Latest / Privycast / Ep. 208 The Vietnam Toilet Bomb
Transcript
- 0:01For the most part, all of this ordinance was in those main types discussed.
- 0:08That is, except for one special ordinance that was dropped in the fall of nineteen sixty five.
- 0:22Welcome back to Privy.
- 0:24Privy is a podcast about bathrooms recorded from my home bathroom.
- 0:31I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
- 0:35Welcome back, everyone.
- 0:36Thank you for being here.
- 0:37And here in the United States, at the point of this episode's release, we just celebrated our nation's 250th anniversary.
- 0:46We did it.
- 0:48For a lot of people that live
- 0:51Outside of the US, that 250 is is not the biggest thing ever.
- 0:56Like there's lots of nations that have been around a lot longer than 250 years.
- 1:01That said, still an accomplishment.
- 1:04I'm proud to be an American.
- 1:05I'm thankful for the freedoms that we have to those who fought to protect them and died in doing so.
- 1:13And so this 250th anniversary of our country is a big one.
- 1:18Friend of the show.
- 1:20And former guest Michael Wall let me know that a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary is called a semi quincentennial.
- 1:29So like
- 1:32That's pretty neat and stuff.
- 1:33It's a long time.
- 1:34It's kind of a weird way to put it.
- 1:36250 is easier to say.
- 1:38Just saying.
- 1:39but it's also a reminder that in the grand scheme of things, like America is young as a nation.
- 1:46There's much we can and should still seek to accomplish as a country.
- 1:54Here on Privy, one of the things we try not to take for granted are the freedoms we enjoy.
- 2:01in this country.
- 2:03And the safety we have in relation to what can be accomplished due to those freedoms.
- 2:13Those freedoms were bought and paid for literally by the blood of Americans.
- 2:19The safety we have in relation.
- 2:21And and we recognize that freedom is not free, never has been, never will be.
- 2:30You can't just say
- 2:31Well, I declare that these groups of people or this person or this idea is free.
- 2:37It costs something.
- 2:40We will tell you that every time we say goodbye on the show.
- 2:43No matter who the organization is that we are that we are supporting, we will remind you that freedom isn't free.
- 2:52Out of thankfulness, which is actually much of what this show is built on, is being thankful for the things that we have.
- 3:01In our case, it's the simple truth that we have these toilets that we can do our shameful business in and it helps make it disappear.
- 3:10But much of the show is built on this attitude of thankfulness.
- 3:15We take a look at browner, less beautiful parts of our nation's history in the month of July as a means of celebrating the moments of bathroom history that help make our country
- 3:29great.
- 3:31We've covered a lot when we do our our privy's patriotic episodes.
- 3:37We've talked about privy pits and the artifacts of American history that are found in them, Ben Franklin's questionable showering habits, and the brown sidewalk at Disney that
- 3:49is reminiscent of the days where there was no plumbing, and we just dumped our poop out the window and rinsed it down the street.
- 3:58Again, it was a different time.
- 4:01Today on Privy, we are going to celebrate and discuss the country's freedoms and our 250th anniversary with a bathroom-packed and themed American topic.
- 4:16We need to dive back into some observations that we'll look at later, in fact, as at the point of this episode's record, Joey Chestnuts has not eaten.
- 4:29his very, very good stack of hot dogs.
- 4:33We look forward to seeing the results of that and by this episode's release, you will know that Joey Chestnuts has eaten fill in the blank here, many hot dogs.
- 4:44It's a lot.
- 4:45Good luck, Joey.
- 4:46I pray for you the day after.
- 4:50First, we need to take a look back at history to g set the stage for today's topic.
- 5:02The Vietnam War officially lasted almost 20 years, from 1955 to 1975.
- 5:10During World War II, there were movements of decolonization throughout the world.
- 5:16One such instance was the formerly French colonized Vietnam.
- 5:21As the Vietnamese people decolonized from their French influence, Japanese forces took advantage of the situation and invaded.
- 5:31Vietnam.
- 5:33Caught in the middle was the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, who sought for a quote independent Vietnam.
- 5:44Later, when the Japanese pulled out of Vietnam, they left Emperor Bao Dai in control.
- 5:52Ho Chi Minh's forces rose up and took over the northern city of Hanoi.
- 6:00Declaring a quote democratic republic of Vietnam.
- 6:06You'll notice that I stick some of these terms in quotes, because as is often the case when we have these political organizations and groups abroad and here in the states who
- 6:19stand for something, quote unquote, they'll often label it things like I love free hugs and ice cream coalition.
- 6:27And really
- 6:28They're trying to kill your kids.
- 6:30I wish I was making some of this up, and that's an example to the extreme, but political organizations and nations throughout history have done this.
- 6:40What we label a thing is used to propagandize the group.
- 6:47Trying to take back control, the state of Vietnam was established with Emperor Bao, he was the one who was left in place from those the Japanese when they pulled out as its leader,
- 7:00the capital being in Saigon in nineteen forty nine.
- 7:06Both sides of this Vietnam conflict at the time wanted the same thing a unified Vietnam.
- 7:17The problem with Unity is it only goes as far as you can get people to agree about what to be unified on.
- 7:26Here at Privy, we're all unified on the fact that bathrooms are great.
- 7:32But what these groups would unify around really started to take the cake.
- 7:37I dropped some cake.
- 7:39Ho Chi Minh wanted it modeled after communist nations, like China and Russia.
- 7:47Bao, with the Japanese and uh earlier French influence, wanted it modeled after the economic and cultural ties to the Western world.
- 7:57You see that French influence still bleeding through.
- 8:01even though Vietnam had been decolonialized.
- 8:06From here, conflict between the communist Vietnamese forces in the north and the French influenced Western leading forces in the South ensued.
- 8:19There was conflict for some time, but the tide began to turn in nineteen fifty four at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
- 8:27Now
- 8:29Once again, I have to check my ignorance.
- 8:31I'm not Vietnamese.
- 8:31I know you couldn't tell by looking at me.
- 8:34I'm wearing a red, white, and blue Costco t shirt for goodness sakes.
- 8:38Nothing screams I'm not Vietnamese like a red, white, and blue Costco t shirt.
- 8:45It does scream two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America, though.
- 8:48There you go.
- 8:49But at the battle of Dien Bien Fu, and at this battle, the Ho Ch Ho Chi Minh beat
- 8:58the the French tide portions of the Vietnamese in the country.
- 9:04As a result, the country of Vietnam was split along the 17th parallel with Ho Chi Minh controlling the north and Bao that French Japanese Tide ruler placed in the south.
- 9:23All this is going on in Vietnam, and meanwhile, here in these United States, Cold War tensions made America highly suspect of any communist leanings throughout the world.
- 9:36And I want to note, rightfully so, communism doesn't work.
- 9:41And that's the end of that conversation.
- 9:44With a newly communist friendly power moving in in Vietnam, this really got America's attention.
- 9:52It was like, wait, what's going on down there?
- 9:55And while America was not actively involved at the outset, concerns related to the domino theory were building.
- 10:08The domino theory is much like the Taco Bell theory of bathrooming.
- 10:14And it's the idea that if one thing falls, the rest will go with it, like a domino, if you will.
- 10:22If I get the tummy rumbles on the Taco Bell started, it only gets worse until there is disaster, usually in the toilet, hopefully in the toilet.
- 10:33It's the times when it's not in the toilet that I think it's truly labeled a disaster.
- 10:37Yeah.
- 10:39In the case of Vietnam, the domino theory was the idea that if there was any Southeast Asian country that fell to communism, they would all fall to communism as a result.
- 10:53They would see that the communists would see that it actually worked.
- 10:57They have gotten their agenda in the region, and that the rest of the world there would follow.
- 11:05President Kenny Kennedy.
- 11:08As such increased aid to the region, but military intervention waited and was paused at this time.
- 11:19When Lyndon B.
- 11:20Johnson took over the presidency, they ramped up involvement in the area.
- 11:26In nineteen sixty-four, again, this is almost ten full years into the con the official Vietnam War, Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S.
- 11:38vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, leading to U.S.
- 11:42military retaliation.
- 11:45The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed.
- 11:48And it gave permission for regular US bombing raids in Vietnam in what was now in what is called Operation Rolling Thunder.
- 12:00Operation Rolling Thunder, again, see the distress I feel when bathrooming post Panda Express.
- 12:06Military troops were then further called into the region to help support capitalist leaning Southern Vietnamese efforts to stop the spread of communism in the country.
- 12:22While there is ongoing tensions related to the end of the Vietnam War, there was distrust related to the government's purpose of the war.
- 12:33Troop morale was at an all time low.
- 12:36Propaganda televising the horrors of war to the US people, and reports about what is being said back home weren't lining up with the soldiers' perspective on the ground.
- 12:48This led to an ugly end of war resolution.
- 12:53I wanna know.
- 12:56It's been said, I believe Ben Shapiro is the one who's said it.
- 13:00But it's that
- 13:04The American people
- 13:08Will they grow tired easily of seeing catastrophes on their televisions?
- 13:14And as the Vietnam War is one of the first wars that news coverage and reports can be televised back home, footage can be shown to the American people, they didn't like what
- 13:28they saw.
- 13:29War is ugly.
- 13:32And the soldiers in Vietnam, they did not feel supported.
- 13:40That and when America finally pulled out of the war, it didn't take long for what they had tried to stop the spread of communism to Vietnam to happen anyway.
- 13:53The Vietnam War went in the official record as a loss.
- 13:59And what is most unfortunate is because of the loss, because of the perception during the time of the war.
- 14:07There was an awful mistreatment of American service members for their involvement.
- 14:14First of all, if you're an American service member, a vet, thank you for your service, officially, no matter what conflicts you were involved in.
- 14:24It's a great reminder, the Vietnam War and any war that we might enter as a country, that you cannot support what conflicts we are in and still support the people who defend the
- 14:37freedoms we enjoy in the midst of those conflicts.
- 14:40Often military service members, they might not agree.
- 14:45With the war's efforts either.
- 14:47But it's their job.
- 14:48They took an oath, and it is part of the the call to action, the call to duty, if you will.
- 14:57And so there was an unfortunate mistreatment of Vietnam veterans when they returned home from war.
- 15:03And so that's that's kind of the background for the Vietnam conflict.
- 15:15Was going on and how America entered into this conflict.
- 15:19But we need to discuss now a specific piece of technology and part of the wartime effort that I think was not considered when we entered into the disagreement.
- 15:33For the American efforts in Vietnam, supply chain problems were a problem.
- 15:41Mostly, the longer the chain in a supply chain, the more difficult or more likely you are going to experience a supply chain problem along the way.
- 15:53This is part of what happened in Vietnam.
- 15:56Turns out, when you're trying to stop the spread of communism over 7,000 miles across this Pacific Ocean, and the communists already have support within a within.
- 16:10a couple hundred, if not thousand, miles from where they are where they are working.
- 16:16It takes a fraction of the time to get communist aid to the region.
- 16:23Than it does to get aid to those who would seek to stop the spread of it.
- 16:29You have, in short, a supply chain issue.
- 16:34This led to a couple of problems.
- 16:36Sometimes the aid you needed when the aid left port in the US actually changed by the time it arrived in Vietnam.
- 16:44It was such a far journey across the ocean.
- 16:48That the aid that was needed that was loaded onto the vessels that were bringing it changed by the time those vessels arrived.
- 16:57They often had to make do with what they were sent or given.
- 17:02And if you are fighting in a war and you are being shot at and you are really in a thing of survival, just making do with what you're given is not what you want to hear.
- 17:15There was also drastic shortages.
- 17:18That coupled with the fact that it was very costly to send these supplies that far away meant it would often advantage the military financially to send aid after they could
- 17:32totally fill a boat or aircraft and then drop it.
- 17:36That sometimes meant that there was a delay in the aid getting to where it needed when it needed to be there.
- 17:44The boat isn't full, it's not at capacity.
- 17:48This is another reminder about war.
- 17:52War is a big financial game.
- 17:57As such, pilots and ship captains hated to leave to make their deliveries when they were not fully loaded.
- 18:07This occurred so often that they had to make a policy during the Vietnam War.
- 18:13And the policy stated from the carriers.
- 18:17Bomber pilots, they would often leave the ship without a fully loaded engine, not full ammo.
- 18:23And if we're telling the truth, low on morale, you would not your your gas tank would not be on full.
- 18:32Your rations would not be totally supplied.
- 18:35They would have to leave if they had a half load of ordinance, meaning if they weren't completely full, if they were half full, they would still be sent.
- 18:48This policy further damaged morale, with many pilots objecting to the decision as it increased loss rates, that is, people dying because of these choices.
- 19:03At the worst moments of the Vietnam War, we lost one American pilot every day.
- 19:09They run out of fuel, go down, and many times are never seen again.
- 19:16Very bad.
- 19:20Often Vietnam soldiers reported feeling helpless, both in wartime efforts, but also in their positions as US servicemen.
- 19:31Navy strike fighter Squadron 25 of VFA 25's Naval Air Station is a US airline carrier that operated during the World War II conflict, the Korean War conflict, and the Vietnam Wars.
- 19:47During the Vietnam Wars, this naval air station
- 19:51Held and launched the giant piston-powered A1 Skyraider, close air support aircraft.
- 19:59This aircraft, known as a Douglas A1 Skyraider, is an American single seat attack plane.
- 20:07It was a propeller-based aircraft and one of the last used before they fully switched to jet propelled aircraft for wartime.
- 20:18These Douglas A one skyraders are responsible for some of the earliest strikes against the North Vietnam conflict.
- 20:27While its primary firepower are two built-in 20 millimeter M3 cannons on each wing, each carrying 200 rounds of ammo.
- 20:37They could also carry fifteen different pieces of what is called ordnance, or up to 8,000 pounds of ordnance.
- 20:46These could be
- 20:47Could be anything from torpedoes, mines, rockets, gun pods.
- 20:53The most common type of ordnance equipped to the Douglas A1 Sky Raiders were a GE, yes, the people who make your washing machines.
- 21:05A GE G AU two six barrel machine gun that came with a 1500 round magazine and could fire 4,000 rounds per minute.
- 21:18Ordinance that would be dropped on Northern Vietnam was a one hundred pound white phosphorus bomb known as a wily peat.
- 21:29This was usually used for signaling purposes, but also could deal destruction and casualty when it landed.
- 21:38The 500 pound low drag general purpose bomb, or a Mark eighty two, was a mechanical impact bomb.
- 21:46It hits the nose, and that that mechanism triggers when it when the that force is put, causing the bomb to explode and go off.
- 21:57Another ordinance, known as a submunition dispenser,
- 22:02Could dispense a variety of things as you flew over, including smoke bombs, pineapple bombs, jungle bombs, gravel mines, etc.
- 22:12And what would happen is when the plane's ordinance was half full, remember, due to that policy that was put in place during wartime, they would be sent on their flyover missions.
- 22:27But sometimes it would only be half full.
- 22:31And it would even be half full, but it wouldn't be things that you want in that specific situation.
- 22:37You might want to drop a Wiley Pete, but no Wiley Pete's have been stocked.
- 22:43And so you're left with dropping gravel bombs in the set.
- 22:47And so there was a feeling from pilots at the time that they were risking.
- 22:52Remember, it at the worst, it was one American pilot was lost every day.
- 22:59And so they felt like they were risking or putting their lives on the line with possibly no real gain.
- 23:05Yes, we'll do the flyover, we'll drop what we got, but like at what cost?
- 23:10Will it even be worth it?
- 23:12These American service people dropped a lot of bombs.
- 23:17In fact, it is estimated over the course of the Vietnam War, as a part of Operation Rolling Thunder, the US dropped nearly nearly fifteen million tons of ordinance over
- 23:29Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
- 23:32It's a lot of ordinance.
- 23:34And I and I'm not trying to make light of wartime.
- 23:38I'm not.
- 23:39Like war is serious.
- 23:40People died.
- 23:42It's not great.
- 23:43It's very bad.
- 23:45But I also believe that I would be missing an opportunity to adapt a new, a new euphemism for going to the bathroom.
- 23:54That is, I'm going to drop my ordinance.
- 24:03For the part, all of this ordinance was in those main types discussed.
- 24:10That is, except for one special ordinance, that was dropped in the fall of 1965.
- 24:19What we have now is a report from retired Navy Captain Clint Johnson of the USNR.
- 24:28He stated, quote,
- 24:30I was a pilot in the on the VA twenty five, the nineteen sixty five Vietnam cruise.
- 24:37Five hundred and seventy two was flown by C DRC Hugh Bill Stoddard.
- 24:43His wingman in five hundred seventy seven, which was my assigned airplane, was L C D R Robin Bacon, who had a wing station mounted movie camera, the only one remaining on the
- 24:55fleet out coming out of World War two.
- 25:01The flight was a Dixie station strike, southern Vietnam going into the Delta.
- 25:07When they arrived in the target area and CDR Stoddard was reading the ordinance list to the FAC, the forward air controller, he ended with a and one code name Saniflush.
- 25:21The FAC couldn't believe it and joined up to see.
- 25:26It was dropped in a dive with L C D R Bacon flying tight wing position to film the drop.
- 25:33When it came off, it turned whole to the wind and almost struck his airplane.
- 25:39It made a great ready room movie.
- 25:42The FAC said that it whistled all the way to the ground.
- 25:48The toilet was a damaged toilet which was going to be thrown overboard and one of our planes, this is still the the
- 25:56Retired naval officer speaking.
- 25:58One of our plane captains rescued it and the ordnance crew made a rack, tail fins and nose fuse for it.
- 26:06Our checkers maintained a position to block the view of the air boss and the captain while the aircraft was taxiing forward.
- 26:13Just as it was being shot off, we got a one MC message from the bridge.
- 26:17What the hell was on five hundred seventy two's right wing?
- 26:23There was a lot of jokes with air intelligence about germ warfare.
- 26:30I wish that we'd saved the movie film.
- 26:32CDR Stoddard was later killed while flying 572 in October 1966, hit by three SAMs over Vin.
- 26:42This report, given by retired Navy Captain Clint Johnson, captures our main focus on today's topic.
- 26:50And if you didn't catch it based on Johnson's account, Clarence Stoddard, a pilot off of this naval vessel.
- 26:59Took off in a plane titled the Paper Tiger 2.
- 27:03Strapped to his airplane in one of the ordnance spots underneath was a makeshift bomb.
- 27:12It was a toilet that had busted on board the naval carrier.
- 27:16And originally they were going to throw the toilet overboard, make more room.
- 27:22But the pilots and the the officers got a hold of the toilet.
- 27:30ri rigged it and filled it full of explosives and then set it to detonate on impact.
- 27:36I love the part of his account where they pos they specifically like made it to where the the captain and and other folks who would clear for takeoff couldn't see the toilet
- 27:47hanging from the bottom.
- 27:48And I'll I'll put I'll put images in the in the social media things in the coming weeks.
- 27:54Go check these out.
- 27:55They are fascinating to see.
- 27:57But love that they're like, yeah, we totally hid it from them until we're on takeoff.
- 28:01And then once we're in the air, they're like, what in the world is attached to his wing?
- 28:06It's a one-of-a-kind bomb for a flight to commemorate the six millionth pound of pound of ordinance to be dropped.
- 28:18It solved problems, got rid of waste, get it, because it's a toilet, and allowed their flight to be one where it took off.
- 28:26A little more fully loaded.
- 28:29Again, photos will be seen of of this strapped.
- 28:32We'll make sure to share those with you.
- 28:34But they spray painted an E on the side of the toilet, which denotes that it has been granted battle effective.
- 28:44I wish my toilet was battle effective.
- 28:46I mean, I guess it faces its own battles on a daily basis.
- 28:49They dropped a toilet bomb on Vietnam, a one-of-a-kind projectile, and maybe.
- 28:56One of the most unique uses of a toilet scene to date.
- 29:01That said it's a reminder that American indep on this American Independence Day, that America's been celebrating things by blowing up stuff over a pretty long time.
- 29:12In this case, we celebrate it by dropping an explosive toilet onto Vietnam.
- 29:18It gives a whole new meaning to blowing up the toilet.
- 29:22When he released it, he released it mid dive.
- 29:25as was accustomed.
- 29:26They they would dive in their aircraft and release it to to help aim where they were going and then come up out of it.
- 29:33The problem is if you've ever seen anyone drop a toilet off the top of a tall structure or or really anything.
- 29:41One of the terms that does not describe a toilet as it's falling through the sky is aerodynamic.
- 29:49He it lacks that nice like through the air shape.
- 29:54It flips
- 29:55And tumbles, and it turns out toilets like turds flip when falling.
- 29:59That would normally be fine, however, when the toilet begins to do that just after you've released it from the bottom side of your aircraft, it causes a lot of troubles as that
- 30:11thing potentially causes your aircraft to crash.
- 30:16Thankfully, the pilot did not, and the toilet full of explosives spun all the way to the ground.
- 30:23It goes down in history as that time that America dropped an explosive toilet on Vietnam.
- 30:38This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
- 30:42Thank you for listening.
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- 31:21We're gonna leave that up.
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- 31:45I have machine washed this mug multiple times now, and it's it's holding up great.
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- 32:11If you have a bathroom story you want to share and you want to be on the show, feel free to reach out.
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- 32:22I'm at Allett7.
- 32:24Thank you to Kevin and Poddington for the use of your music in in the the episodes.
- 32:31intro and outro as well as transition music.
- 32:33You can find links to all the music and all our sources down in the description below.
- 32:38This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
- 32:41Keep pooping in the free world.
- 32:43Own your strengths, own your stank.
- 32:45Don't be afraid to drop your ordinance with pride.
- 32:48And now, as always, don't forget to flush.