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Uncle Sam Tried to End World War II With Bat Bombs · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: No no no no no no no no no no
0:25
Speaker 1: no no no bat bombs. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
0:30
Speaker 1: What the heck are we talking about? Well, we're about
0:33
Speaker 1: to tell you hello, my name is Ben, my name
0:35
Speaker 1: is not Ben. You know we did that before with
0:37
Speaker 1: knife Man. Yes, it's just a great it's it's a
0:41
Speaker 1: great musical device that goes into anything with two syllables.
0:45
Speaker 1: Oh and I'm also into our super producer, Casey Pegram.
0:50
Speaker 1: We were off air today just about to jump into
0:53
Speaker 1: the studio and Casey, I don't know. Have you ever
0:56
Speaker 1: heard of bat bombs? I have not No, I have
0:58
Speaker 1: no idea what this episodes about. Unless it's guano. That's
1:01
Speaker 1: the only bat bomb I can think of. Hey, that
1:03
Speaker 1: was good, No, and and and funny enough. I think
1:06
Speaker 1: guano is actually quite flammable and could be potentially used
1:09
Speaker 1: in explosives. And guando is also quite valuable. Right. We
1:14
Speaker 1: did an episode for a different show on a cannibal cave.
1:18
Speaker 1: You can you can find a c taka uh. We
1:21
Speaker 1: did an episode and cannibal cave that was discovered because
1:24
Speaker 1: of some unscrupulous guando minors. Bats have actually played a
1:30
Speaker 1: surprisingly influential role in US history at various times. And
1:36
Speaker 1: also that's one of those creatures that are up close.
1:41
Speaker 1: A lot of bats that I've run into are pretty gross,
1:44
Speaker 1: but they're still just from a biological perspective, amazing. They
1:48
Speaker 1: are amazing. And there is a YouTube video or Instagram
1:51
Speaker 1: video or one of those videos, um where someone's like
1:54
Speaker 1: handling a bat and it's a particularly cute bat. So
1:57
Speaker 1: they have the potential to be both terrifying and adorable.
2:00
Speaker 1: Is it a fruit bat? It must have been. So
2:03
Speaker 1: there's there's so many different types of bat, and today
2:09
Speaker 1: we are talking about a type of plan that the
2:14
Speaker 1: US made with bats. This is okay, So we have
2:17
Speaker 1: to go in two different directions here, right, and maybe
2:20
Speaker 1: tie them together as we continue. First, it's no secret
2:25
Speaker 1: to any fan of history or to anyone who's perused
2:29
Speaker 1: the Adventures of the U S Military that the US military,
2:33
Speaker 1: like many other militaries, has kind of a spaghetti at
2:37
Speaker 1: the wall approach to developing new stuff, and most of
2:42
Speaker 1: the time it doesn't work out. You know, you know,
2:44
Speaker 1: this reminds me of been It's sort of like the
2:46
Speaker 1: Hollywood studio system, where you might just have some intern
2:49
Speaker 1: in an office just pitched some crazy idea that an
2:51
Speaker 1: executive happens to the area's like, you know what, that's
2:54
Speaker 1: just crazy enough to work. That's a good point. This
2:57
Speaker 1: reminds me of a clip that we cannot for legal
3:01
Speaker 1: reasons play in full for you, but we can tell
3:03
Speaker 1: you what it is and go check it out on YouTube.
3:06
Speaker 1: After this show, uh, John mulaney has a great bit
3:10
Speaker 1: about how Back to the Future became a film. Did
3:12
Speaker 1: you ever see that? Noll? I don't think I did.
3:15
Speaker 1: Oh man, Okay, well, we can't stop the show. I
3:19
Speaker 1: wish I could just play this for you now google it,
3:22
Speaker 1: I'll send you the link. It is. It is exactly
3:24
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, and that is a very good
3:27
Speaker 1: comparison to the approach that the military has taken at times. Uh. Today,
3:34
Speaker 1: our story starts well, it really gets running toward the
3:39
Speaker 1: end of World War Two thanks to a guy named
3:43
Speaker 1: doctor Little Atoms or lttle Atoms. I'm gonna go with
3:48
Speaker 1: little gotta be little l y T l E. I
3:53
Speaker 1: think if that's why I'm giving him space to be
3:55
Speaker 1: lightle atoms to just in case, because I don't know, like,
3:59
Speaker 1: would you want be walked around called little Brown you
4:03
Speaker 1: would be into absolutely. I support that wholeheartedly. So Dr
4:08
Speaker 1: Adams doesn't begin life as a mad scientist for Uncle Sam.
4:13
Speaker 1: He starts life uh in Irwin, Pennsylvania, and for a
4:18
Speaker 1: long time he works as a dentist. Before that, presumably
4:20
Speaker 1: as a baby. Yes, yeah, no, he began life as
4:23
Speaker 1: a middle aged dentist. Common medical condition is that like?
4:28
Speaker 1: Is that like Benjamin Button? Sort of? Yeah, Benjamin Button
4:31
Speaker 1: is is loosely based on the adventures of the dentist
4:34
Speaker 1: Dr Adams. Now the Adventures of Little Adams. That sounds
4:38
Speaker 1: like a fun, rollicking good time. That sounds like a
4:40
Speaker 1: real wrong, doesn't it. So here's what happened in real life,
4:45
Speaker 1: Dr Adams. And you might not see this unless you
4:47
Speaker 1: watch the director's cut of Benjamin Button. Dr Adams is
4:51
Speaker 1: driving home from a vacation at Carl's Bad Caverns in
4:56
Speaker 1: New Mexico, and while he's driving home, he is haunted
5:01
Speaker 1: by this vision that he saw this amazing spectacle. He
5:08
Speaker 1: watched bats leaving the caves of Karl's Bad Caverns. And
5:13
Speaker 1: we've seen those clips of bats leaving right right right,
5:17
Speaker 1: little round twilighter, So like a hive mind operating on
5:20
Speaker 1: some kind of crazy psychic connection, and he watched millions
5:24
Speaker 1: of these bats fly out, and as he was driving,
5:27
Speaker 1: he was thinking, Wow, that was such an amazing thing.
5:30
Speaker 1: There were so many bats. I had no idea the
5:33
Speaker 1: sheer magnitude of nature and all its glory. And he
5:38
Speaker 1: probably were speculating a little here, but he probably goes,
5:41
Speaker 1: all right, well, it's a long drive from New Mexico
5:43
Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania. I'm gonna turn on my car radio. I'm
5:46
Speaker 1: gonna get the news. Here's some tunes. And that's when
5:49
Speaker 1: he hears the terrible news. He's listening on December seven one,
5:55
Speaker 1: that's when he hears the terrible news that Japan has
5:57
Speaker 1: just attacked Pearl Harbor. Yeah, and much like you and
6:01
Speaker 1: I remember likely where we were when the attacks on
6:05
Speaker 1: September eleven took place, everyone in this country likely does
6:09
Speaker 1: very similar experience to Pearl Harbor. When people first heard
6:12
Speaker 1: that news, it was a like a slap in the face.
6:15
Speaker 1: It was a real um emotional response that people had
6:18
Speaker 1: to this event. And that was the case for Dr Adams,
6:22
Speaker 1: and he kind of oddly combined that emotional response with
6:27
Speaker 1: the vision of swarming bats that he had just seen.
6:31
Speaker 1: Kind of in a Bruce Wayne esque way when he
6:35
Speaker 1: discovers the cave right below Wayne Manner. That's a little
6:39
Speaker 1: bit of a spoiler for anybody who is never heard
6:43
Speaker 1: words or seen comics. It's true, So we have to
6:47
Speaker 1: imagine how insane this drive must have been. It's not
6:50
Speaker 1: a short drive home. So is it any wonder that
6:53
Speaker 1: he was left alone with his thoughts and just kept
6:55
Speaker 1: combining and recombining his recent experiences. Either way, it doesn't
7:01
Speaker 1: take him long to take action. He combines this vision,
7:05
Speaker 1: as you said, if these bats and this desire for
7:08
Speaker 1: revenge into a coherent plan in less than a month later,
7:13
Speaker 1: mid January January two, he sends his plan to the
7:19
Speaker 1: White House. What what does he say? What's the what's
7:21
Speaker 1: the pitch? Yeah, he thinks it would be a swell
7:23
Speaker 1: idea to strap tiny bombs two bats, um, release them
7:28
Speaker 1: and in the hopes that they will roost in the
7:30
Speaker 1: eaves and in various locations of Japanese cities, at which
7:34
Speaker 1: point they would be detonated, causing chaos across the land.
7:38
Speaker 1: Um but real quick. This was not the first such
7:41
Speaker 1: idea that Dr Adams had. He actually came up with
7:45
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, an idea for UM a plane
7:50
Speaker 1: that could do mail pickups mid air. UM. And so
7:54
Speaker 1: he was kind of had a history of being something
7:56
Speaker 1: of a tinkerer, even though his trade was in the
8:00
Speaker 1: dental profession. Yes, that's a really good point. This is
8:04
Speaker 1: not a once in a lifetime innovation or bright idea
8:08
Speaker 1: for him. He has several ideas that would seem at
8:13
Speaker 1: the very least unorthodox right to mainstream humanity. Yeah. Big.
8:17
Speaker 1: Bringing it back to Batman, this mid air pickup idea
8:22
Speaker 1: was very similar to Operations sky Hook in Uh, the
8:25
Speaker 1: I believe Batman begins movie. Is that right? It is
8:29
Speaker 1: in the Dark Night, Dark Night, that's right when they
8:31
Speaker 1: sort of extract Bruce Wayne from a Japanese high rise
8:35
Speaker 1: with this hook and they pull him out um with
8:37
Speaker 1: this wire. And he came up with this idea while
8:40
Speaker 1: serving in the Navy during World War One. And it
8:43
Speaker 1: consisted of these two kind of vertical walls that made
8:46
Speaker 1: a V shape at the narrow end of which awaited
8:49
Speaker 1: cable was trailing. This is underneath the airplane and as
8:52
Speaker 1: it passed, it would engage in an object to be
8:55
Speaker 1: picked up and then lifted and extracted. So very similar
8:58
Speaker 1: to skyhook. Actually, he also I believe, depleted a lot
9:03
Speaker 1: of his own fortune and personal savings pursuing this until
9:06
Speaker 1: he met Richard DuPont of the DuPont And Uh, it
9:12
Speaker 1: was it wasn't that it wasn't it designed to like
9:15
Speaker 1: never land. Yeah, exactly because he figured there was. This
9:18
Speaker 1: wasn't like a completely unique idea. But the notion was
9:21
Speaker 1: that a lot of time, uh and effort was wasted
9:24
Speaker 1: when the planes were landing and they had to refuel.
9:27
Speaker 1: So this system, in theory, would allow it to refuel
9:30
Speaker 1: in the air, pick up fuel reserves from the ground
9:33
Speaker 1: or even from a passing train. They could coordinate and
9:36
Speaker 1: specifically uh for long distance mail pickups and freight and
9:41
Speaker 1: things like that. Um, I don't know. I know it
9:43
Speaker 1: was patented, but it certainly never hit in the way
9:46
Speaker 1: that he hoped it would. But fast forward to World
9:48
Speaker 1: War Two. Let's go back to the pitch. How was
9:50
Speaker 1: he able to get an audience with the White House
9:52
Speaker 1: in the first place because he was not exactly like,
9:55
Speaker 1: he didn't work for them. He was just kind of
9:56
Speaker 1: a regular joe who was a tinkerer on the side.
9:59
Speaker 1: And this whole you know, mid flight refueling mail pickup
10:03
Speaker 1: scheme never really gained too much momentum, so he didn't
10:07
Speaker 1: really have reputation. But being someone the government should like
10:10
Speaker 1: turn to during times of war, would you say it
10:12
Speaker 1: never got off the ground? I would say that man. Oh,
10:16
Speaker 1: but you said at first, oh, sorry, sorry, no joke
10:20
Speaker 1: left untold. He did manage to shout above the din
10:30
Speaker 1: the cacophony of people with unsolicited suggestions, plans, and schemes.
10:36
Speaker 1: We have to imagine, of course, how many people would
10:39
Speaker 1: be writing directly to the White House saying, here's what
10:43
Speaker 1: we do, and it may be worth our time in
10:45
Speaker 1: another episode to look at some of the most unorthodox
10:48
Speaker 1: World War two revenge schemes. But Adams had an edge.
10:52
Speaker 1: He had a very important friend. That's right. This is
10:57
Speaker 1: somewhat a story about nepotism. You see at happened to
11:00
Speaker 1: know a woman by the name of Eleanor Roosevelt. He
11:04
Speaker 1: had flown her to check out his airmail scheme previously, right,
11:10
Speaker 1: and because they had this previous relationship his story and
11:15
Speaker 1: speculate that's the way he was able to get his
11:19
Speaker 1: voice heard and his idea, his pitch right, the one
11:25
Speaker 1: that you established earlier, know about dropping these bats in
11:31
Speaker 1: Japanese cities. It made more sense than it might sound
11:35
Speaker 1: at first blush, because of Japanese architecture, right, yeah, tell
11:39
Speaker 1: us more about that. But it's not something I had
11:40
Speaker 1: quite considered, because I was wondering, how were they to
11:43
Speaker 1: get into all of these little nooks and crannies, if
11:46
Speaker 1: you know, it seems like it would take time for
11:48
Speaker 1: them to work their way into the eaves of homes
11:51
Speaker 1: as we know it. But I believe the architecture in
11:54
Speaker 1: Japan was a little more open and possibly more accessible
11:57
Speaker 1: to these small creatures. And they were quite small. They
12:00
Speaker 1: were quite small. Yes, So this pitch hinged on some
12:03
Speaker 1: stereotypes about Japan at the time, one of those concerning
12:07
Speaker 1: the architecture. In the mind of many Americans, policymakers and
12:13
Speaker 1: civilians alike, Japan was a country composed of crowded cities
12:19
Speaker 1: filled with houses and factories made of paper and wood,
12:23
Speaker 1: and that's their vision of traditional Japanese architecture. So the
12:28
Speaker 1: argument there might be that flying bats with small incendiary
12:32
Speaker 1: devices into a city where most things are built of
12:37
Speaker 1: stone or concrete, Uh, that won't do much. Right. It
12:41
Speaker 1: takes an enormous amount of heat to damage that stuff,
12:44
Speaker 1: but paper and wood could catch fire with a relatively
12:47
Speaker 1: small amount of flame. But also wouldn't it have something
12:50
Speaker 1: to do with how easy and quickly it might have
12:53
Speaker 1: been for the bats to work their way into these structures.
12:58
Speaker 1: They weren't like sealed air tight quite in the way
13:01
Speaker 1: we would think of a traditional American home, right, Well,
13:03
Speaker 1: they thought that would fly into those like picture a
13:06
Speaker 1: traditional Japanese tile roof. They thought they would fly into
13:09
Speaker 1: the eaves of those roofs, and that this would this
13:14
Speaker 1: would get them close enough to the paper walls and
13:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't make sense. So we have a quote from him,
13:22
Speaker 1: think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a
13:25
Speaker 1: circle of forty miles in diameter. For every bomb dropped,
13:29
Speaker 1: Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life,
13:34
Speaker 1: which doesn't really make sense because when cities catch on fire,
13:39
Speaker 1: a lot of people die. So I guess he was
13:42
Speaker 1: he was talking about American lives. Yeah, that's probably, that's
13:46
Speaker 1: that's Unfortunately, it sounds very accurate because I mean, obviously
13:50
Speaker 1: the bats were on suicide missions here, so that's you know,
13:53
Speaker 1: I don't imagine Peter would approve this plan today. Yeah, Yeah,
13:57
Speaker 1: let's let's take a second maybe and talk about the bats.
14:00
Speaker 1: What do you say, Let's do it alright, So once
14:03
Speaker 1: the project gets the green light, and again please listen
14:07
Speaker 1: to that, John Mulaney, back to the future bit, it's
14:09
Speaker 1: worth it won't ruin it for you. Once the project
14:12
Speaker 1: gets the green lights, somehow, Dr Adams gathers a team
14:16
Speaker 1: of naturalists from the Hancock Foundation University California, and they
14:22
Speaker 1: start investigating likely sites where they could gather large quantities
14:28
Speaker 1: of bats. As we know, bats are mostly found in caves,
14:32
Speaker 1: but a ton of them roost in addicts, barns, houses, bridges,
14:37
Speaker 1: anywhere they can get it and fitted right, it's funny.
14:41
Speaker 1: Casey and I actually attempted to capture a mass exodus
14:45
Speaker 1: of bats like this on video. In Austin, there's this
14:48
Speaker 1: bridge that's referred to as the Bat Bridge where every night,
14:52
Speaker 1: at a certain time, all of these bats that nest
14:55
Speaker 1: under this bridge or they kind of just hang out
14:56
Speaker 1: there during the day go out to feed at night
14:59
Speaker 1: because they're nocturnal animals. But we waited there for awful
15:02
Speaker 1: long time and then they never emerged. So I cannot
15:05
Speaker 1: offer a firsthand account of this, but I have been
15:07
Speaker 1: told that it does happen. Yes, it's true. I don't
15:10
Speaker 1: know if I have revealed this to you guys, but
15:13
Speaker 1: years and years ago, one of my childhood homes actually
15:17
Speaker 1: did have a bat infestation in the attic, and I
15:20
Speaker 1: happen to live in a room that adjoined the attic,
15:23
Speaker 1: and I was surprised to find that, at least here
15:26
Speaker 1: in Georgia, you cannot kill the bats. You have to
15:29
Speaker 1: essentially wait for them to leave or compel them to
15:32
Speaker 1: leave what area, whatever area they're roosting legally. Yeah really yeah?
15:37
Speaker 1: And you then find whatever hidy holes or ingress e
15:41
Speaker 1: great points they're using and block those, with the hope
15:45
Speaker 1: being that vampire rules, they'll find a new place to
15:47
Speaker 1: sleep before dawn. Terrifying. I didn't know that, So that
15:51
Speaker 1: you can't treat them like you would like any other
15:53
Speaker 1: household infestation. No, no, no, no no, because they're so
15:57
Speaker 1: good for the ecosystem as well. Had no idea about that.
16:00
Speaker 1: So they go atoms, not the bats that I used
16:03
Speaker 1: to live with. They go around scouring these areas to
16:08
Speaker 1: find the best possible large quantity of bats suitable for
16:12
Speaker 1: this project. According to Adams, they visit a thousand caves
16:16
Speaker 1: and three thousand mines, and Adams says speed was so
16:21
Speaker 1: imperative that we generally drove all day and night. When
16:24
Speaker 1: we weren't exploring caves, we slept in cars, taking turns
16:27
Speaker 1: of driving one car in our search team cover three
16:30
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand miles. And then they started cataloging
16:36
Speaker 1: the types of bats they found, and they were looking
16:38
Speaker 1: for the ideal combination of bat size, which would dictate
16:43
Speaker 1: the amount of explosive the bat could carry versus bat quantity.
16:49
Speaker 1: How many bats of that type could they find, because
16:51
Speaker 1: you know, if you found like twelve bats that were
16:54
Speaker 1: large enough to carry eight pounds of dynamite, you know,
16:58
Speaker 1: good for those bats, but that's not really gonna do
17:00
Speaker 1: anything to a Japanese city on a large scale the
17:04
Speaker 1: way they were hoping. That's very true. And and just
17:06
Speaker 1: just a little detail here. These were Mexican free tailed
17:09
Speaker 1: bats they decided on because of their size and uh,
17:13
Speaker 1: their availability. Um. And so in March of this is
17:17
Speaker 1: backtracking just a little bit, um, the US Air Force
17:21
Speaker 1: decided they wanted to investigate this. There was a letter
17:23
Speaker 1: that was drafted to formally, you know, announced the pursuing
17:26
Speaker 1: of this like a memo, and it was called Test
17:29
Speaker 1: of Method to Scatter Incendiaries UM. It was also referred
17:33
Speaker 1: to as Project X ray Way cool name uses Mexican
17:37
Speaker 1: free tailed bats. The other bats they tried were things
17:41
Speaker 1: like the mastif. The mastive bat is huge as a
17:44
Speaker 1: twenty inch wingspan, it can carry uh one pound of dynamite.
17:49
Speaker 1: But the problem was they couldn't find enough of these bats.
17:52
Speaker 1: And then they found another bat, the mullard or common
17:55
Speaker 1: palid bat, that could carry three ounces. But naturalists said,
17:59
Speaker 1: there's no way these guys will survive the strange process
18:03
Speaker 1: we're going to subject them to. And when they found
18:07
Speaker 1: the free tailed bat, the main reason they went with
18:09
Speaker 1: it is because it could travel with a one ounce
18:13
Speaker 1: bomb over a relatively short distance, even though it only
18:16
Speaker 1: weighed a third of an ounce. And they found twenty
18:19
Speaker 1: to thirty million of them in a cave Inny Cave
18:22
Speaker 1: near Bendera, Texas. And it was so large. This kind
18:27
Speaker 1: of ties into the adventure that Noel, You and Casey
18:30
Speaker 1: had in Austin. It was so large that when these
18:33
Speaker 1: bats left the cave, it took five hours for them
18:36
Speaker 1: to all leave out of the cave, flying in a
18:39
Speaker 1: dense stream fifteen feet in diameter and so closely packed
18:42
Speaker 1: that they could barely flap their wings. Yeah, I cannot imagine. Um.
18:45
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously these must be very powerful creatures in
18:48
Speaker 1: terms of their ability to like like ants. They always
18:50
Speaker 1: say they can carry ten times their body weight or whatever.
18:53
Speaker 1: This must be a similar case. Although they had to
18:55
Speaker 1: take the weight into consideration when they figured out which
18:57
Speaker 1: bats to use and what amount of incendiaries would pack
19:02
Speaker 1: the most punch. And I'm guessing that it was all considered,
19:05
Speaker 1: like you said, it wouldn't take a whole lot. They weren't.
19:07
Speaker 1: They weren't gonna level a building with these bats. They
19:10
Speaker 1: were going to start a little flame that was then
19:12
Speaker 1: going to catch it on fire, and they were going
19:14
Speaker 1: to do them all at once. But Ben, did you
19:15
Speaker 1: catch anywhere in your research how they were planning to
19:18
Speaker 1: detonate these um bat bombs like all at once or
19:22
Speaker 1: was it on a timer? It was on a timer.
19:25
Speaker 1: That makes the most sense. That's probably that's the best
19:27
Speaker 1: way to do it. You know that that is the
19:28
Speaker 1: best way to do it. So, um, they finally settled
19:31
Speaker 1: on these Mexican freetail bats um and there was a
19:34
Speaker 1: lot of consideration for various stages of this process. Right,
19:38
Speaker 1: like the questions we were just asking, how to transport them,
19:41
Speaker 1: how to deploy them, um, etcetera. What were some of
19:44
Speaker 1: the things that they sort of figured out during this process? Then? Sure, sure,
19:48
Speaker 1: So this project when it gets a cool name, the
19:51
Speaker 1: Army says, wait, we want projects with cool names. So
19:55
Speaker 1: the project is transferred to the army and they start
19:58
Speaker 1: capturing these thousands, thousands of Mexican freetail bats of caverns
20:03
Speaker 1: all around the southwest United States. They wanted to figure
20:07
Speaker 1: out how to get these things from the location where
20:11
Speaker 1: they are, you know, attached to these bombs, these incendiary devices,
20:16
Speaker 1: and then transport them without blowing anything up, and then
20:20
Speaker 1: deploying them so that they don't blow up until they're
20:24
Speaker 1: supposed to the first thing they had to figure out
20:27
Speaker 1: was how to keep the bats calm, and that is
20:29
Speaker 1: when they decided to induce hibernation in the bats. This
20:34
Speaker 1: is um, this is something that might surprise some people.
20:38
Speaker 1: Bats actually do hibernate, which makes it a little bit
20:43
Speaker 1: less inhumane, you know what I mean? Uh, Bats hibernate
20:48
Speaker 1: from late fall until springs, so October November to March
20:52
Speaker 1: and April. And I'm just realizing this now. No bats
20:56
Speaker 1: are listening to this podcast right now. It's probably better
20:59
Speaker 1: that way because this could be triggering until summer spring. Yes,
21:04
Speaker 1: so we know that they will hibernate typically in the
21:06
Speaker 1: same environments in which they roost, but they roost in
21:10
Speaker 1: caves and mines and attics and stuff like that. So
21:13
Speaker 1: how do you strap uh an explosive device to them
21:16
Speaker 1: or incendiary device and then convince them to hibernate on
21:19
Speaker 1: a plane. What they ultimately decided to do was to
21:23
Speaker 1: stick the bats in ice cube trays. Again, these are
21:28
Speaker 1: very small the only way about the way less announced,
21:30
Speaker 1: but surely not the kind of ice cube trays you
21:33
Speaker 1: and I are used to. I mean, that's that's way
21:34
Speaker 1: too small. One little compartment and an ice cube traying
21:37
Speaker 1: that would go in our freezer. All my ice cube
21:39
Speaker 1: trays as specifically designed to fit that. It's pretty unfair
21:44
Speaker 1: to the bats. But would the would the the explosives
21:47
Speaker 1: be strapped to them already at this point or would
21:49
Speaker 1: they have to like put them on after they woke
21:51
Speaker 1: them up. This whole thing seems like a logistical nightmare,
21:54
Speaker 1: And then it seems like stuff that they didn't consider
21:56
Speaker 1: up front when they said, hey, this guy is onto something. Well,
21:59
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of bats probably died in
22:01
Speaker 1: the in the process of figuring out the best way
22:05
Speaker 1: to do this well, and ultimately these were suicide bats anyway,
22:08
Speaker 1: so they were all destined for death. Right. They also
22:17
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to release these bats in
22:19
Speaker 1: mid air. So they thought, we'll have a cardboard container
22:24
Speaker 1: that automatically opens and releases the bats. And they were
22:28
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to do this. They spent
22:30
Speaker 1: a lot of time working out the perfect order of operations,
22:35
Speaker 1: and then they took it to real testing. They took
22:38
Speaker 1: it off the drawing board into the world, and they
22:42
Speaker 1: found out that there was a lot of stuff they
22:45
Speaker 1: needed to work on, a lot of kinks. UM. There's
22:48
Speaker 1: an article in The Atlantic called Old Weird Tech The
22:50
Speaker 1: Bat Bombs of World War Two by Alexis C. Magical UM,
22:54
Speaker 1: and in this article she talks about some of the
22:58
Speaker 1: unfortunate mishaps that occurred when they really started doing real
23:01
Speaker 1: world testing UM. One of which involved a general's car
23:06
Speaker 1: that was exploded basically burned UM and also an airplane
23:10
Speaker 1: hangar that sustained some pretty serious damage. They did pass
23:16
Speaker 1: this off to the Marine Corps and the testing continued. Yeah,
23:22
Speaker 1: so when they passed it to the Marine Corps in
23:24
Speaker 1: December of nineteen forty three, the operation was moved to
23:29
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps Air Station Nel Centro, California. The definitive
23:34
Speaker 1: test was carried out after several experiments on what they
23:39
Speaker 1: called a Japanese village was a mock up of a
23:41
Speaker 1: Japanese city built by the Chemical Warfare Service at their
23:46
Speaker 1: doug Way Proving Grounds test site in Utah, and this
23:50
Speaker 1: test produced uh not terrible results. So the chief of
23:56
Speaker 1: incendiary testing it, doug Way, wrote, a reasonable number of
24:00
Speaker 1: instructive fires can be started in spite of the extremely
24:03
Speaker 1: small size of the units. Those are the bats. The
24:06
Speaker 1: main advantage of the units would seem to be their
24:08
Speaker 1: placement within the enemy structures without the knowledge of the
24:11
Speaker 1: householder or fire watchers, thus allowing the fire to establish
24:15
Speaker 1: itself before being discovered. So what they're saying is when
24:18
Speaker 1: they get into these atticts and these eves, it is
24:21
Speaker 1: highly unlikely that somebody will notice this very very tiny, tiny,
24:25
Speaker 1: tiny furry creature um and they probably won't notice the
24:29
Speaker 1: fire until it's too late. My question though, is, we
24:33
Speaker 1: know the way bats behave, wouldn't they all go to
24:36
Speaker 1: one place, like what what was causing what was leading
24:39
Speaker 1: them to go to disperse? To disperse? Because it doesn't
24:42
Speaker 1: seem like that's what bats typically do. It seems like
24:44
Speaker 1: they kind of like have that hive mind quality to it.
24:47
Speaker 1: I was joking when I said they have, you know,
24:48
Speaker 1: psychic connections or whatever. Sometimes when you see flocks of
24:51
Speaker 1: birds or bats or any kind of creatures like that
24:54
Speaker 1: migrating or moving in these tight patterns together, I just
24:58
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems very rand. They would not Obviously,
25:00
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been able to control where they went.
25:03
Speaker 1: They would just hope that they went enough different places
25:06
Speaker 1: that this would actually caused them significant damage over a
25:10
Speaker 1: large area. Yeah, it's it's a good question. Maybe there's
25:14
Speaker 1: an argument that the bats would be so disoriented just
25:17
Speaker 1: waking up from hybridation that they're just seeking a shelter.
25:21
Speaker 1: You know. For now, it looks like the answer to
25:25
Speaker 1: that is still unclear in the modern day. Oh, we
25:30
Speaker 1: do have to mention also, people called this the Adam's
25:34
Speaker 1: plan in common conversation. When you know, when they weren't
25:37
Speaker 1: referring to it officially is Project X Ray. But one
25:40
Speaker 1: of the things that they thought would be another great
25:42
Speaker 1: advantage was that the use of bats would be demoralizing,
25:45
Speaker 1: so there was some psi op here as well. All
25:49
Speaker 1: in all, there's a total of thirty demonstrations of this technology,
25:54
Speaker 1: this plan, and two million dollars spent over over the
25:58
Speaker 1: period of development, with full scale bomber bat test planned
26:03
Speaker 1: for August nineteen forty four. However, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King,
26:08
Speaker 1: who at the time was Chief of Naval Operations, learned
26:12
Speaker 1: that the bats would not be ready for combat until
26:14
Speaker 1: mid nineteen rights he abruptly canceled the operation, and needless
26:23
Speaker 1: to say, Dr Adams was disappointed. There's also a little
26:27
Speaker 1: bit of interesting historical speculation here too, because there was
26:31
Speaker 1: another even more secret, perhaps even more ambitious and insane
26:35
Speaker 1: project that Uncle Sam was pouring a ton of resources into,
26:40
Speaker 1: yeah and likely needed every last penny, And that was
26:43
Speaker 1: the atomic bomb, which ultimately and tragically was used to
26:48
Speaker 1: end that conflict and then never again. The most powerful
26:51
Speaker 1: explosive device ever created at that time. It's different from
26:56
Speaker 1: several thousand paths, right, So Dr Adams obviously this was
27:02
Speaker 1: a real bummer for a Pennsylvanian dentist. Yeah, and he
27:05
Speaker 1: was understandably disappointed because this would have been his second
27:09
Speaker 1: big idea that seemed to be going somewhere and then
27:13
Speaker 1: ultimately didn't quite hit in the way that he wanted it.
27:17
Speaker 1: To write, Ben, Oh, yeah, because of air pickup. But
27:20
Speaker 1: this was these two ideas were not his only two ideas. Yeah,
27:24
Speaker 1: it's some other stuff, right, and progressively, I would say,
27:28
Speaker 1: you know, the bat bomb, between the bat bomb and
27:30
Speaker 1: the air pickup bat bomb was way more on the
27:32
Speaker 1: surface crackpot, even though it did have some function to it.
27:36
Speaker 1: But these these last ones that we're gonna talk about
27:38
Speaker 1: are a little bit more on the cookie side. But
27:41
Speaker 1: you have clearly a forward thinking man and clearly has
27:44
Speaker 1: a thing about aviation and the power of flights. So
27:48
Speaker 1: he had this he he later has this plan to
27:52
Speaker 1: use bombers to distribute seeds across the prairie land in
27:58
Speaker 1: in hopes of revolutionize seeing agriculture. Right, That's that's pretty ambitious.
28:03
Speaker 1: It's also way less destructive. It's kind of the same
28:06
Speaker 1: thing as bombing places with bats, that's true. Uh. And
28:10
Speaker 1: then he had another idea, non aviation related. This is
28:13
Speaker 1: my favorite one where he thought it would be a
28:15
Speaker 1: good idea. People would flock to a fried chicken vending machine.
28:20
Speaker 1: I absolutely would, But how would you keep it fresh?
28:23
Speaker 1: It has to be like fried on demand. You would
28:26
Speaker 1: have to hit the button to make your request, and
28:30
Speaker 1: then it would have to be able to automatically fried.
28:33
Speaker 1: So it would be sort of like those coke machines
28:35
Speaker 1: where it picks up the bottle with like a little thing,
28:38
Speaker 1: sit up and then drops it, only it would be
28:40
Speaker 1: like a hole. You get to watch your chicken being fried,
28:42
Speaker 1: and you have to order it one piece at a time.
28:44
Speaker 1: I want to know more about the logistics of this, well,
28:47
Speaker 1: I want to tell you that someone has made this
28:51
Speaker 1: dream of reality. What yes, Dr Adams, if you're listening
28:55
Speaker 1: from the Eternal Hibernation of Death, Uh, this is something
29:00
Speaker 1: that hopefully will warm your heart. There is a vending
29:03
Speaker 1: machine that serves fried chicken in Japan. I don't know
29:06
Speaker 1: how he would feel about it, but it is in Japan.
29:09
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, of course, all cool vending machines in Japan,
29:13
Speaker 1: and we know they love fried chicken too, yes, especially
29:16
Speaker 1: around Christmas. Japanese convenience chaining Lawson Incorporated is testing this
29:21
Speaker 1: machine now, or they were as of December, So this
29:25
Speaker 1: is breaking news. This comes to us through technobob and
29:30
Speaker 1: this is in chinagaua ward in Tokyo. The machine has
29:35
Speaker 1: technology that allows it to fried chicken in a little
29:38
Speaker 1: bit over a minute, but somehow they prepare the chicken
29:43
Speaker 1: and keep it warm until someone orders it to me.
29:46
Speaker 1: That's where it breaks down, because fried chicken, it's like
29:49
Speaker 1: French fries. It's like most fried food. You gotta eat
29:51
Speaker 1: it when it's fresh. Yeah, that's true. That's why nobody
29:55
Speaker 1: wants gas station fried chicken sitting out of that like
29:57
Speaker 1: hot lamp from god knows how long. No, no, it's
30:00
Speaker 1: gotta be fresh and crispy and juicy and delicious. So
30:02
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you, fellow ridiculous historians out
30:06
Speaker 1: there in Japan, especially if you're in this area of Tokyo,
30:10
Speaker 1: because this trial only operated from I guess mid December
30:15
Speaker 1: to December two thousand and eighteen. So right now, the
30:20
Speaker 1: good folks at Lawson Incorporated, we can only imagine, are
30:25
Speaker 1: studying the results of their fried chicken experiment. And you
30:30
Speaker 1: know what, I hope it works out. I am a
30:32
Speaker 1: big fan of vending machines, and I would give it
30:34
Speaker 1: a shot. Even though if you look at the photo,
30:37
Speaker 1: there is one photo of this fried chicken from a
30:40
Speaker 1: vending machine. They look more like chicken nuggets than you know,
30:43
Speaker 1: like a two piece or three piece. I don't know
30:45
Speaker 1: about you, ma'am, but I like my chicken bone in. Yeah,
30:48
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of boneless fried chicken um. But you
30:51
Speaker 1: know that you can't quite be a freshly fried um
30:55
Speaker 1: bone and bird, that's true. I wonder if we should
30:58
Speaker 1: do the history of vending machine machines as an episode.
31:01
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be cool? I would love to hear about that.
31:03
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it started like on the boardwalks
31:06
Speaker 1: and the carny times, you know, things like that. This
31:09
Speaker 1: is just speculation on my part, but I think that's
31:11
Speaker 1: a great idea. Ben. I don't wonder where it would start,
31:14
Speaker 1: because there were some places, and we may have talked
31:17
Speaker 1: about this in previous episode Old, but I know there
31:19
Speaker 1: were some places in England centuries and centuries ago where
31:24
Speaker 1: it was like a manual vending machine. You would walk
31:26
Speaker 1: up to a wall and then you would knock or
31:29
Speaker 1: slide a penny or something across and then someone would
31:31
Speaker 1: just hand you, I think a small cup of gin. Nice.
31:35
Speaker 1: According to dr Internet, the first vending machine came out
31:39
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties in London and it was for
31:42
Speaker 1: purchasing postcards. It was invented by Percival Everett. But you know,
31:46
Speaker 1: there's a long and story history of vending machines as
31:49
Speaker 1: they evolved over time. Um, how we came from bat
31:52
Speaker 1: bombs to vending machines. I guess we're just talking about
31:54
Speaker 1: forward thinking, innovative types, you know, yes, yes, then let's
31:58
Speaker 1: let's definitely do a history of vending machine episodes. Let's
32:00
Speaker 1: definitely do it. Let us know about your favorite vending machine.
32:03
Speaker 1: Let us know about your favorite seemingly crackpot military scheme,
32:07
Speaker 1: because oh buddy, this is only scratching the surface. Uh.
32:12
Speaker 1: The U. S Military and other militaries have attempted to
32:15
Speaker 1: use dolphins for wartime efforts, cats for spying, I think
32:20
Speaker 1: rats as well for something. We did an episode on this.
32:23
Speaker 1: We did an episode here on this about the skinner
32:26
Speaker 1: boxes and sideshow kind of carnival show. Yeah, there was
32:33
Speaker 1: like a whole farm where they took these animals that
32:35
Speaker 1: they had trained for military purposes and like made money
32:37
Speaker 1: with the chicken that would peck them, yeah or whatever?
32:40
Speaker 1: How time flies really does? We've been doing this for
32:43
Speaker 1: like over a year now, have we. I don't think
32:45
Speaker 1: we ever acknowledged the year anniversary, but it has come
32:48
Speaker 1: and gone. Making a show like this is sort of
32:51
Speaker 1: like in all those classic cartoons where Elmer Fudd or
32:56
Speaker 1: Wiley Coyote or you know, Daffy Duck or it is
33:00
Speaker 1: funny when they walk off the cliff and they just
33:02
Speaker 1: keep walking until they look down. I just don't look down.
33:06
Speaker 1: I call it critical mass. Critical mass. You know, you
33:09
Speaker 1: do something you just kind of like have this trajectory
33:12
Speaker 1: and you just never look back. And as long as
33:14
Speaker 1: you don't look back, you kind of forget what's going
33:15
Speaker 1: on and how time passes. Now we're going into philosophy
33:19
Speaker 1: as well, but well said, and we hope that you
33:23
Speaker 1: enjoy this episode. We do want to hear these answers.
33:25
Speaker 1: I will look at pictures of your favorite vending machines,
33:28
Speaker 1: were the most unusual vending machines? Uh, until the stars
33:33
Speaker 1: collapse and the universe meets its end. In the meantime,
33:38
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks to our
33:41
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram. Yeah, thanks to Alex Williams who
33:45
Speaker 1: composed our theme. Thanks to our research associate Gabe, and
33:48
Speaker 1: we're gonna try a new thing. Hey, if you want
33:50
Speaker 1: to check out me and Ben's individual exploits since our
33:53
Speaker 1: our show um Instagram account is not the most fascinating
33:56
Speaker 1: in the world, you can check me out at Embryonic
33:59
Speaker 1: Insider on Instagram and you can find me at Ben
34:03
Speaker 1: Bolan on Instagram. Yes, in a burst of creativity, folks. Uh,
34:07
Speaker 1: the newest thing that I have up is maybe the
34:12
Speaker 1: Saturn five wago replica that I built this weekend, which
34:17
Speaker 1: is huge, very impressive. It's weird. You can find us
34:20
Speaker 1: on our respective instagrams. You can find us on Twitter.
34:23
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Facebook. Perhaps most importantly,
34:26
Speaker 1: you can find your fellow Ridiculous historians on our Facebook
34:30
Speaker 1: community page Ridiculous Historians. And please tune into our next
34:34
Speaker 1: episode where we talk about the ridiculous origins of state name,
34:38
Speaker 1: specifically Idaho. We'll see it am