The Purple Death

While researching something else entirely - as often happens - I came across an intriguing reference in a chapter of the Official History of NZ's 19th Battalion and Armoured Regiment in World War 2.

A less-than-serious chapter at the enr of the History, titled "Tale of a Tank" tells the story of a 19th Battalion Sherman named "Lame Duck."

"Hot as an oven in summer; we blistered our bare arms on her every time we scrambled out in a hurry. Cold as an ice-box in winter; she leaked rain-water and let in chilly draughts at every joint. As cramped as a sardine-tin; I as driver had to squeeze through the hatch then wriggle into my great-coat afterwards, but still the full crew of five, battened down and cramped together in her stomach, managed to live and fight for almost a year in her narrow confines.

"To her guns in the course of her career had fallen numerous houses and strong points, Jerry M/Gs, a built-in turret, a Mark III tank, a mule, a pig, a safe that could not otherwise be got open, and a score or so of fowls. Her 75-mm had been christened with a litre of ‘Purple Death’ and carried the bluish stain at the end of the barrel even after several hundreds of rounds had been fired through it."

"Purple Death" - was that the same overly-sweet, synthetically-flavoured concoction that made its appearance during my younger years?  Were they making it then? And, if so, how did it get to Italy?

A quick bit of research showed that the "Purple Death" I knew was unknown before the 1960s - possibly the 1970s. It seems the unique product description as presented below also dates from around that time:

PURPLE DEATH

An unusual 'Rough-as-Guts' Wine that has the distinctive boquet of horse-shit and old tram tickets. It is best drunk with the teeth clenched to prevent the ingestion of foreign bodies. Connoiesseurs will savour the slight tannin taste of old tea leaves and burnt cat fur. Possessors of a cultivated palate will admire the initial assault on the taste buds which comes from the careful and loving blending of animal manure and perished jock straps strained through an old miners sock. The maturing in small pigs bladders gives it a definite nose.

Marketed under the Savious Brand (9 out of 10 people who drink it for the first time exclaim "Jee-esus Chri-i-ist").

Caution keep away from 'naked flames' (both old and new).

BOTTLED BY THE MAD SCIENTIST - JUST FOR FUN

750mls Colour and Flavour Added 18% Alc. by Vol.

Purple Death was made by the Sapich Brothers in the Auckland area and, according to one online forum I found, was very popular in the day as an after-dinner drink in RNZAF Clubs.

But what would it have been that was used to christen the gun barrel of a certain Sherman tank? A little more research took me, figuratively, to Waiheke Island and the vineyard of a different Dalmation winegrower from the Sapich Brothers.  They were the Gradiska family, described in a NZ Herald story as having produced wine there from vines planted in 1929.  They also made sherry and port - the latter was given the nickname "Purple Death."  The vineyard ceased operation in the 1950s - possibly in connection with the following stories:

FATHER AND SON FOUND DEAD

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 24. An eight-year-old spastic, Lawrence Gradiska, and his 34-year-old father, Sid Gradiska, were found dead from strychnine poisoning on Waiheke Island, in the Hauraki Gulf, today. The police are satisfied that no third party was involved in the poisoning. Mr Gradiska and his father operated Waiheke’s only vineyard. The bodies were found in the orchard near each other.  -Press, 25/11/1955.

TRACTOR DRIVER KILLED

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 17. A tractor overturned and killed the driver at Ostend, Waiheke Island about 11 a.m. today. The man killed was Laurence Gradiska, aged about 63 married, of Ostend.

Mr Gradiska was working in his son’s vineyard. It is believed the tractor overturned while turning, and he was pinned underneath.  -Press, 18/12/1956.

I suggest, at this stage of my story, that fortified wines in 1930s, beer-drinking New Zealand were regarded as something very potent and the "purple death" term might have been used for fortified red wine (non-vintage, of course) in general.  Something fortified and red found in Italy - or, more likely, North Africa - at the time the 19th got its new tanks might (and I do mean "might") have been given the nickname by those with memories - hazy, incomplete memories - of nights spent sampling Waiheke Island's finest buy-by-the-flagon fortified red.

A memory on a 28th Maori Battalion page refers to the name: "Purple Death, that rich red vino the boys could not handle"

The Official History of the 4th and 6th Reserve Mechanical Transport Companies mentions it: "More than one ‘stinking head’ could be traced to the standby store of the dread ‘purple death’, the vino nero, the heavy, rich, warm wine of the Italian peasants, harmless in moderation but a menace to foreign soldiers swigging it like beer."

Likewise from the History of the 26th Battalion, after the Axis surrender in North Africa:  "The doctor's warnings about ‘Purple Death’ were forgotten, at least for a time. The celebrations were not only confined to other ranks. One officer, solemn-faced and upright (but very drunk), paraded through the camp on a mule — naked except for a long, black Italian cloak." 

But there was an earlier place in history for the name.  It was one of the names given to Spanish Influenza, the pandemic disease of 1918. According to Edwin Miester jr, writing in "Pittmed," a quarterly published for the alumni of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine,  "They called the devastation 'The Purple Death.' Victims became cyanotic — their faces turned as 'blue as huckleberries,' one doctor wrote, then a darker, purple hue, sometimes accompanied by blisters." Cyanosis is a skin discolouration caused by a lack of oxygen in the bloodstream.

Personally, I think it is too long a stretch to suggest that the strong port of the Waiheke Island vineyard got its name from memories of the 1918 pandemic - it seems that the use of the name was one localised to the USA in its early stages.  It should be mentioned the Spanish flu originated in the USA but was only reported widely in and from the neutral country of Spain.  Ahighly contagious and debilitating disease was a security issue in a country at war.

So what did I learn?  Not a whole lot, I guess.  Strong red wine during World War 2 was called Purple Death.  The name may have come from Waiheke Island but I doubt it.  The drink I remember might have been named by a war veteran but it does not taste like a port - more like drinking jellybabies.