Latest / Ridiculous History / A Boeing Wonderland, Part One: A Magician Tries to Camouflage Entire Airfields

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A Boeing Wonderland, Part One: A Magician Tries to Camouflage Entire Airfields · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Big, big shout out to our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: mister Max Willims.
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  Speaker 2: What isn't that a thing? Is like a military thing?
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  Speaker 2: Who Ah?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's whoa, there's Hurrah, there's Nathan Otowski.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, what it's like one of them's for Navy seals,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: particularly in particular.
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  Speaker 1: Believe yeah, I believe. I believe there are a couple
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  Speaker 1: of different ones. It depends on the branch. And one
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  Speaker 1: thing we can tell you folks as civilians, just ask,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: don't they're gonna take it the wrong way if you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: if you do an oohrah when you should do a hoorah?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: What about a huzzah? You can never go wrong with
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a hussa. I like as I like us very ren fair. Yeah,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I've been bowling. You're no brown, and we are here
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  Speaker 2: in person. Nathan Otowski by the way, as a dear
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  Speaker 2: friend and coworker of ours. Not that people don't yell
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Nathan Otowski in the arm service. That'd be cool. I
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  Speaker 2: was about to say, it really does work as kind
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  Speaker 2: of an exclamatory. Yes, my goodness, love it, love the energy.
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  Speaker 1: This is a two parter that has a lot of
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  Speaker 1: returning or turning guests and events.
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  Speaker 2: Today we're coming in hot with that big bowing energy.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna make it off the plane,
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  Speaker 1: hopefully in one piece. Boeing's been getting u Boeing has
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  Speaker 1: been getting put through the pr ringer.
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  Speaker 2: Oh wait, because of like shoddy workmanship. Okay, let's not
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  Speaker 2: blame it on the folks to build the planes. It's
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  Speaker 2: more probably a top down issue, perhaps with maintenance and
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  Speaker 2: checking on things like windows, seals, And wasn't there something
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  Speaker 2: about a door flying open? Yes?
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  Speaker 1: Yes, fight club style and regulation and why regulation is important.
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  Speaker 1: We've talked about this on one of our other shows.
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  Speaker 1: Stuff they don't want you to know. We also are
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  Speaker 1: returning to some wacky World War II stuff we wanted
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  Speaker 1: to w w way, sorry, perfect, We're returning to this
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  Speaker 1: because we wanted to explore a story about Bowie that
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  Speaker 1: is not the the unfortunate stuff you're hearing in the
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  Speaker 1: news today.
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  Speaker 3: Folks, also being what this episode is, is this some
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  Speaker 3: sort of anniversary It.
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  Speaker 2: Is our Washington episode? Oh snat, yeah, take that sous John. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: he gave that up long ago. It was always a ruse.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm holding out. We're taking it serious. We're taking it.
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  Speaker 2: We keep our promises. I have an entire doc that's right,
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  Speaker 2: crack at all, that's right.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna have to eventually expand globally, like we have
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  Speaker 1: to get to territories once we run out of states,
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  Speaker 1: and then it's gonna be wild.
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  Speaker 2: Giving me ideas right now.
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  Speaker 1: I love it. I love you know what. We're idea people, Max,
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  Speaker 1: We just hand out ideas. We're regular Don Draper's orphan factory.
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  Speaker 1: Oh boy, Yeah, that's the name of my new noise
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  Speaker 1: metal band.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's not just a phrase that I threw at you.
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  Speaker 2: We discussed this off Mike, but today on Mike we're
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  Speaker 2: discussing something different, some very crafty tactics deployed by the
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  Speaker 2: Boeing Company that folds in the kind of stuff that
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  Speaker 2: I think we all love, uh, involving theme park design.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, Yes, I do love this.
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  Speaker 1: What a great way in because this takes us back
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  Speaker 1: to the time when everybody was striving for some sort
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  Speaker 1: of edge in World War two.
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  Speaker 2: Supremacy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of out of the box ideas like
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  Speaker 1: balloon bombs. We did an episode on that the bombing
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  Speaker 1: runs in Oregon that Japan very unsuccessful.
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  Speaker 2: They were bomb bombs. They bombed, they bombed on the
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  Speaker 2: bomb run.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the bomba aside, we do know that
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  Speaker 1: people started taking they took the threats of these bombs
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  Speaker 1: very seriously, and they started going through some dare we say,
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous steps to protect themselves. And one of those things,
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  Speaker 1: the reason we're mentioning theme parts here, one of these
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  Speaker 1: things was a move of subterfuge, right, a feat of Imagineeri.
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  Speaker 2: Telling lies no Papa. According to Rare Historical Photos, which
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  Speaker 2: is a beautifully descriptive name for a website, Deceiving the
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  Speaker 2: enemy as to what you are doing is not new.
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  Speaker 2: Trying to hide positions from observation is not new. Trying
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  Speaker 2: to hide whole factories from aerial bombing during the Second
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  Speaker 2: World War, wait for it was new?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, So it's true story, folks. The US
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  Speaker 1: tried to hide their aircraft factories in plane site p
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  Speaker 1: l a inn.
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  Speaker 2: It's a site gag, you got it.
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  Speaker 1: So they're in a pickle because they have to have
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  Speaker 1: these factories. It's a huge infrastructure.
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  Speaker 2: And very large. They're very visual.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're not. They're not easy to move, right.
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  Speaker 1: You can't just hop on, you can't just toss them
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  Speaker 1: on a pickup truck. So they had to figure out
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  Speaker 1: a way to hide the factories. Uh, and they pulled
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  Speaker 1: it off. We want to give a big special shout
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  Speaker 1: out to Bill Yane over at Boeing one, who wrote
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  Speaker 1: Boeing Wonderland the Fake Cities on America's West Coast for
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  Speaker 1: Warfare History Network.
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  Speaker 2: That's one of our primary sources. Well, it's one of
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  Speaker 2: our primary sources because Bill, I believe, is the descendant
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  Speaker 2: of somebody who actually was directly involved. So I mean
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  Speaker 2: that's the best primary source we could possibly have here.
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  Speaker 2: So we will continue to shout out Bill throughout this
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  Speaker 2: because we are liberally pulling from his incredible work and research.
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  Speaker 2: Bill Big Bill, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Wild Bill Wild, Bill son of the employee at Boeing.
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  Speaker 1: PLAYT two really quickly before we jump into it. Have
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  Speaker 1: you guys seen the television series The English it is?
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  Speaker 2: I believe it. It was a BBC production. I think
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  Speaker 2: it's on Amazon now. Its stars Oh my goodness, she
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  Speaker 2: played Mary Poppins and the Mary Poppins reboot. She's married
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  Speaker 2: to the guy for who plays the dude who looks
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  Speaker 2: at the camera all the time in the office, who's
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  Speaker 2: also i think Jack Reacher or something. Anyway, I'm not
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  Speaker 2: forgetting is her name anyhow. It's a Western and it
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  Speaker 2: is incredible. Emily Blood, Thank you, Emily Blood. It is
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  Speaker 2: a Western and it is sweeping, John. It is sweeping
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  Speaker 2: in its scope, absolutely beautiful cinematography, music, and the performances.
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  Speaker 2: And it's another in what we're seeing in a long
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  Speaker 2: line or medium line of shows that really show accurate
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  Speaker 2: depictions of the indigenous experience really really dogs lately, and
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  Speaker 2: this one does that as well. And it has some
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  Speaker 2: of the most menacing big bads that you get a
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  Speaker 2: couple of them throughout the series, and it's a limited series.
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  Speaker 2: Get you to a streamer and watch this as soon
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  Speaker 2: as you can. Brought I don't even remember. I just
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  Speaker 2: wanted to Yeah, I just wanted to share about No,
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  Speaker 2: there was something that came to mind just just about
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  Speaker 2: the American wests and our fascination with it, and it's how,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it has always been a place of innovation
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  Speaker 2: and striving and kind of you know, the sort of
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  Speaker 2: personification of what is quote unquote the American dream and spirit,
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  Speaker 2: which is oftentimes a freaking nightmare right right.
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  Speaker 1: And also, uh, as anybody because a fan of history
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  Speaker 1: knows the weird thing about these so called wild West
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  Speaker 1: is a very short period of time in American history.
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  Speaker 2: But I agree with you the I know what it was,
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  Speaker 2: you called him wild Bill, Yeah, and that's what That's
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  Speaker 2: what we got there. That's perfect.
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  Speaker 1: Uh. This is also uh, I agree with the point
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  Speaker 1: about the romanticization of the West as as this idea
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  Speaker 1: and this symbol, and that holds true even even today.
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  Speaker 1: Like we have to realize that during World War Two,
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  Speaker 1: as weird as it sounds, people were extremely, extremely worried
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  Speaker 1: that Japanese forces could get across the Pacific because they
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  Speaker 1: did it in Hawaii.
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  Speaker 2: It's an entry point. I mean, it is sort of
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  Speaker 2: the frontier of Like That's why I mean, I think
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  Speaker 2: it has so much romantic kind of thinking around is
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  Speaker 2: because it is sort of like the end of the
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  Speaker 2: line or the beginning of the line, you know, depending
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  Speaker 2: on me. Obviously there's the East coast too, but the
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  Speaker 2: West Coast is where this literal enemy that we were
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  Speaker 2: facing would potentially access and invade our country.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and picture it, you know, as a Bill is
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  Speaker 1: writing in his work for Warfare History Network. Within just
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  Speaker 1: a month of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese
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  Speaker 1: forces conquered Manila in the Philippines, and then Hong Kong
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  Speaker 1: and then Singapore fell. So there was a lot of expansion,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of violence. And you can't blame people living
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  Speaker 1: in the US for happening by the West coast and
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  Speaker 1: looking out at the horizon, as Bill says, and half
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  Speaker 1: expecting to see a Japanese invasion fleet.
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  Speaker 2: You know what's interesting is, you know, there's this new
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  Speaker 2: Godzilla movie, Godzilla Minus one that everyone's screaming about. I
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  Speaker 2: haven't seen that very so that's what I've heard. I'm
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  Speaker 2: very excited to see it.
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  Speaker 1: But I liked Monarch too, by the way, to show
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  Speaker 1: this show, Yes, I mentioned that because Godzilla has always
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  Speaker 1: been kind of a stand in for nuclear war and
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  Speaker 1: you know, attacks from outside, you know, in the Japanese
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  Speaker 1: kind of mindset.
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  Speaker 2: But you also picture that view of a beach and
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  Speaker 2: the horizon and the things coming towards you, you know,
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  Speaker 2: this impending doom. So I think Godzilla could also be
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  Speaker 2: sort of a stand in for the idea of like
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  Speaker 2: an invading force. You know, yeah it is.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a powerful, powerful symbol. And weird thing
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  Speaker 1: about Japan, Godzilla is super popular. Like it's not a stereotype,
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  Speaker 1: it's not weyu boo stuff.
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  Speaker 2: People in Japan get excited about Godzilla. Godzilla is awesome,
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  Speaker 2: and there's different flavors of him. I'm trying this new one.
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  Speaker 2: He's a real pill. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And then there's the force of nature one the Great
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  Speaker 1: Defender Cang versus Godzilla is great. But people right now
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  Speaker 1: are they're having that moment you described. They're looking out
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  Speaker 1: and they're just waiting to see a disturbance in the water,
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  Speaker 1: a ship on the horizon. And civilians are affected by
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  Speaker 1: this propagandas everywhere Japanese Americans are getting interned.
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  Speaker 2: In just a stunning misstep of justice.
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  Speaker 1: Prison camps right right, yeahah, and the top brass is
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  Speaker 1: also very worried about this, just like American civilians. Let's
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  Speaker 1: introduce General John help me with this one, John, liz Ny.
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  Speaker 2: That's a risk. That is what you'd call unga paka.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's like they just a hat on a hat,
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  Speaker 2: like wouldn't Lesnie be enough. It's got to be.
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  Speaker 1: It feels like it feels like if you went into
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  Speaker 1: a really authentic Italian restaurant, they would say, oh, we
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  Speaker 1: don't serve lasagna here, we serve the authentic dish.
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  Speaker 3: We serve, we serve they shall we served that a
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  Speaker 3: really unauthentic Italian place too, Like they just don't know
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  Speaker 3: how to pronounce that.
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  Speaker 1: We cannot legally call this lasagna. Uh so for tax purposes,
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  Speaker 1: it's Lesney.
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  Speaker 2: And much like revenge is to dish best served cold.
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  Speaker 2: But we do have General John Lesesney do it, do it?
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  Speaker 2: And he is the commander of the fourth U. S
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  Speaker 2: Army and the Western Defense Command, and he's his imagination
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  Speaker 2: is running a little bit wild during these times as well,
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  Speaker 2: much like the civilians who are picturing these invading, you know,
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  Speaker 2: forces coming in from the beaches. But he's someone that
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  Speaker 2: can actually do something about it. Yes, yeah, he has
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  Speaker 2: shaped his thinking and his strategy. Yes, he has the
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  Speaker 2: agency here. And he is super paranoid.
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  Speaker 1: He's staying up awake at night, worried about spies and
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  Speaker 1: sabatures in every nook and cranny of the West Coast.
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  Speaker 1: And his fear is what he uses to justify the
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  Speaker 1: enforcement of Executive Order nine zero sixty six. This is
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  Speaker 1: the one that led to the prison camps, the internment
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  Speaker 1: of all Japanese American civilians, including of course people who
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  Speaker 1: just had Japanese grandparents. You know, they're like, dude, I'm
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  Speaker 1: from Pasadena and they locked him up.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we know that the thinking around race
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  Speaker 2: and ethnicity during these times was very black and white.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, no pun intended there.
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  Speaker 1: Shout out to George. Oh, Goshulu, George, Ta kai George.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. But de Witt he also ordered that the
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  Speaker 2: nineteen forty two Rose Bowl football game be moved away
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  Speaker 2: from Pasadena because he thought that it would be a
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  Speaker 2: pretty excellent target for a Japanese attack, and perhaps in
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  Speaker 2: its symbolism, you know, in what it represented, and also,
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  Speaker 2: you know, obviously a large crowd a massed in one place.
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  Speaker 3: Important side note right here, do you guys know who
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  Speaker 3: won the twenty twenty four Rose.
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  Speaker 2: Bull I have absolutely no could I possible? University of Michigan, right,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Maxis you really had to drop that? Yeah? This this
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  Speaker 2: Brie's been ready.
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  Speaker 3: I wrote this brief for when I was going to
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: be in Seattle on October and we're just now recording it.
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  Speaker 3: We could have recorded it then and I wouldn't be
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  Speaker 3: able to celebrate that my University of Michigan Wolverine.
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  Speaker 1: I actually for you, I'll text Alexis to a code
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: name Doc Holliday Jackson over on stuff they want you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to know because she is from Michigan and like you, Max, Well, actually,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: like everybody I met from Michigan super into Michigan based
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: sports teams, so she probably already knows. But this point
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  Speaker 1: about overarching paranoia almost Orwellian in its scope. It reminds
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  Speaker 1: me a lot of the months after the attacks on
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  Speaker 1: September eleventh, and every news channel we went to, every
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  Speaker 1: local affiliate. You would have someone far inland, in a
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  Speaker 1: rural area and they would say, well, the terrorists are
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  Speaker 1: going to hit our town next. You know, our town
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  Speaker 1: with a population of seventeen hundred, right, Because I distinctly remember,
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  Speaker 1: I think was a Fox News affiliate. I was interviewing
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  Speaker 1: a lady somewhere in Oklahoma, I want to say, and
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  Speaker 1: she was worried terrors were going to attack because there
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  Speaker 1: was a new Walmart being built.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, paranoia can get very compartmentalized in that way and
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  Speaker 2: can cause some pretty serious myopic thinking, you know. But
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  Speaker 2: this wasn't unfounded though, as the thing, I mean, we
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  Speaker 2: had a precedent, you know, with Pearl Harbor, with all
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  Speaker 2: of these events in the world going on, and the
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  Speaker 2: power of the Japanese you know military, I mean they
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  Speaker 2: were good. They were good at what they did, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a lot of shock and awe. They
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  Speaker 1: had overwhelming forces. And as the general here he is,
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  Speaker 1: he is incredibly aware of the possibility of being overrun
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  Speaker 1: by Japanese forces. He's looking at his ground troops and
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  Speaker 1: he's saying, look, all the folks under my command, that's
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  Speaker 1: not enough. You know, if they roll through the way
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  Speaker 1: they rolled through Manila.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and they not only were strategic, quite advanced, and
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  Speaker 2: technologically quite advanced, they had, you know, soldiers pilots that
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  Speaker 2: were literally willing to die for the cause, not just
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  Speaker 2: to put themselves in harm's way, to be the bomb,
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  Speaker 2: to be the bullets. You know, it's pretty powerful. Just
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  Speaker 2: and knowing that, you would think, well, what won't they
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  Speaker 2: do exactly what are they capable of?
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  Speaker 1: And he shares this concern. As paranoid as it may sound,
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  Speaker 1: this was a very understandable and common worry amid civilians
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  Speaker 1: and the military alike. And it was backed up by
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  Speaker 1: Japanese actions. Japanese submarine shelled different oil storage facilities ten
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  Speaker 1: miles from Santa Barbara, California. So they're in America's back door.
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  Speaker 1: And that was on February twenty third. I want to say,
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  Speaker 1: so the next night, people are so freaked out that
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  Speaker 1: gunners who are keeping the night watch are convinced. They
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  Speaker 1: see I almost set a flock and ar moda of
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  Speaker 1: Japanese bombers heading over Los Angeles, and so they start
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  Speaker 1: shooting off aircraft shells. They don't wait to verify, and
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  Speaker 1: they start flooding the night with search lights, and people
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  Speaker 1: are thinking of the London Blitz.
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  Speaker 2: I was about to say, I mean, there's precedent for
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  Speaker 2: this kind of stuff too, that's already been kind of
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: seared into the American consciousness. You know, the idea of
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: these blitzes leveling cities, creating sort of like images of
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  Speaker 2: Hell on Earth scenarios.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's very very logical. You know what happened
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  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, you know what happened in Hong Kong, in
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  Speaker 1: the Philippines. There is absolutely no reason to assume California
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  Speaker 1: would be immune to those kinds of actions. And this
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: is where we introduced the Navy Secretary Frank Knox. He announces, hey, guys,
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  Speaker 1: the Battle of Los Angeles. That's a false alarm, even
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  Speaker 1: though by this point people are already saying, like, hey,
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  Speaker 1: was UFO.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, we talked about it. I got to say,
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  Speaker 2: that's the Battle of Los Angeles. Something we've talked about
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  Speaker 2: on stuff that I want you to know, because there were,
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  Speaker 2: you know, within a vacuum, you know, you kind of
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  Speaker 2: conspiracies run amok. You know, people start to think about
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  Speaker 2: what it could have been. They're certain looking for something
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  Speaker 2: with search lights, you know, going wild, shooting our artillery rounds,
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  Speaker 2: you know, into the sky and there's nothing there. But
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  Speaker 2: that's what paranoia does. And when you have people who
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  Speaker 2: are really paranoid at the top of the of the
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  Speaker 2: food chain, right, crazy things can happen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this LA situation is a false alarm. But
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  Speaker 1: the Santa Barbara situation is not. This is the attack
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  Speaker 1: on the oil reserves, right, this is the attack on
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  Speaker 1: Fort Stevens.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Okay, there was another thing we talked
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  Speaker 2: about earlier. Where there were bombings of oil reserves, So
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  Speaker 2: you're right. We talked about the Santa Barbara incident where
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  Speaker 2: Japanese submarine I seventy five destroyed oil reserves. Now also
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  Speaker 2: on the West coast, a little further up north, though,
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  Speaker 2: we've got activities of this same kind happening in Washington State.
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  Speaker 2: Japanese submarine I twenty five attacks Fort Stevens two nights
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  Speaker 2: in a row. Yeah, it's looking ugly.
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  Speaker 1: And then in the same month in June, Japanese forces
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: we talked about this in previous episodes, did they invade
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and occupy the two Aleutian Islands. So check out our
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: episode of the Battle of the Aleutian Islands. And this
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is terrifying to Uncle Sam because now there is an
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: active Japanese base on the doorstep of Alaska. Merchant ships
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: are being sunk left and right off the West coast.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Attacks are coming from the air. There were these couple
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: of these bombing missions over southwestern Oregon, which we covered
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: in another episode, and that's actually kind of a wholesome
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: story that one absolutely the bombing goes so terribly wrong,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and then the guy who who bombed on behalf of
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the Japanese, a gentleman named Nobu Fujita. He ends up
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: becoming like the most popular dude in that town. It's
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: kind of that's worth The reason is.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: It is, it has it has a cuddly ending. And again,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: huge shoutouts to Bill Yen for a lot of this chronology.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And you know, I mean, we've talked about all of
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: these events separately, but it really does take a very
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: discerning eye and a historians kind of mind to put
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: all the stuff together, you know, to create kind of
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a bigger picture of what we're talking about today.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Agreed, Agreed, And for each of these things that we
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: can verify actually occurring, there were at the time hundreds
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of other weird rumors, you know what I mean, like well,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the Japanese are getting into our schools, or they're going
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to get in.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: The water infiltrating you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: it's like Red Scare type stuff, only worse because this
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: is a hot war, right you know, And.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So we've established this deeply, deeply paranoid vibe of the US,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: especially on the West coast in nineteen forty two. At
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: this point, Axis armies both in the European and Pacific
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Theater seem unstoppable, and people are beginning to think increasingly
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time before the shoe drops
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: and America is attacked directly. And so shout out to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: one of our favorite catchphrases. America decides to beef up
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and they're like, we got to get this infrastructure going.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: This had been this has been kind of in the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: works already. I think it was nineteen forty so before
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor, President FDR said, look, my fellow Americans, we
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: need like fifty thousand fighter planes.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an insane number. You know, that's a lot
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: of the standards of those days for sure. And at
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that point, just to hit home, like what a huge
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: ask that was, the Navy and the Army Air Corps
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: had less than ten thousand. I would say, of what
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: that number would be around a fifth. It's a hell
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: of a spinoff, big time. Yeah, And you know, we
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: know manufacturing technology has come a long way since then,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: but it still takes a long time to churn out
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: these types of you know, aircraft. This would be a
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: damn near impossible ask, you know, in the time they
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: would need to accomplish it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like a new deal level of centralized planning,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: which is that kind of military direction is a little
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: bit too close to socialism for a lot of FDR's opponents.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: But everybody decides to kind of put these internal disagreements
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: to one side and say, look, we can figure it
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: out after the war. Right now, regardless of your political ideology,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: your socioeconomic demographic, we can all agree that aircraft factories
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: are the most important thing we have going on right now.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: We need to mobilize private industries and force them to
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: make planes. This is a really interesting time for car
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: manufacturers too, because car manufacturing figures out, Yeah, they're making
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: tanks now.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Same with like I mean, on the other side, we
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: had in Japan, you know, like Japanese toy factory and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: stuff that we're taking their tin and using it to
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: make these things. And then once they maybe it was
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: the other way around after the war ended, then the
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: ten was repurposed to start making the toys. It's interesting stuff,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: just the way like you know we see it with
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: like Coca Cola even, you know, and like companies that
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: were pivoting you know, their production lines to serve the war.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I know, Adidas's factory was it used to make anti
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: tank weapons because it was like Audi Dostler's wife I believe,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: ran on front of like US tanks to stop them
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: from blowing up. It's like it's actually a shoe factory.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Let us just make shoes, and like that's what's spared
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: that factory.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a really good point, Max, because what we're
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: talking about today is more of that kind of bait
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: and switch, kind of subterfused, less about disguising one type
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of factory as another, but about disguising it as something
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: completely different. We're going to get to that totally. Let's
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: hit a little bit of a bit more of the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: history before we get there, for sure. Yeah.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So nineteen forty, the US administration or the FDR administration
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: creates something called the National Defense Advisory Commission, and they're
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: supposed to herd the cats of this massive level of
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: infrastructure expansion, and Congress just rubber stamps a bunch of stuff.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: If you can get Uncle sand to open his wallet,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: then there's not really a limit to how much you'll
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: spend if he's interested. And so they start this new bureaucracy.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Because it's still a government outfit, it's called the Defense
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Plant Corporation. It's operated by existing manufacturers. The separation between government,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: government and business is very blurred during this time.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Oh and we got another big bill type figure entering
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: the chat. Roosevelts brought in a hind him William Signius.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Big Bill Old Knudsen sounds like a kind of guy
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: that would run like a dealership in Fargo. I think so.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I was thinking that or a deli that's known for
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: egregious sandwich Knudsence. Yes, is that a thing already? Well,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I think it feels like it is.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: There's a TV show or a movie where there's a
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: family called the Knutsens, and it's just it's escaping me. AnyWho,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: This guy understands the industry of mass production. He comes
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: from the automotive industry that we're just talking about. He
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: was an executive and he was the president of a
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: little company called General Motors. Never heard of it. Yeah,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: since the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: seven was actually the year that my father was born.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Interesting fact, getting to know you, getting to know all
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: about you. No, that's interesting, and also it's also it
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: reminds me two of the car stuff. We did episodes
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of this on car stuff because they have a huge
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: resource allocation problem. For anybody's a fan of something like
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: sim city or civilization, all resource management games. Ninety percent
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of all the manufacturing capability for aircraft in the US
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty ninety percent of it is in five states,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and sixty five percent of this manufacturing power is along
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: or near the coast. California, often thought to be the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: most vulnerable state on the West Coast, has forty four
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: percent of all the aircraft making stuff. They're very visible,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: they're very vulnerable. The same battle group that had attacked
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor had just been camped out two hundred miles
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: off the Malibu.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Coast, and.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: If they attacked, then pretty much most of the US
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: airplane manufacturing ability would be gone in moments. And everybody
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: knew this. This was an acknowledged fact. They said, we're
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: gonna build these factories Inland. We're gonna go to Illinois, Michigan,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: shut out max Missouri and Texas.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: But like you said, Noel, they still need time. You
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: can't just do this by Tuesday. No, No, this is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: very nuts and bolts literally. So it was clear that
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: this is going to require a lot of planning. Ka
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Nutsten obviously had the smarts, you know, to understand the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: organization of a giant company that manufactures, but they also
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: needed someone that really could dial in the logistics of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff, you know, in reality on the grounds.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they needed a guy who thought out of the box,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and they found that person, Major John Francis Omer Junior.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Let's learn a little bit about him. He's an Ohio
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: guy born in Dayton, eighteen ninety one.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Buckeye state, isn't that one? Ohio is?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Cool, and he is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: His father is an inventor, manufacturer, a business owner. And
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: John gets a master's degree in engineering, sort of following,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you know, his father's inventive footsteps. He has attended Cornell University,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: he joins the military, uh service in World War One,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and then he when he comes back from the war,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: he's in the family business. But he's still he's still
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a member of the Reserve Corps.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: You know. It's interesting. I was thinking about how, when
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: we talk about the history of the country at this time,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of the top minds and top you know
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: kind of thinkers were military officials as well, because it
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: was just the thing to do, right you know. I
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: mean it was like, yeah, if you want to be
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: considered a team player, you were going to join, you know,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the military. Yeah.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you mention that, because I think culturally in
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the West, for a very long time, it was considered
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the right and moral thing. It was like it was
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a right of passage. You didn't need a law that
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: said everybody had to join the military because it was
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: expected to do so. It wasn't until the US became
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: increasingly siding Vietnam War, Drean War and stuff.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people really kind of trusted the government to a
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: certain degree, and at least on paper, you know, the
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: government was maybe a little more trustworthy. I don't know
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: what you think that's me. I don't know. I don't know, man,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: we I mean, neither of us were there.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, it's it's probably demographically dependent, right, So I'm sure
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: if you're a straight white dude, then things are better.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Opportunities abound. There we go, there we go.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: And so, uh, there's another fact here that just really
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: sticks out to me. Our buddy Omer is a renaissance man.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: He loves photography. He is an amateur magician.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I love magic so much. I don't trust age magician. Hey,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: that's fair. I find him smug enough. Hey, look, it's
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: all it's all in your stage banter. But I've always
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: been fascinated with sleight of hand and like you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: stage magic, close close up magic is super cool. I
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: know one cool card trick where I can make a
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: card disappear, but that's all I've got. But I'm big
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: fan of that, and it just you know, I see
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: what you're saying. It is a it is a discipline
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: that is entirely based on bullshiting you. But that kind
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: of serves, right, and we're talking about here. It's perfect casting, right.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So he uh, he starts getting interested in different other
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: artistic endeavors.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And this is a true story, folks. He gets super.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Into camouflage like that becomes his hobby.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: And I've just pictoried.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Like if online dating was a thing at this point,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I would love to see this guy's profile where he's like,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: my interest include camouflage, just the idea of it's a
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: cool look.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It's easy to take it for granted today because you
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: think about camouflage and you think about it more as
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: like an interesting fashion choice reality, but it is in
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: and of itself a kind of technology, and we start
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: talking about things like dazzle camouflage where they use these
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: weird striped patterns on warships that they borrowed from the wild.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: They borrowed from the way zebras are able to kind
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: of blend in in a herd and with like the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: horizon or whatever. Really really interesting and it required a
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: lot of creative outside the box thinking the kind of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: stuff you might associate with, like the imagineers of Disney fame,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: you know, who created things like basically visual effects technologies
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: that didn't exist yet or would take you know, existing
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: things like the Peppers Ghost, you know, sort of effect
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: where you could create what looks like a hologram and
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: just take it to the next level.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And he becomes a one man pitch army. He's always
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: trying to demonstrate camouflage techniques and he's saying, look, I
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: studied the success of the Royal Air Force during the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Battle of Britain in nineteen forty. Uh huh, just so,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: And he says, look, let me show you guys what
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. And so he's at Fort Eustace, Virginia
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: making his pitch. He goes to different Air Force bases
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: like backxwell Field and Alabama and people in general seem
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to agree it's a good idea, but they don't have
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the budget for it.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the money's going into making the damn things
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: fighting the actual fight, being as prepared as possible militarily speaking,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: you know, to camouflage and all of this stuff. Well,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: very important. Clearly they made a whole bureaucracy with factory
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Defense in the name. You know, it was important. But
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: he had to kind of sell the brass on some
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: of these more unusual, innovative kind of ideas.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, So he perseveres and he's traveling
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: all around the country pitching this stuff. In March of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty one, like so many other people who are
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in the reserves, he is ordered back to active duty,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: called to serve, Called to serve, and he gets sent
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: to Hawaii to study defenses as part of his work
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: under the Chief of Engineers Operations and Training Section. So
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: he gets out there to Wahoo and he says, look,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: here's what we need to do to camouflage Wheeler Field,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: which is only twelve miles north of Pearl Harbor. And
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: they say this is great. Oh, you're a really smart guy.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: How much does it cost? And he says fifty grand
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and they say go home.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean maybe we should and maybe we should.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Can we do a boop? Can we have fession? I
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: think you know, we know a little bit about military spending, dude,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: So what are we talking here?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: In nineteen forty one, fifty thousand dollars is worth one
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: point zero four million today, which is high for like
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: a person, but for the military.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we hear about budgets in the trillions, you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: but again it's a different time and we're not actively.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Five thousand dollars hammer or specific hammer they have to
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: use on sealth bombers that won't do something.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Man. We heard a story a while back about these
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: like coffee mugs, like they have like electronics built in
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: them to keep your coffee warm. It was a story
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: about waste in military spending, and that was a big topic.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: And I think that they spent like hundreds of thousands
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: of dollars and they went to waste as well.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I believe that was part of it a bit. There's
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of crypt too, and there's a well, there's
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: stories to be told about that.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: All that to say, though, one point five million to
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: make sure your factories don't get blown up. Seems like
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: a pretty reasonable ask. I think maybe they just weren't
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: so sure about his methods.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And here's where it becomes a parable of sorts because
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: after they turn him down and say, okay, we get it.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: You like magic, we're not camouflaging this. Just a few
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: weeks later, it's December seventh and the airfield gets attacked yep,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and it lost most of its planes.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: And it was the same you know, group of fighter
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: pilots battalion or whatever you want to call it that
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: had destroyed Pearl Harbor. So at this point the brass
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: are a little bit more open to some of these
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: outside of the box ideas because they were desperate and
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: they realized that whatever they were doing wasn't working and
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: they needed somebody to kind of come in and rewrite
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the game plan.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And General de Witt, you know, like cut back to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: him in the film here, he is bonkers by this point.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: He's the one that's been already entertaining all of these
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: paranoid Yes, scare we stay delusions. But again, is it
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: just being really prepared exact or is it like, you know,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: are you losing your marbles a little bit.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Paranoia doesn't mean you're wrong, is the problem.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: So and when your paranoia is confirmed, it just deep
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: we're seeing. And so our buddy DeWitt is saying, I
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: knew it. I'm not crazy. Omer.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I need you to develop a camouflage plan for the
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: entirety of the West Coast. And Omer, now our magician
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: protagonist to this story, he says, this is great. I
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: have been thinking about this all the time. I'm not
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: sure if you're aware, general, but camouflage is my primary hobby.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point, and then in two since I
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: was a kid, I could lay completely still under the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: cover as my parents wouldn't even know I was there.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: And so this is a dream job for this guy.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And now we get to the point where Uncle Sam
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: opens his wallet. Price is no object, and so this
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: guy starts saying, all right, I am going to camouflage
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: the entire aircraft industry of California. I'm going to show
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you a demonstration on one airfield, and then we're going
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to work out, you know, how how we maintain a
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: working air field while still camouflaging it. And this is
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: crazy because he goes to Hollywood, so creative, I think
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that's cool.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Well, it was not for nothing that I was mentioning
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: the Disney imagineers and just how so much of the
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: thinking behind magic and stagecraft things like that goes into
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: the design of theme parks. It's all about it's not
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: exactly camouflage, but it is about, like, for example, hiding
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: infrastructure in plain sight. You know, a lot of the
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: work that goes into, you know, designing ride queues and
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: things at theme parks is to cover up stuff that
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: may be considered unsightly or a peak behind the curtain
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: that they don't want the visitors to have. So there
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: is a lot of overlap in that guy or making
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: a widespread surveillance. Yeah, and it also reminds me of
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: things we see in modern cities in the West today,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, a facade buildings that are entirely
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: to disguise infrastructure. He did a whole episode on that
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: with stuff they I want you to know, we actually
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: went and discovered some of these fake buildings in person.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I think there's a video of that still on the internet. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Shout out to a con ed for not arresting us.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: They did chase us off, they shoot us. They did aggressively.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: They did politely but firmly shoot the heck out of us.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: So so Omer goes to Hollywood and he talks to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: movie set designers, he talks to scene painters, and these
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: are the top talent of their respective fields. And all
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of the major Hollywood studios are super duper down to
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: help with this because it's great pr for this, absolutely,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And then later, because of
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the way Hollywood works, later they can reach out to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a general or something and say like, hey, Kember, are
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a couple of tanks we're filming a think.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Well, we already know, and I think again, start keep
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: invoking stuff I don't want you to know. But we've
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: read an episode in that about the cozy relationship between
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: the military and movie studios.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as the deal is you can get
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: as a film studio, you can get us military stuff
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in your in your story, so long as the military
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: looks good.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they probably got like a style guide or something.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Oh sure, they just distribute. By the way, I think,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I was texted you and matt Our co host and
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: something that I want you to know that I was
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: at a TJ Max and I saw which is where
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: you can find kind of second like tier kind of
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: toys and stuff that nobody wants of the other story.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: And I saw this line of army toys officially branded
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: army toys with things like you know, tanks and and uh,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: personnel carriers and things like that. It was very interesting.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: It sounds uh, it sounds fast, borderline propagandistic. Well I
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: would even short yeah, but but okay, so everybody's rolling
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: out the red carpet.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: The US government is saying take all the money. W
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the big wigs in Hollywood are saying, let's hook you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: up with anyone who can help. And if for a
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: time this becomes like a very very busy, big film
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: production to turn Marchfield into a working demonstration of these
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: camouflage ideas, and people in the Army are like, oh, geez,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: looked at We're at all Hollywood studio now. Eventually they
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: disguised thirty four different air bases in a couple of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: different states, Washington, Oregon, California, all up and down the
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: West coast. And the biggest ticket item isn't the airfields themselves,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: it's the manufacturing plants like Lockheed in Burbank or North
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: American aviation inglewood, because again, most of the manufacturing capability
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: is there in just those five.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was another story we did about how
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: during World War Two, I believe it was Pairs, they
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: built like a tiny version of Paris that from the
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: sky would appear to be the actual Paris, and they
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: turned all the actual lights of the city of Paris
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: off and lit up this sort of facsimile, sort of
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: miniature version, and that also worked. You know, this is
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: practical effects we're talking about here. I think that's why
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: this one is such a neat crossover between military history
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: and the history of you know, effects and illusion, because
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what they did. They cloaked the factories by
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: essentially building I'm imagining on their roof these kind of
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: facsimiles of suburbs, so that an airplane flying at an
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: altitude of around five thousand feet that's what it would
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: look like. And they knew exactly what that distance, what
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: kind of view that distance would provide, and they tailored
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: it accordingly, right.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Because remember a lot of enemy aircraft they're hunting by sight,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, So if you can manipulate
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: their perspective, then you're going to come out the winner.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: This is kind of what you'd call syops, right, yeah,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're monkeying with people's
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: expectations and their senses, you know.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's a kissing cousin to syops, and
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: it's just it's defensive rather than offensive. But we know
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of companies, private aircraft manufacturers, didn't want to
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: wait around for the military to have a plan.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: They were like, they were let in on the plan.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I guess though they sort of knew what was going
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: on with some of these test cases or these like
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: sort of case studies. Yeah, they were aware of it. Right,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: it was a pilot program and they were not and
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: they were not all yet included. So they were like, okay,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: we get the basic idea. We know kind of how
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: the sausage is being made. Let's make our own sausage.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Before you know, the sausage King comes to bestow his
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: sausages upon us. That's the that's omer street name. The
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: sausage is sausage King.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not going to tell you why there's a family,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: but that's what people called him. Don't fact check us, please,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: So all right, so we know that we know that
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Douglas, the owner of Douglas Aircraft Company, decided to
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: be proactive about this. He is very well aware of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the camouflage conversation, the innovations that are recurring, and in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty one he goes to an engineer named Frank
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Colebaum and says, hey, man, I need help. Can you
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: put together a team that can camouflage my aircraft plant
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: over in Santa Monica? And Colebaum is kind of like
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a consultant in this, so he says, you know what,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I know a guy who's perfect for this. His name
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: is h Roy Kelly. We're throwing a lot of characters
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: in the story today, but I think it's important right
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: for us to learn a little bit about our pal Kelly.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely and one, once again, I can't shout him out
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: enough Bill Yen for his incredible work in Boeing Wonderland
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: the Fake Cities on America's West Coast.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so Bill introduces us to Kelly. Kelly is at
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this point a pretty storied guy.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Uh. He is the dude who invented ranch style homes.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Whoa did he also invent ranch style dressing?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: No?
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: That was a cook who invented it in Alaska. Oh
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: that's right now. How did I know that? You wouldn't
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: know that because I hate ranch? Oh so you hate ranch?
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: You hate doctor Pepper. What kind of American are you? Oh? Geez,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I like a lot of other stuff. You know what
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I mean? More, you know, more ranch for everybody else.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: I'm just the blue cheese guy. I'm a blue cheese
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: got too. I'm not a huge fan of ranch either.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: It's too tany.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: It's such a weird insists upon itself, it insists upon
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: its pushes.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Always is the best, either blue cheese or ranch.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: We're sorry for wing sauce. Wing sauce, just generic wingsa guys.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I gotta be honest.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: It's taken a lot of effort not to twist this
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: into a conversation about food.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I ate lunch. I didn't eat lunch. I didn't usually
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I eat my before I get here.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: But nope, Yeah, so we we've got an appointment for
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: lunch later.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: But for now, what you need to know is that
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: ranch style homes isn't that weird. It's like the home
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: of jajure of America. From that point on, this is
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the mid century we're talking about here. These types of
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: homes now, of course, are really sought after. You know,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: but whenever you look at real estate listings or whatever
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: in Zillow, you know, so many homes today are considered
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: ranch style.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and our buddy Kelly teams up with an architect
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: from California landscape man named Edward Huntsman Trout.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: And this guy is famous because he's designed things like
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Scripts College and Kelly and Huntsman Trout go to Hollywood
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: set designers, in this case specifically from Warner Brothers, and
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: they create a thing that goes on top of the
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: roof of Douglas Aircraft Factory.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a tension compression in structure. It's five million
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: square feet of chicken wire and four hundred poles all together.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Like some of it is built to look like those
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: ranch style homes.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: It's from the they outside they're clearly not full houses.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of like, I mean, we need to
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: think about class the golden age of Hollywood, those kind
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: of facades where it's it looks like the front of
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: us of a storefront or the atomic towns exactly much
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: the same as as some of the fake buildings that
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: we explored, you know, for stuffing. I want you to
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: know there are these kind of facades or something that
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: looked like a subway you know, entry, but it actually
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: you can't go in and behind it, it's covering up
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: some sort of you know, pipes or electrical equipment.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: And they fill this fake village with houses, fences, even closed.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Lines home fill town fill. Yeah. And they also an
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: arrested development reference to anyone screeching their head to the
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: point of perspective.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: They do something really clever where they're like, let's build
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: a street grid that looks like it goes seamlessly into
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: the real world in.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Smart so cool, and then the script kind of gets
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: flipped here from what we were talking about before. Again thanks
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: to Billy In for this insight. Executives at Warner Brothers
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Movie Studio saw this and we're like, we want you
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: to do that for us, to help, you know, kind
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: of plus up our sound stages.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were also like, look, we don't we
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: make movies not airplanes, but from far enough away, our
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: sound stages look a little bit more like aircraft hangers
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: than we would, like, we don't want to get bombed.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: That's a good point. They really do know if you've
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: ever seen like air or even like the Warner Brothers
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: pre roll thing that shows that kind of gauzy, gold
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: hued view. Those buildings, the sound stages, they look like
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: giant aircraft hangars from above, big rectangular buildings, all kind
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: of in sequence next to each other. So they were concerned, Well,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: they weren't trying to, you know, get him to help
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: them make movie magic. They were trying to get him
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to help keep them from maybe getting bombed accidentally.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And that's a very smart thing to do, right,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: And add to this, there's a bit of a keeping
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: up with the Joneses mentality because because these studio heads
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: are looking around and they say, dang, there's clover Field
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: camouflage just three miles away. Lockheed's got some dope camouflage.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Our studio is literally the only thing that looks like
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: an aircraft hanger.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: That's a good point.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: So we have to do it because if we don't,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: we look like the target, the sitting duck.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that's very very interesting, and you know it worked.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: It worked maybe in ways that were unintentionally kind of
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: hilariously not good. That pilots trying to land in Santa
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Monica at Cloverfield would occasionally get lost and not be
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: able to figure out where the base was. So that's
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: a pretty good bell weather, you know how. You know,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: so effective this.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Stuff was, Yeah, they had to they had to start
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: doing a thing where they would have a guy at
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: the end of the runway waving a red flag to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: let you know you were in the right place, because
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: otherwise you're like, I'm supposed to land in this town, right.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I wonder at you what level of classified these programs were,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: because it does seem that you would want you wouldn't
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: want there to be any chatter about this kind of
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: stuff on places where the enemy could pick it up.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: So I would imagine it would have been pretty tightly
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: held secret to the point where maybe even some personnel
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: didn't know, you know, what to look for my wife,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: No, it's it's true because oh and then shut out
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: to atari.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: How's it going.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: I love recording in the studio, man, it's a nice
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: when people drop by. So this sets up the scene
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: for the star of our series this week, the Transformation
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Boeing's Plant number two. Eventually it was called Boeing Wonderland.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Ah it sounds like a theme park. It sounds like
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: a place, a lovely place to take the family on vacation.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: And perhaps lovely place to end our episode for today.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I think we've set up the
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: history really well again, thanks to mister Yen for his
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: incredible research. And we're going to get to the promised
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Boeing Wonderland in part two of this two part episode.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: And for now, we want to give a big, big
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Research associated
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. Jonathan Strickland aka the wizd Eves Jeff.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Goat, who may be returning to the show very soon,
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I hope so. Chris frasciotis here in spirit his wizard
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: Beard may it ever grow long. Jonathan Strickland the Quizzler. A. J.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Jacobs the Puzzler. Yeah, we're not super creative with the names. Well,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: we didn't make up the Puzzler, we did. It just
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: happens to be the perfect rivalry, which you will hopefully
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: experience firsthand one of these days very soon on Ridiculous History.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.