Futility Closet - 106-The Popgun War

Episode Date: May 23, 2016

During wargames in Louisiana in September 1941, the U.S. Army found itself drawn into a tense firefight with an unseen enemy across the Cane River. The attacker turned out to be three boys with a toy cannon. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll revisit the Battle of Bermuda Bridge and the Prudhomme brothers' account of their historic engagement. We'll also rhapsodize on guinea pigs and puzzle over some praiseworthy incompetence. Sources for our feature on the "Battle of Bermuda Bridge": Elizabeth M. Collins, "Patton 'Bested' at the Battle of Bermuda Bridge," Soldiers 64:9 (September 2009), 10-12. Terry Isbell, "The Battle of the Bayous: The Louisiana Maneuvers," Old Natchitoches Parish Magazine 2 (1997), 2-7. Special thanks to the staff at the University of North Carolina's Wilson Library for access to the Prudhomme family records. Listener mail: Alastair Bland, "From Pets To Plates: Why More People Are Eating Guinea Pigs," The Salt, National Public Radio, April 2, 2013. Christine Dell'Amore, "Guinea Pigs Were Widespread as Elizabethan Pets," National Geographic, Feb. 9, 2012. Wikipedia, "Guinea Pig" (accessed May 20, 2016). David Adam, "Why Use Guinea Pigs in Animal Testing?", Guardian, Aug. 25, 2005. Maev Kennedy, "Elizabethan Portraits Offer Snapshot of Fashion for Exotic Pets," Guardian, Aug. 20, 2013. "How Did the Guinea Pig Get Its Name?", Grammarphobia, Dec. 22, 2009. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Tommy Honton, who sent these corroborating links (warning: these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music 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. 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 the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from a house made of bottles to a bomb full of bats. This is episode 106. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. During war games in Louisiana in September 1941, the U.S. Army found itself drawn into a tense firefight with an unseen enemy across the Cane River.

The attacker turned out to be three boys with a toy cannon. In today's show, we'll recount the epic battle of Bermuda Bridge. We'll also rhapsodize on guinea pigs and puzzle over some praiseworthy incompetence. Just a note, we did manage the website redesign we mentioned in the last episode, so hopefully it will now be easier to find the podcast section of the website. And thanks also to the talented Von Glitchka for our amazing new logo. The little guy's name is Mr. Curious, and we think he really captures the spirit of our show. Thanks so much to Von for all his help. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the U.S. Army was still largely the same force it had been

during World War I. It was largely a cavalry, and it was much smaller than most of the European armies that were then fighting in Europe. Few of the units were mechanized. So as it became increasingly clear that the U.S. was going to be drawn into what would become World War II, it became clear that they had to modernize this force and they needed to test it somewhere before they put it actually into harm's way in Europe. So they undertook something called the Louisiana Maneuvers, which is pretty much what it sounds like, a series of exercises that were held in Louisiana in 1940 and 1941. It was on quite a big scale, more than 3,000 square miles with 400,000 soldiers and led by men who would become household names, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, and Omar Bradley. This wasn't an actual war, which wouldn't have made any

sense. It was more war games. They divided the troops into different armies, blue and red armies, and they were firing blanks at each other, but this way they could just practice maneuvering and conducting themselves on a large scale without actually being in any danger before they went overseas to fight the war. On September 26th, 1941, a 500-car convoy belonging to Patton's Blue Army was working its way up the Cane River in central Louisiana when it stopped at the report of a.50 caliber machine gun. This sound wasn't what you or I would take to be an actual machine gun. It was just a pop, but under the rules of the war game, everyone understood that that represented a machine gun. Anyway, this stopped them because it

was perplexing. The Blue Army's reconnaissance team had already been through this area and declared that the Cane River, this part of it, was friendly territory. There were no enemy troops supposedly in this region, so they couldn't understand why they were hearing enemy fire from across the river. It was hard to see across the river in those days because there was a lot of undergrowth on the banks of it. So they could just hear pops coming through the growth, but it was hard to see what was actually causing them. So one of the scouts climbed a tree and peered across the river through his binoculars. What he saw was Oakland Plantation, an army patrol car at a small general store by a bridge there. And he assumed this was an advance

party from the Red Army. He was just recognizing all this when he heard another loud shot and then sent him scampering out of the tree. So the Blue Army came up behind him and started returning fire through the undergrowth of rifles and machine guns. and this battle was on. This is called the Battle of Bermuda Bridge. The name of the bridge, which is still there, is Bermuda Bridge. The problem with all this is that as they kept firing, they could keep hearing the enemy fire coming back, but there was no way to resolve it. The bridge was in perfectly good shape, but it had been declared bombed under the rules of the war games, so neither army was allowed to cross it. So no one could find out what the heck was going on. They just kept firing at

each other across the river. This battle actually continued for half an hour. Thinking it was a large red army force on the other side of the river, the blue army set up increasingly large numbers of forces. They set up smoke screens to hide their larger weapons and brought in a 155 millimeter howitzer, among other things. Finally, it was such a standoff that normally the war games were refereed by people known as umpires who would observe each engagement and then determine who had won it. So finally, one of them just crossed the bridge to find out what the heck was going on. And what he found was that the enemy that had been holding up their 500-car convoy was, in fact, three young boys, brothers, Alphonse Kenneth and Mayo Prudhomme,

ages 14, 12, and 9. And what they'd been firing was a foot-long toy cannon, which they'd just gotten. Kenneth remembered later, he said, the umpire asked his father, Mr. Prudhomme, do you mind calling off your boys? You're holding up our war. This was reported in a few Louisiana newspapers at the time. This was in the early 1940s, but then it was largely forgotten, and it wasn't until the 1980s that it was picked up in national media. I first read about it through the writings of the army writer Elizabeth Collins, and she had first heard it from Kenneth himself much later on. She had gone to Louisiana to visit a friend of hers, and Kenneth was her father-in-law, so he was just telling her this story one day. And as he told it, she was surprised to find her own

husband nodding his head because her husband had heard the same story from the other side being told by a great uncle of his. So basically, the two agreed on the facts of the story, even though they'd heard the encounter from different sides. Ken said it was the first time he'd heard of anyone outside Natchitoches being familiar with the story. I've always liked that story, but I wasn't able to find much more about it, any more of the details. But on looking into it, I found that by a preposterous coincidence, that the family lives in Natchitoches Parish in Louisiana, which I can't get to very easily. But they left their records to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is not 30 miles from here. So last week,

I went over there and looked through their archives, and they actually have an interview with Ken and Mayo Perdomo, taken in November 94, about 20 years ago. And just for the record, giving the details of what actually happened that day. They say the three boys were sitting on their front porch of their father's store playing with this toy cannon when the Blue Army was advancing on the east side of the river, that's the opposite side of the river, with scouts in advance of this convoy. The boys knew everything about these war games. It was a huge deal in central Louisiana at the time. There were hundreds of thousands of troops ranging over thousands of square miles. And in fact, they used to sell candy and drinks to the soldiers to make some money. So they were

aware of what was going on. The cannon they were using was a carbide gas cannon, a sutiline gas, and it was ignited with a spark. And the sound it made happened to match the sound that the war games were using to represent a.50 caliber machine gun. They they said we were just sitting there minding our own business when these scouts came up a vehicle pulled up on the opposite side of the river on the east side the river was all overgrown uh so they couldn't really see very much but they could hear him ken said i distinctly remember one guy climbing a tree so he could see he was up there with binoculars and we fired the cannon he came down like a squirrel had been shot at we saw the cloud of dust as they took off down the gravel road and from there we began to get a lot of action on the other side of the river

kenneth told collins i don't know how far he had to go down river to meet up with the rest of the troops who were advancing it wasn't long after we fired the first shot that they were back in quite with quite a few infantry troops or riflemen they started shooting back at us and when we'd shoot they'd shoot back. And the battle just ensued and got bigger from there. He said, we had a good standoff after a while. So the boys just thought this was a lot of fun. Yeah. When I first read this, I thought, well, why are they doing this if they know they're screwing up the troops? When I was 12 years old, I would have done exactly this. If you can get an actual howitzer to file it. In fact, their father joined in this, Alphonse Prudhomme, who owned the general store. He and a field hand

named Jesse Williams began setting off firecrackers, which he sold in the store. He had this Christmas firecracker display, so he was bringing out two and three inch cherry bombs and just setting them off just to keep the battle going. Ken said it got so hot and heavy that they brought up a 155 howitzer, and when they set that sucker up, it rattled windows halfway to Natchitoches. It was fun while it lasted until the umpires got involved and told us we were holding up the whole war. In fact, the umpires finally talked to their father and got him to make them stop. Mayo said, I don't think General Patton was quite sure what was going on. We stopped him cold in his tracks for a while.

And that's one thing it's commonly said in glib accounts of this whole story that the boys became the only force that ever stopped George Patton who later liberated North Africa and saved Bastogne. Kenneth said, that's why my one claim to fame, I defeated General Patton. In fact, just to be scrupulous here, Patton wasn't a public figure yet, and they didn't know who they'd stopped. And in fact, though he was a leader in that area, it's very unlikely he knew

anything about this when it was happening. He had much more to worry about at the time. This is a pretty, obviously, small engagement in the scale of everything that was happening there probably an aide would have had to tell him uh but still the whole story in general is true that three young boys held off uh this giant uh u.s army force with a small toy cannon in fact in the at the time of this november of 1994 interview ken said that he still had the original Canon that they had used that day. He said it still works, still makes a good bang. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's. I've mentioned Harry's before.

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Give Harry's a try today. In episode 103, I reported on how turkeys are named for different countries in different languages, though the birds aren't actually from any of the countries that they're named for. One of our fabulous patrons, Nick Hare, wrote in to say, The whole turkey naming confusion reminds me of the question of why guinea pigs are so called. Something else to think about. And I had never thought about it before, but Nick is right. Guinea pigs aren't pigs and they aren't from Guinea.

They are actually rodents and are from the Andes. And while I'm used to thinking of guinea pigs as primarily as pets, they were actually domesticated, possibly as early as 5000 BC, for food. According to an NPR article, they are still eaten as food in parts of South America and are starting to show up in the US in South American restaurants and grocery stores. Apparently, there are even groups that are encouraging South American ranchers to switch from raising cattle to raising guinea pigs, which are a much more ecologically friendly source of protein. That was totally news to me.

The scientific name for the common species of guinea pig is Cavia porcellus, with porcellus being Latin for little pig. And nobody seems to be sure why these animals are called pigs. They look a bit like pigs, and some of the sounds they make are similar to those made by pigs. And they were apparently transported on ships to Europe in small quarters, sort of like pig pens. And as with the turkeys, the guinea pigs had their own name in the areas in which they were indigenous, but they were renamed in various languages as they started to be exported

to different countries. So they weren't called pigs in the Andes, basically. As they got to new countries, they were suddenly called pigs. That's strange. in the Andes, basically. As they got to new countries, they were suddenly called pigs. That's strange.

According to Wikipedia, several European languages refer to these animals as pigs. The German word for them means little sea pig and is the basis for their name in Polish, Hungarian, and Russian. Some languages, such as French and Portuguese,

call them Indian pigs, I guess with the same confusion that we found with turkeys as to what the New World was called at the time. However, guinea pigs are not universally called pigs. For example, in Spain, the term used means little rabbit of the Indies, while the Chinese use pig mouse or Indian mouse. I don't know.

They look more, I guess, like pigs than rabbits. I don't know. The rabbits, I think, is even harder. They're kind of like pig mice, I guess. I don't know. The rabbits, I think, is even harder. Kind of like pig mice, I guess. I don't know what to call them. The guinea part of guinea pig is even harder to explain than the pig part. A number of theories have been proposed, such as that the animals were brought to Europe by way of guinea, leading people to think that they had come from there. Some suggest that guinea might be a variation on the word coney, which means rabbit, as guinea pigs were referred to as pig conies in Edward Topsill's 1607 The History of Four-Footed Beasts.

The Grammophobia blog says that the Oxford English Dictionary puts forth some different theories about the origin of the name, including that the guinea pig was perhaps thought to resemble the young of the guinea hog, a river pig found in Guinea, or that the term guinea was just used to denote some unspecified or unknown faraway place. Just, you know, guinea, over there. Grammorphobia notes one more hypothesis from the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology that guinea pigs were named for the men who brought them to England, the so-called guinea men who sailed between England, Guinea, and South America. But we don't really know. But whatever the origin of the guinea and guinea pig, one story that is commonly told is definitely not correct. And that's that the name comes from the price of the animal in England.

It makes a really cute story to say that the guinea pigs were originally sold for a guinea each, but the earliest known use of the term guinea pig in English that we have is in print from 1653, and that's 10 years before the guinea coin was first made. So just a cute story, but can't possibly be true. A common use today for the phrase guinea pig, at least in English, is as a test subject. And that, we do know where that comes from. An article in The Guardian from 2005 says that guinea pigs have been used in experiments

for centuries as scientists realized that they had several biological similarities to humans. The German scientist Robert Koch used guinea pigs to discover the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in 1882. And vitamin C was discovered in 1907 using guinea pigs. The Guardian notes that guinea pigs have contributed to at least 23 Nobel Prizes in medicine or physiology. Well done. Pretty good for them, huh?

Guinea pigs were most likely first carried to Europe as food, and there is evidence that they were eaten in Europe, with a reference in a French book written in 1563 that it was, quote, necessary to have some spices to improve the flavor of guinea pig meat. But apparently the animals also became pets in Europe pretty quickly. The oldest known guinea pig in English art is being held by a solemn seven-year-old girl in a painting dating from around 1580. So they were pets at least going back to 1580. In recent times, it was believed that the guinea pigs were

exotic pets only for the aristocracy in Europe until a guinea pig skeleton was discovered in 2007 in the backyard cellar of a formerly middle-class house in Belgium. A radiocarbon dating of the skeleton showed that the guinea pig lived around the end of the 16th century, and it appeared to have been buried in the cellar with the skeleton completely intact and no evidence of it having been processed as food. So somebody just buried it. So that suggests that guinea pigs were kept as pets in a more widespread way in Europe than had been previously thought. But mostly, I just thought it was really sweet that somebody had buried their dead guinea pig in their cellar. And loved it. And loved it enough to do that, yes. So thanks to Nick for

writing in about that. And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. And remember to let me know how you like to have your name pronounced. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an odd-sounding situation, and he has to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions.

This one comes from Tommy Hunton, and was adapted from Dan Lewis's Now I Know newsletter. Okay, good. A man reports to work and finds he is unable to competently perform his trade. Despite this, however, he does his job

as if nothing is wrong, and makes countless errors and mistakes. After this, however, he does his job as if nothing is wrong and makes countless errors and mistakes. Afterward, instead of being punished, the man is highly praised for his work. Why? Is this true? Yes. Okay. So it comes down to, I guess, figuring out what he does for a... You said this is his job, but he does this for a living? Yes. So it would help me to know what that was, to figure out what the job was? Yes. There's different ways you could go at it

and that would be one of them. Do I need to know the man's specific identity? No. Is the time period important? Yes. Oh, it is? Yes. Um, okay. Is it in the 20th century? Yes. Uh, latter half of the 20th century? No. Wow. Okay. Uh, can I go for the the decade i don't know how sure how much do you know i know the year but all right okay was it you don't need to know the exact year though was it before 1925 no uh was it in the 1930s no 40s yes during world war ii yes is that significant yes okay a man showed up for work during World War II. So was his occupation connected with the war then? No.

Thought you were doing so well. But it's important that it happened during World War II. It's definitely important that it happened during World War II. Was he an entertainer? Yes. Wow, I'm doing very well. You're doing wonderfully. An entertainer during World War II.

But you say his specific identity is not important? I know his specific identity, but I don't think that would help you. Is it someone I've heard of? Probably not. Okay. Was he entertaining the troops? Or meant to entertain the troops specifically? He wasn't like out on a USO tour or something?

No, that is not. Yeah, right. That was not the primary function of his job was intended to entertain the troops. Okay, but he's an entertainer generally? I think you would call him an entertainer not not what you might think of spot on as an entertainer but in that general area that would be the closest job category and that's the job we're talking about yes okay um but probably not what you would think of first when you think of an entertainer okay so he shows up for his job this day, someday during World War II. Yes.

And can you read it again? He wasn't able to perform it? He finds he is unable to competently perform his trade. Despite this, however, he does his job as if nothing is wrong and makes countless errors and mistakes. Afterward, instead of being punished, the man is highly praised for his work. Would it help me to know why he can't do the job

the way he normally would? Possibly, but that would be hard to sort of figure out without knowing what it is he's trying to do. Okay, so he was engaged to do something. Yeah. Would you say for an audience? Yes, definitely. All right, a live performance? As opposed to like a film actor or something?

Yeah, I think you'd have to say yes. Like on a stage somewhere? No. Or in front of a live audience? No, not really. Is broadcasting involved? Yes. Radio?

Yes. Wow. Excellent. Okay, a radio performer. Is he an actor? No. An announcer? A specific kind.

A sports announcer? Yes. All right. Excellent. A radio sports announcer during World War II is engaged. It's his job. Yes. All right. Excellent. A radio sports announcer during World War II is engaged. It's his job. Yes. Is he announcing a game?

Yes. Do I need to know the sport? No, that's not crucial to know the sport. Okay. So he's calling a game. Yes. On the radio during World War II. Yes.

And finds himself unable to do that. Finds himself unable to competently do that, yes. For some reason. Right. But he goes ahead anyway and makes all kinds of mistakes. Yes. Meaning he misspeaks? No.

Okay. Now it might be useful to know why he's... All right, so his job is to talk into a microphone. Yes. And he can't do that. No, he can do that. He is talking into the microphone, yes. But he's not able to do it competently, you said.

He's not able to do it competently. He's making errors and mistakes in what he's supposed to be doing. Is that, would you say that's his fault? Was it something? No. Okay. Is it some physical condition? No. Like Novocaine or something? No. No. That would be good.

All right. But that's not the reason. It's not some physical problem that's preventing him from calling the game correctly. Right. Not a physical problem on his end. On his end. Not a physical problem with him. Okay. But for some other reason, he can't.

He goes ahead and calls the game and makes all kinds of mistakes. Yes. Yes. But what I'm trying to get at is what's inhibiting him from doing that. And that's what's important now. Is this something to do with the equipment, with the actual process of the broadcasting? No. So whatever he's saying into the microphone gets broadcast out to people's radios out in the world.

And they hear him. Exactly. And do they understand that he's making mistakes? No. That's important too. So they just hear him calling, say, a baseball game. Sure. And what they hear is someone accurately calling the game.

Yes. But it wouldn't be baseball. But that's okay. I mean. Football? I shouldn't even go down that road? You can, actually. I didn't want you to try going too soon.

It's a game. It's a game. But it's actually a clue that it wouldn't be baseball. Okay, but I'm not going to go down that particular rabbit hole. He's calling a game on a radio, and the audience isn't any the wiser that he's making mistakes. Right, yes. But it's not because... Read the last part again.

So he does this, he makes all kinds of mistakes, but the audience doesn't catch up. Afterward, instead of being punished, the man is highly praised for his work. Okay, praised for the way he called the game or praised for his presence of mind and quick thinking in Yes.

the latter? The latter. So he realized he wouldn't be able to call it the way he normally did. Yes. But came up with some clever solution. I guess so. Is that what you'd call it the way he normally did. Yes. But came up with some clever solution. I guess so. Is that what you used to call it?

Yeah. I mean, that's close. It's not. You might be thinking something wrong, but I'm not sure. Okay. But that's what he's praised for. Yeah. Right.

He's praised for his presence of mind and quick thinking. And you'd say that the audience was none the wiser generally? Probably not. Okay. Or they might have caught on at some point but in general they wouldn't have immediately picked up okay and the problem is not with anything physical about him about him right the speech he's speaking yes intelligible yes to people in the studio as well as the audience out in the world yes so is it english yes the language he's using yes he's calling a game in english yes

makes all kinds of mistakes yes but the mistakes aren't connected to actually articulating the ideas he's right i mean if you just heard him if i played you this broadcast now you wouldn't necessarily know that he was making all kinds of mistakes you wouldn't hear you wouldn't hear anything wrong okay by mistakes are we saying um i don't know, if you're a radio announcer, your job is to say sentences into a microphone. And he does that. And you're saying he did that accurately. He did that. Does that have something to do with the volume?

No, no. The pitch of his voice? You said he said sentences accurately. Yeah. What do you mean by that? That if you were writing them down with a pencil, they'd be correct English sentences. Okay, yes. I mean, he's just expressing the ideas.

That is correct. They would be correct English sentences. You, yes. That is correct. They would be correct English sentences. You're looking at me very significantly. Yes, because think of other definitions of the word accurate. That's what I'm pouncing on here. You said he was speaking accurately. What other kinds of mistakes can you make? Well, that he's not perceiving the game correctly?

Yes. Is that right? Yes. So he's seeing the game correctly? Yes. Is that right? Yes. So he's seeing the game differently. No. Okay. Yeah. It was the game outplayed

in front of a group of spectators somewhere. Yes. So they perceived the same game that he did. Possibly not. Okay. Did all the spectators see the same game? I mean, they all perceived it the same way. You're asking that question actually

in a way that's making an assumption that's going to be hard for you to see, but you are making an assumption there. All right. I'm with you. Is there some mediating technology? In other words, if I go to a football game, I'm just looking at actual people on an actual field. Yes. That is true. And so my perception of it is probably pretty accurate. Yes. Is that what this announcer, was he present at the game?

He was present at the game. And would you say he perceived what was going on? No. No, he didn't. But it's not because he was watching it on a screen or something. That's correct. It's not because of a reason like that. He could see the actual game.

No. Is there something wrong with his vision? No, there's nothing wrong with him. Is something blocking his view of the game? You could sort of say that. Is something sort of mediating? It's like looking at a reflection of it. No.

He's present at the game, but he doesn't see it directly? Would you say that? Right. I'd say he doesn't see it at all. Is he blind? No, there's nothing wrong with him. No, put it together. This is World War II.

So there's a wrong with him. No, put it together. This is World War II. So, there's a reason, there's, there's, you know, there's a bigger context here. Does it have to do with censorship? No. Or codes or anything like that?

No. Why else would he be unable to see the game? Because, why wouldn't you be able to see a sport it's a sports game during World War II because of a blackout? No. But I also said, okay,

start putting some things together. I said that this would almost certainly not be baseball. What does that tell you? Well, the first thing is timing, but baseball certainly was around before World War II. Right. Baseball's played primarily in the U.S. Oh, this wasn't in the United States? This was not in the United States. You never asked that.

No, I never did. I just assumed. So that has some bearing on the sport, too. Was it soccer? It was what we call soccer, yeah. Okay. So do I need to work out more precisely where this happened? No, but that's germane that it was—oh, I'm sorry. So he was calling a soccer game in some country outside the United States during World War II. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, you could work it out, but it's not crucial. Do I need to know if the audience was American? The audience was not American.

So he's calling it for— okay, in some other language. No, in English. Is he himself American? No. Is he English? Yes. Okay. This happened in England.

So he's calling. I'm sorry, in the UK, not in England. He's calling a UK soccer game for a UK audience. Yes. During World War II. Yes. And makes all kinds of mistakes. That's the part I'm hung up on. Right. And I've pretty much

let you know it's because he couldn't see the game. But he's pretending that he can. Why? Put that together with World War II. He's present at the game and can't see it because it's dark? No. Well, actually, what do you mean by dark? Meaning that he can't see the field because there's no light on it.

I might have to go with that, although it's probably not what you're thinking, but I might have to say yes to that. Do I need to know more about the field? No. It's just a regular soccer field? Yes. the field no it's just a regular soccer field yes um he can't i'm sure there's a way to put this together that i'm just not seeing is there an attack underway at the time no imminently possibly is it interrupted by the threat of an attack no no nothing like that why would they want him to pretend he could see the game if he couldn't? To fool the enemy somehow? Yes.

So the enemy is intercepting this broadcast. Yeah. Or possibly could be. And they want... Okay. There is an actual game, though. Yes. There is an actual game. So he's pretending to broadcast, to call a game on the radio.

So the enemy will think that the game is taking place at that time when it's not? The game is taking place. So he's calling a game that's taking place. Yes. Accurately. Yes. On the radio. Yes. So the enemy will think that the game is taking place at that time when it's not? The game is taking place. So he's calling a game that's taking place. Yes. Accurately. Yes. No, no, no. He's not calling it accurately.

He's calling it. He's calling it. So this is all designed just to fool the enemy. Yes. For some tactical reason. Sort of. Would you say? That's closest.

To convince them that something is the case that's not actually the case. Yeah. But it's not the timing of the game But it's not the timing of the game. It's not the timing of the game. What would prevent him from seeing the game? That's the one piece you haven't gotten. What would prevent him from seeing the game and why wouldn't they want the enemy to know about that? It's not any infirmity with him.

It's not that he's not present at the game. It's not that anything interferes. I'll just tell you, there was extremely thick fog and they didn't want germany to know about that and to take advantage of it so the man in question is ben kingsley a broadcaster for the bbc he went to announce what we would call soccer uh here in the u.s uh in edinburgh in on january 1st 1940 and discovered that the whole city was engulfed in extremely thick fog normally Normally, they would have canceled the game, but the UK War Office was afraid that canceling it would let the Germans know that the city was engulfed in really thick fog and that the Germans could take advantage of that.

I see. So they forced the BBC to announce the game as if it was a sunny day. Apparently, he could not see the game pretty much at all. So he even had runners running into the fog and coming back to report to him what was going on, but that wasn't working out. So he resorted to making up the whole game. Like he just made it up and went so far as to keep announcing the game a full 15 minutes after it had finally ended because he didn't even know the game was over. The game itself was marked by a fair amount of confusion and apparently the crowd in the stands

had to be notified that the game was over 10 minutes after it had ended because the crowd couldn't see it either. And after the game Kingsley was praised for never letting on about the bizarre circumstances. Tommy who sent the puzzle in says, my other personal favorite part of the story, a lost player who stayed in the fog long

after the game ended desperately calling out to his players. And according to the Scotsman, they say, some players emerged from the dressing room to inquire as to the whereabouts of their teammate Donaldson who had not followed them down the tunnel at the end of the match. A search party was dispatched and the winger was found doggedly patrolling his left flank and vainly calling the names of teammates who had long since departed, demanding a pass and hoping that the ball would eventually emerge from the gloom. Apparently, the whole incident has even been turned into a play. It was like such a big deal in Britain, I mean, in the UK.

But anyway, yeah. That's a thick fog. Yes, I just thought that was a really amusing story. And thank you so much, Tommy. Yes, thanks, Tommy. And if anyone else has a puzzle for us, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. If you've been enjoying our podcast and learning about sports announcers who invent soccer games, please consider becoming a patron to help support the show. The podcast is a big commitment of time to research and produce each week, and if it weren't for the support that we get from our fantastic patrons,

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