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War and Candy: The Infamous Tootsie Roll Air Drop · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: A young hasi o, fellow ridiculous historians, Welcome to the show.
0:28
Speaker 1: That is my um poorly pronounced attempt at saying hello
0:34
Speaker 1: in Korean, or one version of hello, Hello to you, Ben, Um,
0:37
Speaker 1: my name is Noel, Hello to you Noel, My name
0:40
Speaker 1: is Ben. Yeah, look at that. It checks out, And
0:42
Speaker 1: of course we're joined as always with our super producer,
0:44
Speaker 1: casey Pegram. You know, Ben, there's one thing we did
0:48
Speaker 1: not learn how to say in Korean. Well, there's a
0:49
Speaker 1: lot of things we didn't learn how to say Korea,
0:51
Speaker 1: but one of them is tutsi roll. And I wouldn't
0:53
Speaker 1: be surprised if maybe there was one of those phonetic pronunciations. Um,
0:57
Speaker 1: your your girlfriend showed me the other night when we
0:59
Speaker 1: were hanging out, a uh thing that she took back
1:02
Speaker 1: from your trip to Korea that had a phonetic pronunciation
1:05
Speaker 1: of the word lighter and it was just three characters.
1:08
Speaker 1: It was laha tour, I believe, which is nonsense in Korean,
1:11
Speaker 1: nonsense of Korean. So I'm wondering if maybe there's a
1:13
Speaker 1: similar thing for tittsy role. So why are we saying
1:18
Speaker 1: hello in Korean today? I don't know. I didn't do
1:23
Speaker 1: my homework. Can you help me out? You know, surely well?
1:27
Speaker 1: And we were talking about you know, the topic is
1:29
Speaker 1: related to Korea in a particular conflict that took place
1:33
Speaker 1: in Korea that I was woefully under educated about. And
1:37
Speaker 1: I know Ben that you probably were more educated about
1:40
Speaker 1: this particular situation than me. So why don't you give
1:43
Speaker 1: us maybe your background and why this might be the case? Right? No,
1:46
Speaker 1: you and I before we went into this episode, I
1:49
Speaker 1: think we both knew a little bit about the conflicts
1:52
Speaker 1: called the Korean War here in the States. Yeah, just
1:54
Speaker 1: mainly from watching reruns of mashre War. I thin, really,
2:01
Speaker 1: I am not a Mash Burt. Yeah. People always think
2:03
Speaker 1: it's about Vietnam because it was on during Vietnam. But
2:06
Speaker 1: but it is in fact about the Korean War, even
2:08
Speaker 1: though it was kind of quote unquote also about Vietnam.
2:11
Speaker 1: Casey on the case. So thanks for teaching me about
2:15
Speaker 1: Mash guys, I hear. It's a great show. I've just
2:18
Speaker 1: never seen it. Did you ever watch it? Yeah? I
2:20
Speaker 1: didn't watch it a time, but I watched it enough
2:22
Speaker 1: to learn a little bit about the Korean War, um,
2:24
Speaker 1: and also to know that the theme song of Mash
2:26
Speaker 1: actually has lyrics in the movie, and it's a it's
2:29
Speaker 1: very sad song. Yes, suicide is painless. It's a wonderful song.
2:34
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, it's sad. Yeah, beautiful is probably a better
2:37
Speaker 1: word there. So the Korean War, which is also called
2:41
Speaker 1: the UH Liberation War in some places, was waged between
2:46
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty UH to nineteen fifty three June nine fifty
2:51
Speaker 1: to July nineteen fifty three, a war between what we
2:54
Speaker 1: now call the DPRK or North Korea and the r
2:57
Speaker 1: O K or South Korea. And it was a proc
3:00
Speaker 1: the war because there was support on the North Korean
3:02
Speaker 1: side from Russia and there was support on the South
3:04
Speaker 1: Korean side from the US. It's because it was basically
3:08
Speaker 1: the imperial spoils of the Second World War where Japan,
3:13
Speaker 1: you know, lost their territory, which was Korea, and so
3:18
Speaker 1: the US and Russia kind of had to split it
3:20
Speaker 1: up between themselves. So the US reluctantly we're sort of
3:24
Speaker 1: in charge of South Korea and Russia, communist Russia was
3:29
Speaker 1: in charge of North Korea, and so it created this
3:31
Speaker 1: divide um between communism and democracy. Right. Yes, this is
3:37
Speaker 1: a very much a Cold War esque conflict. I think
3:40
Speaker 1: it's considered the first step that led to the Cold War, right, Yeah, yeah,
3:45
Speaker 1: in some ways it is because this was still this
3:48
Speaker 1: is what we would call a hot war, because there
3:50
Speaker 1: were actually weapons of war being waged. But it very
3:53
Speaker 1: much was a a symptom of this ideological conflict that
3:58
Speaker 1: would later determine so much of politics for decades. And
4:01
Speaker 1: we could get I don't know if we should get
4:03
Speaker 1: too far in the weeds on that one, because this
4:05
Speaker 1: is kind of the backdrop for our story, but I
4:08
Speaker 1: guess we should point out this war in a very
4:11
Speaker 1: real way never actually ended. And if you go to
4:15
Speaker 1: Korea today you will if you visit the capital city, Soul,
4:19
Speaker 1: you are very close to the demilitary Zone or d
4:23
Speaker 1: m Z. Didn't you do that thing, then yes, yeah
4:25
Speaker 1: I did. I went recently to the Republic of Korea
4:30
Speaker 1: and then visited the d m Z, which is a
4:34
Speaker 1: a weird place. It was a weird place, but it's
4:36
Speaker 1: a it's a physical, tangible reminder that this this war,
4:43
Speaker 1: although it may sound like it was ancient in the
4:45
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and stuff, it's still affects the people on
4:49
Speaker 1: the peninsula and in the larger region I guess we
4:52
Speaker 1: didn't really fully get into what the conflict was. We
4:54
Speaker 1: talked about how um, the US and Russia inherited the
4:58
Speaker 1: Korea Korea from Japan, but the Russian BacT I guess
5:02
Speaker 1: you could say North Korea actually invaded South Korea. And
5:07
Speaker 1: that's what kicked off this big ideological battle because the
5:10
Speaker 1: US as opposed to you know, practicing appeasement or something
5:15
Speaker 1: like that, because this wasn't really they didn't really even
5:17
Speaker 1: want South Korea. It was just something they were kind
5:19
Speaker 1: of like saddled with because of, you know, the outcome
5:22
Speaker 1: of World War two, and they looked at this as
5:25
Speaker 1: not just an invasion into something that they responsible for.
5:29
Speaker 1: They looked at it as the potential match that would
5:32
Speaker 1: light the world on fire with communism, right yea. So
5:36
Speaker 1: this Cold War conflict results in Korea being split into
5:41
Speaker 1: two separate states on the peninsula. But the problem is
5:44
Speaker 1: both of those governments consider themselves the sole legitimate government
5:49
Speaker 1: of the entire place, so they look at the other
5:52
Speaker 1: government not as an equal separate state. They look at
5:56
Speaker 1: it as this regime that should be toppled as soon
6:00
Speaker 1: as possible. And that was with under Kim Il sung,
6:03
Speaker 1: right right Kim Il sung, the first Supreme leader of
6:08
Speaker 1: North Korea from its establishment in the conflict when it
6:14
Speaker 1: occurs becomes a war of attrition. At first, North Korea
6:21
Speaker 1: is whipping the South Korean forces like all the way
6:25
Speaker 1: down to Bussan and Soul. Over the course of the
6:29
Speaker 1: conflict changes hands multiple times. Eventually, when the fighting actually
6:35
Speaker 1: ends and they signed an armistists, they make this d
6:38
Speaker 1: m Z line along the thirty parallel, but they never
6:43
Speaker 1: signed a peace treaty. So even today as we record this,
6:47
Speaker 1: technically the two nations are still at war even after
6:49
Speaker 1: the fall of the USSR and ben What was it
6:52
Speaker 1: like to visit to be in that d m Z zone,
6:54
Speaker 1: didn't you have to watch some kind of propaganda video
6:57
Speaker 1: that also explained how it was an amazing It's the
7:01
Speaker 1: only part of the tour I was not like. I
7:03
Speaker 1: didn't have the option of skipping. So you see a
7:06
Speaker 1: couple of different places. You see an observatory tower, you
7:10
Speaker 1: see the train station that could ship people or transport
7:14
Speaker 1: people directly to the capital of North Korea, and you
7:19
Speaker 1: go down a very steep tunnel, uh An Invasion Tunnel.
7:24
Speaker 1: There there are three or four that are discovered but
7:26
Speaker 1: there are multiple other ones suspected to exist. And you
7:29
Speaker 1: see how the tunnel was constructed through the d m
7:33
Speaker 1: Z and it's not a comfortable walk, but estimates say
7:37
Speaker 1: they could carry thirty thousand plus people through there to
7:40
Speaker 1: invade Soul. But the one part of the tour you
7:43
Speaker 1: cannot skip is at least our tour guid until us
7:46
Speaker 1: you couldn't is after you get out of the tunnel,
7:49
Speaker 1: Chicken is a very very steep walk. You have to
7:53
Speaker 1: watch about an eight to ten minute propaganda film from
7:57
Speaker 1: the South Korea inside the r O K side of
8:00
Speaker 1: how great the d m C is for migratory birds
8:04
Speaker 1: and biodiversity, which is actually that's true, and uh, you know,
8:08
Speaker 1: it's got the whole nine of every propaganda movie you
8:11
Speaker 1: can imagine. You can see that, like the hands from
8:14
Speaker 1: opposite side to the screen clasping each other, like that
8:17
Speaker 1: meme that's so popular nowadays. And it's strange because I
8:22
Speaker 1: was expecting propaganda from the North Korean side, but I
8:24
Speaker 1: was surprised how much exists on the South Korean side.
8:27
Speaker 1: There's still very much a conflict, and today's episode takes
8:32
Speaker 1: us back to when that was a hot war, not
8:35
Speaker 1: just an armistice, so nol our story today concerns those
8:40
Speaker 1: two things we we mentioned. We we talked a little
8:43
Speaker 1: bit about Korea, but we teased at the top of
8:46
Speaker 1: the show twitsi Rolls, And this is something where I
8:49
Speaker 1: wanted to check on our mutual americanisms. I feel like
8:54
Speaker 1: for all three of us, Casey, you and myself, twittsie
8:58
Speaker 1: rolls seem like a very well own thing, right, What
9:01
Speaker 1: are they? A US famous candy or a world famous candy?
9:04
Speaker 1: You know? Um, that's a good question, Ben, I don't know,
9:08
Speaker 1: But just to be safe, we can give the quick
9:11
Speaker 1: and dirty twitsi Rolls were invented by a guy named
9:14
Speaker 1: Leo Hirschfield, who sold him out of a Brooklyn candy
9:18
Speaker 1: shop before he sold the idea to a group called
9:22
Speaker 1: Stern and Solberg. That could actually be an episode unto itself,
9:25
Speaker 1: because there's a really intense, kind of tragic ending to
9:28
Speaker 1: that story, and there's a lot of hot debate as
9:31
Speaker 1: to whether he invented the candy and then sold it
9:34
Speaker 1: to them, or if it was the other way around.
9:37
Speaker 1: He also invented or he had several patents for um
9:41
Speaker 1: different candy making equipment, but he also this is probably
9:44
Speaker 1: my favorite name of any product ever. Um. Yeah, he
9:48
Speaker 1: invented a type of gelas and that was pre jello
9:52
Speaker 1: called Bromangelan Bromangelan, which I think would be great on
9:56
Speaker 1: a T shirt and a great nickname for Yeah. It
10:00
Speaker 1: was of those notxious nicknames like brusive. Yeah, exactly, Bromangelin.
10:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna use that. But anyway, a point
10:06
Speaker 1: being if you don't know what if this zero is, um,
10:08
Speaker 1: where have you been? They're not that good. They get
10:10
Speaker 1: stuck in your teeth. I'm not a huge fan, but
10:12
Speaker 1: they are very tightly wrapped in these little you know,
10:15
Speaker 1: with the ends and the little bow ends on the side.
10:18
Speaker 1: You can also get him in like a stick form.
10:20
Speaker 1: You know. They're they're much larger, and they're kind of
10:22
Speaker 1: the candy that you got a Halloween that you would
10:25
Speaker 1: rather have gotten something else. For me, they were acceptable,
10:28
Speaker 1: They were passable Halloween candies. Uh, anything was better than
10:32
Speaker 1: that orange and black wax paper taffy. Do you guys
10:35
Speaker 1: remember that Casey is Casey is nodding. He is so
10:38
Speaker 1: tired of that. Yeah, it's gross. It's like the last
10:41
Speaker 1: stuff you eat, and you do eat it. But it's
10:43
Speaker 1: the last thing you eat and you feel gross afterwards.
10:45
Speaker 1: And that's been a Casey on the Case Part two.
10:49
Speaker 1: We're doing them in in installments now, which is important
10:52
Speaker 1: because when you take them all together, it creates a
10:54
Speaker 1: whole picture. And we're going to syndicate these onto other shows.
10:58
Speaker 1: We're just not going to tell the other shows. Casey
11:00
Speaker 1: will pop in and hopefully it will make sense. But
11:08
Speaker 1: TWITSI rolls, which you know which I think you're right,
11:11
Speaker 1: and all are a story all their own. Twitty Rules
11:14
Speaker 1: were also valuable, not just as Halloween candy, but as
11:18
Speaker 1: World War Two rations because just like you said, you
11:20
Speaker 1: know how they're individually wrapped, they have a very high
11:23
Speaker 1: temperature tolerance. It's pretty much like chocolate wax almost, And
11:28
Speaker 1: they were seen by Uncle Sam as a source of
11:31
Speaker 1: quick energy because they also would remain edible for a
11:36
Speaker 1: long period of time. When you say energy, we're just
11:38
Speaker 1: basically talking like sugar, right, just full of sugars and
11:41
Speaker 1: no other nutritional value and TUTSI rolls, No, they're not
11:45
Speaker 1: part of a balanced diet. But yeah, it was a
11:47
Speaker 1: burst of energy kind of thing. And there are stories
11:51
Speaker 1: you would find about how Twits Rules helped soldiers, like
11:56
Speaker 1: how there was actually some fire behind the smoke. One
11:59
Speaker 1: story is of a pilot whose plane was shot down
12:03
Speaker 1: over the Sahara Desert and survived for three days just
12:07
Speaker 1: on tutsie rolls. But today's story is much less anecdotal,
12:13
Speaker 1: much more provable, and it's about a group of marines
12:17
Speaker 1: who were in a particular battle in the Korean War. Yeah,
12:21
Speaker 1: that battle was called the Battle of Chosen Reservoir Um Chosen,
12:26
Speaker 1: which is also called chang jen Um. This was one
12:30
Speaker 1: of the first campaigns of the Korean War. It was
12:34
Speaker 1: called the Chinese People's Volunteer Army UM, and they got
12:37
Speaker 1: involved because they felt like American troops coming into UM
12:45
Speaker 1: North Korea was in some way encroaching on their territory.
12:49
Speaker 1: And I was a little foggy as to why that was,
12:51
Speaker 1: because it didn't seem like they necessarily had an ax
12:54
Speaker 1: to grind in this particular war, and yet they made
12:57
Speaker 1: their troops available to help the North Korea. Yeah, so
13:02
Speaker 1: Chinese sources refer to this battle as the eastern part
13:06
Speaker 1: of the second Phase Offensive. UM. They entered the conflict
13:12
Speaker 1: to infiltrate, as you said, part of North Korea. We
13:16
Speaker 1: know that they were under the command of Song she Lun,
13:22
Speaker 1: who had been ordered by Mao Zedong to destroy the
13:26
Speaker 1: United Nations forces. We have to keep in mind at
13:28
Speaker 1: the time this was the United Nations was a part
13:31
Speaker 1: of this conflict. Uh, there were I think thirty thousand
13:37
Speaker 1: nine Nations troops here and about a hundred and twenty
13:41
Speaker 1: thousand Chinese troops who were who are essentially attempting to
13:47
Speaker 1: eradicate the United Nations. But Nold, there's an article you
13:50
Speaker 1: found that goes into a little bit more detail about this. Correct. Yeah,
13:53
Speaker 1: it's true. It's from a site called Inquiries Journal dot
13:56
Speaker 1: com UM and it's an article written by Banging Sue
14:01
Speaker 1: for the Journal of Interstate Affairs UM and it was
14:04
Speaker 1: reposted on this increased Journal site UM. And it basically says,
14:08
Speaker 1: the historians believe that the Communist Party, the Chinese Communist
14:11
Speaker 1: Party was really making preparations in Taiwan to unify China
14:16
Speaker 1: because it had been fractured, its economy was in shambles
14:19
Speaker 1: because of World War two, and it most scholars agree
14:24
Speaker 1: that the reason they got involved in this North Korean
14:26
Speaker 1: conflict was because they looked at the potential of an
14:31
Speaker 1: American invasion of their country as being on the table.
14:34
Speaker 1: Would faced successfully invaded North Korea and did this, you know,
14:38
Speaker 1: we're able to stem the tide of communism as it were, Yeah,
14:42
Speaker 1: the communist capitalist confrontation to allow the leadership of China
14:46
Speaker 1: at the time, this was seen as inevitable in China.
14:50
Speaker 1: In the US were seen as natural enemies by the
14:53
Speaker 1: leadership of China at that time and probably by more
14:55
Speaker 1: than a few UH senior officials in the US. So
14:59
Speaker 1: this battle was looking terrible for the U. S side.
15:04
Speaker 1: First off, they are drastically outnumbered. Secondly, the area that
15:09
Speaker 1: they're in, chang Jin or Chosen as it's often called,
15:13
Speaker 1: was just brutal. It was terrible. The temperature was around
15:17
Speaker 1: negative thirty fahrenheit. Yeah, and because they were outnumbered, surrounded
15:23
Speaker 1: by a hundred and twenty thousand Chinese troops, as we said,
15:27
Speaker 1: which seemed like a death sentence. And the US forces,
15:30
Speaker 1: Oh we should we should say who they were specifically, Yeah,
15:33
Speaker 1: they were the first Marine Division of the U. S
15:36
Speaker 1: X Corps. Yeah, So they put out this request for
15:41
Speaker 1: mortar shells to be delivered via air drop because again
15:44
Speaker 1: they can't get them through land sources. They're surrounded. But
15:48
Speaker 1: the problem was the problem was they didn't want to
15:51
Speaker 1: go on an easily interceptible line of communication and request
15:56
Speaker 1: mortar shells because then the enemy forces would know. So
15:59
Speaker 1: they had to use a code word. Yeah, which we've
16:01
Speaker 1: been harping onto the beginning of this episode, and you
16:03
Speaker 1: might have been wondering why. And it was tutsi rolls.
16:05
Speaker 1: It was tutsi rolls. Tutsie rolls was the code word
16:08
Speaker 1: for these particular types of mortar shows. But unfortunately, the
16:12
Speaker 1: person that intercepted that request, he didn't have his like
16:16
Speaker 1: handy dandy codebook translator with him or something. And you
16:21
Speaker 1: think that'd be one that that people would know though,
16:23
Speaker 1: you know, mortar show requests would have been not uncommon, right,
16:28
Speaker 1: I guess not. Maybe I'm confused as to why this
16:31
Speaker 1: guy was so confused. But confused he was because he did,
16:34
Speaker 1: in fact call in an air drop. Yeah, he panicked
16:36
Speaker 1: because he was like, I don't know what they're asking
16:38
Speaker 1: for exactly, but they said it was urgent, like life
16:41
Speaker 1: or death. So he calls in this air drop, but
16:44
Speaker 1: what what what exactly drops from the air there? No, Yeah,
16:48
Speaker 1: it's and it's not clear exactly how many were talking,
16:50
Speaker 1: but it was a must have been a quite large shipment,
16:54
Speaker 1: um packed. I'm picturing it like parachuted now unpacked in
16:56
Speaker 1: like wooden crates of actual facts. TUTSI rolls pallets, multiple palettes, Yeah, exactly,
17:04
Speaker 1: And the troops, instead of completely losing all hope, they said, well,
17:11
Speaker 1: we let's, I don't know, let's see what we can
17:14
Speaker 1: do with these, which just sounds such like such a
17:18
Speaker 1: terrible situation. You're surrounded by more than a hundred thousand
17:21
Speaker 1: people who want you dead, You request some sort of ammunition,
17:26
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you you get pallets of Halloween?
17:29
Speaker 1: Can you know? When I first started looking into the story,
17:31
Speaker 1: and it reminded me a lot of the episode we
17:33
Speaker 1: did about the US naval men who um threw potatoes
17:38
Speaker 1: at the Japanese submarine submariners. By the way, and yet
17:45
Speaker 1: there is a superhero named the Submarner, So yeah, you know,
17:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that's where we were both
17:49
Speaker 1: coming from. But I think that's exactly never understood why
17:52
Speaker 1: that guy has wings on his feet? He does? Is
17:55
Speaker 1: he kind of the precursor to Aquaman? Um? I can't
17:58
Speaker 1: remember who came first, but I would say The main
18:02
Speaker 1: differences are that name or the submarine or submarner can fly,
18:09
Speaker 1: so I guess that's why he has the wings on
18:10
Speaker 1: his feet and Aquaman can speak with the creatures of
18:14
Speaker 1: the deep. He's like the Doctor Doolittle of the sea. Yeah,
18:16
Speaker 1: that's a really good way to put it. So I'm
18:18
Speaker 1: picturing them just like chucking these, uh, these t tutsie
18:22
Speaker 1: rolls at the enemy, the Marines, not the submariter that do.
18:26
Speaker 1: That'd be strange. Um, both are would be pretty strange.
18:29
Speaker 1: But no, that's not what they did. They decided to
18:31
Speaker 1: get a little bit more crafty with it. Um. They
18:34
Speaker 1: had a hard time because of the sub zero temperatures
18:37
Speaker 1: cooking their food and heating their food up, and so
18:40
Speaker 1: they were actually able to like your story earlier about
18:43
Speaker 1: the pilot who subsisted on tutsie rolls for a long time,
18:47
Speaker 1: they were able to use their bodies to get these
18:51
Speaker 1: tutsie rolls to warm up to a more pliable, you know, edible,
18:55
Speaker 1: edible state, and then eat them. And they would also,
18:58
Speaker 1: you know, they could do that in their mouth through
19:00
Speaker 1: what I'm not quite sure why they use their bodies.
19:02
Speaker 1: Do you put it in your armpits? You can still
19:04
Speaker 1: do stuff probably, yeah, well, war as hell, war as hell.
19:07
Speaker 1: Not only that, though, they were able to do some
19:09
Speaker 1: other pretty clever stuff with them too. Yes, yeah, that's
19:12
Speaker 1: absolutely right. So not only would this stuff become pliable
19:17
Speaker 1: when it was warm through body heat or in someone's mouth,
19:20
Speaker 1: but it would quickly freeze when it left that warm environment.
19:24
Speaker 1: And so they found these Marines found that they were
19:27
Speaker 1: able to get a tutsie roll pliable and then use
19:32
Speaker 1: it as a type of makeshift weld. They were able
19:35
Speaker 1: to patch bullet holes in vehicles, they were able to
19:39
Speaker 1: patch hoses other equipment. Now this is over a period
19:44
Speaker 1: of two weeks, this this battle uh the Chosen Reservoir,
19:49
Speaker 1: and the fifteen thousand men the Division of Marines did
19:55
Speaker 1: not leave unscathed. Three thousand where Kia killed an a
20:00
Speaker 1: six thousand were wounded, and thousands had you know, terrible, terrible,
20:05
Speaker 1: terrible frost bite. And they were living on tutsie rolls
20:09
Speaker 1: because I believe all the other food was just frozen solid. Correct.
20:14
Speaker 1: So you have to wonder if it's a function of
20:16
Speaker 1: the extreme temperature that allowed a tutsie roll to be
20:20
Speaker 1: so useful there, because ordinarily, like if we were. If
20:24
Speaker 1: we were in a less frigid environment and we tried
20:27
Speaker 1: to patch a hose with a tutsie roll that we
20:29
Speaker 1: had chewed on like, that wouldn't work, right, clearly not,
20:33
Speaker 1: I would think. Not. Okay, So all that's pretty rough.
20:36
Speaker 1: But there's good news because they did uh persevere um
20:40
Speaker 1: and they were able to stave off the enemy forces
20:43
Speaker 1: in despite those casualties and those uh injuries, um, they
20:47
Speaker 1: ultimately survived. A group of them known henceforth as the
20:53
Speaker 1: Chosen Few. Get it, C H O S I n oh.
20:57
Speaker 1: I didn't even catch that, Ben, You're god, I don't know.
21:01
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't. Yes, so they did. They
21:05
Speaker 1: did manage to survive, and not only to survive, but
21:10
Speaker 1: to emerge victorious, and they returned to the US lauded
21:16
Speaker 1: as heroes. And you know what, the Tutsi Role company
21:20
Speaker 1: had to love this. Yeah, you'd think so. I'm sure.
21:23
Speaker 1: Do you think they capitalized on it and their marketing materials?
21:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't find anything indicating that that
21:28
Speaker 1: would be a missed opportunity, though for sure maybe they
21:30
Speaker 1: felt it was too exploitative. Well, it's sort of like
21:34
Speaker 1: the Potato story where they Idaho Potato Growers Association or
21:37
Speaker 1: whatever totally made a plaque about it. The main potatoes,
21:40
Speaker 1: excuse the main potatoes. So well, maybe they thought it
21:44
Speaker 1: made their candy look bad. There's also that that's true,
21:47
Speaker 1: that it was like the last possible thing you would
21:49
Speaker 1: want to eat. And it's literally you know, you were
21:52
Speaker 1: dying in the frozen waists and you use their product
21:56
Speaker 1: to plug bullet holes and gat them in your armpits.
21:59
Speaker 1: And yeah, just I just I think that's it because
22:03
Speaker 1: it's kind of like with you know how a lot
22:06
Speaker 1: of soda due to the bicarbonate and it can dissolve things.
22:10
Speaker 1: So if someone used Coca cola to dissolve something in
22:15
Speaker 1: the midst of war, I'm sure Coca Cola wouldn't be like, hey,
22:19
Speaker 1: drink this thing. That can You know, people used to
22:22
Speaker 1: like clear the corrosion on their battery terminals, right, No, no,
22:26
Speaker 1: not a good look. So it is a good look
22:29
Speaker 1: for these guys when they return. Although the Tutsie Roll
22:31
Speaker 1: Company does not, for one reason or another, capitalize on
22:34
Speaker 1: this story. In the US, people were impressed these folks
22:39
Speaker 1: have used what side note here was Frank Sinatra's favorite candy. Yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't he like buried with a bunch of them?
22:45
Speaker 1: Think it was a palette. Yeah, I don't know. I
22:48
Speaker 1: remember we were reading that, uh in a great article
22:52
Speaker 1: on tutsie rolls by Jeff Wells, Jeff mentions that Old
22:56
Speaker 1: Blue Eyes himself was buried with tutsie rolls, cigarettes, a lighter,
22:59
Speaker 1: and bottle of Jack Daniels. But we digress to get
23:08
Speaker 1: back on the rails. These guys returned to the US,
23:12
Speaker 1: as we said, they're lauded as heroes, and they were.
23:17
Speaker 1: I don't know, nowadays largely forgotten. This is somewhat of
23:20
Speaker 1: an obscure story, but people still remember it. Yeah. Well,
23:23
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven UM in South Bend, Indiana, they
23:28
Speaker 1: actually did a recreation of this event at the Southwest
23:32
Speaker 1: Michigan Regional Airport, which is in Benton Harbor, So I
23:35
Speaker 1: guess that's near South Bends. It is reported in the
23:37
Speaker 1: South Bend Tribune and a guy named Don olsbro Is,
23:40
Speaker 1: the president of a veterans group called Lest We Forget,
23:44
Speaker 1: was in charge of this event. And uh, they organized
23:48
Speaker 1: an air drop where thousands of tutsie rolls were dropped
23:51
Speaker 1: on the airport um to commemorate that that that day
23:56
Speaker 1: during the Korean War, and Alsborough himself was part of
24:00
Speaker 1: this team, UM, the the the unit, and he was
24:03
Speaker 1: actually handed a medal by President Eisenhower himself, and he says,
24:06
Speaker 1: you know this article that Eisenhower told him, you must
24:10
Speaker 1: have a body of steel, So you know steel, it's
24:15
Speaker 1: like in terms of durability, it's just under tutsie rolls,
24:19
Speaker 1: I believe. Yeah, And this guy is is the real
24:21
Speaker 1: deal in terms of heroism. He had already been injured
24:24
Speaker 1: by a grenade and then while UM one of their
24:27
Speaker 1: machine guns squad leaders was getting treatment, medical treatment, another
24:32
Speaker 1: enemy grenade got lobbed at them, and this guy smothered
24:36
Speaker 1: it with his own body, one of those yeah yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: and then he and he survived. And that's where the
24:42
Speaker 1: the you must have a body of steel comment came from.
24:44
Speaker 1: And so we conclude our tale, the strange story of
24:50
Speaker 1: tutsie roles in the Korean War. It seems as if
24:54
Speaker 1: we're we're generating kind of a theme here running series
24:57
Speaker 1: on food and war. But I'm fine with that. You know,
25:00
Speaker 1: I think this is an interesting topic. We hope you
25:03
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting topic. To let us know if
25:06
Speaker 1: you'd like to hear an episode about the surprisingly somber
25:12
Speaker 1: origin story of TWITSI Rolls. But the show is not
25:16
Speaker 1: over yet. We were talking earlier off air, and you
25:19
Speaker 1: know what, we're overdue for Noel a little listener mail.
25:26
Speaker 1: Our first letter comes from Kelsey and it has to
25:28
Speaker 1: do with farts, which is one of our favorite topics
25:32
Speaker 1: of all time. So it says, hey, Ben and Noel
25:34
Speaker 1: and Casey is a longtime listener to the show. I
25:36
Speaker 1: felt I had to reach out to you after the
25:38
Speaker 1: episode on Rowland and professional Farting. I do historical reenacting
25:41
Speaker 1: and have a tendency to listen to podcasts while working
25:44
Speaker 1: and sewing dresses. While you were having Casey translate Roland's
25:47
Speaker 1: names from French, it reminded me of one of the
25:49
Speaker 1: biggest mysteries and historical costuming. The help me with this, Casey,
25:54
Speaker 1: the pet laire Casey on the Case third installment, mid
26:00
Speaker 1: listener male segment within a segment. So. The patent laire
26:03
Speaker 1: is a traditional French court dress worn in the eighteenth century.
26:06
Speaker 1: It is essentially a large gown with a fitted bodice
26:09
Speaker 1: that is jack at length and is the shortened version
26:12
Speaker 1: of the robe a la Francese la frances Closer on
26:19
Speaker 1: the case that's never gonna happen for me. However, no
26:23
Speaker 1: one seems to know where the name comes from, as
26:25
Speaker 1: patent lea roughly translates to fart in the air. I
26:29
Speaker 1: can only imagine the name came from a very embarrassing
26:32
Speaker 1: moment in court and the name stuck. Anyways, I'm a
26:35
Speaker 1: huge fan of the show and thought you might enjoy
26:36
Speaker 1: some more flatulent related history kind regards, Kelsey, Thanks so
26:41
Speaker 1: much for writing in, Kelsey. We love a good historical mystery,
26:45
Speaker 1: and this is something that maybe we can also refer
26:47
Speaker 1: to our colleagues on our peer podcast Dressed. Yeah, and
26:51
Speaker 1: I think we're overdue to have them as guests. Yeah,
26:54
Speaker 1: we could definitely bring them on for a segment. Maybe
26:56
Speaker 1: we could do one stuff whatever. So also, I really
27:03
Speaker 1: appreciate any good fart joke. I was close years back,
27:07
Speaker 1: when I was doing brain stuff things for audio and video,
27:12
Speaker 1: I was terribly close to becoming the fart guy, and
27:16
Speaker 1: I was very hesitant to talk about farts at first.
27:20
Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of fart science, but fart material. Yeah,
27:23
Speaker 1: I was going blue. You're gonna be like Mr Methane
27:27
Speaker 1: remember him. Yeah, I think Mr Methan's got his own lane.
27:31
Speaker 1: I think we should let him be him. I don't
27:34
Speaker 1: I don't want to take that away unless there's but
27:37
Speaker 1: you know what, if there's a Sergeant Sulfur out there somewhere,
27:40
Speaker 1: you can write to us. We'll give you some airtime,
27:43
Speaker 1: we'll record you separately. We have another letter from someone
27:48
Speaker 1: who's been writing to us pretty frequently, and that is
27:51
Speaker 1: gu Me, who lives in Japan I believe in as
27:55
Speaker 1: an English teacher, and Me says, hello, gentlemen, after an
27:58
Speaker 1: episode where you both pronounce portmanteau or portmanteau in the
28:04
Speaker 1: way that you were called out on before, I made
28:07
Speaker 1: a Twitter poll out of curiosity because as I am
28:09
Speaker 1: an English teacher, I'm incredibly aware that a lot of
28:12
Speaker 1: words have multiple acceptable pronunciations. Also, your podcast was not
28:17
Speaker 1: the only one in which I heard this pronunciation. Here
28:20
Speaker 1: are my results. So you Me has posted this on Twitter,
28:26
Speaker 1: and there's one portmanteau spelled two and then portmanteau spelled
28:31
Speaker 1: t o W And did you just see this knowledge?
28:34
Speaker 1: I did, and and first I was had my my
28:36
Speaker 1: heart set on us being vindicated. So the to the
28:42
Speaker 1: Portmanteau got fourteen percent of the votes and Portmanteau got
28:48
Speaker 1: eighty six percent. Now, she continues, she had seventy two
28:52
Speaker 1: people vote. She says, seventy two votes is not a
28:55
Speaker 1: huge sample size, but if I remember correctly from high
28:57
Speaker 1: school statistics class, it's enough of one to say that
29:00
Speaker 1: you are not inherently wrong pronounced an importman too, So
29:04
Speaker 1: you can go either way, have an excellent day regards you.
29:08
Speaker 1: And this got me thinking, you, guys, we should do
29:12
Speaker 1: more polls. You know, we can go onto our Facebook group,
29:15
Speaker 1: It's true, and do uh do polls to our hearts content.
29:19
Speaker 1: I think we should. And the name of that Facebook
29:20
Speaker 1: group is the Ridiculous Historians, where you cannot join and
29:23
Speaker 1: become a member and get in on all the polling.
29:25
Speaker 1: Uh fun the future polling. There'sn't any There isn't any
29:28
Speaker 1: there yet, not that we know it soon. Um. You
29:31
Speaker 1: can also send us email where we are ridiculous at
29:34
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And you can you know,
29:36
Speaker 1: do the regular Facebook page if you want, which is
29:38
Speaker 1: just ridiculous history on Facebook. I think we're on Twitter's
29:40
Speaker 1: ridiculous history as well, and Instagram and all the all
29:43
Speaker 1: the stuff all all the hits, all the good ones,
29:45
Speaker 1: all the good ones and some of the weird ones.
29:48
Speaker 1: We'd also, of course like to thank our super producer
29:51
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram and our research associates Christopher Hasciotis and Eaves,
29:55
Speaker 1: Jeff go Oh, Let's lest we forget Alex Williams, who
29:57
Speaker 1: composed our theme. No uh, I'm not completely sure how
30:03
Speaker 1: to say goodbye and Korean, but I think you. I
30:06
Speaker 1: think the same casual hello is the same casual goodbye.
30:09
Speaker 1: So an yallow cossa