Futility Closet - 041-The Tragic Tale of the Lady Be Good

Episode Date: January 12, 2015

The American bomber Lady Be Good left North Africa for a bombing run over Italy in 1943. It wasn't seen again until 15 years later, when explorers discovered its broken remains deep in the Libyan desert. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the strange history of the lost aircraft and trace the desperate last days of its nine crewmen. We'll also climb some twisted family trees and puzzle over the Greek philosopher Thales' struggles with a recalcitrant mule. Sources for our segment on the Lady Be Good: Mario Martinez, Lady's Men, 1995. Dennis E. McClendon, The Lady Be Good: Mystery Bomber of World War II, 1962. Above: The Lady Be Good as she was discovered 440 miles southeast of Benghazi, in remarkably good condition for a plane that had landed itself with one working engine and then lain in the desert for 15 years. The tires on the nose wheel and one of the main landing wheels were undamaged and fully inflated. The crew:  William J. Hatton, pilot; Robert F. Toner, co-pilot; D.P. Hays, navigator; John S. Woravka, bombardier; Harold J. Ripslinger, flight engineer; Robert E. LaMotte, radio operator; Guy E. Shelley Jr., waist gunner; Vernon L. Moore, waist gunner; and S.E. Adams, tail gunner. Hatton, the leader, was probably the first to die. Five months before his posting to Libya, he had written to his mother, "There are about four places they can send me. Arizona, Idaho, and Spokane or Tacoma, Washington. I am sitting here waiting to see which one it is. I hope it isn't Arizona because I am tired of sand." Listener mail: Our Dec. 21 post "A Man His Own Grandfather," reprinting an 1868 item about a man whose stepdaughter marries his father, follows a similar post from 2009, "Proof That a Man Can Be His Own Grandfather," which includes a diagram. The song "I'm My Own Grandpa" was released by Lonzo & Oscar in 1947. This cover version includes a diagram that explains the relationships: Thanks to reader David Wright for sending a link to an article in Geneaology Magazine that traces the history of the idea, and to reader Mark Williamson for sharing his own convoluted family tree: My own mother was an only child, whose father died when she was 9 years old. Her mother then remarried an older man who had several children (and they went on to have several more together). My maternal grandmother's younger brother was in the military, and when home on leave fell in love with one of my mother's stepsisters, and they got married and had children of their own. So my grandmother's brother was my great-uncle, and his wife was my great-aunt, and their children were my second cousins, but he was also my uncle because he was married to my aunt (my mother's stepsister) and their children were my first cousins. And their father was also their great-uncle, since he was their grandmother's brother, and therefore their mother was their great-aunt since she was married to their great-uncle. And since they were their great-aunt's children, that made them their own second cousins. The first of this week's two lateral thinking puzzles was inspired by a chance encounter with N.L. Mackenzie's article "The Nastiness of Mathematicians" in the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal (vol. 9, no. 10, Spring 1994) while toiling at NC State this week. It's not certain that the story actually befell Thales; the same story is told in Aesop's fable "The Salt Merchant and His Ass." The second puzzle is drawn from Eliot Hearst and John Knott's excellent 2009 book Blindfold Chess and from Miguel Najdorf's New York Times obituary (warning: this spoils the puzzle). Hearst and Knott's website explains how Najdorf's longstanding record of 45 blindfold games played simultaneously was broken in 2011 by Marc Lang of Günzburg, Germany. Lang played 46 games and scored +25, =19, -2, as against Najdorf's astounding +39, =4, -2 in São Paulo in 1947. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to episode 41. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll learn about the Lady Be Good, an American bomber that disappeared on its first mission in 1943. When it was rediscovered 15 years later, the story of its crew's desperate last days was finally revealed. We'll also climb some twisted family trees and puzzle over the motives for a chess grandmaster's blindfolded performances.

master's blindfolded performances. Lady Be Good is the name of an American bomber in World War II that disappeared and then reappeared later, was discovered with a strange sad story attached to it. This whole thing is just a terrible tragedy. The plane was based in North Africa in Libya, and it was brand new. It had just been assigned to the 514th bomb squadron, and its crew was brand new too. They just arrived in Libya a week before all this happened. So they were all going up on their, part of their first mission was to join 28 planes on April 4th, 1943, to fly across the Mediterranean to bomb Naples in Italy, and then come back across the sea to Libya. And they took off, all of them, in a sandstorm, which caused the whole mission was kind of a mess. A lot of the planes had engine trouble, and as it turned out, none of them actually made it to the target.

But they all made it back home safely, most of them to Libya and a few of them to Malta. The only one that didn't come home was Lady B. Goode and her crew of nine new men. that didn't come home was Lady B. Goode and her crew of nine new men. It was thought that around midnight, the engines of a single aircraft had been heard over the base in Libya, and they sent up flares to try to attract its attention, but the plane never materialized. On the following day, April 5th, the base organized a search party, searched the sea, searched the surrounding area, and went as deep as 380 miles into the interior into Africa, but didn't find anything. After a week, the crew were officially listed as missing in action, and after a year, they were listed as missing in action and presumed dead. And that's all anyone knew for a long time. The war ended, 15 years went by, and in November 1958, a British petroleum oil exploration team spotted what looked like a crash site 440 miles southeast of Benghazi, way deep into the Libyan desert.

They reported it to the Wheelis Air Base, which is a U.S. Air Force base near Tripoli. And Wheelis didn't pursue it because they didn't have any record of any plane that was thought to have been lost in that area. This is way out in the middle of the desert. The duty officer said, that can't be one of ours. We haven't operated B-24s since 1947. And in any case, we'd never be bombing the empty desert. It doesn't make any sense. But two further planes spotted the same site from the air in subsequent months.

And in February 1959, some geologists also spotted the wreckage and said, you really need to take a look at this. This is definitely an American bomber. So in May, Wheelis sent out a recovery team, and it, sure enough, was the Lady B. Goode. It had broken in two when it had come down, but apart from that, was in surprisingly good condition. It had just lain there untouched and unsuspected in the middle of the desert for 15 years. It looked like what had happened is the plane had descended very gradually and managed to land on its belly with only one engine operating, but it was in immaculate condition. The radio and the machine guns still worked. It still contained some supplies of food and water. A thermos jug was still found full of coffee. Packages of cigarettes were scattered around in packs of chewing gum. What was missing were the crew and their parachutes. So it looks like what had

happened is the crew had bailed out. The navigator's log stopped at Naples at the bombing target, and so there was no record in the plane of what exactly had happened. So that was still a mystery. I mean, they'd found the plane, but they didn't know what had happened to the crew. And another year went by until February 11th, 1960, when a water well drilling team found the bodies of five of the men about 100 miles north of the plane. And one of them, the co-pilot Robert Toners, in his pocket, they found a diary that helped explain what had happened. The story that emerged is that on the night of the bombing, the plane had been flying back across the Mediterranean

and had a tailwind that they didn't realize they'd had, and so they flew over the base before they started to look for it and just flew on into the desert. So that was the plane that people thought they had heard. Right. It was them. It was them, but they didn't realize. They thought they were still over the sea, which sounds strange.

But apparently if you're at altitude and a certain visibility at night, the desert can look like the sea. It's just this huge featureless gray expanse. So they thought they were still over the Mediterranean headed south toward the base when, in fact, they'd already passed the base and were just flying deep into the desert. Okay. And they flew on for two hours that way, wondering increasingly where they were and what had gone wrong. They flew until they were practically out of fuel. They were down to one engine and finally realized they were going to have to jump out, which

they did. They jumped out thinking they were over the Mediterranean, though, so they put on life vests and jumped and didn't take with them any clothing or equipment that wasn't essential, so they took virtually no food or water, and came down, instead of into the sea, came down into the desert and realized too late what had happened. Oh, no.

They found one another in the middle of the night by firing flare guns and revolvers into the sky, so eight of them managed to assemble and put their heads together and realized what had happened to them and started walking north the way. So eight of them managed to assemble and put their heads together and realized what had happened to them and started walking north the way they had come. This was long before GPS. They had no way to know reliably precisely where they were. They knew that the base was somewhere north of them and hopefully not far off. So they just started walking through the

desert. And they left a trail of footwear, parachute scraps, life vests, and other items to show their track in case a rescue plane came by. Someone could follow to see where they'd gone. And it went reasonably well in the early going. We can put some of this together from the diaries that were kept by Robert Toner, the co-pilot, and also Harold Ripslinger, the flight engineer, also kept a diary. Toner's first entry says, Sunday, 4 April. Naples. 28 planes, things pretty well mixed up.

Got lost returning, out of gas, jumped, landed in desert at 2 a.m. in morning. No one badly hurt. Can't find John, all others present. John is the bombardier, John Waravka, who, it turned out, much later, had died in the fall. His parachute hadn't opened completely. So they were looking for him in the early going and never found him. He was discovered much, much later. But that's what happened to him. So that left eight men who had between them half a sandwich and half a canteen of water.

So if they each took one cap full of water, which is about a teaspoon full, per man per day, that would give them four days to try to get back to the base and hope for a rescue plane in the meantime. And they don't even have any idea how far they need to go. No. No, no. So they started walking north, looking for the missing bombardier and hoping for a rescue plane, and found quickly that the conditions there were just awful. The temperature would reach close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon,

so they'd have to shelter under their parachutes in the worst part of the day. They started leaving parachute markers along the trail indicating the direction they were traveling. Here's another diary entry. This is from the flight engineer at the end of day two. Started out early, walking and resting. It's not sundown yet and still going. One teaspoon of water today. The rest of the boys doing fine. But after two and a half days, they'd walked 40 miles and found they could no longer walk well, so they started to take more frequent rest breaks. And on day three, they began to run out of items to use as markers. The co-pilot wrote, rested at 1130, sun very warm, no breeze, spent p.m. in hell,

no planes, rested until 5 p.m. Walked and rested all night, 15 minutes on, 5 off. On the fourth day, a sandstorm hit them, and they left their last parachute marker on a high knoll where they hoped it might be clear to see to a rescue plane. They weren't seeing any planes. And by late morning on the fifth day, they'd covered 78 miles. And at that point, their strength had really given out. Of the eight, only Ripslinger and the gunners guy shelly and vernon moore still had any strength so they they had a conference and decided that five of the eight would just stay where they were and three more would keep going north hoping to find some help or sign of civilization so on april 9th those three left the other and

continued up into this region of sand dunes that they were approaching. We know a little bit about what happened to them because one of them was Harold Ripslinger, the flight engineer, who was one of the two men who kept a diary. He wrote, fifth day out and we all thought we're gone. All wanted to die during noon. It was so hot. Morning, night, okay. Two drops of water. And the other five who remained behind included Robert Toner, who was the other one who was keeping a diary. He had written, still having prayer meetings for help. No sign of anything. A couple of birds, good wind from north.

Really weak now. Pain all over. Still all want to die. Night's very cold. No sleep. The nights were getting as cold as 35 degrees Fahrenheit. So you were going between almost freezing and just really broiling hot. And on the next day, Toner wrote, still waiting for help, still praying, eyes bad, lost all our weight, aching all over, could make it if we had water,

just enough left to put our tongues to, have hope for help very soon, no rest, still same place. And basically what happened is those five died by Tuesday, and the three that struggled on had actually died a little bit sooner. The flight engineer, Harold Ripslinger, his body was found on May 17, 1960. He had got as far as 26 miles further north from where the five had stopped with the other two men they'd struggled on into these sand dunes. Ripslinger's last diary entry was on Palm Sunday, which was April 11th, and it's thought that the other five who'd stayed behind had died by that Tuesday. Altogether, Ripslinger had walked 104 miles from the bailout point after his death. This is hard even to believe.

Of the three men who struggled on into the sand dunes, one of them, the waste gunner, Guy Shelley, had walked an additional 11.5 miles even from that point. So from the point where they jumped out of the plane, Guy Shelley had walked a total of 115.5 miles on six teaspoons of water and virtually no food except for a few energy sweets they had in their survival kits. As I see, he did that through conditions that varied from 100 degrees down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. And he got through the last 27 miles of sand dunes with no food or water at all. They just found his body at the end of that extent.

He'd finally given out. The body of the third man, Gunnar Vernon Moore, has never been found. It's thought that he collapsed somewhere in between those two points and just his body was buried by sand by the time Annamenean found these things 15 years later. And the saddest thing is that in any case, this was all utterly hopeless. They couldn't have known this, but those three men were struggling. The region of sand dunes they were struggling into is an area called the Calancio Sand Sea, which is a region of sand dunes that occupies 5,500 square miles. That's five times the size of Rhode Island and nearly three-quarters the size of Wales.

So they were nowhere near. Yeah. The whole thing was just utterly hopeless to begin with. I guess the thing is they couldn't know. And it sounds like they kept expecting people to be looking for them, which that's what's really sad is nobody really was. Yeah. Well, they were flying grid patterns on April 5th, the day after they were missed.

Right. The base sent out searchers who got as deep as, I think it's 380 miles in. Right. But these were just— They were just a little further. A few scores of miles beyond that. But it sounds like after that one day, nobody was even looking for them anymore. No, because no one dreamed they could have gotten that deep into the desert.

It just was the last place anyone would have thought to look. The bombardier, who I said had jumped out and his chute hadn't opened, his body was found on August 11th, 1960. Attached to his clothing was a canteen still three quarters full of water despite having lain exposed to the sun for 17 years in the desert. Oh, so he had more water with him. Well, even worse than that, there's kind of just an even worse closing to this. They found themselves in the middle of the desert having jumped out of the plane and sensibly walked north because they knew that's where the base was. They couldn't have known this, but after they jumped out of the plane,

it had flown only 16 more miles and then landed itself fairly neatly without a pilot in the desert with all these supplies on it. So instead of walking north, if they had walked southwest, they'd have come to the Lady Be Good after 16 miles. The plane contained two sea survival kits, each of which had more than four pints of water, as well as signal flares, sextants, chronometers, a weather balloon, and a radio designed for sea use with a box kite to hoist its antenna. And then if they'd gone another 110 miles beyond that, that would take them to the El Gizira Oasis.

And only 35 miles of that trip would be sand dunes, which are harder to walk through. So they couldn't possibly have known any of this. As I say, if you're stuck in the desert, the first thing you want to do is walk out of the desert, not deeper into it. Even if they'd set out to do it, they'd have a hard time finding the plane in the middle of the desert. That's true. Because even the people who finally discovered it had trouble finding it um but it sort of compounds the tragedy that there is a scenario where they might have survived yeah instead of just struggling up into this really even more inhospitable region of sand dunes what a grim story but it i mean at least people

found them eventually it's yeah at least i guess the relatives got to find out what had happened that's right yeah i think with the story that awful, you just want there to be some kind of lesson or moral to draw from it. And in this case, there really just isn't one. It's just a terrible mistake. I'll put photos of the crash site where the plane came down and of the crew in our show notes at futilitycloset.com. Greg ran a post on the Futility Closet website last month about a story from 1868 about a man whose stepdaughter married his father. The post recounts the details of how this turned the man into his own grandfather. Yeah, the idea here is that a man marries a widow with a grown daughter, grandfather. Yeah, the idea here is that a man marries a widow with a grown daughter,

and then the man's father falls in love with this stepdaughter and marries her. So now the man's father, because he's married to his stepdaughter, becomes his son, and because he's his father's son, he becomes his own grandfather. In 2009, we also had a post called Proof that a Man Can Be His Own Grandfather on another reported case from 1883 when that included a diagram of the tortured family tree for those who have trouble following a verbal description. Apparently, there were numerous tales of men who were their own grandfathers

that popped up throughout the 19th and early 20th century. I don't know how many of them were truly accurate or not, but... No, apparently it's a story that just bounced around. Some of them say that he committed suicide after he realized it. After he realizes it. A number of readers wrote in to note that there's a novelty song originally recorded in 1947 called I'm My Own Grandpa, and that was apparently based on an anecdote written by Mark Twain on this idea.

David Wright sent in a link to an article in Genealogy magazine that traces the history of the whole idea. And that includes various versions of the story. My personal favorite title for these tales is Freaks of Cupid, which was used in a Wisconsin newspaper. And then Mark Williamson sent us the story of his own unusually convoluted family tree. Mark says, my own mother was an only child whose father died when she was nine years old. Her mother then remarried an older man who had several children, and they went on to have several more together. My maternal grandmother's younger brother was in the military and went home on leave, fell in love with one of my mother's stepsisters, and they got married and had children of their own.

So my grandmother's brother was my great uncle and his wife was my great aunt and their children were my second cousins. But he was also my uncle because he was married to my aunt, my mother's stepsister, and their children were my first cousins. and their children were my first cousins. And their father was also their great uncle, since he was their grandmother's brother, and therefore their mother was their great aunt, since she was married to their great uncle. And since they were their great aunt's children, that made them their own second cousins. And none of this even addresses my grandmother and step-grandfather's offspring's relationships to their half-sisters' and uncles' children. That way lies madness.

That's fantastic. I'd love to see that all diagrammed somewhere. That would be amazing. We'll have links in our show notes to Greg's posts, the article in Genealogy Magazine, and a YouTube video of a version of I'm My Own Grandpa that includes a diagram that shows how it all fits together. Check it out at futilitycloset.com. This week we want to thank our Futility Closet super patrons.

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We'll also have a link to the page in our show notes. Thanks so much to the super patrons and to all of our patrons who are helping to support the show. We appreciate every contribution we get. You're the reason we're able to keep bringing the show to you. Okay, this week it's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. We'll see what I can do. Greg is going to give me some puzzling situation and I have to figure it out asking only yes or no questions. I feel a little out of practice. I haven't done this in a little while. Yeah, I guess we had a break. See what I can do. This is a story that's told about Thales

of Miletus, who's often said to be the first philosopher in the Greek tradition. There was a salt mine, and they used mules to transport the salt away from the mine. One day, a mule slipped and fell into a stream while it was carrying its load of salt. The salt dissolved, and when the mule stood up, it realized its load was lighter. So from that point on, every time they got to the stream, this mule would lie down in the stream and the salt would dissolve. And it fell to Thales to find a way to break the mule of this habit. How did he do it? Did he put something in the mule's pack that would get heavier when it got wet? Yes. Sponges. He put sponges in the pack. That's a new record. It took me longer to read the puzzle than it did for you to solve that. You want to do another one? Yes. That was my warm-up. Happily, I have another one.

Okay. That was a good puzzle. Yeah, I liked it. Okay, the second one is about the Polish chess grandmaster, Miguel Neidorf. He had a brilliant facility for what's called blindfold chess, which means playing with outside of the board. In blindfold chess, you're playing with outside of the board. In blindfold chess, you're not actually usually blindfolded. He would just sit with his back turned or in another room, and they would just tell him what his opponent's moves were,

and he'd have to play the whole game basically in his head, just imagining what the position was. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'm very impressed that anybody can do this, but okay. He did that not only with one other person, but played a simultaneous exhibition with, uh, the record he set was 45 simultaneous chess games. Oh, wow. Played all at the same time. And he had to keep all 45 of them straight in his head. In his head. Which is staggering. Like, you can't write them down or anything. Um, so he's one, he's counted as one of maybe the top five all-time blindfold chess players. Okay. But what's unusual is he, he played in that way only for a few years and then he stopped. So the question is why?

What would make him stop? Did his mental abilities change in some way? No. Did he become deaf? No. So he couldn't hear what the moves were? Did he develop some kind of impairment? No.

You wouldn't say like he'd lost some kind of faculty or something? No. Why did he stop? Did it have to do something with earning money? Like he couldn't earn money for this anymore? No. He couldn't earn as much money for it. Why did he stop?

Nobody wanted to play against him anymore because he was so good. Very good answer. He couldn't find any opponents. But no. Okay. Does this have to do with the time period? Yes. And what events intervened?

Like world events intervened? Like historical, a big historical event occurred, like a war or he was put in a concentration camp or, you know, something like that? Something like that. Something like that. Okay. So I need to know what time period this was? Yes. Was this in the 20th century?

Yes. The mid-20th century? Yes. Around World War II? Yes. Did he go off to fight 20th century? Yes. The mid-20th century? Yes. Around World War II? Yes. Did he go off to fight World War II? No. Did the Nazis come into his country in World War II and that affected things?

Yes. Was he put in a concentration camp? No. No. Was he a Nazi? No. No. He said he was Polish.

Yes. Okay. Was he in hiding? You could say that, yes. Oh, oh, oh. He was disguising himself as somebody else. And obviously if he, I mean, so few people would have this ability that it would show it was him. It would give away his identity.

That's a wonderful guess. Oh. But no, that's not it. No, I thought that was great. Because no ordinary citizen would be able to do that. Oh, phooey. I've got to come up with something else. Okay, so the Nazis invaded his country.

Yes. And, okay, was he put to work doing something for the Nazis? No. So it's not that, was he employed doing something else that prevented him from doing the chess because he was doing something else with his time? No. Was he in a location where he wouldn't be able to do this? Like he was put in Siberia, so he couldn't do this. But it has something to do with the Nazis invading his country. Was he in danger?

No. Was he injured? No. Was he cooperating with the Nazis? No. Was he pretending to be a Nazi? No. No.

Um, you say he wasn't in danger. Was he Jewish, by the way? Yes. He was Jewish. Did the Nazis know he was jewish did the nazis know he was jewish uh presumably i'm not sure the nazis did did they was he doing something with the nazis with their cooperation and knowledge no was he doing something against the nazis like to work against the Nazis. No. No. Was he in, do I need to know where he was exactly? Yes. And you're saying he's not in a concentration camp or one of these like walled off ghettos

where they put all the Jewish people? Correct. He's not in one of those. So he's moving around freely? Yes. He's not in the army? Right. He's not injured or in a hospital or something?

Correct. Is he in jail? No. injured or in a hospital or something. Correct. Is he in jail? No. Is he in some sort of institution? No. Is he living in his normal house? No. Is he still in Poland?

No. Oh, he emigrated to another country. No. Did he voluntarily leave Poland? Yes. For another country? Yes. To be safe from the nazis no he voluntarily left poland for some other reason to join and he's not in the army you said that's right or some other military that's right okay did he go to america no did he go to canada no england no is he still in europe? No. Did he go to Russia?

No. I'm trying to think where he would have gone. Did he go to Africa? No. South America? Yes. He went to South America. Do I need to know which country in South America he went to?

Not really, no. Do I need to know why he went to South America? Yes. And he went voluntarily? Yes. To take a job? No, as part of a job. As part of a position that he was in.

That's hard to say. I guess I'd say no. So he voluntarily left Poland to go to South America, and this wasn't to escape the Nazis. That's right. This was for some other reason. Did it have something to do with chess? Yes. He was playing chess in South America?

Yes. Does he speak Spanish? Pres South America. Yes. Does he speak Spanish? Presumably. I'm not sure. Oh, so it doesn't matter whether he speaks Spanish or not. But as part of his playing chess in South America, he can't play blindfold chess anymore? I'm like stumbling around here. I'm like, okay, wait, wait.

So, I mean, okay. So I need to know how he was playing chess or in what position he was playing chess in South America? Yes. Is he doing something other than playing chess in South America that I need to know how he was playing chess or in what position he was playing chess in South America? Yes. Is he doing something other than playing chess in South America that I need to know about? No. So he's playing some other kind of chess besides blindfold chess in South America? Yes.

Is he playing blindfold chess in South America? Yes. He is? Okay, I thought the thing was he had stopped playing blindfold chess, but he's only playing against one other person instead of 45 other people I'm trying to think of a hint I can give you I don't know enough about chess maybe

or how you play chess in South America Do I need to know what type of chess he's playing? I mean who he's playing with? Or who he's playing against? No You're making one assumption which I guess I can just tell you In other words, I mean, who he's playing with or who he's playing against? No. You're making one assumption, which I guess I can just tell you. Oh, okay, wait.

Okay, so he's playing chess in South America, correct? Yes. He's playing chess. And you said it doesn't matter who he's playing against. Right. And you said he is playing blindfold chess in South America, but not the same kind of blindfold chess. There's a difference somehow.

Let me give you a hint. All right. He was, I'll give you this much. He was in South America before the war started. So he left South America before the Nazis invaded Poland. No. He entered South America before the Nazis invaded. He entered South America.

And you said it doesn't matter where, though, in South America. Right. I mean, I can tell you, but it doesn't... He went there specifically to play chess? Yes. Not for some other reason? Right. Was he invited to participate in, like, a tournament or something? Yes. Oh, and so then he found himself sort of stuck in South America because he couldn't go back to Poland. That's right.

But why can't he play blindfold chess in South America? Is there a reason why he can't play blindfold chess in South America? No. Why he can't play against 45 people at once? I mean, is that what I'm trying to figure out? Is why he was no longer playing it the same way? Do they just do it differently in South America? Tell me what am I trying to solve?

Why he was no longer playing blindfold chess against like 45 people at once. Isn't that the question? Yes. I guess work on why he was playing blindfold chess, why he gave these big exhibitions. And it wasn't to earn money. No. Oh, to draw attention to himself in some way? To show that, I don't know, Polish Jews can play chess really well?

No. To try to earn some kind of reputation? Yes. To earn a reputation specifically for himself? Yes. As opposed to representing a group? Right. So when he was doing these big exhibitions, was he doing them in Europe?

No. Oh, he was doing them in South America. That's right. Oh, so it's not again back to he's just trying to lay low and not draw attention to himself now? Correct. It's not that. Right. Okay, so he was doing these big exhibitions in South America, playing blindfold chess.

And he's still in South America, but now he's no longer playing blindfold chess against so many opponents at once yes is that it no i mean spin i have to figure out what changed and it's it's not that he's trying to hide from the nazis or escape detection no no should i just give it to you i guess so i seem to be totally lost. He was in Buenos Aires for a chess tournament in 1939 with the Polish national team when Germany invaded Poland. So he couldn't return to Poland because the Nazis had taken it. But he needed a way to get in touch with his family and friends back in Poland to let them know his whereabouts and to find out. Oh, oh. So the one card he had to play was he had this amazing ability at blindfold chess. So he, with that aim in mind, gave two big record-setting blindfold exhibitions in 1943

and 1947. And then didn't need to do it anymore. In Argentina and Brazil. And he did it explicitly not to play blindfold chess, but just to try to draw media attention to himself. He said in 1972, I did this not as a stunt. did it explicitly not to play blindfold chess, but just to try to draw media attention to himself. He said in 1972, I did this not as a stunt. I hoped that this exhibition would be reported throughout Germany, Poland, and Russia, and that some of my family might read about it and get in touch with me. None of them did so. He found it at the end of the first exhibition that his wife

and daughter had been killed, but he still hoped to hear from other relatives and friends in 1947, so he gave another exhibition in Brazil. Altogether, it's a terrible story, he lost his wife, his daughter, his father, his mother, and four brothers in concentration camps. But his New York Times obituary says, So this is the first world blindfold champion who had very special personal reasons for conducting large chest displays without sight of the games. Once those reasons disappeared, he stopped that form of play. outside of the games. Once those reasons disappeared, he stopped that form of play. And just for the record, I mean, amazing as it is that he conducted 45 simultaneous blindfold games on the first tournament in 1943 in Argentina, that was playing on 40 boards. In Brazil in 1947, he played 45. Of those 45 games, he won 39, drew four, and lost two, which is a record that stood for 64 years.

So it's a terrible, sad story. But the bottom line is that he was playing to try to draw attention. That was really interesting. Yeah, I was backwards because I was thinking the point of it was why did he stop. And the whole point of it is why had he done it in the first place. Yeah. Ah. If anybody has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

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