Maybe there's a hoax, maybe there isn't, and in a case like this it's not a matter of great moment. It's so easy to pull hoaxes like that that there's no challenge and no point.

But what flattop's detective work seemed to show to me was, a bunch of querulous prejudices. These appeared tom be grounded in this weird fantasy that seems prevalent in America that Poles are somehow to be seen as stupid. (In England they tell the same jokes Americans tell about Poles about the Irish. And they sometimes regret telling them. I hope that is true sometimes when people across the Atlantic tell "Polish jokes".)

The whoioe thing even started out with flattop and harpgirl sneering at the idea of there being a female polish sailor, which indicates a startling lack of knowledge about Poland or the Polish merchant navy. (I don't mean it's startling not to know about Poland and the Polish Merchant Navy, but that it's startling to know so litle and still be so eager to demonstrate that in public.)

"The potato field from Warsaw to Cracow"...I'd say that that's a phrase that is a dead giveaway...

As I said, maybe flattop's ingenious speculations are correct. That's not too important. What is more important is that the scepticism and the antagonism started before there were any grounds for it, apart from prejudice.