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Returning the Favor · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The people that we see on TV and
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  Speaker 1: movie screens today often started from humble beginnings. Kathleen and
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  Speaker 1: Percy Carey, for example, lived with their sons in a
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  Speaker 1: Volkswagen van for a short time while Percy was looking
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  Speaker 1: for work. He finally found a job at a tire factory,
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  Speaker 1: working in the accounting departments, and the boys took jobs
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  Speaker 1: as janitors and security guards at the factory in exchange
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  Speaker 1: for living in the house that the company moved them
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  Speaker 1: into across the street. But eventually one of those boys
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  Speaker 1: broke out of his uniform and went on to great
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  Speaker 1: to claim because everyone knows who Jim Carey is now.
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  Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen sixties, Martin Luther King Jr. And
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  Speaker 1: his wife, Coretta Scott King were already well known. They
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  Speaker 1: had marched on Washington in nineteen sixty three, where Martin
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  Speaker 1: delivered one of the greatest and most famous speeches in
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  Speaker 1: American history on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Their
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  Speaker 1: words and actions were being heard and felt across the
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  Speaker 1: country as black men and women fought for their civil rights,
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  Speaker 1: and yet, despite their fame and calls for unity, the
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  Speaker 1: Kings were often persecuted because of their race. That would
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  Speaker 1: have been hard enough for only two adults, but the
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  Speaker 1: Kings also had four children, four children to guide through
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  Speaker 1: a world that would simultaneously revere them and condemn them.
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  Speaker 1: It was a terrible situation, and their parents did all
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  Speaker 1: they could to make things as normal as possible, and
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  Speaker 1: so sometime during the mid nineteen sixties, Mrs King tried
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  Speaker 1: to enroll her children in acting school, and unsa prizingly,
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  Speaker 1: not a single facility nearby would take them in. Despite
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  Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act explicitly outlined segregation and businesses and
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  Speaker 1: public spaces, schools, and other establishments still did what they
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  Speaker 1: could to prevent black people from participating. So, with nowhere
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  Speaker 1: else to turn, Mrs King called up the little known
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop, led by couple Betty Lou
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  Speaker 1: and her husband Walter. Betty Lou didn't hesitate she said
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  Speaker 1: to Mrs King, sure, come on over, and just like that,
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  Speaker 1: the King children were finally able to take acting lessons.
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  Speaker 1: Eldest daughter, Yolanda King, was lucky enough to study with
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  Speaker 1: the co owner, Walter exclusively, but that wasn't all. The
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  Speaker 1: Atlanta Workshop was one of, if not the only, integrated
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  Speaker 1: acting school around, where white students and black students could
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  Speaker 1: recite lines and perform plays on stage together. It sounds
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  Speaker 1: heartwarming now, but at the time it caused an uproar
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  Speaker 1: in the community. In nineteen she was cast as the
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  Speaker 1: romantic lead in a new play that the Workshop was
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  Speaker 1: putting on. However, her co star happened to be white,
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  Speaker 1: which led to violent unrest. One person hurled objects at
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  Speaker 1: the actors on stage while the show was going on.
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  Speaker 1: Another man with ties to the Ku Klux Klan blew
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  Speaker 1: up a car outside the theater the next day. Walter
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  Speaker 1: and Betty Leu did their best to keep all of
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  Speaker 1: the kids safe, especially the King children, which Mr. And
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  Speaker 1: Mrs King never forgot. Eventually, as word of their integrated
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  Speaker 1: school got around, business started to dry up and the
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  Speaker 1: workshop lost money. Betty Lou and Walter were in dire
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  Speaker 1: straits by nineteen sixty seven, which would turn out to
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  Speaker 1: be an extremely bad time for them, as they had
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  Speaker 1: a second child on the way. In late October, Betty
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  Speaker 1: Leu went into the hospital to give birth to a
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  Speaker 1: baby girl. However, this being America and all, having a
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  Speaker 1: baby was a costly experience even back then. Childbirth costs
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  Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties averaged anywhere from a few hundred
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  Speaker 1: dollars to over a thousand dollars, a far cry from
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  Speaker 1: the tens of thousands that can cost today. Still, that
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  Speaker 1: was a lot of money back then, and an impossible
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  Speaker 1: amount to pay for two struggling acting school owners and
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  Speaker 1: so as thanks for accepting their children when no one
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  Speaker 1: else would, Martin Luther King Jr. And his wife Coretta
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  Speaker 1: Scott King stepped in to pay the hospital bill, allowing
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  Speaker 1: Walter and his wife Betty Lou to welcome their daughter
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  Speaker 1: Julia into the world without worry. It's a delightful tale
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  Speaker 1: of one couple helping another, demonstrating what true community is
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  Speaker 1: all about. We lift each other up, help out when
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  Speaker 1: we can, and make sacrifices for those in need. We
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  Speaker 1: could all use a bit of inspiration in that department
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  Speaker 1: from time to time, I think, I know I can,
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  Speaker 1: And that gift of their's of paying the hospital bill
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  Speaker 1: for a couple of friends had one other silver lining
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  Speaker 1: silver as in the silver screen, because Betty Lou and
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  Speaker 1: Walter Roberts would get to see their daughter, Julia become
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  Speaker 1: one of the biggest movie stars of our era and
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  Speaker 1: quite a pretty woman, Hollywood actress Julia Roberts. While many
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  Speaker 1: countries have declared war on the United States over the years,
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  Speaker 1: few have ever acted upon those threats, and for good reason,
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  Speaker 1: because they know that they would lose. The British, of course,
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  Speaker 1: took on the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and lost.
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  Speaker 1: Man who can forget December seven of nineteen forty one
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  Speaker 1: when Japanese forces bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, officially dragging
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  Speaker 1: the United States into World War Two. The conflict lasted
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  Speaker 1: another four years, but in the end the access Powers
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  Speaker 1: were defeated and the Allies celebrated victory. But during World
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  Speaker 1: War One, one year after America had entered the Fray,
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  Speaker 1: Germany did more than threatened to attack the United States.
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  Speaker 1: They actually did it, and in one of the most
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  Speaker 1: unexpected places too, jutting off of Massachusetts like a vestigial
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  Speaker 1: tail or the flexing arm of a bodybuilder. Is the
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  Speaker 1: Peninsula of Cape Cod. Since the late eighteen hundreds, it's
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  Speaker 1: been a summer getaway for the East Coast elite, a
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  Speaker 1: place to get away from the hustle and bustle of
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  Speaker 1: the big city, and of course, in nineteen seventy five
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  Speaker 1: it stood in for the cozy, shark infested hamlet in
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  Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg's blockbuster hit Jaws. However, nearly sixty years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: the Germans arrived to turn the Cape into a war zone.
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  Speaker 1: It happened on the morning of July one, eighteen nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: The German submarine YOU one fifty six had surfaced off
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  Speaker 1: the coast of Orleans, a small town on the eastern
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  Speaker 1: edge of Cape Cod. It was believed that the sub
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  Speaker 1: under the command of Captain Lieutenant Richard Feld, had been
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  Speaker 1: hunting for the Transatlantic Submarine communications cable connecting Orleans to France.
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  Speaker 1: This cable linked stations on land and allowed them to
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  Speaker 1: communicate across vast distances, and Richard wanted to sever it. However,
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  Speaker 1: another vessel had entered the area, a steam powered tug
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  Speaker 1: boat named perth Amboy, along with four barges in tow.
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  Speaker 1: The U boat sat there in the waters as the
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  Speaker 1: tug boat puttered by, and Richard, for some unknown reason,
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  Speaker 1: ordered his men to helm the guns on deck. They
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  Speaker 1: fired at the tug boats, heading all around the water
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  Speaker 1: and the beach, and sinking one of its barges. The
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  Speaker 1: perth Amboy took damage to its funnel and pilot house,
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  Speaker 1: but little did its captain know that help was on
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  Speaker 1: the way. A Curtis H S I L Flying boats
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  Speaker 1: armed with one Mark four bomb was en route. It
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  Speaker 1: had spotted the German sub and flew overhead, soaring it
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  Speaker 1: around eight hundred feet. Navy Ensign Eric Lingard, who was
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  Speaker 1: piloting the aircraft, called out to his chief Special Mechanic,
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  Speaker 1: Edward Howard. They were right overhead and the time had
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  Speaker 1: come to release the explosive. Even though the plane was
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  Speaker 1: two d feet shy of the recommended safe bombing altitude,
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  Speaker 1: there just wasn't time for safety with a German U
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  Speaker 1: boat tearing up the Massachusetts shore. Unfortunately, the bomb refused
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  Speaker 1: to break free, so Lingard and his men were forced
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  Speaker 1: to circle back around, taking fire from the U boats
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  Speaker 1: guns and Howard, seeing no other way to get the
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  Speaker 1: job done, crawled out along the top of the plane,
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  Speaker 1: inching towards the bombs annual release mechanism. The plane soon
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  Speaker 1: realigned itself with the sub and Howard freed the bomb,
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  Speaker 1: which fell into the water beside the submarine, but it
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  Speaker 1: didn't detonate. Verying the worst, the tugboat crew abandoned ship
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  Speaker 1: as the coast Guard arrived to pull them out of
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  Speaker 1: the water. Another plane, this one piloted by Coastguard Captain
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  Speaker 1: Philip Eaton, showed up next, also armed with a Mark
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  Speaker 1: four bomb, and the German U boat tried to shoot
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  Speaker 1: it out of the sky but failed, while Eaton released
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  Speaker 1: his bomb from an altitude of five feet and once
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  Speaker 1: again the explosive refused to go off. Without any options,
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  Speaker 1: Eaton flew off and came back only to chuck his
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  Speaker 1: toolbox and a wrench from the cockpit to the sub below,
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  Speaker 1: hoping to leave some kind of damage on the vessel's hull.
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  Speaker 1: The U one slipped below the waves once more and disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: just as residents along the beach came to see what
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  Speaker 1: all the commotion was about. News crews arrived shortly afterwards
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  Speaker 1: to interview people, including the crew of the tug boat
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  Speaker 1: it's captain, James Tapley, told the press about what he
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  Speaker 1: had witnessed, saying of the German sub I never saw
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  Speaker 1: a more glaring example of rotten marksmanship. And it was true.
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  Speaker 1: There were no casualties, and other than a sunken barge,
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  Speaker 1: damage from the U boats guns was relatively minor, which
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  Speaker 1: might be why so few people have heard about the
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  Speaker 1: moment when the Germans failed to attack the United States.
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  Speaker 1: But it was more than just a failure. One might
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  Speaker 1: go as far as to call it subpar. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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  Speaker 1: One