Futility Closet - 183-An Everest Mystery

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from a map of sticks to an errant cockatoo. This is episode 183. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1924, two British mountaineers set out to be the first to conquer Mount Everest. But they never returned to camp, and to this day, no one knows whether they reached the top.

Starting point is 00:00:39 In today's show, we'll review the case of George Mallory and Andrew Irvin, which has been called one of the greatest unsolved adventure mysteries of the 20th century. We'll also learn what to do if attacked by a bear, and puzzle over the benefits of a water shortage. By the mid-1920s, the North and South Poles had both been reached, and the sources of the world's major rivers had been discovered. The next target of the world's adventurers lay in the sky, the peak of Mount Everest, which became known as the Third Pole. The British had begun making expeditions to the mountain in 1921, just a year after Tibet had made it accessible to outsiders.

Starting point is 00:01:13 The first expedition was mostly for reconnaissance, and no one had gone higher than 24,600 feet, only about 85% of the way to the top. In fact, it wasn't clear whether it would even be possible to go higher and survive. The second expedition in in 1922, made three attempts on the summit, the third of which ended in disaster when seven porters died in an avalanche. But by using bottled oxygen, they got as high as 27,320 feet, only 1,700 feet short of the top. One of the climbers who had proven himself on both of these expeditions was a man named George Mallory, who had been a school teacher before taking up climbing, but had become the most celebrated mountaineer of his age. By all accounts, Mallory was a prodigiously gifted climber. I'll give just one example of this.

Starting point is 00:01:52 The poet Robert Graves tells the story in his autobiography about a climb Mallory made on Snowdon, which is the highest mountain in Wales, in 1908. My friend George Mallory once did an inexplicable climb on Snowdon. He had left his pipe on a ledge halfway down one of the precipices and scrambled back by a shortcut to retrieve it, then up again by the same route. No one saw what route he took, but when they came to examine it the next day for official record, they found an overhang nearly all the way. By a rule of the climbers' club, climbs are never named in honor of their inventors, but only describe natural features.

Starting point is 00:02:22 An exception was made here. The climb was recorded as follows. Mallory's pipe, a variation on Route 2, see adjoining map. This climb is totally impossible. It has been performed once in failing light by Mr. G.H.L. Mallory. As the third expedition to Everest was being organized in 1924, Mallory was 37 years old and had three children and a new job teaching at Cambridge, but he decided he couldn't pass up this opportunity of another try at the summit. When he arrived at the base camp, he wrote home, it's an infernal mountain, cold and treacherous. The risks of getting caught are too great. The margin of strength when men are at great heights

Starting point is 00:02:56 is too small. Perhaps it is mere folly to go up again, but how can I be out of the hunt? It was actually Mallory who made the most famous quote ever associated with the mountain. When he was asked, why do you wish to reach the summit of Mount Everest? He said, because it is there. Its existence is a challenge. This 1924 expedition made two attempts at the summit, but got no higher than 28,125 feet. The mountain is a bit more than 29,000 feet high. Mallory determined to make one last all-out assault using bottled oxygen. He wrote, the issue will shortly be decided. The third time we walk up East Rongbuk Glacier will be the last, for better or worse. We expect no mercy from Everest.

Starting point is 00:03:32 The expedition's acting leader, E.F. Norton, who had gone snowblind during the second summit attempt, said, Nobody deserves the summit more than Mallory, the only one of our number who has been at it for three years. To go with him, Mallory chose Andrew Irvin, a 22-year-old Cambridge student and the youngest member of the expedition. Irvin had no Himalayan or high-altitude climbing experience, but he was good at repairing the large primitive oxygen bottles that they decided to bring with them, and he was one of the few remaining expedition members who was in a fit state to join him. The two spent the night in a canvas tent pitched at 26,800 feet on the mountain's

Starting point is 00:04:03 northern slope. In the early hours of June 8, 1924, they breakfasted on tin sardines and set off for the top. Shortly after noon, geologist Noel Adel was looking for fossils below them on the mountain when he spotted them climbing a prominent rock step. He wrote, at 1250, there was a sudden clearing of the atmosphere and the entire summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow crest beneath a rock step in the ridge. The black spot summit ridge and final peak of Everest were unveiled. My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snow crest beneath a rock step in the ridge. The black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest.

Starting point is 00:04:34 The first then approached the great rock step and shortly emerged at the top. The second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished and enveloped in cloud once more. There are three such steps, huge inclined rocky areas to be climbed on the way to the summit. Odell thought he had seen them climbing the second, which is the most difficult, a 150-foot precipice that's almost vertical at its steepest point. If he was right about that, then Mallory and Irvin almost certainly reached the peak that day. Odell said they were going strongly for the top. But he had only a short time to see them, and it's possible that he was mistaken. Apart from his statement, there's no evidence that Mallory and Irvin climbed higher than the first step,

Starting point is 00:05:07 where a discarded oxygen cylinder was later found. When later climbers told him how difficult the second step looked, Odell changed his mind as to that perhaps he'd seen them on the first one. That's a matter of intense controversy even today. When he reached Mallory and Irvin's camp at about 2 p.m., Odell found hardware from the canister apparatus in their tent, which may have meant that they'd met some delay in setting off. He retreated to a lower camp and watched all night for signs of their return, but he saw none, and when he went back to their camp in the morning,

Starting point is 00:05:32 it was unchanged. Whether they'd reached the top or not, something had stopped them getting back down the mountain. The explorer Francis' young husband wrote, Where and when they died we do not know, but there in the arms of Mount Everest they lie forever, lie 10,000 feet above where any man has lain in death before. Everest indeed conquered their bodies, but their spirit is undying. No man onward from now will ever climb a Himalayan peak and not think of Mallory and Irvin. If Mallory and Irvin reach the top in 1924, then they beat Edmund Hillary's record by 29 years. But after almost a century of study and speculation, no one knows whether they did. A few clues have come to light, but they only add to the mystery. In 1933, an ice axe was discovered a little below the first step, lying on a rock as if it had been placed there.

Starting point is 00:06:13 It bore three nick marks, which was the characteristic mark that Irvin put on his belongings. In 1979, a Chinese climber told his Japanese partner that during an expedition four years earlier, he'd spotted a dead European dressed in vintage clothing, what he called an Old English Dead, above 26,500 feet, just below the Northeast Ridge. That could only be Mallory or Irvin because no other British climbers had gone missing on Everest at that time, but the Chinese climber died in an avalanche the next day, so there was no way to learn more about what he'd seen. In the years that followed, dozens of expeditions attempted Everest, and eventually the mountain was covered with hundreds of corpses, one dead body for every 10 people who returned safely. Everyone was so intent on reaching the top that no one wanted to stop to investigate

Starting point is 00:06:52 Mallory and Irvin's disappearance. The first dedicated research expedition was launched in 1986, and that was cut short by the death of one of its members. But in 1999, on the 57th anniversary of the disappearance, the German geologist Jochen Hemleb organized a second search. They found a discarded oxygen bottle near the base of the first step, and then at 26,750 feet, vertically below the position of the ice axe, they found the body of George Mallory. He lay face down, arms outstretched, as if he'd been trying to stop a slide down the mountain. His right leg was badly broken, and he had crossed his left leg over it as if to protect the injury, which means that he was alive and conscious when he came to rest there.

Starting point is 00:07:29 But he showed no signs of frostbite, which means he hadn't survived long. He had died less than 300 yards from his camp. There was a rope around his midsection, which showed that he and Irvin hadn't been separated that day or succumbed to the elements. Possibly the two had fallen together, or possibly Mallory had fallen and the rope had broken. There are a few intriguing clues. In Mallory's pocket were a pair of goggles. That suggests either that he was descending in fading light or in darkness, or that he was moving through shadow, or that he removed them in a blizzard when goggles tend to get clogged with snow. This is important because Mallory's head torch had been found in his tent in 1933, which

Starting point is 00:08:01 means that he couldn't have set out before dawn, as Everest climbers do today. And that meant the two would have had to race to the summit in order to get back to their camp before dark. The fact that Mallory wasn't wearing goggles might mean that he didn't make it, and they were having to descend after nightfall. But it does suggest that they were descending. Mallory would have needed his goggles on the way up. The question is how far he got. The second clue is that in Mallory's pocket there was an envelope on which he'd noted the amounts of oxygen in each of their cylinders. That suggests a slight possibility that the men may have taken three cylinders each on their final climb rather than two, as was generally believed.

Starting point is 00:08:34 If that's what happened, it might have given them a better chance of reaching the summit. And the third, and I think the most poignant clue, is that Mallory's daughter said that he carried a photograph of his wife that he intended to leave on the summit if he reached it. That photo wasn't found on his body. I should add that it wasn't found on the summit either, nor has any other evidence that they reached the top. No one's ever found that photo. So what should we think? A lot depends on the accuracy of geologist Noel O'Dell's last sighting. He said he'd seen them at 1250 just after noon, climbing well, but only at the second step, which would put them somewhat behind schedule. O'Dell later recanted and said he'd seen them at the first step, but investigators who have

Starting point is 00:09:08 later stood in his position said they might even have been at the third step, which would put them within hours of the summit. There's some disagreement as to whether Mallory had the climbing still to get past that second step in either direction. Conrad Anker, who found Mallory's body in 1999, said, even if Mallory and Irvin had miraculously climbed the second step, they would have been stranded above it. Few climbing ropes at the time were longer than 100 feet. That meant they'd have to climb down the face rather than rappel, and that's extremely difficult, but not impossible. Or possibly Mallory lowered Irvin by rope and then climbed down himself. However high they got, Mallory and Irvin climbed higher than any human being before them, and higher than any that would follow for nearly 30 years. The climber Dave Hahn says, to tell the truth, I have trouble believing they were as high as we

Starting point is 00:09:47 know that they were. If they brought extra oxygen, that would have helped. Three bottles a piece would have lasted 12 hours, enough to get to the top. But it's debatable whether they would elect to carry an extra eight pounds each when they were already facing this huge daunting challenge. There are different opinions as to what happened. Most views say that they were carrying two cylinders of oxygen each and that they ascended either the first or second step. Then either Mallory took Irvin's oxygen and went on alone, hoping to reach the summit on his own, or both went on and then turned back when they ran out of oxygen. In either case, whether either or both of them reached the summit, Mallory slipped and fell when they were descending back to camp, and Irvin either fell with him or perhaps died alone high up on the ridge. When modern climbers are asked to estimate the chance that they made it

Starting point is 00:10:28 to the top, they answer everything from 90% down to zero. You can find almost every opinion about this. Sir Edmund Hillary told New Zealand television that during his own climb in 1953, he had looked for evidence of Mallory but didn't find any. He said, personally, I would like to believe he got there, but I think it's unlikely. Today, nearly a century after their attempt, no one knows whether Mallory and Irvin reached the top of Mount Everest in 1924. It's hard to think of a new discovery today that could prove that they didn't make it, but there's one thing that could prove that they did. The body of Andrew Irvin is still somewhere on the mountain, and he was probably carrying a Kodak vest pocket camera. The camera wasn't found on Mallory's body, and he would have wanted Irvin to carry it so that he could take a picture of him on the summit if they made it. Conditions are cold enough up there that, if it's found, it might still be possible

Starting point is 00:11:09 to process the film, and conceivably, that could reveal an image showing that the two had reached the summit before whatever tragedy befell them later that day. Until Irvin's body is found, most investigators doubt the mystery will be solved. After all these years, some people now feel that any resolution will be a disappointment since the mystery has become such a powerful part of the mountain's legend. Some climbers now compare George Mallory to Sir Galahad, who touched the Holy Grail and disappeared. Noel Liddell seemed to feel some of this himself when he reached the climbers' camp on the morning after their vanishing. When he found no sign of them, he arranged their sleeping

Starting point is 00:11:39 bags in a tee on the mountainside as a signal to the men 4,000 feet below. Then he wrote, Closing up the tent and leaving its contents as my friends had left them, I glanced up at the mighty summit above me. It seemed to look down with cold indifference on me and howl derision in wind gusts at my petition to yield up its secret, this mystery of my friends. If it were indeed the sacred ground of Chomolungma, goddess mother of the mountains, had we violated it? Was I now violating it? And yet as I gazed again, there seemed to be something alluring in that towering presence. I was almost fascinated. I realized that no mere mountaineer alone could but be fascinated, that he who approaches close must ever be led on, and oblivious of all obstacles, seek to reach that most sacred and highest place of all.

Starting point is 00:12:17 It seemed that my friends must have been thus enchanted also, for why else should they tarry? In an effort to suppress my feelings, I turned my gaze downwards to the north call far below, and I remembered that other of my companions would be anxiously awaiting my return, eager to hear what tidings I carried. Alone and in meditation, I slowly commenced my long descent. We want to take a moment in our last show of 2017 to send a big thank you to all of our supporters who have made it possible for us to continue making the show. When we started in 2014, we erroneously believed that advertising would allow us to commit to the amount of time that the show takes to make each week. And when we discovered that that was definitely not going to be the case, we really feared that we were going

Starting point is 00:13:08 to have to stop making the podcast. We eventually learned about Patreon and hoped that a Patreon campaign would give us a way to continue, though we weren't sure what to expect. But we've been really moved by the generosity and support that our listeners have shown to us over the last three years. And I don't know how we can possibly thank all of you enough other than to just keep trying our very best to put out the best show that we can each week. So thank you so very much to everyone who's been on this journey with us, and we wish for all of our listeners a healthy and safe 2018. Brian Ford wrote to us about episode 72, where we had discussed the curious adventures that some famous corpses have had. Hello, Sasha, Sharon, and Greg. I've been working my way through the archive and recently listened to the podcast about the indignities inflicted

Starting point is 00:14:02 on prominent corpses. It seems that statues can also be treated somewhat disrespectfully after death. I recently came across the attached story of what happened after Nelson's Pillar in Dublin was blown up by the IRA in 1966. Nelson's Pillar was a statue of Horatio Nelson that had been erected in the center of Dublin in 1809, and apparently Irish nationalists had hated it from the start. France had been Ireland's ally, so a monument to a British hero who was commemorated for beating the French in battle was seen as a double insult. According to Liam Sutcliffe, a member of the IRA who blew up the statue in 1966,

Starting point is 00:14:39 every generation tried to do the pillar. Going back to the 19th century, they were at it. After Sutcliffe's bomb partially destroyed the statue, the government decided to demolish what was left of the pillar by blowing it up even more. According to the BBC news story that Brian sent, the massive controlled explosion was followed by a deafening roar from celebrating crowds nearby. Several songs were released commemorating the event, with the most popular being Up Went Nelson, which topped the Irish charts for two months. After the destruction of the rest of its body, Nelson's granite head began having a rather interesting time. It had originally been placed in a municipal storage yard, but was stolen 10 days later by students from the National

Starting point is 00:15:20 College of Art and Design, who were looking for a way to pay off their debts. The students got paid to lend out the head, and the head then appeared on stage with the folk band the Dubliners on an album cover for the Clancy brothers at private parties and in TV and magazine ads, including one inexplicably for women's tights. The police were closing in on the students in their efforts to recover the head, so the students took it to London, where an antiques dealer paid them £250 a month to display it in his shop window. But after the police rounded up a group of students that were unconnected with the theft, the students who did have it decided to return it. And now, according to the BBC story,

Starting point is 00:15:59 today Nelson's head sits in a corner of a library in Dublin, largely ignored. So kind of a boring end for it after all of its adventures. It is very much like human heads that we covered in that episode. They just wander around for quite a long time after that. We have another follow-up on Erdős numbers that we had discussed in a few episodes, most recently in episode 170. This is a measure of how many steps it takes

Starting point is 00:16:24 to connect a person to one who has authored an academic paper with the famous mathematician Paul Erdős. Patrick Walker wrote, I thought you'd be interested to learn of F.D.C. Willard, real name Chester, a Siamese cat who has the honor of being the first to co-author a physics paper. I ran across him while I was looking up Erdős numbers following episode 159 and found out that he may be the only cat with an Erdős number. It happens to be seven. Unfortunately, I couldn't find information on if he also has an Erdős lap number. Greg had originally written about this precocious kitty many years ago on his blog,

Starting point is 00:17:00 but we didn't know about him having an Erdős number. American physicist Jack H. Hetherington had typed up a paper on his research results in low-temperature physics in 1975 when it was pointed out to him that he'd used the plural pronoun we, and the journal he was submitting to didn't accept the use of that pronoun for single-author papers. Back in 1975, changing the pronouns would have meant retyping the whole paper, so Hetherington came up with a co-author. His kitty Chester, whose father was named Willard, became Felis Domesticus Chester, or FDC Willard. The paper was accepted for publication,

Starting point is 00:17:35 and after the identity of the co-author came out a few years later, the physics-minded feline became quite popular. According to Wikipedia, FTC Willard frequently appeared in footnotes where he would be thanked for useful contributions to the discussion. On April Fool's Day in 2014, the American Physical Society, or APS, announced that going forward, all cat-authored papers would be open access and freely available without requiring the usual subscription. Their statement said, This open-minded update is a natural extension of APS's leadership in both open access and pet

Starting point is 00:18:11 publishing. And they noted that they began publishing papers with feline authors all the way back in 1975, but that going forward, this new policy would only apply to single author papers. And they hope to evaluate allowing publication by canine authors in the near future. I guess that it makes sense that Willard would have an Erdős number since he was a co-author on a physics paper, and that he might even possibly have an Erdős lap number, which if anyone can find that out, they will definitely have to let us know. In looking into this subject, I came across a really cute page on FTC Willard on an engineering company's website where they list his occupation as rodentia predation consultant slash physicist and note his introduction number. written in French and published in a French popular science magazine in 1980,

Starting point is 00:19:07 but says that friends of the kitty later claimed that before his death in 1982, he had renounced authorship of the article and expressed anger towards those who had taken advantage of his name. In a letter that Hetherington wrote about Willard in 1997, he mentioned this article of Willard's and seemed quite impressed that Willard had managed to learn French. Also under the controversy tab, it says that Willard and Hetherington came under intense scrutiny when Hetherington's wife Marge openly admitted to sharing a bed with both authors, frequently simultaneously.

Starting point is 00:19:38 In episodes 174 and 181, we mentioned how the cardinal sin of cryptography is to retransmit a coded message. Matthew Tanzi wrote, Dear Greg, Sharon, and Sasha, David Kahn, in his excellent book, The Code Breakers, recounts a story from World War I involving the cardinal sin of cryptography, although David Kahn didn't call it that. The British had cracked a German code, but the Germans didn't know that. The Germans decided it was time to come up with a new code anyway, just as a matter of routine security, and issued new code books. One German unit didn't receive the new code book, so they asked headquarters to retransmit all its messages in the old code

Starting point is 00:20:16 until they could get the new code book. It would have taken the British at least six months to crack the new code, but thanks to this cardinal sin, they cracked it in two days. So I guess we're really coming to see that you definitely should not retransmit coded material for any reason, not if you want to keep the code secure anyway. It's amazing, though, how similar or how different these different instances of the same problem recur. Mistake, yeah. Yeah. And all these different guises over history. It was basically the same problem. And Matthew ended his email with a

Starting point is 00:20:45 line of Q's followed by an S and a Z, which was obviously intended for Sasha. So I passed that along to her. Simone wrote with some useful advice on a rather different topic. Dear Sasha and some other people, probably. Since the topic of bears and unusual places comes up on your show quite a bit, I thought I would share some advice I've heard on the subject of what to do when encountering them in cars, houses, or otherwise. If it's a black bear, try to intimidate it. Scream, throw sticks, put your hands up to look bigger. This will keep it from thinking you're easy prey. If it's a brown or grizzly bear, play dead. Lie on your stomach and put your hands on your head. If it's a polar bear, you're pretty much done. You can't outrun it and you can't deter it from attacking you.

Starting point is 00:21:26 Here's a rhyme that'll help you remember. If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, say goodnight. And Simone included a good article from the U.S. National Park Service on what to do if you encounter a bear. And after reading through a lot of very specific advice about what to do in some different situations,

Starting point is 00:21:46 I would say that my best summation of the article is do your very best to not encounter a bear. Then you don't have to worry about trying to remember through your panic that you should talk to the bear in low tones, but definitely don't scream or make high-pitched noises, that you should try to move sideways away from a bear, and that you need to figure out what kind of bear is attacking you so that if it's a brown or grizzly bear, you can lie on your stomach with your legs spread to make it harder for the bear to turn you over. I often have

Starting point is 00:22:13 enough trouble remembering what I'm supposed to be doing in perfectly calm situations, so I'm really thinking that my best bet is to just stay as far away as I possibly can from all bears. Good rule. I wonder if they established all those rules by trial and error. By trial and error, yeah. I also wonder how you're supposed to figure out while the thing is attacking you, whether it's a grizzly bear or not. It's like, you know, look for the hump on its shoulders to figure out if it's a grizzly bear.

Starting point is 00:22:38 Thanks so much to everyone who writes into Sasha and to those who remember to include us too. Sasha may not have an Erdős number, but it's nice to see how many fans she has anyway. And if you have anything that you'd like to add to our discussions, you can email any or all of us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. 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 figure out what is going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle is based on something that I read in Dan Lewis's Now I Know e-newsletter.

Starting point is 00:23:18 The decisive American win at the Battle of Midway in 1942 was a turning point in the war in the Pacific during World War II. A few weeks before the battle, the commanding officer of the Midway installation sent a message indicating that the water distillation plant was seriously damaged and that fresh water was needed immediately. How did that message critically help the Americans win this important battle? I don't know this. Yeah, I was worried that you might know it because it's an amusing anecdote. Okay, a message was sent, you said, a few weeks before the battle, indicating that

Starting point is 00:23:51 the water distillation plant was seriously damaged and fresh water was needed immediately. And that, you said, significantly changed the outcome of the... That message critically helped the Americans win the important battle to come. Okay. I'm trying to figure out which end of this to work on. When they sent that message, presumably there was some response. Someone made a response, right? Possibly. It's actually irrelevant. Really?

Starting point is 00:24:17 I mean, it's not that that brought in another fleet of ships that were then present. Correct. That's not it. That is not it. Nothing even close to that. Was it true that they didn't have the water? No, it was not true that they didn't have the water. Okay.

Starting point is 00:24:34 So, but you wouldn't call that just a mistake, just a mistaken message? I would not call it a mistake. So they were trying to indicate something. I don't know if people can hear. There's a cat on the floor. May I have a face-off? Just explain that. Okay, this has become very interesting.

Starting point is 00:24:50 So the commander of this installation sent a message that he knew was false in order to indicate something else. Is it because he didn't... No. I won't agree to the second part of your assertion there. Okay, he sent a message that he knew was false.. I won't agree to the second part of your assertion there. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:06 He sent a message that he knew was false. Yeah, I will agree to that. But, okay. But you wouldn't say inadvertently? He knew it was false when he sent it. He knew it was false when he sent it. He deliberately sent a false message. Was that because he feared that the message would be intercepted?

Starting point is 00:25:22 No. Oh, what a significant look. I thought I had intercepted. No. Oh, what a significant look. I thought I had it too. No. That's like 180 degrees off. All right, let me just follow this up. So the idea I had was that if he thought it would be intercepted,

Starting point is 00:25:36 then he could mislead the enemy. Right, and that's a possibility, but that's... But that's not the case. They were trying to mislead the enemy, but it was actually a larger objective than that. Did he expect this message to be intercepted? Yes. Okay, so he wanted the enemy...

Starting point is 00:25:57 I keep looking around for cats. Yeah, she's moving around quite a bit. To believe that they, what was it, lacked fresh water? Yes, he wanted the Japanese to believe that they, what was it, lacked fresh water? Yes, he wanted the Japanese to believe that they lacked fresh water. In order to induce them to strike at a certain time? No. To think that they were vulnerable? No.

Starting point is 00:26:16 Did the Japanese intercept this message? Yes. And they acted in the way that he, I guess, hoped they would? Yes. Did it affect where they attacked? No. Anything like that? Changed their battle plan at all?

Starting point is 00:26:28 No. No. Oops. She just figured out how to get up on the table. She's been trying to figure that out. I'm a pussycat. She can help me. She can help you.

Starting point is 00:26:37 Okay. So he sends a message falsely saying that the installation lacks fresh water. Hoping that... Hoping it'll be intercepted planning for it to be intercepted it is intercepted and it has the effect he wanted but it's not that he meant to mislead them must have been he yes he he intended this message to mislead them into believing that they needed fresh water but that's not the main objective was he just okay and it wasn't a bigger objective than that that he was testing to see whether they could intercept

Starting point is 00:27:05 their messages. No, they knew that the message would likely be intercepted. As a matter of fact, they didn't even send it coded. They didn't attempt to hide it in any way

Starting point is 00:27:14 or code it. They sent an uncoded message deliberately hoping it to be intercepted. And that changed the battle plan. So it's just, what I'm having trouble with is, It didn't change the battle plans.

Starting point is 00:27:24 I never said that. It did not change the battle plans. I never said that. It did not change the battle plans, as a matter of fact. And they weren't intending it to. They were intending something else. They were trying something else to do something else. You said,

Starting point is 00:27:36 did this have the effect on the Japanese that they were hoping? And it did. So figure out what did the Japanese do after they got this message? They did not change their battle plans, but they did something else that was helpful. Okay, so when the Japanese got the message, they presumably believed it and thought, okay, on Midway they lack fresh water. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:57 So, accordingly, we should do X, and they did that. No. There was something before even that, that they did. Before they received the message? No, right after they received the message. But they didn't change any of their plans. They did not take this information and change any plans because of it. But they did do something that was critical.

Starting point is 00:28:18 Is the substance of the message important? No. I mean, the actual fact that it's about water. I don't need to know anything more about water. That's unimportant. The whole point was they wanted to send a message and have it be intercepted by the Japanese. And then the Japanese...

Starting point is 00:28:33 Was this to do with just communications in general? Yes. So the Japanese confirmed that they could receive allied messages. No. Or they knew that. They knew that. But you say it didn't affect the battle plan. It did not affect the battle plans at all. The substance of the message. No. Or they knew that. They knew that. But you say it didn't affect the battle plan.

Starting point is 00:28:46 It did not affect the battle plans at all. The substance of the message is important. The timing of it isn't important. It's important that it came from Midway, but it could have been

Starting point is 00:28:53 like any crisis on Midway. Any invented crisis on Midway that they telegraphed out to the Japanese. Not telegraphed, but communicated out for the Japanese to pick up. And it had to be on Midway.

Starting point is 00:29:07 And after, because after, you know, some Japanese person, intelligence officer somewhere, intercepts this message, and then what would he do next? Well, he'd report it to his superiors who were planning the battle. Yes. But you say... That's the important part. Oh, so they could then intercept the Japanese messages? Yes. And trace them and just understand what the Japanese were.

Starting point is 00:29:32 Or just learn how to intercept Japanese messages. No. Because they knew that this would... They were already intercepting Japanese messages, but you're getting very close. Just follow the train of command? No, they wanted to intercept the Japanese message that was going to come back, and they knew that the message was going to be about Midway. Oh, so it's a code?

Starting point is 00:29:56 Yes. They were just learning. They were going to crack the code. They were just inducing the Japanese to talk about Midway. Yes, Midway, yes, exactly. It helped them crack the Japanese code and enabled the Americans to ambush the Japanese who thought they were launching a surprise attack on Midway. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had been so decimated by the Japanese that one more

Starting point is 00:30:16 defeat might completely destroy it. So it was imperative for the U.S. Navy to figure out where the next attack was planned. They'd been intercepting messages sent by the Japanese for quite some time, but weren't able to fully decode them. So in early 1942, a U.S. Navy intelligence team was able to deduce that the Japanese were planning an attack, but they couldn't tell where. They knew that the codename of the location was AF, and they guessed that AF might stand for Midway, but they weren't sure.

Starting point is 00:30:41 So they had to get the Japanese to talk about it. Right, so they had this fake message sent out from Midway. And soon after that, they intercepted a Japanese intelligence report that said AF is short of water. And with that, the U.S. Navy knew where to send their forces. And that allowed them to have a surprise ambush of the Japanese. That's very good. That's clever.

Starting point is 00:30:58 That's a very, I thought that was a really cute story. And I thought there was just a danger that you were going to know it. But I'm glad you didn't. So if anybody has a puzzle they would like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us. If you'd like to contribute to our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign where you'll get outtakes, extra discussion on some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, our very special mascot and puzzle consultant.

Starting point is 00:31:36 You can check that out at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see our website for the link. While you're at the site, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 10,000 exceptional esoterica. Browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, or see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments, you can email any of us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the outstanding Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 183-An Everest Mystery

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