Futility Closet - 066-Eighteen Holes in Vietnam

Episode Date: July 20, 2015

In 1972, Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton was shot down over enemy territory in Vietnam, and a ferocious offensive beat back every attempt to rescue him. In today's show we'll learn how his lifelong passion for golf became the key to his escape. We'll also learn about a videogame based on the Dyatlov Pass incident and puzzle over why a military force drops bombs on its friends. Sources for our feature on Gene Hambleton: William C. Anderson, BAT-21, 1980. Darrell D. Whitcomb, The Rescue of BAT 21, 1998. George Esper, "Commando Team Snatches Downed Airmen From Midst of Enemy's Invasion Force," Associated Press, April 25, 1972. Dennis McLellan, "'Gene' Hambleton, 85; His Rescue Depicted in 'Bat-21' Books, Film," Los Angeles Times, Sept. 27, 2004. Listener mail: The full text of Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Problem of Thor Bridge" is on Wikisource. The videogame about the Dyatlov Pass incident is called Kholat. (It's named after Kholat Syakhyl, the mountain on which the Dyatlov hikers pitched their tent.) This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Mike Martin. Here are two corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). 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]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 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 66. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1972, Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton was shot down over enemy territory in Vietnam, and the largest rescue operation of the war failed to reach him. In today's show, we'll learn how his lifelong passion for golf became the key to his escape.

We'll also learn about a video game based on the Dyatlov Pass incident, and puzzle over why a military force drops bombs on its friends. Our podcast is brought to you by our incredible patrons. If you like Futility Closet and want to help support the show so that we can keep on making it, check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or look for the link in the show notes. Thanks so much to everyone who helps support Futility Closet. We really appreciate every donation we get. This is the story of a difficult problem with a clever solution. It's about a man named Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hamilton, who was an Air Force navigator in the Vietnam War and who became the focus of the largest rescue operation for one man in Air Force history.

What happened was, in April 1972, he was flying over Vietnam in an unarmed electronic jamming aircraft when he was hit by a surface-to-air missile at 30,000 feet on April 2, 1972. And he ejected and parachuted down, but was the only survivor from that aircraft. And there are a whole lot of reasons that's a terrible thing to happen. One is that he parachuted into the Quang Tri province, which is just south of the demilitarized zone. So if you picture Vietnam runs roughly north and south. In the middle during the war, there was a belt that was the demilitarized zone, which is a very dangerous place to be because it's sort of where the two met.

That would normally be bad enough, but at the time he came down, he parachuted into the midst of more than 30,000 North Vietnamese troops who were pouring through this area on the way to the south, which is actually the largest offensive of the war by the North Vietnamese army. So it's absolutely the worst time you could possibly choose to come down in that area. This is also terrible because Hamilton wasn't just any soldier. You don't want to lose anyone out there, but as it happened, he was one of the most knowledgeable missile and electronic countermeasures experts in Vietnam, which would have made him a real prize to the North Vietnamese Army if they found him, which they didn't immediately, happily. He had a top

secret security clearance, so they had another reason to get him out of there. He would have been very valuable to the enemy. And on top of all of this, Hamilton was 53 years old, which means he's not a prime candidate to spend any time on the ground in Vietnam. He hadn't had much actual combat experience. Mostly he was sort of behind the scenes doing intelligence work. And so this was one more reason it was kind of a disaster for the United States that he came down behind enemy lines. In fact, he had only nine months to go until retirement when this happened and was due for some R and R. He was supposed to meet his wife the following week in Thailand.

And instead she saw an air force officer and a chaplain come walking up her sidewalk and collapsed. Oh, did she? So there's four reasons why this is awful. The good news is that he wasn't immediately captured. He came down in a dry rice paddy and scrambled under some bushes, so in the middle of these streaming thousands of North Vietnamese Army soldiers. And a U.S. pilot nearby saw him go down and noted the area and communicated that to the U.S. forces. So they knew where he was, but he was behind the lines, and they couldn't reach him because of all these enemy North Vietnamese forces. He was about two kilometers north of

the Cam Lo Bridge on the Cam Lo River, which is sort of a dividing line between the two forces. They started sending, and the first plan was to just send in conventional search and rescue operations to rescue him by air with helicopters or other aircraft to just get to him and pluck him out of there and take him back home. But because of this huge North Vietnamese offensive, that turned out to be basically impossible. Everyone involved in this was astonished at the number of North Vietnamese forces in the area. Two search and rescue planes went in and had to come out again. This was basically, they kept getting blasted out of there by anti-aircraft fire from the North Vietnamese forces. This would later be recognized as the largest combined arms attack conducted by the North Vietnamese during the whole war. As you say, just the absolute worst possible time.

Yeah, Hamilton, to his credit, hiding under a bush still made himself useful. Reddit, hiding under a bush, still made himself useful. He had a little emergency radio so he could watch encumbering artillery and watch it explode and then call in to adjust the coordinates so he could tell them how to adjust their fire to make it more effective. I guess if you're hiding under a bush, you've got to spend your time somehow. But that's actually pretty courageous. I was going to say, yeah, that's pretty good. I don't know that I'd have enough presence of mind. So there's sort of a very violent standoff is what that amounts to. Two helicopters

went in but were shot down. They told Hamilton to stay in place and then eventually he moved to a safer spot in the jungle and dug a hole which is what I certainly would have done and stayed there. So the American forces were able to establish a no-fire zone around him, in other words to protect him from friendly fire

so he wasn't in immediate danger from them but there were North Vietnamese forces all around him. At some points, they came within 20 feet of him, but never actually found him, happily. It's not clear if the North Vietnamese knew what the heck was going on. They certainly probably didn't know exactly who was there, but they could guess, or perhaps had seen, that an American airman had gone down in that area and must have been terrifically important for the intensity of the American efforts to get him back out again, which just made them fight the harder, unfortunately. So after multiple attempts, they spent five days trying to get him out of there by air

and lost a lot in the trying. Five aircraft were shot down, 16 were seriously damaged, and 10 service members were killed before they finally gave up on trying to get him out by air. They finally decided this was just too costly. I mean, as valuable as Hamilton was, it was costing too much in aircraft and in men to keep up the effort. So they ordered a ground rescue, which is no easier. It's almost impossible to see how they were going to pull this off. As I said, he's two miles up north of the river, and it would be very hard to reach him on the ground.

He had with him two survival radios, a first aid kit, two kinds of flares, a knife, a.38 caliber revolver, a compass and a map, which is good, an empty water bottle, and no food. Oh. And that's everything he had with him, and as I say, he's 53 and doesn't have a lot of experience in combat. So that's the puzzle. How do you get a guy out of a situation like that?

The problem is, I mean, the good news is he has a radio so he can communicate. The bad news is you sort of have to assume that the North Vietnamese are at least capable of listening in on this. Listening in, yeah, yeah. So you have to communicate. He wasn't the only one down. There was another man down that I'll get to in a second. But you have to communicate with these guys in such a way that they'll understand what you're telling them, but anyone listening in won't.

And the puzzle is how to do that. This other man was one of the rescuers, a man named Mark Clark, a first lieutenant who had been shot down trying to rescue Hamilton. Oh, so now there's two of them. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So what these intelligent planners finally did was contact the commanders of the parent units of these men and ask them to prepare a message based on the survivors' backgrounds that they would understand, but that no one else would, which they did.

So, for example, this Mark Clark who'd been shot down several miles from Hamilton, a forward air controller told him via radio, get to the snake, make like Esther Williams, and float to Boston, which would certainly have been gibberish to anyone in North Vietnam, but would have made sense to Clark, and in fact did. He was from Idaho, so get to the snake. Snake to him would have meant the Snake River. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Esther Williams, for anyone who doesn't know,

was a famous swimmer and actress of the 1940s and 50s. That's American popular culture, so he probably would have known that. Float to Boston means travel by water east. So get to the snake, make like Esther Williams, and float to Boston means get to the river, the Camelot River, and swim east east and this is the beauty of it being pre-google pre-internet like they would have no way to easily the north koreans would have no way i mean north vietnamese would have no way to easily figure out who esther williams was right and in fact it worked in clark's case it worked very well he got to the river he swam east and they picked him up. So that little chapter is fine and it

sort of proves that this concept can work. But Hamilton's situation is worse. He's deeper into the enemy territory and between him and the river are unfriendly villages, enemy camps, gun emplacements. I mean, he sort of has to follow this very careful, safe path. They can't explain that to him in one glib phrase. They have to sort of lead him along a dotted line and communicate that to him by radio in 1972, which is well before a lot of the sophisticated technology we have now. So they were kicking about an idea of how to go about doing this.

And in talking about Hamilton's background, they discovered that he was one of the best golfers in the Air Force. He had a five handicap, and he had a precise memory for golf holes. There were a lot of holes where he could just sit down and draw you the whole shape of the fairway in the green and do the orientation and the length in yards of the hole itself. And he was sort of minded that way anyway because he was a navigator. He would actually wear a small compass on a string around his neck

even when he played golf. And he was one of those people who always knew what direction north was. I mean, his mind worked that way anyway because he was a navigator he would actually wear a small compass on a string around his neck even when he played golf and he was one of those people who always knew what direction north was i mean he just his mind worked that way so they talked to his golfing buddies all around the world uh because he'd been playing golf for decades uh in the air force they talked to people in tucson and vietnam and hawaii at the pentagon and uh put together an imaginary 18-hole golf course that they overlaid on a reconnaissance map of the area where he was down. 18 holes, 18 imaginary holes of golf. And each hole would represent a specific heading in a distance. So this would help him thread all these dangers along the way, if it worked. And the nice thing about this is, first of all, hopefully if the North Vietnamese listened in on any of this,

it would just be gibberish. It wouldn't make sense at all. Right, yeah. But even if they could, if all they're getting out of this is, oh, they've told him to move 420 yards southeast, unless they know his current location, that doesn't tell them anything. Right. So it's a good plan.

The problem is they can't explain what they're even endeavoring to do without giving it away. They just have to hope he figures it out. All they can do is just give him the first instruction and hope that he can figure it out, which they did. There's a forward air controller who talked to him while they were doing this little emergency radio, and the first instruction they just radioed to him, you're going to play 18 holes and you're going to get in the swannyee and make like esther williams and charlie the tuna the round starts on number one at tucson national the first thing that hambleton said was what have you been smoking

but the controller basically said just think about it and so basically hambleton said later it took me a half hour to figure out they were giving me distance and direction. Number one at Tucson National is 408 yards running southeast. They wanted me to move southeast 400 yards. The course would lead me to water. So he got it. The first nine holes of this 18-hole golf course would take him to the Camelot River, and the back nine would take him to where they could pick him up with Navy SEALs.

The controller said, before you start, be damn sure you line up your shot properly. Very bad traps on this hole, basically meaning there's danger all around you, so be careful. Hamilton had a rubber map and a compass, and he knew the river was about two miles south of his position. He'd have to travel at night, obviously, because he's surrounded by thousands of enemy troops.

But he knew that if, as eventually would happen, if he left his current hiding place, eventually the North Vietnamese would realize that whoever had been there had disappeared because they weren't trying to seek him anymore. But he figured if he did stay there, they're going to find him eventually, so it was best just to get up and try this. He'd paced off enough putts on real golf courses to know that his normal stride was about a yard, and he had the compass, so he had everything he needed to follow these instructions. So the first hole, as I said, was number one at Tucson National. He lived in Tucson, so he knew that course like the back of his hand. It's 480 yards long and goes southeast.

So he paced off using the compass at night, 408 yards southeast. At the end, when he came to the quote-unquote green, he radioed this forward air controller and said he came to the quote-unquote green, he radioed this forward air controller and said he'd reached the end of the first hole. And the controller said, Roger, Bat 21, you near a fork in the fairway? And Hamilton looked and saw there was actually a fork in the path there, and he said affirmative, and the controller said, congratulations, hole in one. Which is perfect, so that's the first hole. The controller said, now for some of these holes you'd be playing may not make sense to you, but there's a reason for them.

For one, we're trying to keep you out of soft fairways. Golf shoe divots would be a red flag, so watch them. Meaning, we're trying to set this up so you don't leave any footprints, which would give you where you're going. We're going to try to keep you onto hard-beaten earth, so try to follow that if you can.

Oh, so that's one more thing they have to think about, yeah. So try to follow that if you can. Oh, so that's one more thing they have to think about, yeah. So the next hole was number five at Davis-Monthan Air Base, which is the same thing. He knew that went due east about 400 yards, and followed that out. This is in the same night, and that took about 40 minutes, and that went fine.

The third hole was number five at Shaw Air Force Base. He had played all of these in real life. That one curved slightly to the northeast. That would take him near a village, which made him somewhat nervous, but he knew that they were monitoring his progress. They could triangulate the clicks of his radio, so if he went badly astray, they would realize that and could stop him. The village seemed quiet, but you can't be too careful, I guess, in a situation like this. The fourth hole was the 14th at the Augusta National Golf Club, which he knew from watching the Masters Tournament on television. This guy was a real golf nut. So he even knew the distance just from watching it on television.

He hadn't even played that hole. As far as I know, yeah. This one went east by northeast with a slight dogleg to the left. He knew them all that well. Wow. Wow. 420 yards. That took him to a shed on the outskirts of the village, which it was starting to get light in the east at that point, so he just went into the shed and spent the day there under a pile of hay. But so far, so good. That's four holes in one night. He waited till it was good and dark on the next night and got back in touch with them, and they told him hole five would be the Abilene Country Club, hole four. That meant a lot to him personally because he'd shot a hole in one on that hole.

And that told him that they were talking to his golfing buddies because no one in the Air Force would have known that that had personal meaning for him. Yeah. Except someone he'd actually played that round with. That hole was due east, straight as an arrow, 195 yards. But now he was getting nervous about this village because the course they were taking him on, it looked like the village was deserted, but he would be taking him right through

the village, or through the outskirts of the village. And he was now in unknown territory. They'd sort of, he'd wandered off the area that he could see visually from where he'd originally come down. So it's sort of like, I guess, traveling by GPS today. You're sort of just trusting that the person guiding you is doing the job right um so actually he got into some trouble here he was following the path and and staying on the hard beaten ground as they'd planned but was starving

at this point on top of everything else and spotted a rooster in the middle of this deserted village and went for it and somehow out of the darkness came a north vietnamese man it's still not to this day known if he was a soldier or a villager or what but they got into this desperate silent knife fight in the middle of this village fighting over a rooster and hamilton managed to kill him that was the the one piece of combat that he saw in all this drama no one knows who that man was but it scared the hell out of hamilton uh there were a couple more holes till he reached the river get the rooster, though? I suppose he did, actually.

None of the research I did actually says that, but he must have. I was hoping he was going to get the rooster. Yeah, because he would gladly eat it raw. I'll tell you at the end how much weight he lost. He was starving. Hole number eight was number four at Corona de Tucson,

a course south of Tucson that he played many times and they told him here another odd thing on this hole there's a refreshment stand you'll understand when you get there just remember you have to tap your own keg well no one, he couldn't imagine what that meant but when he got to the green on that imaginary golf hole

it ended in a banana grove and apparently when you cut a wedge out of a banana tree trunk, water comes out. So he could at least drink and actually even bathe some with water stolen from banana trees.

By now, he could realize that the searchers were after him. He could see flashlights through the trees behind him. But they hadn't reached him yet. So at the end of hole nine,

just as they'd promised, that's the first half of his 18-hole golf course, he reached the Camelot River. He'd gone two miles south. Now they said, make like Esther Williams will do when she goes to her great reward, which is my favorite instruction of all of these. Like, what in the world can that mean? Yeah.

So he asked for some hints there, and they referred to the Styx River and Charon, the mythical boatman that crosses it. Okay. So apparently, and Hamilton, to his credit, figured this out. Make like Esther Williams crosses it. Okay. So apparently, and Hamilton, to his credit, figured this out. Make like Esther Williams means swim. Yes. When she goes to a great reward means cross the river. Oh, oh. Which Hamilton did.

Just a metaphor. Okay. So he crossed the Camelot River, came to the South Bank. And I won't go through the whole thing. Basically, they said on the back nine, you'll have to make like Charlie Tuna, which means swim. Turn left and follow the Suwanis. Suwani is a river in Georgia and Florida that the North Vietnamese hopefully won't know about.

Length of hole is very important so that we'll know where you are. We'll play the back course of Tucson National. Do you remember it? And of course he did. But how is he going to pace this out while swimming? Like he knows what his stride is. Wow. It's if he's basically he kept to the bank of the river.

The river turned out not to be very deep. Oh, okay. And it probably wasn't perfect. But what he could do is this way he could travel the river in sort of segments, nine segments, so they could have a fairly idea of where he was as he worked his way along. Yeah. Going by the yardage of each of the back nine holes. I'm just impressed he could think this clearly while starving.

I mean, I miss lunch and I can't think straight. So. Well, they finally picked him up with Navy SEALs at the end of this 18th hole. He was still alive but partly delirious. In the 12 days since his plane had been shot down, he had eaten four small ears of corn that he managed to find. He lost 45 pounds. He weighed 128 pounds.

And they evacuated him. So that's it. He lived happily ever after. He was evacuated to a hospital in the Philippines where he recuperated for a month. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart. And he was discharged from the Air Force with a disability because when he'd been ejected from the plane, he'd injured his back. So he did all this with an injured back and while starving? Yes.

Oh, my gosh. So they sent him home, and he spent retirement with his wife in Tucson, not far from a golf course. We want to remind our listeners that there are Futility Closet books. Unlike the podcast where we often try to go more in-depth on stories,

the books are filled with hundreds of short, self-contained nuggets of brain candy. Quirky oddities, offbeat inventions, amusing quotes, and brain-teasing puzzles. Perfect for reading on the beach or wherever your vacation travels might take you this summer. Or even for a little mini-vacation for yourself at home. Buy them on Amazon and learn about a doctor who took out his own appendix, a cat who co-authored a physics paper, and how the British Parliament passed a law by counting one fat member as 10 men.

Some of our listeners wrote in about the puzzle from episode 64. I think I can discuss this without ruining the punchline of the puzzle for those who haven't listened to it yet. That puzzle was about how someone could dispose of a gun after they had killed themselves with it, and it was based on an actual situation where someone had used a method that had been shown on a CSI episode. But some of our listeners are apparently Sherlock Holmes fans and wrote to let us know that Arthur Conan Doyle had originally posed this problem in his 1922 story, The Problem of Thor Bridge. In this story, a jealous wife kills herself

and frames the woman her husband has fallen in love with by tying a rock to a pistol, throwing the rock over the side of a bridge, and then shooting herself. The rock drags the pistol into the lake below, but on its way down, the gun chips the underside of the stone railing of the bridge. And this clue helps Holmes puzzle out the case. So very clever of Doyle.

That would have made a terrific lateral thinking puzzle itself. Well, yeah, I guess maybe the guy who did this, for all we know, used that as an inspiration. That's maybe where CSI got the idea. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. Use that as an inspiration. That's maybe where CSI got the idea. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. The guy who actually did it got the idea apparently from a CSI episode,

but CSI might have gotten it from the Holmes story. Yeah. I always thought that maybe Arthur Conan Doyle would have loved lateral thinking puzzles himself. Too bad he's not alive to write any. But it's sort of like his stories are almost big lateral thinking puzzles themselves. Yeah, we should start reading them. Maybe there's some fodder there. On the same puzzle, Jim Finn wrote in with an alternative answer to the puzzle that was actually pretty clever.

Jim wrote, When I heard the conditions of this week's lateral thinking puzzle, man is shot dead in the middle of a field, no nearby gun, but it's not murder, I thought of a completely different explanation that certainly fits. He was a human cannonball who died in an accident while practicing his act. So he was shot out of a cannon dead

in the mishap. There really is no gun this time and he would practice out of doors. And Jim says, I guess that's one of the downsides to really short puzzles, huh? Which is true.

I mean, there have been times where we've been doing the puzzles and we come up with a perfect solution that totally fits the conditions given. But it's not the one. It's not the right solution.

But that was pretty inventive of Jim. We also have an unusual follow-up to our report on the Dyatlov Pass incident that Greg covered in episode 55. This was the story of nine students who died in very mysterious circumstances in the Ural Mountains in 1959. Paul Buda wrote to let us know that a Polish video game developer has recently released a video game based on the incident. The game is called Kolat, and it's narrated by Sean Bean. The underlying story is that the player

is investigating the mystery some years after the event. Unfortunately, reviews of the game are rather mixed. It looks like many reviewers. Praise the game's evocative atmosphere. And overall audio visual experience. But they complain. That the gameplay can be frustrating. And the story is confused. For example.

Reviewers complain about supernatural ghostly figures. That show up and kill you. Seemingly at random. And you have no way to defend yourself against them, which would be kind of frustrating. In an odd way, that's suitable for a story like that, because that's sort of mysterious and confusing in real life. I didn't get to see if you ever do get to solve the mystery

of the student's death by playing the video game. I didn't see if they ever, like, tell you what happens. The developer's website says, player is thrown into the area where the tragedy occurred years after the actual event with a chance to discover the real course of the tragedy. So that's what they say. I suppose that's a bit ambiguous.

I mean, I suppose there's always a chance you can discover the real course of the tragedy. And I don't know how the developer knows for themselves what the real course of the tragedy is. Yeah. But it was an interesting idea. I'm not sure who thought of it, but... Yeah, if that were well done, that could make a good game. Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of, I mean, some of the reviewers praised it because it just was so, the audiovisual and the atmosphere was so well done. But a lot of them said, this really isn't the game that it could have been, you know. So thanks to everyone who wrote in to us. And if you have any questions or comments but a lot of them said, this really isn't the game that it could have been.

So thanks to everyone who wrote in to us. And if you have any questions or comments for us, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. I'm going to be trying to solve a lateral thinking puzzle today. Greg's going to give me an interesting sounding situation, and I have to try to figure out what's going on asking only yes or no questions. This one is from listener Mike Martin. Okay.

He says, a military force knowingly bombs a location where they know that friends of theirs are living. They thought this would have a favorable outcome for the people living there. Why? A military force bombs a location. Okay. Did this really happen? Yes. Wow.

Okay. Is it important for solving the puzzle for me to figure out where it happened? Yes, I'd say yes. You'd say yes. Is it important in terms of where, meaning like what country or what city? Yes. Okay. Or is it more important in terms of like, you know, features, like it's a mountain or it's a desert or it's near the sea? No, not that.

Okay. So it's important to know like what part of the world this actually occurred in. Yes. That will help me understand this. Also, when you say bomb, do you mean explosive devices intended to kill people or intended to destroy buildings and kill people or whatever explosive devices normally do? Yes. Okay. So I'm picturing like, I don't know, you bomb insects or whatever. Oh, yeah. No. You smoke bombs that just make smoke.

No, that's worth asking, but you're right the first time. Exterminator bombs. Okay. All right. So where did this happen? Okay. Let's worth asking, but you're right the first time. Exterminator bombs. Okay. All right, so where did this happen? Okay, let's see. Did it take place in North America? No.

In Europe? Yes. In Europe. Is the time period important too? I guess it probably is. Yes. World War II? Wow, yes.

Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. Europe, bombs, World War II. I don't know. It goes together in my head. Okay, so Europe in World War II. Do I need to know more? Should I figure out the country? I think that would help. France?

Yes. Wow. I thought this was going to be hard. Okay. Does this have something to do with the Normandy invasion? No. No. Do I need to know where in France? Not really. Whether it's Paris? Not really. Whether it's Paris or... Not particularly.

Okay. So somewhere in France. Okay. So somewhere in France. So a military force. Okay. So was the military force the U.S. or one of its allies? Yes. Okay. Oh, okay. So was it the U.S.? Does it matter? I suppose it doesn't matter. Okay. Okay. We'll just... They were English planes.

Okay. So my next guess was it was British. Okay. So the British are bombing an area in France during World War II. Yes. And they know that there are friendly people living there. Yes. By friendly, is that like the French resistance?

Yes. So, but they're going to bomb them anyway because they're trying to help the French resistance because they're going to kill more Germans than they're going to kill French resistors? No. But something along those lines? No, no. But, okay.

So, they're doing this to help liberate France from Germany. Is that correct? No. But something along those lines? No, no. But, okay. So they're doing this to help liberate France from Germany. Is that correct? No. That's not really quite it either. I can't quite answer that. Okay. You're on the right track. Do they believe that by doing this, the French resistors will be happy?

Yes. The French resistors will be glad that this occurred. Yes. In some way. Even though, was it the case that some French resistors were going to die? Yes. But they were willing to take that sacrifice because it was going to help their cause in a bigger way. Yes, but I don't want to mislead you.

You're doing really well. I thought this would be really hard for you. I'm doing really well, but I'm like, okay, I've got the really general picture, but I'm not getting into the specifics. Okay let's let's back up again okay so there are some french resistors living in the area that's going to be bombed yes but there are other people in the area also uh that's true yes um other people that aren't french resistors yes is it important who they are yes are they germans yes nazis yes yes is that primarily who's in the area that i need to be Yes. Is it important who they are? Yes. Are they Germans? Yes. Nazis? Yes.

Yes. Is that primarily who's in the area that I need to be concerned about? There are some Nazis and there are some French resistors. Yes. And that's, do I need to know more than that? Actually, no, that's all you need to know. That's all I need to know. Do I need to know what kind of a place this is? Like, yes.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay. Is it a jail? Basically, yes. this is like yes oh oh oh okay is it a jail basically yes like uh some kind of holding camp or you know um detainment center or something okay so oh by destroying it some french resistors will get to go free because they'll like destroy the this is gonna be so hard you just nailed it is that what it is yes i never heard of this until Mike heard in about it. But this actually happened.

In 1943, Germany had invaded France and was occupying it, and the French Resistance, which you made a beeline to, a lot of them had been rounded up and locked up in a prison in Amiens. And they were beginning to execute them there, and the Allies got word of this. and they were beginning to execute them there, and the Allies got word of this. So the Allies got word that about 100, more than 100, of these French resistance fighters were going to be executed in the prison in February 1944. So they arranged for nine British bombers to go in low and bomb the walls of the prison so that they could escape.

This is called Operation Jericho. I'll put a link in the show notes. They did this. They succeeded in what they set out to do. They reached the prison at noon on the day before the execution and bombed the guardhouse and the prison walls. And there had been 717 prisoners there. About 250 of them escaped. But a lot of them, more than two-thirds of them, were then recaptured.

Oh, phooey. but a lot of them, more than two-thirds of them, were then recaptured. Oh, phooey. So in the end, only about 10% of the Allied prisoners survived the bombing and got away. But you know, that was the whole point of the operation. Interestingly, there was a video, a film camera aboard one of the planes, so you can actually watch this happen. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Oh, wow. I had never heard of this.

Neither did I. So thanks for Mike Martin for sending that in. Yes, thank you. That was really interesting. And if anyone else has something they'd like to send in for us to use for a puzzle, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out our books on Amazon, follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample over 8,000 intriguing distractions.

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