's jumping off the boat. And then when she turns back, the one guy that was left also jumps. Off the boat. So horrible she can't swim, right? That's right. It's not an. Option. And yet she knows if she stays on this boat, she's going into that propeller.

Yeah. So she flings herself into the water, kicking and paddling for her life. And it is the very first time her whole body and her head are underwater. Like that. Okay? I mean, I'm sure she took baths before, but, like, never, she has never. Yeah. She's immediately jerked around by the power of these propellers. Yeah. They just suck you right in. Yes you do. You have. No. That water's going. You're going to go where that water takes you. Her head is hit onto the ship's keel, which is the bottom spine. Twice she's pulled down and and her head is knocked into the keel twice.

She will later write, quote. My brain shook like a solid body in a bottle of liquid. Oh my God. At the same time, the keel is also blocking violet from being able to come back up and surface. So she is under there, about to drown. She says quote. Suddenly some twist of fancy made me see even then underwater, the humor of my situation. Oh my honey and I chuckled. That was very nearly my undoing, for I swallowed what seemed like gallons of water and everything that was in it. I love her, I love. Her like, how much fun was she to have a drink.

With she. At? Because she is like, you got to. Be thinking bucket. Now someone hand me a baby down. Can you believe. It? Miraculously, this is when the captain finally cuts the ship's engine. Thanks guy. The propellers stop and now Violet's adrenaline kicks in. Yes, she is injured. It's a it is a head injury, but somehow she forces her way to the surface and finds a life vest floating nearby. She holds on to that life vest. She keeps her head above water and she swims past dismembered corpses and dangerous debris from the chopped up lifeboats.

Dude. Horror show? Yeah, yeah, that's the word. This is the worst one. While the Britannic continues sinking behind her, Violet is far enough away. She gets far enough away. And when she does, she turns around and she watches it go down. And this is what she has to say about witnessing. This. Quote. She says all the deck machinery fell into the sea like child's toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air, until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths. The noise of her going resounding through the water with an undreamt of violence. Wow.

You just don't want to be that close to these gigantic ships when they sink. Like, really? You want to be at home. Far, far away. At home with your eight brothers and sisters. So Violet's out there, bobbing in the water, clinging to the life vest until a motorboat approaches and pulls her up to safety. She then realizes for the first time that her leg has been slashed and her head is, quote, battered almost to a pulp. Oof! Doctors are amazed by how mobile and alert Violet is when she sees a Britannic doctor that she sat beside at mass earlier that morning.

He tells her, quote, I know what saved you today, young lady. English muffin. I did you hear the way I choked on the finishing that sentence where I'm like, oh wait, he means God. Oh, not a second. Hold on. A second. What do you think about this? I don't know, I wasn't really thinking. I was like, this is a highly Catholic. Church. Sponsored episode. The Britannic will sink in just under 55 minutes. It took the Titanic two hours and 40 minutes to sink. This thing went down fast. 28 people are killed when the Britannic sinks.

It could have been much worse if the ship had picked up wounded soldiers, but it was on the way. Oh, thank God. Yeah. Violet is patched up and she's sent home to England, where she lives with her mom, Kelly. She ends up getting a job at a bank. And that sounds way better. I mean, but she she's having problems with her, basically with her cognition. Because of the head injury. Years after the sinking, a doctor will be doing a routine exam on her when he tells Violet that she'd actually fractured her skull. Oh, when her head hit the Botanics keel and she somehow not only survived, but was never treated for it and basically got through it to know.

So a few years after that, in 1920, when Violet is around 33 years old, she gets an itch to go back to see, okay. Okay Violet. Will go back to the White Star Line on the restored Olympic, which is the ocean liner she worked on that collided with the. Hawke number one. Yes. Okay. Violet immediately notices how different the Olympics passengers are from the last time she was on it. Instead of the stuffy, ultra rich, bossy assholes that she had worked for before the war. Victorian Richie Riches. Right now she's dealing with Americans.

Oh, many middle class. They're just there to have fun graves. Because on land it's prohibition. Right? So that's a new responsibility as a steward on this ship. It's part of your job to basically help these VIPs to booze it up while they're on the ship. Sounds great. And basically part of the job is you have to hide the booze from customs agents. Got it. Violet will write about that quote. It was all so fantastic. There were pillars of Wall Street senators, lawyers, debutantes, all with their minds on the same problem.

As we approach the shores of the United States, how do we keep drinking? So from here, Violet bounces around to other ships. She even completes two cruises around the world on the Red Star Line. And that experience means a lot to Violet. She's surrounded by diverse people. She's exposed to different world cultures. And this is when she really begins embracing her life as a stewardess, which she then comes to appreciate for its excitement and its unpredictability and the ways it's tested her spirit and resolve. Fair enough. I mean, that's quite a line.

Marin having written that of like, testing her spirit and resolve. It's like. You. Almost died on a three. The ocean wants to kill you so bad. Definitely. This is fucking final destination. Victoria. She's like, guess what? Yeah, I. Was at church this morning. It's not happening. Today. That's right. Mass will keep you from dying. Violet spends the next several years at sea. She marries and quickly divorces a fellow steward. In 1950, she retires at the age of 63 and moves into a cottage in Suffolk, England, in a village called Great Ashfield, where she raises chickens, makes an adjacent field available for her neighbors horses, who she loves like her own, and she even grows flowers that remind her of the ones that she loved.

As a little girl in Argentina, Violet Jessup dies of congestive heart failure in 1971 when she is 83 years old. What a fucking life. What a life. And despite her long career at sea, she ends her life very grounded, close with her family, doting on her neighbor's horses, tending to her garden, and every so often delighting in telling one of her unbelievable stories of survival. And that is the story and the legend of the so-called Queen of the sinking ships. Violet Jessop. Wow. Yeah, I take that. I'll take that life.

Yeah okay. I'll take it all the way up until I bring over red water. Well people. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know what that was. I mean, I know what that one. That's fucking wild. It is not cool. How great. Job. Thank you. Did it again. This is about, not well known war that took place in Western Australia in the 1930s. Oh. That. I mean, it's so not well known that we got one email from a listener about it in the Gmail. That's it. Okay. But I think it's going to be your new favorite war. Okay. Because I have so many.

I mean, yeah, it's going to be. Tough. It's going to be tough. I'd say my first favorite Wars Mash. Okay. So I'm going to I'm going to start cold and I'll tell you what it's called okay. In a moment. Okay. I'll wait. Please wait. Okay. Please hold. So we're in the aftermath of World War one, thousands of veterans who are nicknamed soldier settlers moved to Western Australia and it's a vast area with a huge array of climates. There's tropical coast up north, desert and interior, a mediterranean climate similar to parts of California on the south western coasts.

It's a fucking beautiful place. We should all have moved here. We should tell you think. Remember, we did like a tour, which was kind of southeastern. Yeah. We didn't go to Perth. You didn't go to Perth or. Matt Hang next time. So the Australian government has bought thousands of tracts of land to sell to the soldiers at discounted prices in an effort to reward the men for their service with farmland to develop and profit from. So they're trying to, you know, expand, give back. Yeah. There are more than 5000 soldiers who buy land under the scheme.

And the problem is that the amount of land with good soil for farming in Western Australia is kind of low. So many of these soldiers are stuck out on tracks with low quality soil and a host of other issues that haven't really been thought through. In the end, most of these soldiers wind up raising sheep and planting wheat and, which is what's most suited to the climate. And in the 1920s, there's actually a string of really good years. The wheat grows well, the farmers are insulated a bit from bad years by selling wool from the sheep.

And everyone is making money. Everything's fine. Then in 1929, your favorite Great Depression happens. The Great Depression, the great. The great, the greatest depression. I was falling asleep last night. Took the world according to Cunk with Philomena Cunk again, and I was just laughing out loud. I couldn't sleep. So. Surely one of the best books ever. And period. At first, when the Great Depression starts, the price of wheat stays pretty stable. Other prices for goods tank in Australia. So the government pushes a big initiative to get farmers to produce more wheat because it's selling.

Hay right? Let's just do it. The slogan they come up with for the farmers to grow more wheat is my guess. Hey, it's wheat time, guys. No, it's it's more complicated. It's just grow more wheat. Tamara said I had you on their creative team. Goddamn it. The Australian Prime Minister promises the farmers that the government will buy the wheat at a good price. Australian farmers enthusiastically take him up on this offer, vastly expanding their wheat production. Right. But by the early 1930s, there's a new prime minister that always fucking happens.

You never you never plan for that every. Time. It happens. Yeah. That's Joseph Lyons and the global price of wheat tanks. Thanks for nothing. The government. You acted like you were reading off the page. Well, good one. The government, which already is facing a massive deficit, actually goes back on the previous Prime Minister's promise because they can do that. Yeah. So the situation is already fairly bleak at this point. By October of 1932, that's where we are when that year's wheat harvest is supposed to start.

Farmers in the town. And I get these wrong Australians. I'm real sorry. Farmers near the towns of Campion. While Glyn and while Glyn. That's on. Right. Yeah. They report an issue. So this area is one of the drier parts of the state, and it wasn't as well suited to farming already. Right before. The farmers are meant to start harvesting their wheat on this land, a plague overtakes the farms and wreaks havoc on the crops. They trample, they devour. They're more than a nuisance. They're a downright pestilence of epic proportions.

This is the story of the great emu War. Oh, What EMU? All the sudden these poor soldier slaughter. Gentlemen, farm markets. Are not going great. They're just trying to make the best of it. And suddenly. They. Talk their wife into coming. It's going to be great. We're going to be farmers. We're going to own land. It's okay. It's ear free to birds. That's fine. There's hardly any birds out here. Yeah. No, no, it's totally fine. It's Australia. What could go wrong? I mean, wild animal. Why isn't it. Us? You know, snakes, snakes, Crocs.

Okay. And big shout out to my researcher Ali Elkin for even coming up with this story because. So good. I saw it and responded in all caps because it was so exciting, you know. Yes. So let me tell you a little bit about emus, since I don't know how familiar you are with them. I could be thinking of kiwi, which is the small bird. It's not a kiwi. This is the large one that looks kind of like an ostrich. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. So those are actually native to Australia, and I wrote like, Charlize Theron. Wait, that's not right. Is she?

No, I think she's South Africa. You know, I'm mad. I meant Nicole Kidman. Oh, yes. Barbie I'm a Barbie. Margot Robbie Margot Robbie as fuck, man. I can't even get that right. Don't believe a word I say. You had. So many. Choices. I did just. Blond, beautiful actresses. And I picked the wrong fucking one there. The world's second or third largest bird, right after ostriches. So ostriches are bigger than them. Then there's emus. EMUs are considered one of the closest living relatives to dinosaurs. Yes. Right. Okay. Particularly to raptors.

Oh, man. Yeah. They're the only species of bird that has calf muscles. Why do they do that? So isn't that creepy? And little. Like fighting Irish tattoos on those calf muscles? Even worse. And they can jump seven feet high. They can sprint for short distances of 40mph. No. That's fast. That is that's like. On the freeway. Yeah. And that's actually about the speed of an average racehorse too. Oh they're fucking fast. They're fast. Right. You must have a pouch in their throat that they used to make deep booming and grunting sounds for communications that are loud.

You know, I was going to say that. This is new too, particularly during breeding season. Okay. And then here is where. Note to Georgia, I'll put a video of an emu running to see how fast it could go. And then I got into a fucking rabbit hole of emu videos. How'd it go? I wrote zoomies because you must get zoomies. EMUs playing fetch with a little girl, dog and baby. There's one with a dog and a baby emu playing. They're fucking adorable. Okay so. Or is this, like, people now have emu farms? Like, they're raising them, like, awesome. Yes.

So I went down this rabbit hole. I saw them run. It totally look like the beginning of, Jurassic Park with all these long necks, just like they're they're really fun. And I want one now. And, yes, I was going to say. And you're like. But then come on, just one more. Then we can see even those. And actually some emus can be gentle and affectionate if they're raised that way from a young age, but others can be aggressive and moody, especially if they're not socialized property. Ditto. And they may react angrily to being touched or handled.

Hey let's Yeah. So they have tiny wings, so they're flightless, but they're known to migrate very long distances in search of food and water. In the past, emus typically moved through this area that were in toward the coast without staying long before. But there's been a drought in 1932, and the creation of this new farmland has both cleared areas of vegetation and obstacles, and has established new water sources for livestock and irrigation. It's the perfect place for emus. So in this area in this time period, guess how many migratory emus visit this area at once?

I'm going to go ahead and. Say. You don't have to guess if you don't want to. I mean, look, I don't want to. Guess, but I have to go, okay. No, I really want to. I just emu standing here. How many do you think fucking showed up for the great EMU War? 500. 20,000. Who was 20. Fucking thousand emus? Oh no. On to this, like small ish area. Because also they're eating that we. Eat, so we. Yeah, they're drinking all the irrigated water. They're like stomping, they're trampling, they're like wreaking havoc. Partying. They're fucking partying.

This is they're burning, man. It's a 1932 early Burning Man. Oh, Italy. Style. You meet me on the playa. Hey, man. Be yourself. To put that number in perspective, Ali, let me know that 20,000 emus would fill your typical arena where an NBA team would play. It's the exact capacity of the Crypto.com Arena. So not even playing basketball. And then you look up into the crowd and it's fucking just wall to wall emus. And they're like doing weird shit. Like they're going to come down. Right there like it's getting ready to. And they're dinosaurs.

They're dinosaurs. Same amount of feathers as ostriches. I think so, yeah. Yeah. They're similar to ostrich. They you would think it was an ostrich. Yeah. You would do it. Yeah. You'd get it wrong and you wouldn't be stupid right for it. Yeah. That's what we keep. Telling ourselves, right? And to make matters worse, high tariffs imposed in the postwar and depression area have made wire netting prohibitively expensive. Oh, so they can't afford to fence out the emus? That's not a choice. Oh, no, I know, so it's literally a perfect storm.

It is. So the farmers who are all of that, remember, they're all veterans to World War One. Yeah, they do the levelheaded thing. And they write to the Minister of Defense asking to be supplied with machine guns to kill the emos, as you do. Well, the problem is, and I think we've talked about this a lot of like it's sheer numbers where it's like, yeah, if it was 500 EMUs, right. They would be a little more reasonable. 20,000 of these. 1000. So maybe because the government has jerked these farmers around so many times with the price of wheat already, they want to appear like they're helping them.

So the minister says yes to the gun request. But since the government of Australia has smart brains that think in a normal way, machine guns are tightly regulated. They're. Yes. Can you imagine? I mean. What a what a world to live in. But also just because the. Farmer soldiers asked for machine. Guns, why can't they just have regular guns? Right? They wanted machine guns. I know it sounds more fun. Probably. I'm probably bored out of their fucking minds at this point, and they're enraged and rage. So instead, three specially trained soldiers, are sent from Perth to the region to operate the machine guns.

Okay. Okay. Everyone doesn't get a machine gun. Great. These three guys get a machine gun. We'll send machine guns to. You. With people who can operate them. Good plan. And it's not just like a little machine gun that you can hold and operate and move around with. It's a huge tube that needs to be propped up. It has a wheel of bullets. It's like, you know, a World War One type gun. Yeah, the rest of the farmers are allowed to help shoot at the EMAs, but they have to use boring old regular rifles. Okay. So the farmers also agree to house the three military specialists and to pay for the ammunition for the guns.

So not the greatest deal. Yeah, but you do have to do that thing where, like, after a while, you're like, sure. But you did agree to do this huge, crazy thing. Yes. And like. In. But under what pretenses? Like, were they lies. True where it's like, oh, you can farm this beautiful area but it's Australia. So it's like it's all snakes and spiders. Yeah. The expectation couldn't. Have been right. And no emus. Easy breezy. Yeah. There was no no emu. No emu claws. We guarantee no large bird will come at you. No unmasked. Legit dinosaur. Yeah.

Hordes of them. Yeah. Okay, so the army specialists are overseen by a man named major. When it. Purvis. When Aubrey Meredith is his name. Are his six first. Names. Yeah. Cool. And so he's there overseeing it. And then a cinematographer also joins the group to film the anti EMU offensive. Okay. Which is great. Yeah. Presumably because people in the Australian government believed it would be successful. They're like let's send a cameraman out there and this will be great propaganda for like what we do for our farmers.

The soldiers arrive on November 2nd, 1932, when the war begins. On the first day they arrive, a flock of 50 emus are spotted at one of the farms, so they set up their guns somewhere on some nearby high ground. The guns jam almost immediately and the emus scatter. Ooh! The next day the soldiers have a bit more success when they set up ambushes around water sources, but immediately proves to be very slow going between the rifles and the machine guns the soldiers are able to pick off about out of 20,000 emus in one day.

They pick off about 12 EMUs max before the rest of the flock has scurried out of range. Yeah, so in a day's work, that's 12 emus out of 20,000. And that's a good day, it turns out. Oh, the farmers in the military have woefully underestimated their adversaries. I told you about how fast they are, and I told you about how they have calf muscles, so they're like. So they're cool. Yeah, kind of hot. The soldiers that were sent to the farms, they start getting nervous. They've been instructed by one of their commanding officers to bring back at least 100 emu skins.

Because emu feathers are used to decorate the ceremonial helmets for a particular military unit in Australia. So this commanding officer was like, hey, this is a great way to get a bunch of fucking emus. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that killing any emus, let alone 100 to bring back, is not going to be easy. Yeah, because the emus have now started to appoint their own officers. Oh, who act as scouts for the rest of the flock. Yes, yes, they're fucking smart. They went back to headquarters and they said, sorry, those guys on the hill do not want what's best for us.

No, something's going down. That's right. One EMU war correspondent wrote at the time, quote, the emus have proved that they are not so stupid as they're usually considered to be, because they do run around like fucking idiots, like they do run around. They look. Goofy like turkeys. But it doesn't mean they're dumb. No. Each mob, he says, each mob has its leader always an enormous black plumed bird standing fully six feet high, who keeps watch while his fellows busy themselves with the wheat. At the first suspicious sign, he gives a signal and dozens of heads stretch up out of the crop.

Dinosaurs. A few birds will take fright, starting a headlong stampede into the scrub, the leader always remaining until his followers have reached safety. End quote. Shit. So fucking Papa Bear is like, hey guys, here they are! Also scatter. We've survived for hundreds of millions of years. So we got. Yeah, we're fucking dinosaurs. No one panic. Remember those cavemen I've seen back them real recently? Barely made it. It's those guys. These are cousins of those guys, and they. Think they're going to. Kill us. After the first week of the EMU War, it is reported that the group have used 2500 rounds of ammunition to kill just 300 EMUs.

Oh my. God. And that's a generous estimate that comes from one of the military specialists. And, you know, they fucking raise those numbers. Absolutely. I'm going to read you this quote. The one person who wrote to our Gmail about like, you guys should cover this story. It's really crazy. Is someone named, that greedy she her and so greedy included a quote from someone named John P Rafferty that came from the Wikipedia. So here is that quote. That's the grabby included. Okay. Quote. The machine Gunners dream of point blank fire into Syria.

Masses of emus were soon dissipated. The EMU command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic, meaning like you're wasting your fucking bullets. Yep. Meanwhile, in Parliament, Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, member him, is now facing questions about the expense of the EMU War. One of the members of Parliament from Sydney asked sarcastically if any of the parties involved in the EMU War should be receiving a medal.

Harsh yeah. And someone says if anyone should getting a medal, it should be the emus. It sounds like a fine parliament. It's true. After two weeks, the emus seem to have learned the range of the machine guns. Then fucking. Yeah. You can't. You can't hit me. This far. You can't get me. I'm out of your range. It's like when you can't leave the part of the couch that you have one, right? So then your sister just walked just out of range of, like, well, then I'll go get myself. Like a cookie. And you can't have one. Exactly.

They set up shop in the wheat fields just out of that range, and move every time the soldiers reposition themselves, scatter when the farmers get close with the rifles. All this scattering and running is also causing the emus to trample more wheat than they would have if you had never started this fucking in a war. After the most successful day of the war, well, maybe two dozen emus are killed. R.I.P. one of the military specialist examines one of the dead emus and finds that it has five bullets in its body, some of which are clearly old wounds from the beginning of the campaign.

Oh, which means that the emus are staying alive and running at close to full speed, even after being shot multiple times. Like their fucking Terminator. Yes, they're like, oh no, we're. Going to hell. Yes. Yeah yeah. Isn't that creepy? Like, it's like sending a message with his body. It's looking more and more like the EMAs will win the war until suddenly on December 2nd, the war is called off. I think they're like, let's cut our fucking losses. Yes, this is insanity. The soldiers claim to have killed between 1000 and 2000 emus out of roughly 20,000 that were in the combat zone, and the emus seem to become a part of life for the farmers at this point.

Having bested the soldiers still in future years, the soldiers settlers will continue to request machine guns to fight off the fucking emus. I bet they're reproducing, but the Australian Ministry of Defense will turn them down every time. Instead, the soldier settlers are supplied with additional rifles, and eventually they become more successful at fending off the emos on their own. Picking them off one at a time. Yeah. Between the 1940s and 1960s, the farmers kill more than 200,000 of them under a bounty system.

Oh, that's a lot. Peta doesn't like that. No. That's bad. I mean, they're so cute. Little babies are like. They're so. Cute. I mean, can't it be like, you just get rid of enough so that your stuff isn't at risk, right? It always has to be this. Like, now they've killed 200,000. Now they're in danger. Yeah exactly. So then later, eventually, the price of fencing comes down and this becomes a much more practical way to deal with emus than fucking killing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. Then in 1999, emus became a protected species in Australia, finally 1999, and there are about 600,000 of them living in Australia today, which is considered a strong population.

So good. They're back, baby. Good, good good, all riddled with bullets and old wounds. Yeah. Oh my God, are we, Grandpa telling the stories about how he survived the EMU. War? I they thought they. Got me with this one. I just kept running. Major Meredith. Remember him with a really long name? He goes on to have a story. The military career. Having already served in World War one. He also serves in World War two and in the Korean War with distinction. But I bet that EMU War stuck in his craw. That's the one. Don't you think? That's the one he fucking couldn't win?

Yeah, and that is the story of the great EMU War. Totally insane. What is it, Victor? It's so good. Here's a farmer with an emo daddy. Oh, it's pretty sad. He's all mad. He's a big bird, right? Yeah. That is a big old bird. You know, he's saying, crikey. He's saying my calves. Please. My calves. Wow. All right. That was great. Thank you, Ali, for finding that in the depths of the internet. Nice one. Ali, I really didn't understand what we were doing at the beginning. No, but it was fun. What do you think was gonna happen?

I don't know, but I'm really happy to hear, like, the idea that, like, we're going to use sheer brute force to solve a problem and then that problems like you're not going to, you. Know, that doesn't work that way. You know, it's good. It helps people evolve better ideas. Yeah. You got to learn how to live in harmony with nature. Yeah. Okay. You get your ass kicked. If not, or. How about somebody figures. Out cheap barbed. Wire? You fools? You could have saved yourself so much time.

To.

Questions about this episode

What is "BEST OF 2025: Queen of Sinking Ships + The Great Emu War" about?

The content explores the infamous sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, emphasizing the stories of survivors and the human experiences during the disaster. It highlights notable figures, such as the Unsinkable Molly Brown, who played a crucial role in supporting fellow passengers during the chaos.

What is mentioned in this My Favorite Murder episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Titanic, Britannic, World War One, Charles Johnson, Violet Jessop, Joseph Lyons. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "BEST OF 2025: Queen of Sinking Ships + The Great Emu War"?

The episode runs 57 min; the transcript is about 9,965 words in 98 timestamped sections.

More from My Favorite Murder

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 7, 2026.