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The WWII Naval Battle Won Using Potatoes · Ridiculous History

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the show. Pressley Neville. O'Bannon was born
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty four and has nothing to do with
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: this episode other than the fact that there is a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: ship named after him, the U. S. S. O'Bannon. But Ben,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what did he do? Why did they named a ship
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: after him? Can we make the episode about him instead
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: of the ship? I'm intrigued. I I have intreat as well.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Nol Well, he did join the Marines in eighteen o one,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and as a first lieutenant he commanded a detachment of
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Marines in the War with Tripoli, and during his operations
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: with the U. S. Navy, he led a successful attack
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: on Dern in April eighteen o five, and this gave
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the Marine Corps it's a mortal phrase to the shores
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of Tripoli. Oh yeah, so he's you know, he's done stuff.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Had some stirring stuff right there, enough to get a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: ship named after him. Right, did you say my name? Yeah?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You're I think so, you're no old m okay, it's
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: just a ritual thing. Yeah, we should have the ritual.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We got it, and I'm Ben, Yes you are. How
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: do you feel about potatoes? I feel I feel great.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I like them almost as much as I like super
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegrom, which you know sets the bar very high.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Potatoes are pretty amazing, right, yeah, right on, throw him
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: at some Japanese submariners. There we go. They have many uses.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: In today's episode is about one of those uses. We
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: are exploring this story of the US S O Bannon,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: which is a Fletcher last destroyer, right, and some innovative
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: warfare techniques. They used a story so bizarre that I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: don't know about you man. At first, I was skeptical.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Did it beg credulity a bit? It did? Did it did?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But then when you really get down to the nitty
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: gritty at it, you can kind of see how this
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: absurd farcet could play out in real time. So so
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: how should we set the scene. Let's talk first a
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: little bit about the ship in question, the U S
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: s O Bandon. You mentioned it was a Fletcher class destroyer.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: What's a destroyer band? It sounds scary, it's a great
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: band that said, yeah, it's a dude, Dan, Dan, Yes,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I love I love destroyer. But but you know the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the ship? What's the ship? There? These very fast, long
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: endurance ships that are meant to function as escorts in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a fleet or a battle group. So I guess before
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: World War Two you would say destroyers were pretty light
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: vessels and they are great at unattended ocean operations. They
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: had to roll with a gang of other ships, so
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: typically there would be a number of destroyers together. But
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: after World War Two, guided missiles allowed destroyers to step
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: up and take the rolls that used to be filled
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: by battleships and cruisers exclusively. Right, And the destroyers would,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: like you said, kind of flocked together in a squadron.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: And the squadron in question today is des Ron twenty
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: one C E S R O N would stand short
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for a Destroyer Squadron twenty one. There we go. Yeah,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I liked what you're pronouncing that ye, and and and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that squadron consisted of the Fletcher, the Radford, the Jenkins,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the la Vallette, the Nicholas, the O'Bannon, which was the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Nicholas was actually the flagship the O'Bannon, the Chevalier, I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: think it was in after Maurice the French singer. Surely
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Casey Chevalier. Yeah, I don't know, Yeah, Casey on the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: case big underwhelming, but by no fault of his. That
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: was a silly question because it's not fair for me
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to put that much on Casey. You know what, that
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: we do hold him to a very high standard. Well,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: he is the standard. He is the bar which we
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: strive for on this show every day, daily basis. But
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I like how we're talking about assumptions because an assumption
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: is going to play a big role in this story.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, I should mention that, yes,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the USS O'Bannon was named after the famous hero of Derna,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Pressley O'Bannon, but it was actually the second ship
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to be named after him. This guy is ship rich.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Oh and then, just to wrap up the Squadron list,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we've also got the Strong, the Tailor, the Behn, the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ho Worth, and the Hope. Well, the Hope, Well, that
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: last one is pretty inspiring, right. So this is the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: group of ships known as des Ron one. On April five,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: they were return from a night of shelling, attacking short
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: installations deep in the Solomon Islands in an area known
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: as New Georgia. A lot of this story comes to
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: us from a firsthand witness, a sailor named Ernest A. Hair.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: You can read his direct account on destroyer history dot org.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So there they are. They're on the way back from
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: shelling these installations, and one destroyer the obannon picked up
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a radar ping that turned out to be Dunt Dunt Dune,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: a huge Japanese submarine cruising on the surface. Yeah, and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and the the Japanese naval men submarners. I said that earlier.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's accurate. And I know it's
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a superhero, the sub mariner. Yeah, submarner works work, okay,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: because there you know, they're on a submarine. They're like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a sleep on the deck. Seems super risky, right, Like,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I don't even think of a submarine really having a deck.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: It's got this tower that you crawl up and then
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I guess it's got a flat part that you can
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: like hang out on. And that's what they were doing.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And they were asleep. And one description I found at
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: this event on ship comrade dot com has a very
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: specific description of these sleeping sailors has them wearing dark
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: shorts and dinky blue hats. I'm guessing insubstantial little blue hats. Yeah,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: small or insignificant. Is that part of the name of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the Japanese Naval uniform. It must have been. I mean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: navies have uniforms, but yeah, these were dinky would mean tiny,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So essentially saying that they have tiny and bring that
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: word back, you're gonna bring it back. I don't think
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: people use that word and not. You know, Chuck likes
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: to use hanky. That's different. He goes through a hinky
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: phase every so often. That's Chuck Bryant from movie Crush
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and stuff. You should know. That just means things are
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a little dicey or there's like a problem. It's like wonky.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It's not quite problematic, right, but it's getting there. Let's
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: get it. Could well get this is this situation, hey hey, yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: so this submarine wonder of wonders is already surfaced, and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: it's not appearing to react to the presence of these
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: destroyers of the abandon in particular, so they take the advantage.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: They say, well, if we have caught this enemy vessel unaware,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: we better make the best of it. They approach at
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a rapid speed and they're preparing to ram the sub
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: to you know, physically knock the tar out of it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Because I was I saw some videos actually of these
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: destroyers at work doing that and that was a thing
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't didn't really think about that. But they were
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: like these, you know, um seaborn battering rams, and they
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: could pick up speed pretty quickly. And we're made of
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: pure steel and could withstand tons of damage and inflict
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: tons of damage on smaller vessels. Yeah, and think about
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it from a strategic standpoint, you're saving resources if you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: don't have to waste any kind of artillery. So in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a close range that's probably a more effective of a
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: way of dealing with it anyway, especially if you're pretty
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: sure that the lookouts of said target are asleep at
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the wheel or the periscope as it were, or in
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: this case, on the deck of the submarine. Right, So
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the captain of the Obanon is trying to identify what
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: sort of sub this is, and then at the last
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: minute they said, wait, we shouldn't ram this thing because
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: we might blow ourselves up. If this sub is, for instance,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the kind of sub that lays mind in the water.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I sit in the water. It's
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: not like they're just laying mines and the keepsie. Maybe
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that's a very weirdly specific type of sub. But so
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to blow themselves up, and they decided
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that they're not going to ram them, so at the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: last minute they swing to avoid collision, and they're really
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: close to the submarine. I imagine that probably caused the
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Japanese mariners to awake with a start right when you think,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: because as you said, they were on board the sub
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the surface of the sub right asleep. So they are
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: close enough now because of their last minute decision not
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to ram the submarine. They are close enough now that
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: they can actually see the Japanese sailors on the deck.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, while that might sound weird for them
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to be just sleeping out in the open on deck,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: we have to remember how claustrophobic a submarine environment could be.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: You're gonna do whatever you can, probably to get some
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: fresh air. A friend of mine who was talking about
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the story says, I bet submarines smell like farts all
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the time. Oh man, have you heard of hot racking? Okay,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: so this is just a side note. Spaces at a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: premium and so I believe it's called hot racking. Different
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: different individuals will share the same bunk just based on
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: their schedule. So you could have like three people sleeping
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the same bunk depending on their shift. So you
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: get up, you go to work, someone else lay down
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in the bunk. They get up, they go to work
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: at the same time. You're walking back and you sleep
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: where they slept. What does this have to do with farts.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, it's an unhygienic situation. Yes, agreed, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: don't want a hot bunk hot rack with anybody. Well,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: as you said hot bunk, and I immediately thought of
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: hot box, which pull the covers up. Wow, this has
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: really gone off the hot rails. So here we go
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the It's understandable that these guys want to get some
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: fresh air, but the ship is now awkwardly, very awkwardly
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: close to this submarine and they have this Larry David
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Seinfeld ask moment, that level of awkwardness because their ship
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: was way too close for them to fire guns on
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the sub and since no one on deck carried a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: gun either, there was not a shot at all from
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the U. S side. See what I'm saying. They were
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: too close for the trajectory of their guns to work.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Those are meant to be like longer range weapons, or
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: at least medium range. You gotta be able to get
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a beat on them and get a little arc right,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: because these are shells. These aren't just like high powered
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: machine guns you can shoot directly. You've gotta kind of
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: lob these things. Yeah. Yeah. Oddly enough, there was a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: similar situation on the Japanese sub because none of the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: people on the deck there had handguns. There was one
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: gun that could have worked, though, right at least on
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the sub. Yeah, it was like a three inch deck gun.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: What does that mean? Three inches? Like caliber? What are
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: we talking about here? I think it means primarily that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the gun fires a projectile that's three inches longed Okay,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: so that would be much more of a machine gun
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: type situation, right right, much more powerful than a handgun,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: but also much more able to fire at close range,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: uh and hit a target. So these Japanese sailors are
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: scrambling to get to this gun because they, you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: this giant ship is just right up on them. Can
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you imagine how how terrifying that must feel? Oh yeah,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: on both sides, on both sides, but especially on the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: dudes who are just naked up there on top of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this little raft thing. I mean, not that a submarine small,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: but in comparison to the size of the destroyer. It
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: would have been like you know, being out in the
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: ocean and like coming up on a whale and that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to kill you. Right, And then on the obandon side,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: on the U S side, can you imagine the escalating
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: panic they see when they realized that they can't fire
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: anything and they're watching, They're literally watching the folks on
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the submarine wake up, see what's going on, and start
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: running towards that deck gun and they have to think fast.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: They do to think fast. Because you may have mentioned
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: this before, Ben, I apologize if I missed it, But
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the Americans didn't have handguns either, right on them for
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: whatever reason why I guess. I guess that's not because
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: naval officers don't really carry handguns. Well, the thing I
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: think that's important here is on a destroyer, you're not
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: really building it with the assumption that you will get
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: boarded or the individuals will be in close hand to
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: hand combat, you know what I mean. And just the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: official word, um is that no, Navy officers do not
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: carry handguns. They're trained in weaponry, but that is not
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: part of their kit, that is not part of their uniform,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: their usual equipment. Right, So they have to. They have
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to think fast, looking around. Who has a gun? No
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: one has a gun. Wait, the sub has a deck
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: gun and if they if these guys reach it, then
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: we are in for a terrible, terrible time. So the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: guys on the uss O bannon look around and they
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: see these storage bins. Yeah, and I'm not it's not
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: even clear from from meeting up on this if they really,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: even in the moment, knew quite what was in there.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I think they were just kind of like just frantically
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: grabbing at anything, scrabbling for purchase. And uh. And it
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: turns out that these bins were full of potatoes. Yeah,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and they so they started throwing these at the guys
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: on the submarine, and the Japanese sailors panicked because they
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: thought the potatoes were hand grenades, because that's the kind
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: of thing you would logically throw it someone in a war. Well,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: these Japanese folks must have thought that these American sailors
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: had their act together much more than they actually did.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: They give them a little credit thinking, oh, surely they're
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: lobbing hand grenades at us, and it was dark, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: But you think when they gripped it they would sense
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the feel of the potato and not have those you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: traditional hand grenade rivets that you'd you'd be used to feeling,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: probably if you were a soldier. Yeah, but I think
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the adrenaline probably probably triggers a fight or flight things.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: The mind took over and made those potatoes into hand
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: grenades in the minds of the Japanese, and so they
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: started lobbing them back. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't run away.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: That's the best part. This is essentially a food fight
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: at this point because the Japanese sailors think that these
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: are hand grenades, and they try to get rid of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: them by picking them up, catching them, throwing them back
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: at the obannon, and then as this ensued, just lobbying
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: potatoes back and forth at each other. The crew of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the Obannon was able to, as Ernest Harris says, put
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: a little distance between our ship and the sub essentially
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to get far enough away to be out of range
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of that deck gun. And it's important to note at
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the same time they're getting out of range of the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: submarine's deck gun, they're getting far enough away for their
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: own guns to come into play. Specifically, those guns are
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: five dual purpose five inch thirty eight caliber guns on
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: single mounts. And those those five guns are not the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: entirety of the armament. They were also torpedoes aboard and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: they also had anti aircraft armament. But those five guns themselves,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the five in thirty caliber ones, that's a game over, yeah,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: for sure. And it was game over because they lobbed
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: off a good shot and they caught the Japanese is
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: um right in the little tower thing what's it called
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the Conning tower Conning tower, which is where they you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: climb out of it to get to the top to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the to the deck, and I believe that's also where
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the periscope is located. I believed run up into that
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and that's the little piece that you see if that's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: always you know, kind of floating over the top when
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the submarines not fully fully underwater but mostly submerged, because yeah,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I was trying to go for a dive, was trying
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to get out of there, and they must have caught
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it right in the nick of time because they you know,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: hit hit that tower and it disabled the sub enough
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't able to escape. And then the the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: obannon uh kind of maneuvered on top of it. And
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: hit it with a depth charge, which is like, what
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: what does that work? Just picture picture like a slow
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: orb or bomb dropping down. So a bop on the head.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, which is you know which? I'm not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: saying to diminish the tragedy of human life. But all
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: indications we can find show us that the sub did
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: indeed sink due to that depth charge and the shot
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: at the Conning Tower. Human life is indeed quite a tragedy.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Ben Yeah, yeah, I don't want to diminish that. And
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: off the Obannon went. But we have we have two
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: other things that we thought were very interesting about this story. Uh,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the Association of Potato Growers of Maine heard about this
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: potato battle and they loved the idea. Yeah, I did.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: They loved it so much. And they presented the crew
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of the Obannon with a plaque with some problematic language,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: right yeah, a tribute to the officers and men of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the USS O'Bannon for their ingenuity in using our now
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: proud potato to sink a And again this is a
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: quote is an offensive phrase to sink a submarine in
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the spring of ninette, presented by potato growers of the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: State of Maine on June four, nineteen one day. It's
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: weird about this is they have sink and quotation marks. Yeah,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that seems like kind of a dig, was it slang?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Do I have a question to them? Yeah? Why is this?
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Why is this considered the main incident, the main potato episode?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And why were they in the waters of Maine. I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: thought they were like somewhere else. No, they're in this
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: by the Solomon Islands. I know, That's what I thought.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So why would Maine have to do with anything? I
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: guess because they grow potatoes. I know. I mean they
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: literally called this event the main Potato episode. I've seen
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: it called that a bunch of time. Must have been
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: main potatoes, that the potatoes were supplied by Maine. It's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: so weird, dude. It's such a strange nomenclature. Like the
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: only mention of Maine other than the fact that it's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: called the main Potato incident multiple places, is the fact
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that the Obannon itself was forged um in Bath, Maine. Right, Yeah,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: that's a good call back in March of nineteen one.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So so now we don't know for sure, but we
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: have to I would say pretty good guesses it was
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: made in Maine. It was using potatoes from Maine. There's
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: a main element here, mainly mainly a main element. It's
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that the main part of the story. But Maine is
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: an important But we got we got there, here we
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: are I think this is the end. Um. Well, no, no,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: there's a little bit more. Do you want to talk
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about the ship and about destroyers,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: just as a little supplementary wrap up, sure, man, because
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: destroyers are fascinating ships in the Obanon in particular has
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: uh way more war stories than just this one potato incident,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: rights right, And there's another great account from this guy,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Earnest hair Um, just about like being um cadet or
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: what do you call, like a rookie first year sailor
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: on the Obannon and you know, going into the Battle
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of Guadalcanal. And it's like it's an angel fire website,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: which I thought. I thought with the way of geo
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: cities still around, huh, it's crazy. You ever tried to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: find your MySpace profile? Ben? Not the door I care
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: to open still around. I'll have to look it up
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and report back. But no. In this account, he talks
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: about his early days on the brand new shiny new destroyer,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the Obannon, fresh from the iron works, he says, of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: bath Maine. Also, the crew was as new as the ship, right.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Se of them were just raw recruits, and Green buys
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: his stars in their eyes. Right, But they're training, they're
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: learning how to you know, put on gas masks and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and you know, nurse severed limbs and all of this stuff.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And he says, a really interesting thing we'll talk about
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the gas Max says, surely we are not going to
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: be so unlucky as to need one of these things.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Everyone knows you can get hurt out here and maybe
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: even killed. But these are things that happened to the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: other guy, not you. Nevertheless, a laugh or a smile
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: became a rare item. And then he refers to people
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: over thirty as being old timers, which makes me feel
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: like a grandpapa. Right. But again, you know a lot
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of these recruits are people who are straight out of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: high school too, you know, in many ways still kids.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: That's right, But in this account he does takes him solace.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And the fact that he's told his whole crew is
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: told that this ship is damned near impenetrable and unsinkable,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and is loaded with all kinds of bells and whistles.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: What kind of bells and whistles are we talking about?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: We've mentioned a few, but what else we got right?
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: So we mentioned some of the guns, both the anti
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: aircraft and the surface guns, also torpedoes, and you know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: we mentioned depth charges earlier. But he points out that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: submarines actually run from this destroyer. Yeah, except when they're
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you know, asleep right right right, which again you have
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to we have to empathize with the utter terror the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Japanese sailors must have felt with this thing rolling up
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: on them, as you said, like an angry whale. But
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: let's get more specific. We mentioned those five inch guns.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: They also had ten forty millimeter guns for anti aircraft,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: seven twenty millimeter anti aircraft guns, uh, ten torpedo tubes,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: six depth charge projectors, and two depth charge acts. So
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: this thing is pretty much ready to tangle. Yeah, that's right.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And um, you know, like I said, the crew of
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this Maiden Voyage, you know, took some comfort in that fact.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: But um, they were first engaged in a battle called
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the Battle of guadal Canal, which was fought in the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Pacific theater of w W two around the island of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: guadal Canal, and it was the first big attack by
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the Allies against the Empire of Japan. And this is
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the moment when Hair and his sailor buddies kind of
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: got a taste of what war was really like. We
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: always hear about this idea of the romanticization of war
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: by these young bucks that come in thinking they're gonna
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: find glory and instead they find you know, severed limbs
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and destruction, flotsam and jetsam floating in the water. It
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: reminds me of a poem from World War One by
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: guy Naan Wilfred Owen called Dulce Decora. Miss won't recite
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the whole thing because it's a little bit long, but
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: it's I think encapsulates this I don't know this, this
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: universal idealism and then disillusionment and often death. It's involved
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: with war. The first engagement of the naval Battle of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Guadalcanal was relatively short in terms of time, but there
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was massive damage. Uh. Two American light cruisers and four
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: destroyers went down. Two Japanese destroyers were sunk. It was
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: it was terrible wars help and so I think we've
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: established that the obandon had a number of other adventures
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that were not potato related. However, I gotta say even
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the war is a terrible, terrible thing. I love the
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: image of these grown people having this sudden food fight.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, it's a food fight, you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: among grown men. I love it. I know we need
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: more food fights in general. Did it did? It? Did
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: end in the Japanese men being you know, brutally exploded
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: by a depth charge. That's not super cool. But again,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: food fights. Let us know if you ever want to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: get involved in a food fight, I would totally be
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: at all point. Really, no way, you wouldn't do it?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: No way. Do you hate fun? I don't hate No,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like fun to me. It sounds like
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the mess I don't even like it when it happens
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in movies. It grosses me out. I think it depends
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: on the type of food for me, like a potato
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: is not a messy thing. And actually potato could hurt
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you if you ever shot a potato gun I built.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Do you ever make napalm? No? No, just potato guns.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And let us know about your experience with where do
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: we go here? Potatoes? Life in the Navy building Potato guns, anarchists,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: cookbook recipes. Have you and speaking of you, enough about us?
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: What do you say to some listener mail? I says.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Our first listener mail comes from Michelle k Uh. Subject
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: is weird people who built with beer bottles? Hello. I
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: had gotten a little behind and finally listened to the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Weird people who Built Weird Things episode on the five
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: hour drive to visit my parents in the small California
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: coastal town of Cambria, which is just below Hurst Castle. Uh.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It's about halfway between San Francisos the famous Hurst Castle
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of William Randolph Hurst, famously depicted fictionalized in Citizen Kane Um.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: But it is literally as it sounds, a castle. It's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. And that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: episode you asked about other weird buildings, and I had
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: one immediately. One of my favorite places in Cambria history
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: is a truly bizarre home built by hand called Knitwit Ridge,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: which I love. It was built by a man named
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Art Beal over the course of fifty years, mostly out
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of trash that he dragged down the coast of Hearst
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Castle where he worked, and native materials such as abalone,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: shells tying in with another episode. There are beer cans
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: built into the structure as well. It's about our Heineken
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: bottle Bricks episode. Uh. He lived there for most of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: his life. It's uninhabitable at this point, but still sound
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: enough for tours. It's a time capsule inside because when
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: he left he left everything behind, so there are old clothes,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: food cans, et cetera. And then, um, she attached a
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: couple of photos here and it looks like a crazy
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Peter Pan tree house. It's awesome. Thank you so much
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: for the podcast. I've enjoyed every episode so far and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: look forward to many more. Thanks for the company on
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: my long drive. That's awesome. Thank you so much for
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: writing to us, Michelle. Also thanks to everyone who responded
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and sent us weird buildings from your neck of the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Global Woods. You know the Please keep sending them as well,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and let's do one more. May M writes to us
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and says, Hi, there have been a knowl. I'm a
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: big fan of the show. I love the segment Casey
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: on the Case. Hi Casey, I just finished listening to
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: The States That Never Were, says may And during the episode,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I was pondering note I am from Massachusetts, where I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: feel the attitude on the South can often be derogatory
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: or patronizing, but I try my best to be inclusive
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of all folks. It's cool. We feel the same way
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: about you in Massachusetts. I think Massachusetts is great. It's great,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: so May continues. I can't help but notice the two
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: of you do not speak in a Southern accent. I
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: heard one of your fathers during extra credit and was
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: delighted by his pride and his Southern heritage and accent.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if you too, naturally have an accent
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and smooth it over because you're on the radio and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: it alienates others, or if it's a thing you picked
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: up from TV and other media. I don't mean to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: be rude. I'm just and you're not being rude. May,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: this is a great letter. I'm just curious on the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history of why there is this divide and how
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: our country speaks, which is quite diverse and reality, but
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: in movies and TV only if it is relevant. Is
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the Southern accent ever used? Late for work? Have to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: get going? Should we show her our real voices? Ben? Alright, man,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: that's May. That's the first time ever it my know Brown.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: This is how I sound, bear my soul for you people.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: No more putting on iris for this podcast. Yeah, you
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: can hear Knowle's German accent coming out there. No, I'm
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: obviously kidding. Uh No, I don't know. It is funny
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: though we don't have any kind of Southern accent. You're
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: very strong. Do you ever code switch though, when you're
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: around like your folks, or you go back home to
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to uh Tennessee and you see some family who have
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: more of an accent, do you ever kind of find
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: yourself drifting into it a little bit? No? You know.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: The only thing is sometimes vowels will come out strange,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you know. But uh I, I actually I responded to this,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And one of the points that we want to make
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: is that here in the information age, a lot of people,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: at least in the US, are going to speak with
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a more neutral Midwestern kind of accent because that's what's
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: encouraged in television on your local news station, for example.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And I think we can all agree that diversity of
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: accents is a really fantastic thing, and they could be
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: more well represented in the media. Also, this is great embarrassment.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I cannot pronounce you all to save my life. You
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: just didn't No, you know what I mean? The contraction, Yeah,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: you can't say y'all. I just can't pull it off.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Man. I quarrel with this,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: but you got I got quarrel with you now. Well
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: our creative differences aside. The point that I think the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: three of us wanted to make with accents is that,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: regardless of how people may or may not judge you
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: for the way you speak, uh, I would say, embrace
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: your accent. You know what I mean, It's part of
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: what makes you you. And also, accents are dynamics. So
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: if you move somewhere where people pronounce things differently, such
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: as um Madonna moving to the UK or US moving
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: to Australia, eventually some things are gonna sink in. You're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: gonna start I mean, you're not automatically gonna start yelling
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: good day at people, but day. But we tend to,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we tend to, at least UH speak the way that
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: people around us speak. It's true. So thank you so
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: much to May and Michelle and everyone else who wrote in.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: This is the end of listener mail, but not our
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: show you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: We're especially delighted with our community page, Ridiculous Historians that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: we are made some lifelong friends. They're ridiculous historians. Uh.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: And you can be a part of that pool of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: humans as well by going to Facebook and signing up.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: All you gotta do is tell the robot what our
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: names are, only one of them, and we get a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: kick out of the waist people spell my name and
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the ways people spell your last name. Ben it is
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: who we also we also have T shirts now we're legit, yeah,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: with our names on them spelled correctly. You can you
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: can find one of our favorite T shirt designs featuring
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: our old pal slash nemesis Jonathan Strickland the Quister. Yeah,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: he's got a t public dot com slash Ridiculous History
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and you can get that stuff slapped on a mug
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: or a mouse pad, or a backpack or a laptop sleeve,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: anything pretty much that you can think of, you can.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: You can slap a logo on up there. And if
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you have ideas yourself for our designs, anything here in
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the show you think would be cool on a piece
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: of march, let us know, right, that's it ridiculous at
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com. Like to thank super producer
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegraham, Like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Like to think our research associates Christopher hasiotis Eve's Jeff Coat,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, thank you for tuning it.