Futility Closet - 121-Starving for Science

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

  During the siege of Leningrad in World War II, a heroic group of Russian botanists fought cold, hunger, and German attacks to keep alive a storehouse of crops that held the future of Soviet agriculture. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the Vavilov Institute, whose scientists literally starved to death protecting tons of treasured food. We'll also follow a wayward sailor and puzzle over how to improve the safety of tanks. Intro: Tippi Hedren, star of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, shared her home with a 400-pound lion. In 2009, a California consumer sued PepsiCo for implying that crunchberries are a fruit. Sources for our feature on Nikolai Vavilov: S.M. Alexanyan and V.I. Krivchenko, "Vavilov Institute Scientists Heroically Preserve World Plant Genetic Resources Collections During World War II Siege of Leningrad," Diversity 7:4 (1991), 10-13. James F. Crow, “N. I. Vavilov, Martyr to Genetic Truth,” Genetics 134:4 (May 1993). Olga Elina, Susanne Heim, and Nils Roll-Hansen, "Plant Breeding on the Front: Imperialism, War, and Exploitation," Osiris 20 (2005), 161-179. Peter Pringle, The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov, 2008. Boyce Rensberger, "Soviet Botanists Starved, Saving Seeds for Future," Washington Post, May 12, 1992. Michael Woods, “Soviet Union's Fall Threatens 'Gene Bank' for Food Crops,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 26, 1993. Joel I. Cohen and Igor G. Loskutov, “Exploring the Nature of Science Through Courage and Purpose,” SpringerPlus 5:1159 (2016). Listener mail: Peter Nichols, A Voyage for Madmen, 2001. Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, 1970. Ed Caesar, "Drama on the Waves: The Life and Death of Donald Crowhurst," Independent, Oct. 27, 2006. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Tommy Honton, who cites this source (warning: this link spoils 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. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page 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 the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from Tippi Hedren's lion to crunch berries in court. This is episode 121. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. This is Episode 121. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross.

During the siege of Leningrad in World War II, a heroic group of Russian botanists fought cold hunger and German attacks to keep alive a storehouse of crops that held the future of Soviet agriculture. In today's show, we'll tell the story of the Vavilov Institute, whose scientists literally starved to death protecting tons of treasured food. We'll also follow a wayward sailor and puzzle over how to improve the safety of tanks. Nikolai Vavilov was born in Moscow in 1887 and grew up in a poor rural village that lived through constant crop failures and food rationing. And that affected him very much even as a little boy. One source says that as a result, he, quote, was obsessed from an early age with ending famine in both his native Russia and the world. He decided to dedicate his life to improving the wheat, corn, and other cereal crops that sustain the global population. He studied botany and began a series of expeditions around the world trying to understand

how to safeguard the future of world agriculture. The chief danger he came to see was what's called gene erosion. If you normally plants in the wild take a whole variety of different varieties and have different genetic underpinnings that just have a lot of natural variety. If you plant a whole country with one uniform domesticated species, then you're vulnerable. If a single pest or disease evolves to attack that variety, then the whole country becomes one big smorgasbord. It can wipe out a whole crop and thousands of people, potentially millions of them, can starve. The answer Vavilov came to see was what's called a gene bank. You'd collect many varieties of each plant and store them systematically somewhere, so then you can access the genes that control each plant's productivity and its resistance to diseases,

insects, drought, cold, and heat, all these different potential calamities. That becomes a sort of genetic insurance policy. It would give breeders access to the full genetic potential of the species and give them a way to create new and better varieties. In a crisis, if a new pest or a new disease comes along, scientists could go to this bank and find genes that were resistant to whatever was happening and breed those into the domestic population to help breed hardier varieties and just head off these problems. That effort would also help create strains that would mature and produce high yields in the short growing season that plagues a lot of the Soviet Union, a lot of it's up in high latitudes, which just makes it hard to grow anything to begin with.

He founded what's called the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, an institute to pursue this whole project in what was then Leningrad, today it's St. Petersburg. It was eventually created the world's largest collection of cultivated and wild plants, and under his leadership, this whole task became their main undertaking, to build up a bank to preserve the genetic diversity of food crops. And it took a long time, but it was basically successful. In 1941, after 20 years of work, the Institute housed more than 187,000 varieties of plants. Vavilov went about this in what turned out to be the right way, which is to systematically collect wild varieties, make hybrids of them, test the results, and then make careful selections.

That's the right way to do it, but necessarily it takes a long time. And what happened is that under Stalin, Vavilov's rival and actually one-time protege, a man named Trofim Lysenko, came up with alternative and somewhat crazy ways to do it. Lysenko didn't really believe in genetics or natural selection or hardly even science-based agricultural at all, but he offered policies that sounded good politically because he promised much quicker results. And Stalin, unfortunately, sided with him and grew impatient with the time frame of what Vavilov was doing and eventually labeled Vavilov a failure. In fact, Vavilov was arrested in Ukraine in 1940 and sentenced to death. His friends spoke out for him, and in 1942 his sentence was commuted to 20 years imprisonment,

but he was still basically stuck in prison at this point. But the work of the Institute went on without him. Unfortunately, in autumn 1941, it faced a new disaster. German troops, this was during World War II, German troops encircled Leningrad and began a siege. We've talked about sieges here before. They're basically awful. An army encircles a city and begins to starve it. Way back in episode two, we described the siege of Paris, which took place during the Franco-Prussian War. That siege lasted just four months, and people were reduced to eating zoo animals. It gets very dire very quickly. Leningrad, by comparison, was busied

for two and a half years, starving in agony while the Germans rained bombs and shells into the city. More than a million people finally died, making it one of the greatest calamities in world history. A lot of what happened in there, basically what happens, the Institute heroically kept going with its scientific work even through all of that. A lot of this in the West we only know about because the details were published only in 1991 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the siege. Before that, we didn't even know that this had happened, but it's really admirable nobility of purpose among these scientists. But the basic problem is that these are living things, and so they couldn't abandon them temporarily to try to get themselves through the siege. They had to actively be maintained all through it, and the scientists rose to that

occasion. Of the 187,000 varieties of plants in the Institute's collection, 40,000 of them were food crops, including tons of rice, wheat, corn, beans, and potatoes. The staff in the early years, early months, managed to make duplicates of these and evacuate them on the one road that led out of the city that was still possible to take. It was called the Road of Life by the residents. And what they were able to evacuate, they put into special storage in the Ural Mountains. Friends of theirs did. Most of the collection, they couldn't manage to do that. The collection that couldn't be evacuated was divided into two parts and stored in different parts of the building to prevent it from being destroyed entirely if a shell hit the building, which was constantly

happening. The Germans were just dropping bombs and shells into the city just to try to put more pressure on the people to capitulate. In fact, a shell had damaged the St. Isaac's Cathedral, which is just nearby on the same square in the city. As it turned out, they found out afterward the institute was fortunately located. The Germans avoided targeting it directly because it was located near the German consulate in Leningrad, which was just pure luck. Also, it was near the Astoria Hotel, which Hitler had already picked out to hold a victory banquet when the city gave in finally. They'd even pre-ordered the guest's invitation. That's a pretty funny reason. But they didn't know that at the time and had to guard against potentially getting hit directly by a shell. They moved the potato collection, for example, to the basement, where it was guarded in shifts at a special outpost.

On top of all of this, the first winter was brutally cold, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees below zero. They had to burn boxes, paper, cardboard, and debris from destroyed buildings in order just to keep the collection from freezing, which would have ruined it. All these were just one problem on top of another piles up. Because of constant German bombardment of the city center, the windows were broken and had to be boarded up. The cold was one danger, shells were another, but as the siege wore on, the collection was also at risk of plundering by hungry townspeople who were starving at this point

and knew that they had tons of food in this building. Yeah, I would think that would be a really significant danger. They knew about the Institute, so it was necessary to prevent them from breaking in and devouring the grain, which would have been understandable. The collection varieties, initially scattered throughout 40 rooms in the building, were consolidated into 16 on the ground floor in order to be as far as possible from cold and pillagers.

Strict orders were issued for access to the collection. Rooms where the varieties were stored were locked, and no one was allowed to remain in them alone for fear that the scientists themselves would be tempted to use the frame, which also would have been understandable. Room keys were kept in the safe of one of the Institute's executives, and once a week the Institute's keeper opened the doors, checked the condition of the boxes, and resealed them.

So what's happening here is the scientists, in doing their work, are also slowly themselves starving to death. They're also freezing, but have to keep continuing with their work, and I think heroically did so. If you're thinking, well, they're just potatoes, these things are just plants. If you're starving, just eat them now and replace them after the war. That's just the point. The potatoes aren't interchangeable. They had assiduously gathered all these from five continents to safeguard the future of Soviet agriculture. They represented the whole range of genetic diversity for the species. Eating them now might have saved a few lives immediately, but it could cost thousands and potentially millions of lives in the future.

But that left the botanists in the absurd and increasingly nightmarish position of having to care for literally tons of edible food while slowly starving to death. of having to care for literally tons of edible food while slowly starving to death. To prevent stealing, the starving scientists were only allowed to enter the rooms of the collection in groups of three to prevent any botanists from succumbing to temptation. They just were getting more and more desperate and had to just keep going. Starving rats invaded the building. Eventually, the rat population were also desperate for any kind of food, so they had to repack the collection. Seeds that had been kept in wooden and paper containers were moved to metal ones, and tin

boxes were tied together in packs of four to nine pieces and weighted down just to keep the rats out of them. The scientists, starving and freezing, boarded up the door in windowsills with iron and spread poison and shattered glass to fill up the rat holes. At this stage, starvation was killing tens of thousands of people in the city, and the Institute's workers themselves started to succumb. They literally died of starvation among all this food. In January, A.G. Stukin, a specialist in groundnuts, died at his writing table.

G.K. Krier, head of the Erb Laboratory, and D.S. Ivanov, a rice specialist, also succumbed. After Ivanov's death, workers found several packs of rice in his collection that had been preserved while he was dying of starvation. L.M. Rodina, keeper of the oat collection, suffered the same fate. Altogether, nine people died in this way. In the midst of a famine in which people were literally eating rats to survive, nine botanists willingly starved to death amid tons of wheat, beans, rice, corn, peas, and barley so that they could preserve seeds for science and for future generations.

In the words of the Soviet scientists who finally shared this with the West, they chose torment and death in order to preserve Vavilov's gene bank. I'm amazed that they were able to keep, like, actually working. At all. You know, if, I mean, I just know when I miss a meal, like, you know, I can barely think straight. So, I mean, the fact that they could even... And this was two and a half years.

Yeah. And just the nobility of it, of just remaining dedicated to a project like that just for the sake of the future of the nation and for the science involved. It's one thing to sort of support this in the abstract. It's another to really literally give your life for it. Right, to literally starve to death while protecting your potatoes and rice. In spring 1942, new troubles arose. The seed stock, these are all, again, living things. So if you keep a plant in storage long enough, it just won't be viable anymore.

And the way to keep them going, at least in those days, was to actually take it out and plant it somewhere and grow a new one and then harvest the seeds from that just to keep it going. Also, the cold and the damp had accelerated their aging, which just made this whole problem worse. So they had to be re-sown. Eventually, the scientists found a plot of land near the outskirts of the city, not far from the front line. They had no horses or tractors, so they tilled more than seven acres by hand with spades just to get this re-sowing done. While starving. Yes. I mean, they managed to do this.

As the shelling went on, they planted seeds, guarded the harvest, and brought a new supply of seeds into the collection. Vavilov, the man who had come up with this whole idea and who gave his name to this institute, who was now in prison, died there in 1943, ironically of starvation. He was 55 years old, but the work went on. The siege, in fact, continued until January 1944, but they succeeded. The Vavilov collection was largely preserved, thanks to these heroic efforts. In February 1944, just after the siege ended, a group of workers returned to Leningrad from the Urals region, where they evacuated part of the collection in the beginning, and they selected a considerable part of the collection that was preserved in the central building and sent it by post for reproduction. Basically, they began to share it with other centers in Russia and even throughout the world, just sharing this collection

that had been so vulnerable and endangered. And gradually, the creative life of the Institute was revitalized. They were able to communicate with other scientists and basically just help support all these endangered varieties and just make sure they were safe at this point. In May 1944, after the siege, Vavilov's brother, Sergei, who was himself a prominent physicist, went into Leningrad and stopped at the institute and found it was nearly empty. The workers who remained there were those who had protected the whole collection. That evening, he wrote in his diary, if only God and souls could be brought back inside these walls. In the account that the scientists finally wrote and released to the West, they wrote,

Vavilov's invaluable gene bank, organized before the period of terrible ordeal that befell the Soviet peoples, was almost completely preserved thanks to the selflessness of workers and scientists of the Institute, and it continues to play an important role in selection research, not only for Soviet plant breeders, but for the entire world. In 1955, during de-Stalinization, the verdict against Vavilov was finally set aside. By 1960, he had begun to be hailed as a hero of Soviet science. After the war, the Institute grew into one of the world's premier facilities for collecting and preserving plant genetic diversity. Today, the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St. Petersburg still maintains one of the world's largest collections of plant genetic material. What Vavilov had begun with as a single gene bank has expanded to 449 institute gene banks around the world, harboring 2.7 million plant deposits.

From that seed, crops are continually improved, particularly regarding disease and pest resistance, and many American crops today, and in fact crops around the world, are the result of crossbreeding with these preserved varieties. All this is a lot more appreciated these days, in part because of what they went through then. In 1993, the researcher Konstantin Budin said, we have wild varieties of potatoes with genes that may help the world survive a future potato blight. The germplasm is so precious to future food supplies, our institute should be protected, surrounded by high iron fences and army tanks. Do you love books but find that you never have time to read them? Well, audible.com has the perfect solution. Get audiobooks and listen to those books you've been meaning to read while on the go. At the gym, during your commute, audible.com has audiobooks from the leading audiobook publishers, plus broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Their app is free and works with iPhones, iPad, Android, and Windows phones. You can also download and listen on your Kindle Fire and over 500 MP3 players.

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and was very impressed with how a good narrator can really bring a book to life for you. I got to hear the books read in an English accent instead of hearing them in my American accent, which really added to the experience for me. And the narrator did a super job of giving different voices to the different characters. If you want to check out one of George R.R. Martin's books or almost any other book,

audible.com is offering a free 30-day trial membership for our listeners. Go to audible.com slash futility today to start your free trial. Again, show your support for Futility Closet and get a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash futility. In episode 114, we told the story of the Sunday Times Golden Globe race, which was a solo round-the-world yacht race held in 1968. In that episode, I focused on one entrant, Donald Crowhurst, but several listeners wrote in to say that the story of another entrant, Bernard Moitissier, is just as remarkable and affecting. I completely agree. Here it is. Moitissier was a Frenchman. In fact, he was born in Indochina and immediately fell in love with the sea. He served as a crew member on a series of trade junks as a young man, and then in 1952, he set out to sail slowly alone to France, where he wrote a book about his adventures on the

journey. With the earnings from that book, he bought a 39-foot steel catch, which he named Joshua, after Joshua Slocum, who was the first man to sail alone around the world. He himself was already planning a solo circumnavigation when the Times announced its race. The rules were that entrants had to sail alone around the world, starting and ending in England, and not stopping in any port you had to get entirely around the world in one go. They could depart at any time in the summer of 1968, and two prizes would be given, one for the first to get back to England on a calendar and one for the sailor whose total journey had been fastest. Moitessier joined in somewhat reluctantly. He was uneasy with the commercialization of long-distance sailing. He had always sailed in order to be happy and not to seek

a prize. On departing, he told journalists, this is not for making money. Money is all right as long as you have enough for a cup of tea. I don't care for it any more than that. All the same, he was eager to be off and on the water again. He later wrote, I felt such a need to rediscover the wind of the high sea. Nothing else counted at that moment. All Joshua and I wanted was to be left alone with ourselves. You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that's all. Nine men entered the race, and they all planned to follow the same route,

to go south through the Atlantic, then circle the bottom of the world and return north to England. For Moitessier, the first part of the race went extraordinarily well. He got all the way south in the lead in the Atlantic and then passed east under Africa, but as he crossed the Indian Ocean, his misgivings returned to him. Though he was doing well, he mistrusted an attachment to worldly things such as glory and prizes, and a race among sailors seemed arbitrary and pointless to him. As he routed Cape Horn, he wrote, leaving from Plymouth and returning to Plymouth now seems like leaving from nowhere to go nowhere. As he headed north into the Atlantic, his position was spotted and reported to the English press. He was past the

last great obstacle and headed for home. There was no satellite navigation in those days, but the Times could estimate his progress. His speed and his position promised that he'd be the first back to England and set to win both prizes. For the next few weeks, his presumed location was printed in the Sunday Times, which had him crossing his outward track on March 2, beating the record for the fastest nonstop circumnavigation. On March 9, the headline was Montessier on last stretch, and the paper estimated he'd arrive in Plymouth in six weeks on April 24. France prepared itself for a hero's homecoming. Once he'd accepted the prizes, an armada of French yachts and warships would escort him across the Channel into home waters. He'd be awarded the Legion of Honor and become the most famous yachtsman in the world. But seven months

at sea had led him to shun worldly honors. He wrote in his logbook, I am really fed up with false gods, always lying in wait, spider-like, eating our liver, sucking our marrow. He'd been happiest in his earliest days at sea, enjoying a simple piece, and he'd recaptured a bit of that on this long voyage. He didn't want to lose it again, forever, in Celebrity. On Tuesday, March 18th, he sailed into Cape Town Harbor in South Africa, 3,500 miles from where he was supposed to be. He gave the port captain a three-gallon jerry can full of mail, his logbooks, rolls of still film, and 10 reels of 16-millimeter movie film. He asked that it be delivered to his publisher. Then he turned around and headed back out to sea. As he passed a British petroleum tanker, the British Argosy, he used a slingshot to fire a smaller can onto its deck. Inside was

a message to the Sunday Times. It said, My intention is to continue the voyage, still non-stop, toward the Pacific Islands, where there is plenty of sun and more peace than in Europe. Please do not think I am trying to break a record. Record is a very stupid word at sea. He sailed on for three more months. On June 21, 1969, he dropped anchor at Papiedi, Tahiti. He'd completed one circumnavigation and in fact nearly two-thirds of another one, all non-stop and mostly in the roaring 40s, the open latitudes of the southern ocean, establishing the longest ever non-stop passage by a yacht with a total of 37,000 nautical miles in 10 months. He spent two years writing a book about the race, which became a bestseller in France. After that, he remained mostly in Polynesia with occasional trips to America and New Zealand,

and finally moved to Paris to work on his autobiography. He died in 1994 and is buried in Brittany, where visitors leave slingshots on his grave. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an interesting situation, and he has to try to work out what's actually going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle was sent in by Tommy Haughton, who says that he adapted it from one of Dan Lewis's Now I Know email newsletters. After World War II, the British Army

improved the safety of its tanks and reduced the number of casualties in the armored divisions by adding a simple device to the machines. What was the device? To the tanks? Yes. After World War II? After World War II. Okay. I'm sorry. Say this again. Improve the safety, meaning the security of the people in the tanks? Yeah, the safety of the people in the tanks. And reduce the number of casualties in the armored divisions.

By so doing. In other words, that was the reason that there were fewer casualties inside the tanks. Would you say? Well, okay. The number of casualties in the armored divisions among the people manning or womaning the tanks. Yeah. I'm just trying to get it. So it wasn't 100% due to the fact that people inside the tanks were protected somehow before they hadn't been. There were other people who were also saved. People who normally

served in other capacities around the tanks who weren't physically inside them. No, this was to reduce the number of casualties of people that would normally be soldiers inside tanks. Inside tanks, okay. Is that answering your question? I want to make sure I understand what you're asking. Well, you said in the armored divisions. I didn't know if that included other people as well.

I see. Would these people otherwise have died? Some of them, yes. Yeah, he says it reduces the number of casualties. Inside the tanks. What kills you inside a tank? Okay. So it would help me to know the cause of death of these people who would otherwise have died.

Possibly. Deaths were suffered in combat, in battle? Yes. By the tank being hit by a weapon of some kind? No. You somehow are saying that it saved the people inside the tanks. I'm saying it saved the people who serve inside the tanks. We're off on a wrong foot here, and I just want to straighten this out. Serve inside the tanks. The soldiers that would normally serve inside the tanks.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Yes. Fewer of them are dying because of adding a simple device to the tanks. Okay. And you're saying these people would otherwise have died and would have died largely at least in combat. Yes. I think we're saying the same thing. Okay.

Just making sure. Unless there's something fishy there. Okay. So what I'm getting at was these deaths that otherwise would have taken place. Would they have taken place because the tank was attacked by some weapon and they would have been killed? The soldiers would have been killed by weapons. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, does it have to do with sound? No. With temperature? No, I don't think so with uh oxygen or just being able to breathe in there i just know no so they would have died by violence inside the tanks would you say no some other cause i'm just trying to narrow down the cause they the cause would have been violence would have been violence. In other words, the tank was hit by a shell of some kind.

No, it's not really that the tanks would have been hit. That's what I'm trying to get at. Yes. But this would have happened in combat. Yes. So the men inside the tanks, the men you say serve inside the tanks.

Yes, and that's how I would say it. Would have been hit by some weapon or projectile or... Yes, yes. That's what would have happened to these men, and that's what would have caused them to die until the British added a device to the tanks. All right, I think we're getting somewhere. So this, whatever it is, this weapon would have struck the men directly, affected them directly? Yes.

The weapons that would have killed them? Yeah. Yes. So even though they're inside a tank, the tank isn't protecting them from this thing, whatever it is? No. You're making an assumption here that I keep trying to pull you off of, but you keep hearing it differently.

The sentence you just said is not correct. I cannot. What's the difference between men in tanks and men who serve in tanks? Are some of these men butlers? No. what's the difference between men in tanks and men who serve in tanks are some of these men butlers no um all right tank tank by tank we mean what i think we mean like a an armored moving weapon used in war yes it's occupied by service members yes we'll call them soldiers soldiers tank soldiers i don't know the official word those soldiers in combat are physically located inside the tank, right? Yes or no? Generally located inside the tank.

But not always? But not always. Okay. And that's what I'm... Okay. I still don't get it. Served inside the tanks. What does that mean?

Meaning their job would have normally been to be inside the tank. But it isn't now with this new whatever it is? No, no. Their job still takes place inside the tank. But are they physically located? Those soldiers, are they afterward physically located still inside the tank? When? After this measure is implemented, whatever it is.

Yes, they are still inside the tank. So it's not some remote control or something? No, the soldiers are inside the tank and they're the ones who were dying previously before this measure was instituted um or being injured or casualties and so on not well i i don't know how to answer that question all right soldiers are human beings Do I need to know their gender? No, I'm assuming they're probably mostly men since it was World War II. I'm trying to think what the assumption is. If we agree on what a tank is, and we seem to agree that they're inside the tank before

and after this measure takes place, that's not the case? They're not always inside the tank. Sometimes they are. Yes. Sometimes they're inside the tank. But after this measure, some of them aren't. No, no, no, no. They are inside the tank after this measure.

Before the measure, they are more likely to be outside of the tank. Okay. All right. So let's just be clear here. Before, they were in some danger because they didn't have the protection of the tank? Yes. And the measure was to put some of them who had previously been outside inside? Is it that simple?

No, no. They added something to the tanks that kept the men from leaving the tanks. You were asking if the men were being killed inside the tanks. Leaving the tanks? But the problem was is they were sometimes leaving the tanks, and therefore they were being killed. Okay, I've got that. So the question is, why are they leaving the tanks, though, especially if this is during

combat? Were they driven out, would you say, for some reason? No. They weren't? And so basically this turns on that the British Army added something to the tanks that kept the men inside them more from leaving, so the men weren't going outside the tanks. All right. I want to be sure going outside the tanks. All right. I want to be sure the picture I have here is straight.

When they were leaving the tanks, you say it wasn't because they were driven out. It's not because they were forced out. Correct. So this measure that they put in place was just some inducement for them to stay inside? Yes. That's a better way to say it.

Yes. Like some kind of entertainment? No. No. Well, what did... Yeah, you have to think what might have made them want to leave the tanks, the safety of the tank. Even in war.

Even in war. And I'm going to say that it's partially turns on them possibly being British. That can't be written. The first thing I think of is tea. Are you serious? Isn't that amazing? That's the very first thing I think of even in that context. They add an electric kettle to the tanks so that soldiers could make tea inside the tanks. Tommy says, in war, tanks are one of the safest places to be, but they're also one of the most uncomfortable. Beyond the warmed, cramped quarters and poorly circulated air, trying to get something to eat or drink was

dangerous. Since using an open flame inside the tank was very risky, any soldier wanting to prepare food or a warm beverage like coffee or tea had to leave the safety of the tank and prepare a fire outside, leaving the tank and its soldiers vulnerable. One such example took place on June 13th, 1944, near Caen, France, when a German commander managed to destroy dozens of British vehicles with only four operational tanks. How was this possible? Because most of the British soldiers used to having their daily tea were outside of their vehicles taking breaks. The scene was so chaotic from the surprise attack that one British tank took off without its own gunner. After a number of situations like this and the statistic that 37% of British armored troop casualties happened outside of their vehicles, the boiler vessel or bivy, a small cubed shape electric kettle, was added after the end of the war and now comes standard for tanks used around the world.

Tanks may still be cramped and warm, but at least soldiers are able to have coffee and tea safely inside. Wow, that's a good one. So thanks to Tommy for sending that puzzle. And if you have a puzzle you'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's our show for today. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our wonderful patrons. While we do have some advertising on the show, it doesn't cover the big commitment of time that it takes to make the podcast each week. If you would like to join our Patreon campaign to help keep us going and get access to some bonus content, please go to patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the

support us section of the website. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample more than 9,000 arrestive sneeds. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.