Latest / Ridiculous History / A Boeing Wonderland, Part Two: A Fake Rooftop City For All!

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A Boeing Wonderland, Part Two: A Fake Rooftop City For All! · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as old Ways so
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Shout out to the man, the
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  Speaker 1: myth legend super producer, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, what was the other one? It was?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It was rah orrah, hrah, hoorah and huzzah and haza
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  Speaker 1: and a towski.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. Huzzah's the one where if you're like a
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: night in something, you know that's your rallying.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you and I both will occasionally throw it
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  Speaker 1: in an email.
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  Speaker 2: No doubt.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm part of the culture of how stuff works.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've big bullet. You're an old Brown.
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  Speaker 1: Because a big shout out to how stuff works. Man,
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  Speaker 1: we've been we've been doing us for a while. It's
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  Speaker 1: crazy that we haven't gotten to this story earlier. What's
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  Speaker 1: a good for our folks and playing along at home?
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  Speaker 1: What's a good recap?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, listening to the episode
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  Speaker 2: one that gives you a good This is a really
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: backstory rich tale here. So I think we did our
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  Speaker 2: due diligence there. Teased a little bit about some of
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  Speaker 2: the incredible interactions between the US Air Force and Hollywood,
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  Speaker 2: Baby Hollywood and some of the most brilliant set designers
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  Speaker 2: and builders and fabricators and you know, just creative minds
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  Speaker 2: of the time to camouflage these crucial airplane manufacturing facilities
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  Speaker 2: to make them look like suburban towns in the hopes
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  Speaker 2: that the Japanese bombers would be confused and they would
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  Speaker 2: bomb other stuff. But then we ended the story of
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  Speaker 2: episode one kind of on the movie studios now being
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  Speaker 2: the only ones not camouflage, and this cluster of these
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  Speaker 2: kind of warehouse ye air plane hangar type facilities, to
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  Speaker 2: which the executives were like, hey, we need this too,
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  Speaker 2: because now we're gonna be seen as the target. We
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  Speaker 2: look a lot like airplane hangers. I think that's that's
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  Speaker 2: where we are, yeah, with Boeing, because that really what
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  Speaker 2: was what we teased this whole series to be about.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know that we've mentioned Boeing specifically quite yet.
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  Speaker 1: No, we just we gave them a hard time about
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  Speaker 1: the planes and the fact that's right, I almost died one.
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  Speaker 2: But uh, I don't think we mentioned that part.
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  Speaker 1: But movie Okay, our hero of the story here is
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  Speaker 1: the Boeing Wonderland. And that's that's what part two of
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  Speaker 1: this series is really focusing on. So, like you said,
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  Speaker 1: everybody's trying to keep up with the Joneses.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Now, camouflage is something you must have because all these
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  Speaker 1: other places are camouflage.
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  Speaker 2: Lockheed's clover Field facility.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so if we travel to Seattle, we'll see
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  Speaker 1: that Boeing's president, Philip Johnson has been paying attention to
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  Speaker 1: his buddies at Douglas Aircraft and he says, look, the
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  Speaker 1: biggest deal for us at Boeing is Plant two. Despite
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  Speaker 1: the name, it is our number one inspired, our number
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  Speaker 1: one asset.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So it's uh, December eleventh, four days after Pearl Harbor,
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  Speaker 1: Boeing puts out a press release and they say the
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  Speaker 1: following Plant two has been quote entirely transformed from a
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  Speaker 1: daylight plant to a blackout plant to enable to know
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  Speaker 1: night operations during blackouts.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, it goes on a little braggadociously. This plant is
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  Speaker 2: believed to be one of the first, if not the first,
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  Speaker 2: major defense plant in the country to complete this transformation.
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  Speaker 2: So I talk like a wizard there or something.
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  Speaker 1: We both we both made some weird choices in our
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  Speaker 1: quotation voices. But this is true. What they're saying essentially
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  Speaker 1: is that now we can operate overnight.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, I think a big thing to say about it
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  Speaker 3: is it now means that if you black out the
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  Speaker 3: city for bombers are coming, they can still keep working
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  Speaker 3: in there.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, good point Max with fects.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, there it is there, it is. Oh, it's a
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  Speaker 2: big deal, you know, because they need to be As
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  Speaker 2: we mentioned in episode one, the goal that FDR had
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  Speaker 2: set for the number of bombers that he wanted in
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  Speaker 2: their fleet is that what you call it in the
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  Speaker 2: sky was insane fifty thousand, I believe right. So they
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  Speaker 2: couldn't they didn't have a moment to spare.
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  Speaker 1: And we also know that the Boeing News Bureau came
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  Speaker 1: out with a report about this and said, well, they
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  Speaker 1: released on April first, nineteen forty two, but it was
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  Speaker 1: not in April day joke. What they were describing to
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  Speaker 1: the public at large was the urgency created by the
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  Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor attack. And they said, look, we're not gonna
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  Speaker 1: waste any time. We are getting everybody together that we
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  Speaker 1: can to help us do this blackout transformation.
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  Speaker 2: We're gonna have a painting party. We'll have a painting party. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And when when we say blackout in this situation, we
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  Speaker 2: are referring literally to blacking out the building, right, like
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  Speaker 2: painting it as dark a color as humanly possible. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think they had that, like the blackest paint ever
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  Speaker 2: to exist at that point, but just you know, regular
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  Speaker 2: old black paint would probably do the trick. And then
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  Speaker 2: that you know, created a shroud around which they could
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  Speaker 2: build the thing that was you know, meant to catch
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  Speaker 2: the eye exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And again, these enemy bombers will be hunting with their
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  Speaker 1: own eye sight, that's right. So so it makes sense
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  Speaker 1: to black everything out and reduce the amount of light
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  Speaker 1: the factory is emitting.
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  Speaker 2: Funny though, to think about it today, with like advances
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  Speaker 2: in GPS technology and imaging, stuff like this wouldn't really work,
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  Speaker 2: would it. You'd be able to kind of see the
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  Speaker 2: shape or kind of know what you were looking at
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  Speaker 2: a little better if you had certain types of radar
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  Speaker 2: technology or like satellite you know imagery. But I mean
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  Speaker 2: even that, there are obviously ways that the military does
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  Speaker 2: their best to you know, camouflage their stuff. To those
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  Speaker 2: kinds of things, it would have been be a different
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  Speaker 2: type of job though, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so Boeing is already blacked out
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  Speaker 1: as a factory, you know, the windows are painted, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: But they needed to do more and so in May
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen forty two, the core of Engineers takes takes
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  Speaker 1: on this project. They say, we're going to camouflage this
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  Speaker 1: factory in addition to having it blacked out. And again
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  Speaker 1: shout out to Bill Bill Why who wrote some fantastic
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  Speaker 1: research on this. So to accomplish this camouflage our top
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  Speaker 1: talent in the world of military camouflage. The amateur magician
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  Speaker 1: over sends one of his boys from Hollywood, a guy
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  Speaker 1: named John Stewart, art director. He sends this guy over
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  Speaker 1: to the Boeing plant. He had pulled him from MGM
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  Speaker 1: from the experiments they were doing back on the loss.
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  Speaker 1: I just want to add one little thing before we
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  Speaker 1: get into the actual full camouflage, the blackout situation with
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  Speaker 1: the paint where they was at all hands on deck.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently they required about four miles of air hose in
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  Speaker 1: order to allow for the operation of spray guns. So
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  Speaker 1: we don't have this exact you know, square footage or
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  Speaker 1: the number of windows that they painted over. But if
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  Speaker 1: that's any indication, this is a huge job and a
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  Speaker 1: massive feat to accomplish in a couple of days. So
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  Speaker 1: now we're on to you know, the business at hand,
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  Speaker 1: like to really make this building look like something else. Yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's the idea, right, And so Deadly is living
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  Speaker 1: this Hollywood dream. He's got a cool job that everybody wants.
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  Speaker 1: He has, you know, that degree in architecture. He is
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  Speaker 1: working as a set design. He even gets nominated for
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  Speaker 1: an Oscar back in the day for his work on
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  Speaker 1: a film called Bitter Sweet, which I have not seen.
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  Speaker 2: Nor have I And a lot of the Oscar wins
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  Speaker 2: you know of of this era of Hollywood are gonna
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  Speaker 2: be a little bit deep, deeper cuts than he might think. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you know, unless they're like the big classics that get remembered.
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  Speaker 2: Not all Oscar winners do stand the test of time.
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  Speaker 2: But I am interested to see this this guy's work.
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  Speaker 2: By checking out Bitter Sweet.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I won't pay attention to the story.
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  Speaker 2: I'll just be watching. I know we do too much. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we've ruined it for ourselves in the stars of that.
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  Speaker 2: I'm also particularly familiar with Jeanete MacDonald and Nelson Eddie
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  Speaker 2: Nelson Eddie, I don't know Nelson, Okay, I don't either.
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  Speaker 2: I just thought if I said it enough, I was
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  Speaker 2: almost there. But in nineteen forty, Dutley is only thirty
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  Speaker 2: two years old, and he actually, like you said, live
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  Speaker 2: in that Hollywood dream. Mary's at Angenoux by the name
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  Speaker 2: of Constance Ackelman Love. It is a great old, cool
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  Speaker 2: Hollywood name, and they were quite a power couple in Hollywood,
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  Speaker 2: very sought after, both for their own set of skills,
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  Speaker 2: with Constance, you know, being a up and coming kind
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  Speaker 2: of starlet, and of course deathly being a very sought
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  Speaker 2: after art director.
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  Speaker 1: Question question for both of you, guys, do you think
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  Speaker 1: a thirty two year old man should marry an eighteen
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  Speaker 1: year old noll?
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  Speaker 2: Weird? I don't know what's the formula? Isn't there a formula?
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  Speaker 2: Not as bad as Charlie Chaplin? That's that guy had
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  Speaker 2: a darkness.
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  Speaker 3: I mean thirty two eighteen, I mean, yeah, this is
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  Speaker 3: a really cringe age plus seven your age plus seven even.
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  Speaker 1: That I feel is weirdly Oh it is.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just saying it is a thing people say.
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  Speaker 3: I was finding a guy not that long ago. Like
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  Speaker 3: a friend of mine, he's he's he's in his mid
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  Speaker 3: twenties and he's on tender. He's looking at like all
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  Speaker 3: these nine year old girls like to like he said, well,
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  Speaker 3: like six years older than him.
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  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, man, like I don't know a teenager. That's
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  Speaker 2: like a lot happens in that six years though.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, but you know, I hesitate to pass judgement.
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  Speaker 1: I was just curious on you guys. Take we do
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  Speaker 1: know that regardless of an age difference. Uh, they had
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  Speaker 1: a good union, right, they seem to get along famously,
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  Speaker 1: very much in love. Constant changes her name to Veronica Lake.
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  Speaker 1: She becomes a pin up girl wow for World War Two.
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  Speaker 1: Quite a looker, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: She was sort of like that what was at the
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  Speaker 2: Shawshank Redemption the poster Benny Davis. I think this is
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  Speaker 2: of that same kind of you know, I I guess
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  Speaker 2: of you know, massively sex symboly type star. People are
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  Speaker 2: painting her on plane. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So her husband reports for duty and Seattle around this time.
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  Speaker 1: He gets pulled by Omer away from Hollywood, and when
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  Speaker 1: he gets to Seattle, everybody's very concerned about the Japanese
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  Speaker 1: occupation of those Alaskan islands we mentioned earlier, and they said, look,
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  Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time before we get attacked
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  Speaker 1: here in Seattle. We need you to get this plant,
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  Speaker 1: this Boeing plant camouflage quick fast and in a hurry.
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  Speaker 1: We need you to camouflage the entirety of twenty six acres.
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  Speaker 1: Detle's cruise did this with the help of the Seattle
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  Speaker 1: District of the Army Corps of Engineers, and that was
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  Speaker 1: helpful because this particular structure was a different kind of
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  Speaker 1: roof situation than they'd been used to at some of
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  Speaker 1: the other airplane facilities as well as the Hollywood studios.
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  Speaker 2: You could picture those right flat roof kind of regularly
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  Speaker 2: shaped rectangles, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to deal with what's called a saw
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  Speaker 1: toothed roof. I think kind of like stepped down like
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  Speaker 1: a cigarette. It's an uneven surface varies as much as
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  Speaker 1: thirty five feet. So to build this you got to
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  Speaker 1: put in other platforms. You have scaffolding. You also have
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  Speaker 1: to have a sprinkler system over the entirety of the
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  Speaker 1: twenty six acres. Overall, this structure is going to weigh
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  Speaker 1: in with five hundred and fifty five tons of steel
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  Speaker 1: and half a million feet of wires just support just
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  Speaker 1: like support wires to make the houses look real.
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  Speaker 2: That's a really good point, Ben, and I do just
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  Speaker 2: want to mention that, you know, as brilliant of an
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  Speaker 2: idea as camouflaging these places as you know, suburban or
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  Speaker 2: like civilian areas are. It's not like war totally precludes
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  Speaker 2: the bombing of civilian areas. So there could well have
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  Speaker 2: been some collateral, you know, damage to these places despite
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  Speaker 2: maybe they weren't targeting it, but maybe something fell nearby
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  Speaker 2: and there could have still been a fire, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in some of these roofing elaborate roofing situations. So that's
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  Speaker 2: what they had to have.
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  Speaker 1: That Sprinkquiss and so travel with us to what was
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  Speaker 1: increasingly being called Wonderland. And because of the variation in
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  Speaker 1: the height of those structures that they were building on
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  Speaker 1: top of, there were a lot of very steep hills
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  Speaker 1: in the area. It's kind of like San Francisco. So
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  Speaker 1: there were three major streets, major fake streets, There were alleys,
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  Speaker 1: there were driveways. This was immersive. The even named the streets.
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  Speaker 1: Why did they name them, I guess it's just for
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  Speaker 1: morale a bomber pilot's not going to be able to
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  Speaker 1: read this stuff. But they had names like synthetic Street
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  Speaker 1: and burlap Boulevard.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, it's a little bit of a nod, yeah, to
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  Speaker 2: the craft right of building these things. You know. It
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  Speaker 2: reminds me a lot of so again, early kind of
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  Speaker 2: practical effects in movies, like the idea of a matte painting,
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  Speaker 2: which is like, you know, not incredibly detailed, but it
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  Speaker 2: has a massive scope to it, so it'll be like
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  Speaker 2: the background of like a massive space scene. Then they
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  Speaker 2: super imposed the ships in front of it, or it
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  Speaker 2: could be like a city scape. If you ever see
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  Speaker 2: one of those in person and you look up close,
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  Speaker 2: there will be little signs that have like text on them,
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  Speaker 2: but if you look up clothes, they're just kind of blurs,
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  Speaker 2: you know. So this is all about creating the illusion
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  Speaker 2: from afar, right, Yes, very much is.
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  Speaker 1: And and they make a bunch of artificial trees too.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me of you know what it is. It's
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  Speaker 1: a life size version of those little towns you build
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  Speaker 1: around toy trains exactly right. Yeah, it reminds me of
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  Speaker 1: it reminds me of that scene in Beetle Juice where
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  Speaker 1: they shrink down.
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  Speaker 2: It's really cool. Yeah. Beetlejuice, man, Oh, it's good. I
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  Speaker 2: hope the sequels good because Tim Burton really hasn't had
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: a banger in sometimes.
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  Speaker 1: You know. The first sequel idea was Beetlejuice at the Beach. Interesting,
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  Speaker 1: it's definitely a choice.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he does have the street you know, when I
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  Speaker 2: think of his outfit, does kind of remind me of
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  Speaker 2: the stripey short pants that like you'd see beach goers wearing,
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  Speaker 2: like in the twenties or whatever. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But in any case, there's a lot of set building
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  Speaker 2: kind of you know, methods and that come into play
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  Speaker 2: to create the illusion from Afar that we're talking about
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: something called tar and feather feathering, I guess, which is
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  Speaker 2: something that was used to make the texture of like
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  Speaker 2: trees for example. You know where again from Afar you
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  Speaker 2: would never be able to tell the difference because it
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  Speaker 2: has that look and quality, but up close you would
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  Speaker 2: definitely be able to tell her this. It's the same
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: with stage stuff. You know, if you ever examine stage
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: sets up close, there's a lot of rough edges. There's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of things that wouldn't really read if you
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: were up close, but from the audience it looks great. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and in this case, the audience is five thousand feet
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  Speaker 2: up in the air, right.
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  Speaker 1: They're thousands of feet away. They're playing big, right, just
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  Speaker 1: like stage acting. And a lot of these things, these homes,
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  Speaker 1: these garages, these greenhouses, and even the gas station, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of them are only about four foot high at
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  Speaker 1: the eaves and so there. So, like you said, up close,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. If you go inside, you're going
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  Speaker 1: to see that they just have that sprinkler system.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, big buildings all over again, you know, except
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  Speaker 2: this infrastructure is literally designed to protect the fake building exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And so at least two of these homes were going
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  Speaker 1: to be occupied by real people sort of.
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  Speaker 2: Because kind of stand ins, I guess.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well they had guys who ran anti aircraft
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  Speaker 1: guns and they were stationed in little fake houses on
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  Speaker 1: the rooftop.
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  Speaker 2: Armed stand ins. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, armed. Yeah. No,
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  Speaker 2: that's cool. So they had to have all these elaborate
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: catwalk systems that would allow people to kind of move
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  Speaker 2: between the different spaces for various reasons, for maintenance, et cetera. Man,
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  Speaker 2: that is so cool. The people occupying it that doesn't
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  Speaker 2: make sense. You would need some anti aircraft support, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in the event that your little subterfuge didn't quite work. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you don't want to just leave it all up to
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  Speaker 2: them being fooled, you know, you got to have some
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  Speaker 2: back up personnel in place.
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  Speaker 1: And that feels like a cool job, doesn't I've got
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  Speaker 1: to wake up and go to my fake house exactly,
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  Speaker 1: and I might have to shoot something.
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  Speaker 2: Super secret spy stuff, right.
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  Speaker 1: And they also realized you can't just make a town.
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  Speaker 1: It has to have ye all them trappings of life
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  Speaker 1: can't look abandoned, you know.
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  Speaker 2: They have to make cars on the road parked, accurate
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  Speaker 2: looking that would read. So they built some of these cars,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: parked them made out of rubber. And because they had
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: to kind of again with the rough edge approach and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the boxiness of making these fake cars out of wood
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  Speaker 2: and rubber, they started looking more again. Bill points this out.
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  Speaker 2: Bill why again? Yeah? Why interchangeably there points out that
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  Speaker 2: they really kind of looked a little more like the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: cars of the seventies. Yeah, those kind of boxy station
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  Speaker 2: wagony type cars or like a Gremlin I think maybe
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  Speaker 2: mm hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And then there was even this legend or tall tail
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  Speaker 1: that said they let a cow loose to roam around
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  Speaker 1: on the rooftop, which is clever because that does look like,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I guess, like an active town. But also, when's the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: last time you were on a city street and you
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: just saw a random cow? Well?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm picturing the scale of this and it
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: isn't smaller scale. It's got these are like built to scale,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: so everything would be roughly the size of the real thing.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So like a cow roaming around, it would be able
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to roam around the streets, but it would be a
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: little odd. Why'd they do that, Ben, when'd they do that?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: That never happened?
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I actually didn't, okay, which it was sinse Yeah, people
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: just I think the stories that just kind of spread. Also,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's too too realistic. And I want to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: point this out because we're an audio podcast. There was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a moment where I asked you about seeing a cow
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: in the street and paused, and for a second I
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: thought you were going to be like December thirteenth, twenty fourteen, Augusta, Georgia.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be cool, now, not a cow. I've seen
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: random horses. Yeah, Oh, and crap dude, So I meant
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: to mention this. I was just in Boston for Funzies
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: and my buddy Frank, Big friend of the show, went
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: to a movie theater in near Harvard and were running
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: around Harvard campus and guess what we were nearly accosted
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: by turkeys. Yes, yeah, told man, they suck. I did
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: not realize that. And you know, I believe in the past,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: on one show or the other, we've talked about like
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: turkey attacks in the Boston area because there are these
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: wild turkeys that just roam free. If this part of
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the country had a reputation for free roaming cows, that
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: might have been a smart move. But outside of that,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: probably would have given away the game a little bit.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: As a friend to all animals, even unto the naked
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: mole rat folks, I assure you turkeys are terrible or scary.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: If turkeys were people, they would be criminals. I agree,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And they gang up on you. They show weakness.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I googled it when I got back to the Airbnb,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: and I found a story from very recently about a Cambridge,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: US postal worker who was attacked by a gang of
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: turkeys with such ferocity that he fell over and broke
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: his hip and had to have a hip replacement. They'll
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: also just fall out of trees at you, and they
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: get mad at whomever is around at you, dude. You know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: you know that would be my waking nightmare.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you feel the way you feel about turkeys is
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the way the US feels about Japanese invasions.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: That's fair. You're like that at every moment, the other
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: shoe is gonna drop.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Bro.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: If I was standing on that beach waiting for that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: shoe to drop, looking for something coming at me on
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the horizon, my like the traveler moment in Ghostbusters, where
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I'm picturing, you know, whatever the thing is it comes
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: for me. It would be turkeys. But yeah, the goal
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: would be not to picture anything, but what it would
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: come into my head that would terrify me would be
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: a giant Turkey's.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Just absolute pieces of trash. So wow, that's a hot take.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't see coming today. They actually did a lot
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: more work than just than just what we've described, which
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: is already a big deal. The folks who built and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: maintained this project at plant too. They also stayed acted
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: doing other stuff during the war, and there is a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: monograph like a piece of short writing by Leroy Leroy
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Robert Hanson Leroy, but I like Leroy.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But the way it's spelled though is L lowercase E
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: capitol roy, So I don't know.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It might be Leroy Leroy sounds more intriguing than.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Le le Roy. Robert Hanson. He was the chief of
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the agronomy section and also involves in the Boeing projects.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And I believe you mentioned the monograph right nineteen forty three.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got a super sexy title. Everybody's settle in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and be comfortable. The use of grasses and lagoons were
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: camouflage and dust control on air fields with a Seattle
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: date line.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: What I know, right, just the tension. But the funny
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: thing about that too is the idea of grasses and
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: legumes and using different material. That's another thing that you
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: can kind of see in the fabrication of like Disney World,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: you know, and like the fake mosses and things to
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: achieve texture, like in the Avatar ride queue. That all
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: this stuff that goes hand in hand. That's so fascinating
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to me. The intersection between entertainment and warfare, you know.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and we know that they had to surmount a
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: couple of different challenges. One of the big things was
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: camouflage paint. They had to get a texture that paint
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: would adhere to, but that would also not interfere with
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: air traffic, and so eventually going to the point that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: things looking kind of rough up close, they eventually they said,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we're going to use a crushed rock surface and we're
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: going to roll it with an adhesive material. For paved areas,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: we'll use wood chips with cement for non traffic areas.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And then for the parts of the complex they're between
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: or past the runways, the houses get increasingly less realistic, right,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they turn into like this concrete slab. Yeah, yeah, because
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you can't have a plane hit it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: And again, you know, keeping with our whole, like this
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: is meant for an audience of five thousand feet. The
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: things that would be farther away from you know, what
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: would be perceived would be less important, sort of like
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: some of the you know, details on those matte paintings.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: I was talking exactly.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you know, speaking of matte painting, I've
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: got to just shout this out. I rewatched a film
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that captivated me for a long time from Dustill Dawn
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: sure not the not the Japanese crime bar vampire that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I hang out with, Yeah, yeah, or that I hang
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: out at Yeah. Dustill Down has this great mate painting
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: at the very end. Do you remember this moment where
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they spoilers by the way, three to one spoilers. It's dawn,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: they're leaving the bar. Presumably the film begins at dusk.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you remember the film.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Now, I'm just saying the movie is now its yeah,
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: and uh the bar is named Teddy Twister, And so
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: as they're pulling away, that's so cool.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: The camera pans out and it's that big matte painting
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and you see the bar is just the top of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: an ancient Meso American temple.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's so good. Okay, now you got me
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: one to watch that again. Sequels I think probably paying
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: less dividends. First time. I've only seen clips, but they
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: don't look very good. But the first one is schlocky
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: by design and a hell of a lot of fun. Agreed.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And uh, And we're bringing that up because you if
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you see Matt paintings like you're saying in film, then
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: you'll notice if you look closely that the detail does
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: decrease the further into the quote unquote background you get,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of what they're doing here with Boeing Wonderland.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: But to the title of that, the absolutely the captivating
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: title of that monograph. We talked about they would decorate
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: these quote unquote lawn areas and vacant lots with actual
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: grasses and weeds designed by the members of le Roy
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Hanson's agronomy team.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're following into it. We're calling them le Roy No, yeah,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: we have to. It's it's like the Roy Oh yeah,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it's like.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: You know, the Rob Roy so Debtly and his team
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: are really knocking out of the park with this camouflage.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: This Bill Why describes it as passive defense, which I
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: think that's smart because it is not. You know. I mean,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: there's the there are the gunners there in case of
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: an emergency, but this is pure subterfuge, you know. And
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: it seems like it's they're putting so much thought into it,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: how could it fail. There were other initiatives in place
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: planning active defense, such as the execution of fire and
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: air raid drills and the installation of some air raid shelters,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: and that was handled by a guy by the name
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: of Glen V. Dearst, among other commanders that were in
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: charge of these other kind of aspects of the whole deal.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Another news release from the Boeing News Bureau that came
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: out in nineteen forty three said that all of the
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: plant personnel would be able to reach those sheltering spots,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: those bunkers in less than twelve minutes, so you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the safety of the employees, it would appear, was also
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: pretty paramount. Yeah, let's not have any illusions. That was
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: all for humanitarian reasons.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: They need the workers to get the job done well,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: because they also wanted to build war machines.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty thousand something.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: And it's strange because Seattle was, as we established, a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: unique problem for a couple of different reasons. If you
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: have ever looked at the ground from an airplane, you
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: notice that it's very easy to identify things through seeing
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the shape of the shore, like where land and water meet.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: So New York and San Francisco are very easy to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: recognize because of their shorelines. Des Moines or Topeka is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: different because their appearance is defined by rivers and bays,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and Seattle is between Lake Washington and the Puget sound.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: So it's very easy to find landmarks if you know
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for. And for this reason, our buddy
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: deadly says, we're gonna have to do some more stuff
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: with this Boeing project. We're gonna camouflage the employee parking lots.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: They're just too big and too obvious. We're also gonna
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: cover sections of other adjacent land and we might need
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to make a fake river.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to your point, you know, this is a feature
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that would be necessary to sell the illusion. You know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, not necessarily. The Japanese years were intimately familiar
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: with the geography of the United States. But you know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to make it ring true, you know, to make it
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: read as a successful illusion. You know, the way that
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: stuff's laid out is really really important.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, right, they and again lives are on the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: line here. The future of the world actually depends on
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: this camouflage plan, even if it sounds silly. So he
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: has this plan, He's going to reroot the Duwamish River.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: They never actually do this because here's here's the pickle,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and Max we were all talking about this off air too, man,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: here's the pickle. There were not any further camouflage projects
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: after nineteen forty three, because by the time they built
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: this stuff out, the course of the war had shifted.
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of like when you are it's like
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: a magic We both love cooking projects.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Imagine cooking something really evolved that takes hours and right
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: is your ribs. Right as you're about to pull those
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: beautiful slow cooked ribs out of the oven, your partners
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: or your friends show up and they brought takeout.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, KFC. Right in Japan, I tried. Right. Well, that's
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the thing though, too, where we almost don't have any
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: way of knowing exactly how effective this stuff was at
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: because it yeah, because of exactly what you say. When
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: we say the wars shifted, does that mean it became
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: more of a ground offensive or it just the what
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: happened now? Obviously not and I wouldn't say that, what right,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: But what was that about the tactics to change?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Well, by that point, Japanese forces have been driven from
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: those Aleutian islands and they were increasingly on their heels,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: so they were much less likely to take an offensive
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: posture or to be able to do so.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Right, and check my days, Guadalcanal was like forty three, correct.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I believe that's correct.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the first really big offensive because by
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: this point of the war, Japanese weren't really bringing the
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: fight to the United States.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: The United States were bringing the fight to them because.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Right the islands hopping and stuff. So the fear, the
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: overwhelming paranoia of nineteen forty two starts to fade. People
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: are feeling a little now, they're just safer, is nervous.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: But then eventually that fades too, and they say, Okay,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: that was a.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Crazy couple of years. Huh.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And they go to the Japanese American population of the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: US and they say, sorry, we laughed up and they're
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: like it's not cool. They're like, are bad.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like, you know, I recently watched the Aviator
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: for the first time, and you know, during the height
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: of these wars, when production was so important and innovation
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: was so important, you didn't you kind of spent the
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: money and asked the questions later, despite what we said
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: about having to convinced, you know, the brass that these
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: camouflage ideas were good. You know, a lot of times
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: just happened. They'd make tons of planes, or they'd do
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: a project, and then things would end or change, and
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: you would basically have spent all this money for nothing.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: But that's just part of the nature of you know,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: being prepared, like the boy Scout Code of Ethics. Right.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like Henry Kissinger would later go on to say,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: just get it done and then we'll make it right later.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Also he is sort of like if a turkey was
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: a person.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: So how do you really feel about.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, we can finally say that that's true, that's true.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I've got a lot of text messages about that one.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: You know, I was a little freaked out.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know if I want you
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: congratulating me on my phone, guys. But but yes, So
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: now that we walked down the street to take an
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: unprompted shot at a dead man, we do have to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: tell you the these rooftop camouflage fake town things. Like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: you said, there was secrecy involved, but it's tough to
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: keep that stuff secret. Like if you lived in the town,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: you would know something weird was up. It looked like
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: somebody's built a mini golf course or a putt putt
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: course on top of the airplane plan.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Well, and to our earlier point. You know, this stuff
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: at the time would have been completely off limits to
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: any civilians, highly guarded you know, classify. Wouldn't have been
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: any chatter about it on the you know, the radios
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: or what have you, and any communication that wasn't encrypted.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: But now the were left with these sort of weird
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: kind of tourist attractions that are built on top of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: these you know, these these airplane manufacturing facilities that are
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: making these weapons of war. And like you said, people
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that lived near there, they know what's going on. You
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: see the stuff being built, you know, So how do
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: they do They kind of spin it as like a
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: like a public like an active good will to the public, right, yeah, yeah,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Hey guys, we were thinking.
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: Of you.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Psych just for your kids.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Exactly on July seventeenth, about a month before, around a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: month before the Japanese government officially announces unconditional surrender, the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Army Corps of Engineers says, look, we've already sent out
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: some contracts to private entities. They're going to dismantle these
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: fake towns. We're not going to keep these around two
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: too long. They are no longer relevant. So, for instance,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: like a company out of la called LB Cotton Company.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: They got paid a little less than two hundred and
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars to take apart the Boeing Wonderland within
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty days. So all told, we're looking
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: at a cost of two million dollars, right, two to
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: three million dollars.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Did we mention that like setting foot on these fake
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: roof you know, top attractions prior to this would have
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: been a serious crime. Oh we didn't. Yeah, sure, yeah,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, again because of the levels of
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: classification and the secrecy around it, and you know, the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: fact that you could accidentally get yourself probably blown up
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: by a you know, a gunner. Yeah, this would have
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: been a big deal. And then within the course of
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: a couple of months that the tide turned and now
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: it's like this almost tourist attraction and it goes from
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: that to being the very little memory of it, you know,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: ever having existed. Were you able to find any photos
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: from this brief period of a photo op time?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: We have just a few if you go to and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: we mentioned this part one, if you go to Rare
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Historical Photos.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That's right, I remember that all Chestnut.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we went we went long. We went
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: deep on this one. But if you go to Rare
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Historical Photos and shout out to Max for finding this,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you'll see a couple of different still photographs where you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: can kind of see the edge over roof with the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: fake trees and the planes beneath. And then you can
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: see one guy walking around this uncanny valley tower.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Trees look weird. The trees look like they're made of
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: polygons or something like a bad nineties sim game. This
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: is like a Sega Saturn version of a town. But
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: again from a distance. From a distance, these would have
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: looked like trees, you know. I mean they knew what
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: they were doing. Man, this is super interesting stuff. The
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: grass looks like grass. The snosberries taste like Stosberry's, you know.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And then you really, folks to get a sense of this,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: both the size of it and the weird scale of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the buildings, check out this article. You can see you
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: could see a couple standing next to the plywood paneled
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: house and a little scale kind of yees see how
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: short the houses are. You can see those hills we
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: talk about because of the uneven sawtoothed roof.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I had said something earlier about how everything
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: was kind of scale and I think maybe we buried
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: the lead on this. I'm sure we mentioned it, but yeah,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: they're like squat looking, you know, because again, from from
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: a height could you wouldn't be able to tell as
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: long as they were wide enough, you wouldn't be able
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: to tell how tall the houses were because all you're
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: seeing is the flat parts or the parts that are
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: you know, peaked. So it's brilliant. As long as the
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: scale of the width and the length were right, the
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: height didn't really matter. So that these funny little kind
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: of dwarf houses exactly like Chick fil a. Oh man,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that was a cool thing.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: So here's the photo that I saw that I actually
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I did not even think about this until right now,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: but I'll stroll through the photos and it's the people
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: walking outside of a building going to another building, and
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: above them is still the town because of course you
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: have to have the town going over all of it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: I'm like, it's like it's not just like one big building,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: it's a giant campus.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: One thing.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: I you know, I was in Seattle late last year
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and my buddy and I we kind of did like
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: a loop and went as merce Island and stuff like that,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: and came down and we came up, like you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: through the south side of like Lake Washington, and that's
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: where a lot of the you know, aviation stuff in
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: Seattle was built and where it is still today.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And I was going there, I'm like, this is like
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: we didn't have enough time.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: It was very like short trip there, but I'm like, man,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: next time we're here, I want to go check out
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: all the bowing stuff here.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And this is also, uh, this is where we see
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a really strange and neat thing. So it's an open secret.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: People aren't allowed around these mystery towns. But now that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: they are irrelevant and people have worked so hard on it,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: we get the sense that a lot of people said, well,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: we should at least let people no, we did something,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: that's right, guys. We worked so hard on our art project.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Who knows there might be another World war coming right
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: down the line where we need to do this again.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: We need to sort of patent our idea at the
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: very least in the court of public opinion.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: So boeing As and Douglas Aircraft are like, Okay, we're
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: gonna at least do some photos. Guys, we built out
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: these elaborate sets. So they got a bunch of female
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: employees and said, get to the rooftop, stroll around. Yeah,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: just what we're looking at, right, Yeah, just act like
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: you're in a regular American suburb. And then these get
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: these pictures get published in Boeing News and Douglas Airview
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: and Boeing Magazine, and they get published right as yeah,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: right as this stuff is being torn down, and within
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: a few months, it's back to a regular rooftop. Also,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: by the way, John Stewart Dettley, the creator of Boeing Wonderland.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: He is Hollywood big wig art director, husband to the stars.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: He's starting to have a tough time, right Yeah. The
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: star in question Veronica Lake, Sex symbol Icon movie star.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: There were relationship began to disintegrate and it actually ended
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: three months after she had an unfortunately terminated pregnancy. She actually,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I believe, took a tumble and you know, while filming,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: and that led to a miscarriage and Debtly, you know,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: he kind of had peaked. It would seem he was
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: never able to kind of re establish himself in the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: film industry and didn't go back to California for twenty years.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: And then he married another woman named Virginia Crowell. And
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: you know, let's not forget he did have a background
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: in architecture after all. So he did become a pretty
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: well regarded architect in Seattle.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: And eventually, unfortunately he loses a second young child. Their
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: three year old passes away. They leave Seattle. After that point,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: they spend time in Hawaii and Baltimore before settling in
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: southern California. This is happening. The blackout paint is being
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: stripped from the factories all up and down the coast.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: And even John Francis Omer, the magician and camouflage enthusiast.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Has retired. This end of an era.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: End of an era indeed, and you can find people
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: who still study this, like Billion Yena. You can also
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: find folks like Mike Lombardi, who has an amazing job.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I can't remember who I was. I was talking with
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: my one of my sketch comedy buddies, Simon about this.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of big companies have a corporate historian, and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: your job is just to be the nerd who knows
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: about stuff.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: I would love.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: That job depends on the company, though, right, Yeah, Like
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: a candy factory, a walk a thing. That'd be nice.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Unless the background involves, you know, the appropriation and abuse
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of indigenous people. Yeah, did you read the original book,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: the rold All Books. It's a little problematic the way addressed. Yeah,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: because they're like basically like Pigmy, like Zack African, you know,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: indigenous people.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Also, if you want to learn more about Rule Dahl's
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Dark Side, I highly recommend this book, George's Marvelous Medicine.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have read that one. It's a shorter one.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: It's it's a quick read, but it's pretty dark. Yeah.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: He has a handful of a sort of more young
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: adult kind of ones.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: It's it's a book where just so you know, folks,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: if you want to if you want to be like
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the cool parent or the cool like uncle or aunt
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: or something when the kids old enough, introduce them to
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: stuff like Edward Gory and uh, George's Marvelous Medicine. This
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: kid his parents leave to go shopping or something, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: he decides that he's going to kill his grandmother.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, you need to say no more. Also, I remember
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: one that probably did not age well is called The Twits.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I forgot. That's a pretty rough one in
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: terms of it's uh, let's just say lampooning of what
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: today would be considered mental health concerns. Yes, yeah, absolutely,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: But we also have an episode about Roll Dahl and
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: his time as a fighter pilot himself and how it
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: is entirely possible that his good friend Ian Fleming based
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of the aspects of the James Bond character
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: on Roll Dahll.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and our corporate historian for Boeing, Mike Lombardi, he
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: remains amazed in interviews. He's saying, look, we've got almost
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a century's worth making great airplanes. You would think that
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: most people asking us about the history of Boeing would
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: ask about things like the B seventeen or the seven
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: forty seven, but nope, the most popular subject is the
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: neighborhood on top of Plant two. Everybody still is captivated
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: by this, as are we, and I think we've got
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of directions in this series, and we appreciate
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: you as always folks for tuning in. We love weird
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: obscure World War two history, as you can tell from
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: our past episodes. Shout out to our super producer research
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: associate for this, Max Williams, throwing some semaphore out there
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: helping us land the plane hollah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Orrah and Husky. Yes, indeed, and thanks to Nathan Toski
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: for keeping our marketing ducks in a row.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, podcasts Yes, And thanks to Jonathan Strickland a k a. L. Quizz,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks to aj Jacobs aka the Puzzler.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And thanks to Let's see who else who else? Oh,
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Alex Williams. Alex Williams composed our name Chris Frostiotos and
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: his wizard Beard He's Jeff Coats, both of them here
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: in spirit. And thanks to you, Ben for allowing us
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to be each other's wingman. And also, can I be
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: the Iceman? I thought you wanted to be the bag man?
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Well spent in our in our top gun kind of Okay,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: I've never seen top gun. I don't know either. I
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: just know there's a character named the Iceman character. You're
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: You're always my hunckle Beart is such a cruel life
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: pie not thin. I think we uh, I think we
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: got them. I think we do. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.