February 27, 2025 • 33 mins
The U.S.S. O'Bannon was a Fletcher-class navy destroyer with an impressive array of weaponry and a solid track record in conflicts in WWII. However, even the most experienced sailors aren't perfect -- and when the O'Bannon happened upon a hapless Japanese submarine, both crew engaged in a desperate and bizarre food fight. Join Ben and Noel to learn more in today's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you so much for joining us
(00:03):
in today's classic episode. We've been on a bit of
a World War two kick this week.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, and also a bit of a whirlwind tour of
the world, which is why we're giving you a few
extra classics this week. We appreciate you bearing with us. Ben,
have you ever heard that insult that the Gallagher brothers
tend to throw at one another? I believe it is
Liam calling Nol a potato.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I have I have heard of that. I thought you
were talking about different Gallagher brothers. Yeah, throwing it stuff
at each other, and that also checks out it does.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that would be probably watermelons. But I don't know.
I think it's a kind of a bit of a
misnomer to use a potato as an insult. The humble
potato is a staple food stuff. It is delicious, it
is hearty, it is resilient, and apparently also can be
used to win naval battles.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yes, as a fan of food fights, this one has
always been fascinating to me. This episode from twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Long time ago, dow.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Weirdly enough, we are sharing some classics, as we mentioned earlier,
because we are.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
On the road.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I have been in our hometown of Atlanta only like
twenty six hours this month. So from Afar we returned
to you with the true ridiculous story of a World
War two naval battle, one using potato.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That's right, the usso bannon using potatoes against a hapless
Japanese submarine. What a food fight. Indeed, let's roll it.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show.
(02:02):
Presley Neville O'Bannon was born in seventeen eighty four and
has nothing to do with this episode other than the
fact that there is a ship named after him, the
USS O'Bannon.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
But Ben, what did he do? Why they name a
ship after him? Can we make the episode about him
instead of the ship? I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I have been trigued as well. Nol Well. He did
join the Marines in eighteen oh one, and as a
first lieutenant, he commanded a detachment of Marines in the
War with Tripoli, and during his operations with the US Navy,
he led a successful attack on Dern in April twenty seventh,
(02:42):
eighteen oh five, and this gave the Marine Corps its
a mortal phrase to the shores of Tripoli. Oh yeah,
so he's you know, he's done stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I had some stirring stuff right there.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Enough to get a ship named after him.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Right, did you say my name? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
You're I think so you're nol R.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I am okay. It's just a ritual thing. Yeah, we
should have the ritual. We got it, and I'm ben,
Yes you are. How do you feel about potatoes? I
feel great.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I like them almost as much as I like super
producer Casey Pegram, which you know, sets the bar very high.
Potatoes are pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Right, Boil and mash them, stick them in a stew. Yeah,
right on, Charroo mets some Japanese sub mariners. There we go.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They have many uses, and today's episode is about one
of those uses. We are exploring the story of the
USSO Bannon, which is a Fletcher class destroyer, right, and
some innovative warfare techniques. They used a story so bizarre
(03:45):
that I don't know about you man. At first, I
was skeptical. Did a beg credulity a bit?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It did? Yeah, it did, it did. But then when
you really get down to the nitty gritty of it,
you can kind of see how this absurd farce could
play out in real time. So how should we set
the scene. Let's talk first a little bit about the
ship in question, the uss O ban And you mentioned
it was a Fletcher class destroyer. What's a destroyer band?
It sounds scary, it's a great band, I said, yeah,
(04:14):
it's a dude, Dan Bihar, Yes, I love destroyer. But
you know the shift. What's the ship?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
They're these very fast, long endurance ships that are meant
to function as escorts in a fleet or a battle group.
So I guess before World War Two you would say
destroyers were pretty light vessels, and they weren't great at
unattended ocean operations. They had to roll with a gang
(04:42):
of other ships, so typically there would be a number
of destroyers together. But after World War Two, guided missiles
allowed destroyers to step up and take the rolls that
used to be filled by battleships and cruisers exclusively.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Right, And the destroyers would, like you said, kind of
flock together in a squadron. And the squadron in question
today is Desron twenty one. Yesdes ro o N short
for Destroyer Squadron twenty one.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There we go. Yeah, I like the way you're pronouncing that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, and that squadron consisted of the Fletcher, the Radford,
the Jenkins, the Lavalette, the Nicholas, the O'Bannon, which was oh,
the Nicholas was actually the flagship, the O'Bannon, the Chevalier,
I think it was in after Maurice, the French singer.
Surely Casey Maurice Chevalier. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, Okay,
Casey on the case, big underwhelming case in the case,
(05:40):
but by no fault of his That was a silly
question because it's not fair for me to put that
much on Casey.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You know what, though, we do hold him to a
very high standard.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, he is the standard. He is the bar which
we strive for on this show every day, daily basis.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But I like how we're talking about assumptions because an
assumption is going to play a big role in this story.
Oh and by the way, I should mention that, yes,
the USS O'Bannon was named after the famous hero of Derna,
Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, but it was actually the second ship
to be named after him.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This guy is ship rich. Oh and then, just to
wrap up the squadron list, we've also got the Strong,
the Tailor, the de Haven, the Howorth, and the Hopewell
the Hope.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, that last one's pretty inspiring, right. So this is
the group of ships known as Desron twenty one. On
April fifth, nineteen forty three. They were returning from a
night of shelling attacking shore installations deep in the Solomon
(06:44):
Islands in an area known as New Georgia. A lot
of this story comes to us from a first hand witness,
a sailor named Ernest A.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Hare.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You can read his direct account on destroyerhistory dot org.
So there they are, they're on the way back from
shelling these installations, and one destroyer, the Obannon picked up
a radar ping that turned out to be Dunt Dunt Dune,
a huge Japanese submarine cruising on the surface.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, and the uh the Japanese naval men sub mariners.
I said that earlier. I don't know if that's accurate.
And I know it's a superhero, the sub mariner. Yeah,
sub mariner works work, okay, because you know they're on
a submarine. They're like asleep on the deck. Seems super risky, right, Like, yeah,
I don't even think of submarine really having a deck,
it's got this tower that you crawl up. But then
I guess it's got a flat parth that you can
(07:36):
hang out on. And that's what they were doing, and
they were asleep. And one description I found of this
event on shipcomrade dot com has a very specific description
of these sleeping sailors has them wearing dark shorts and
dinky blue hats. So I'm guessing in substantial little blue.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hats, yes, small or insignificant.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Is that part of the nay of the Japanese naval
uniform It must have been.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I mean navies have uniforms, but yeah, these were dinky
would mean tiny, so essentially saying that they have tiny.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Ye and bring that word back. You're gonna bring it back. Yeah,
I don't think people use that word or not. You know,
Chuck likes to use hinky. That's different.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
He goes through a hinky phase every so often. That's
Chuck Bryant from movie Crush and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You should know. That just means things are a little
dicey or there's like a yeah problem, it's like wonky.
It's not quite problematic, right, but it's getting there. It's
get it could well get as is this situation. Hey, hey,
nice Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, so this submarine, wonder of wonders is already surfaced,
and it's not appearing to react to the presence of
these destroyers of the Obannon in particular, so they take
the advantage. They say, well, if we have caught this
enemy vessel unaware, we better make the best of it.
(08:55):
They approach at a rapid speed and they're preparing to
ram the sub to you know, physically knock the tar
out of it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Because I saw some videos actually of these destroyers at
work doing that, and that was a thing I didn't
didn't really think about that. But they were like these
you know, seaborn battering rams, and they could pick up
speed pretty quickly and were made of pure steel and
could withstand tons of damage and inflict tons of damage
(09:23):
on smaller vessels.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, and think about it from a strategic standpoint, you're
saving resources if you don't have to waste any kind
of artilleries, right, So in.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
A close range that's probably a more effective way of
dealing with it anyway, especially if you're pretty sure that
the lookouts of said target are asleep at the wheel
or the periscope as it were, or in this case
on the deck of the submarine. Right, So the.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Captain of the Obanon is trying to identify what sort
of sub this is, and then at the last minute
they said, wait, we shouldn't ram this thing because we
might blow ourselves up. If this sub is, for instance,
the kind of sub that lays minds in the water.
I don't know why I say it in the water.
(10:15):
It's not like they're just laying mines in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Maybe that's a very weirdly specific type of sub. But
so they didn't want to blow themselves up, and they
decided that they're not going to ram them. So at
the last minute they swing to avoid collision, and they're
really close to the submarine.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I imagine that probably caused the Japanese sub mariners to
awake with a start, right, wouldn't you think, because.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
As you said, they were on board the sub the
surface of the sub right, yeah, asleep. So they are
close enough now because of their last minute decision not
to ram the submarine. They are close enough now that
they can actually see the Japanese sailors on the deck.
And you know, while that might sound weird for them
to be just sleeping out in the open on deck.
(11:02):
We have to remember how claustrophobic a submarine environment could be.
You're gonna do whatever you can, probably to get some
fresh air.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
A friend of mine, who was talking about the story says,
I bet submarines smell like farts all the time.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Oh man, have you heard of hot racking?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Okay, so this is just a side note. Space is
at a premium and so I believe it's called hot racking.
Different different individuals will share the same bunk just based
on their schedule. So you could have like three people
sleeping in the same bunk depending on their shift. So
you get up, you go to work, someone else lays
(11:37):
down in the bunk, they get up, they go to
work at the same time. You're walking back, and you
sleep where they slept.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
What does this have to do with farts.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I'm just saying it's an unhygienic situation.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Ah, yes, yes, agreed.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I don't want a hot bunk hot rack with anybody.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, as you said hot bunk, and I immediately thought
of hot box. Oh no, that's just where you fart
and pull the covers up. Wow, this is really gone
off as an it man so here we go.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's understandable that these guys want to get some fresh air.
But the ship is now awkwardly, very awkwardly close to
this submarine, and they have this Larry David seinfeldesque moment,
that level of awkwardness because their ship was way too
close for them to fire guns on the sub and
(12:27):
since no one on deck carried a gun either, there
was not a shot at all from the US side.
See what I'm saying. They were too close for the
trajectory of their guns to work.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Those are meant to be like longer range weapons, or
at least medium range. You got to be able to
get a beat on them and get a little arc right,
because these are shells. These aren't just like high powered
machine guns you can shoot directly. You got to kind
of lob these things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, Oddly enough, there was a similar situation on the
Japanese sub because none of the people on the deck
there had handguns. There was one gun that could have worked, though,
right at least on the sub.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, it was like a three inch deck gun. What
does that mean? Three inch like caliber? What are we
talking about here?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think it means primarily that the gun fires a
projectile that's three inches long.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Okay, so that would be much more of a machine
gun type situation, right right, much more powerful than a handgun,
but also much more able to fire at close range
and hit a target. True, So these Japanese sailors are
scrambling to get to this gun because they, you know,
this giant ship is just right up on them. Can
you imagine how terrifying that must feel. Oh yeah, on
(13:37):
both sides, well, on both sides, but especially on the
dudes who were just naked up there on top of
this little raft thing. I mean, not that a submarine small,
but in comparison to the size of the destroyer, it
would have been like, you know, being out in the
ocean and like coming up on a whale that wanted
to kill you. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And then on the obannon side, on the US side,
can you imagine the escalating panic they see when they
realize that they can't fire anything and they're watching, They're
literally watching the folks on the submarine wake up, see
what's going on, and start running toward that deck gun
(14:13):
and they have to think fast.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They did think fast, Because you may have mentioned this before, Ben,
I apologize if I missed it. But the Americans didn't
have handguns either on them for whatever reason, I guess,
I guess that's not I guess naval officers don't really
carry handguns.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, the thing I think that's important here is on
a destroyer, you're not really building it with the assumption
that you will get boarded or the individuals will be
in close hand to hand combat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And just the official word is that no, Navy officers
do not carry handguns. They're trained in weaponry, but that
is not part of their kit, that is not part
of their uniform, their usual equipment.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Right, So they have to think fast, flicking around, who
has a gun? No one has a gun. Wait, the
sub has a deck gun and if they if these
guys reach it, then we are in for a terrible,
terrible time. So the guys on the USS obannon look
(15:12):
around and they see these storage bins.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not it's not even clear from
reading up on this if they really, even in the moment,
knew quite what was in there. I think they were
just kind of like just frantically grabbing at anything, scrabbling
for purchase. And it turns out that these bins were
full of potatoes.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, and they so they started throwing these at the
guys on the submarine, and the Japanese sailors panicked because
they thought the potatoes were hand grenades, because that's the
kind of thing you would logically throw at someone in
a war.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, these Japanese folks must have thought that these American
sailors had their act together much more than they actually did.
They gave them a little credit thinking, oh, surely they're
lobbing hand grenades at us, and it was dark, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but you think when they gripped it, they would sense
the feel of the potato and then not have those
you know, traditional hand grenade rivets that you'd be used
(16:08):
to feeling, probably if you were a soldier.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, but I think the adrenaline, yeah, it probably triggers
a fight or flight things.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
The mind took over and made those potatoes into hand
grenades in the mines of the Japanese and so they
started lobbing back. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't run away. That's
the best part.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This is essentially a food fight at this point because
the Japanese sailors think that these are hand grenades, and
they try to get rid of them by picking them up,
catching him, throwing them back at the obannon, and then
as this ensued, just lobbing potatoes back and forth at
each other. The crew of the obannon was able to,
(16:48):
as Ernest Harris says, put a little distance between our
ship and the sub essentially to get far enough away
to be outer range of that deck gun. And it's
important to note at the same time they're getting out
of range of the submarine's deck gun, they're getting far
enough away for their own guns to come into play. Specifically,
(17:09):
those guns are five dual purpose five inch thirty eight
caliber guns on single mounts, and those those five guns
are not the entirety of the armament. There were also
torpedoes aboard, and they also had anti aircraft armament, but
those five guns themselves, the five inch thirty eight caliber ones,
(17:30):
that's a game.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Over, yeah, for sure. And it was game over because
they lobbed off a good shot and they caught the
Japanese right in the little tower thing what's it called,
with the conning tower conning tower, which is where they
you climb out of it to get to the top
to get to the deck. And I believe that's also
where the periscope is located, I believe, so run up
(17:51):
into that and that's the little piece that you see
if that's always you know, kind of floating over the
top when them when the submarine's not fully fully underwater
but mostly submerged, because yeah, I was trying to go
for a dive. It was trying to get out of there,
and they must have caught it right in the nick
of time because they you know, hit that tower and
it disabled the sub enough that it wasn't able to escape.
(18:13):
And then the the obannon uh kind of maneuvered on
top of it and hit it with a depth charge. Yeah,
which is like, how does that work?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Just picture a picture like a slow orb or bomb
dropping down. Yeah, so a bop on the head, Oh
my gosh, which is I you know which. I'm not
saying to diminish the tragedy of human life, but all
indications we could find show us that the sub did
indeed sink due to that depth charge and the shot
(18:43):
at the Conning Tower.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Human life is indeed quite a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Ben Yeah, yeah, I don't want to diminish that. And
off the obannon went. But we have we have two
other things that we thought were very interesting about this story. Uh,
the Association of Potato Growers of heard about this potato
battle and they loved the idea.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, they did. They loved it so much. And they
presented the crew of the Obannon with a plaque with
some problematic language.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, Yeah, a tribute to the officers and men of
the USS Obannon for their ingenuity in using our now
proud potato to sink a And again this is a quote.
This is an offensive phrase to sink a submarine in
the spring of nineteen forty three, presented by potato growers
(19:34):
of the State of Maine on June fourteenth, nineteen forty five.
One thing it's weird about this is they have sink
in quotation marks.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, that seems like kind of a dig. Was it slang?
I don't know sure. I have a question too, bem. Yeah,
why why is this considered a main incident, the main
potato episode? And why were they in the waters of
Maine though I thought they were lake somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No, they're in this by the Solomon Island.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I know, That's what I thought. So why would Maine
have to do with then?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I guess because they grow potatoes.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I no. I mean they literally called this event the
main Potato episode. I've seen it called that a bunch
of times.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Must have been main potatoes. Then the potatoes were supplied
by Maine.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It's so weird, dude, It's such a strange nomenclature. Like
the only mention of Maine other than the fact that
it's called the main Potato incident multiple places, is the
fact that the O'Bannon itself was forged in Bath, Maine.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Right, Yeah, that's a good call back in March of
nineteen forty one. So so now we don't know for sure,
but we have two I would say, pretty good guesses.
It was made to main or it was using potatoes
for Maine. There's a main element here, mainly mainly a
main element. It's not the main part of the story,
but now Maine is an important But we got there, we.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Got it there, here we are I think this is
the end. Well, no, no, there's a little bit more.
Do you want to talk a little bit more about
the ship and about destroyers, just as a little supplementary
wrap up?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Sure, man, because destroyers are fascinating ships in the Obannon
in particular has way more war stories than just this
one potato incident.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right right. And there's another great account from this guy,
Ernest Hare, just about like being a cadet or what
do you call, like a rookie first year sailor on
the Obannon, and you know, going into the Battle of Guadalcanal.
And it's an angel fire website, which I thought I
thought went the way of geo cities still around. Huh, Yeah,
it's crazy. You ever try to find your old MySpace profile? Ben,
(21:33):
not a door I always care to open still around.
I'll have to look it up and report back. But no.
In this account, he talks about his early days on
the brand new, shiny new destroyer, the Obannon, fresh from
the iron works, he says, of bath Maine.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Also, the crew was as new as the ship, right.
Seventy percent of them were just.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Raw recruits, a green ballz R. His stars in their eyes, right.
But they're training, they're learning how to, you know, put
on gas masks and you know, nurse severed limbs and
all of this stuff. And he says, a really interesting
thing we're talking about the gas masks. Says, surely we
are not going to be so unlucky as to need
one of these things. Everyone knows you can get hurt
out here and maybe even killed, but these are things
(22:14):
that happened to the other guy, not you. Nevertheless, a
laugh or a smile became a rare item. And then
you refers to people over thirty as being old timers,
which makes me feel like a Grandpapa's right.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But again, you know a lot of these recruits are
people who are straight out of high school too, you know,
in many ways still kids.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's right, But in this account he does take some
solace in the fact that he's told his whole crew
is told that this ship is damn near impenetrable and unsinkable,
and is loaded with all kinds of bells and whistles.
What kind of bells and whistles are we talking about it?
We've mentioned a few, but what else we got right?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we mentioned some of the guns, both the anti
aircraft and the surface guns, also torpedoes, and you know,
we mentioned depth charges are but he points out that
submarines actually run from this destroyer.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, except when they're you know, asleep right.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Right right, which again we have to empathize with the
utter terror the Japanese sailors must have felt with this thing.
Rolling up on them, as you said, like an angry whale.
But let's get more specific. We mentioned those five inch guns.
They also had ten forty millimeter guns for anti aircraft,
(23:27):
seven twenty millimeter anti aircraft guns, ten torpedo tubes, six
depth charge projectors, and two depth charge tracks. So this
thing is pretty much ready to tangle.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, that's right. And you know, like I said, the
crew of this Maiden Voyage, you know, took some comfort
in that fact. But they were first engaged in a
battle called the Battle of Guadalcanal, which was fought in
the Pacific Theater of WW two around the island of Guadalcanal,
and it was the first big attack by the Allies
(24:02):
against the Empire of Japan. And this is the moment
when Hair and his sailor buddies kind of got a
taste of what war was really like. We always hear
about this idea of the romanticization of war by these
young bucks that come in thinking they're going to find
glory and instead they find you know, severed limbs and destruction,
(24:24):
flotsam and jetsam floating in the water.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It reminds me of a poem from World War One
by a guy named Wilfred Owen called dulce it decora mest.
I won't recite the whole thing because it's a little
bit long, but it I think encapsulates this I don't know,
this universal idealism and then disillusionment and often death. It's
(24:47):
involved with war. The first engagement of the naval Battle
of Guadalcanal was relatively short in terms of time, but
there was massive damage to American light cruise and four
destroyers went down. Two Japanese destroyers were sunk.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It was.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It was terrible war as well, and so I think
we've established that the obandon had a number of other
adventures that were not potato related. However, I gotta say
the war is a terrible, terrible thing. I love the
(25:27):
image of these grown people having this sudden food fight,
to say.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a food fight, you know, among grown men. I
love it. Yeah, I know we need more food fights
in general. It did it did It did end in
the Japanese men being you know, brutally exploded by a
depth charge. That is true. That's not super cool.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
No, but again, food fights. Let us know, if you
ever want to get involved in a food fight, I
would totally be in a Wait. Really, no way, you
wouldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
No way? Do you hate fun? I don't hate No,
it doesn't sound like fun to me. It sounds like
a mess. I don't even like it when it happens
in movies. It grosses me out. Oh really yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I think it depends on the type of food for me,
Like a potato is not a messy thing. And actually
potato could hurt you if it's hard enough.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
You ever shot a potato gun I built? Do you
ever make napalm? No? No, just potato guns?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And let us know about your experience with Where do
we go here? Potatoes? Life in the Navy building potato guns?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Anarchist cookbook recipes what you.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And speaking of you? Enough about us? What do you
say to some listener mail?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I say asa. Our first listener mail comes from Michelle k.
Subject is weird people who built with beer bottles? Hello.
I had gotten a little behind and finally listened to
the Weird people who Built Weird Things episode on the
five hour drive to visit my parents in the small
California coastal town of Cambria, which is just below Hurst Castle.
(26:54):
It's about halfway between San Francisc's the Famoushurst Castle of
William Randolph Hurst, famously depictedtionalized in Citizen Kane, but it
is literally as it sounds, a castle. It's about halfway
between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In that episode, you
asked about other weird buildings, and I had one immediately.
One of my favorite places in Cambria history is a
truly bizarre home built by hand called Nitwit Ridge, which
(27:17):
I love. It was built by a man named Art
Beal over the course of fifty years, mostly out of
trash that he dragged down the coast of Hurst Castle,
where he worked in native materials such as abalone shells.
Tying in with another episode. There are beer cans built
into the structure as well. It's about our Heineken Bottle
Bricks episode. He lived there for most of his life.
(27:38):
It's uninhabitable at this point, but still sound enough for tours.
It's a time capsule inside because when he left, he
left everything behind, so there are old clothes, food cans,
et cetera. And then she attached a couple of photos
here and it looked like a crazy Peter Pan treehouse.
It's awesome. Thank you so much for the podcast. I've
(27:58):
enjoyed every episode so far and look forward to many more.
Thanks for the company on my long drive.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That's awesome. Thank you so much for writing to us, Michelle.
Also thanks to everyone who responded and sent us weird
buildings from your neck of the Global Woods. You know,
please keep sending them as well, and let's do one more.
May M writes to us and says, Hi, there, Ben
and Noel. I'm a big fan of the show. I
(28:24):
love the segment Casey on the case, Hi, Casey right on.
I just finished listening to The States That Never Were,
says May and during the episode, I was pondering, note,
I am from Massachusetts, where I feel the attitude on
the South can often be derogatory or patronizing, but I
try my best to be inclusive of all folks.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's cool. We feel the same way about you in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I think Massachusetts is great.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
No, it's great.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'm joking, so May continues. I can't help but notice
the two of you do not speak in a Southern accent.
I heard one of your fathers during extra credit and
was delighted by his pride in his Southern heritage and accent.
I was wondering if you two naturally have an accent
and smooth it over because you're on the radio and
it alienates others, or if it's a thing you picked
up from TV and other media. I don't mean to
(29:11):
be rude. I'm and you're not being rude. Made this
is a great letter. I'm just curious on the ridiculous
history of why there is this divide and how our
country speaks, which is quite diverse in reality but in
movies and TV only if it is relevant. Is the
Southern accent ever used late for work? Have to get going?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Should we show her our real voices? Ben? All right, man,
that's May. That's a real voice May. The first time
ever is May no Brown? This is how I sound,
bear my soul for you people. No more putting on
airs for this podcast.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, you can hear Nole's German accent.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Coming out there. No, I'm obviously kidding. No, I don't know.
It is funny though we don't have any kind of
Southern accent. You're very strong. Do you have a code
switch though, and you're around like your folks, or you
go back home to Tennessee and you see some family
who have more of an accent. Do you ever kind
of find yourself drifting into it a little bit? No?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
No, The only thing is sometimes vowels will come out strange,
you know. But I actually I responded to this, and
one of the points that we wanted to make is
that here in the information age, a lot of people,
at least in the US, are going to speak with
a more neutral Midwestern kind of accent because that's what's
(30:32):
encouraged in television on your local news station, for example.
And I think we can all agree that diversity of
accents is a really fantastic thing, and they could be
more well represented in the media. Also, this is great embarrassment.
I cannot pronounce you all to save my life.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You just did it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
No, you know what I mean? The contraction. Yeah, you
can't say y'ao. I just can't pull it off. Kind
of Southerner are you?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Man.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I quarrel with this, but well you got I got
quarrel with you now, Oh yeah, af up.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, our creative differences aside. The point that I think
the three of us wanted to make with accents is
that regardless of how people may or may not judge
you for the way you speak Uh. I would say,
embrace your accent.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
It's part of what makes you you. And also accents
are dynamics. So if you move somewhere where people pronounce
things differently, such as Madonna moving to the UK or
US moving to Australia, eventually some things are gonna sink in.
You're gonna start I mean, you're not automatically gonna start
yelling gooday at people.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But good day. But we tend to we tend to.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
At least UH speak the way that people around us speak.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So thank you so much to May and Michelle and
everyone else who wrote in. This is the end of
listener mail, but not our show. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We're especially delighted with our
community page, Ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Historians that we are. We made some lifelong friends there,
ridiculous Historians, and you can be a part of that
pool of humans as well by going to Facebook and
signing up. All you gotta do is tell the robot
what our names are, only one of them, and we
get a kick out of the ways people spell my
name and the ways people spell your last name. Ben.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It is whot We also we also have T shirts
now we're legit.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, with our names on them spelled correctly.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You can find one of our favorite T shirt designs
featuring our old pal slash nemesis Jonathan Strickland, the quister.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah used to go to tea public dot com slash
ridiculous History. And you can get that stuff slapped on
a mug or a mouse pad, or a backpack or
a laptop sleeve, anything pretty much you can think of
you you can slap a logo on it there. And
if you have ideas yourself for designs, anything you hear
in the show you think would be cool on a
piece of merch, let us know rt us at Ridiculous
at HowStuffWorks dot com. I'd like to thank super producer
(33:11):
Casey Pegram, like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Like to think, our research associates, Christopher Hasiotis Eves, Jeff Coat,
and most importantly, thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you so much for joining us
(00:03):
in today's classic episode. We've been on a bit of
a World War two kick this week.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yeah, and also a bit of a whirlwind tour of
the world, which is why we're giving you a few
extra classics this week. We appreciate you bearing with us. Ben,
have you ever heard that insult that the Gallagher brothers
tend to throw at one another? I believe it is
Liam calling Nol a potato.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I have I have heard of that. I thought you
were talking about different Gallagher brothers. Yeah, throwing it stuff
at each other, and that also checks out it does.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that would be probably watermelons. But I don't know.
I think it's a kind of a bit of a
misnomer to use a potato as an insult. The humble
potato is a staple food stuff. It is delicious, it
is hearty, it is resilient, and apparently also can be
used to win naval battles.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yes, as a fan of food fights, this one has
always been fascinating to me. This episode from twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Long time ago, dow.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Weirdly enough, we are sharing some classics, as we mentioned earlier,
because we are.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
On the road.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I have been in our hometown of Atlanta only like
twenty six hours this month. So from Afar we returned
to you with the true ridiculous story of a World
War two naval battle, one using potato.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That's right, the usso bannon using potatoes against a hapless
Japanese submarine. What a food fight. Indeed, let's roll it.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show.
(02:02):
Presley Neville O'Bannon was born in seventeen eighty four and
has nothing to do with this episode other than the
fact that there is a ship named after him, the
USS O'Bannon.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
But Ben, what did he do? Why they name a
ship after him? Can we make the episode about him
instead of the ship? I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I have been trigued as well. Nol Well. He did
join the Marines in eighteen oh one, and as a
first lieutenant, he commanded a detachment of Marines in the
War with Tripoli, and during his operations with the US Navy,
he led a successful attack on Dern in April twenty seventh,
(02:42):
eighteen oh five, and this gave the Marine Corps its
a mortal phrase to the shores of Tripoli. Oh yeah,
so he's you know, he's done stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I had some stirring stuff right there.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Enough to get a ship named after him.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Right, did you say my name? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
You're I think so you're nol R.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I am okay. It's just a ritual thing. Yeah, we
should have the ritual. We got it, and I'm ben,
Yes you are. How do you feel about potatoes? I
feel great.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I like them almost as much as I like super
producer Casey Pegram, which you know, sets the bar very high.
Potatoes are pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Right, Boil and mash them, stick them in a stew. Yeah,
right on, Charroo mets some Japanese sub mariners. There we go.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
They have many uses, and today's episode is about one
of those uses. We are exploring the story of the
USSO Bannon, which is a Fletcher class destroyer, right, and
some innovative warfare techniques. They used a story so bizarre
(03:45):
that I don't know about you man. At first, I
was skeptical. Did a beg credulity a bit?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It did? Yeah, it did, it did. But then when
you really get down to the nitty gritty of it,
you can kind of see how this absurd farce could
play out in real time. So how should we set
the scene. Let's talk first a little bit about the
ship in question, the uss O ban And you mentioned
it was a Fletcher class destroyer. What's a destroyer band?
It sounds scary, it's a great band, I said, yeah,
(04:14):
it's a dude, Dan Bihar, Yes, I love destroyer. But
you know the shift. What's the ship?
Speaker 1 (04:21):
They're these very fast, long endurance ships that are meant
to function as escorts in a fleet or a battle group.
So I guess before World War Two you would say
destroyers were pretty light vessels, and they weren't great at
unattended ocean operations. They had to roll with a gang
(04:42):
of other ships, so typically there would be a number
of destroyers together. But after World War Two, guided missiles
allowed destroyers to step up and take the rolls that
used to be filled by battleships and cruisers exclusively.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Right, And the destroyers would, like you said, kind of
flock together in a squadron. And the squadron in question
today is Desron twenty one. Yesdes ro o N short
for Destroyer Squadron twenty one.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
There we go. Yeah, I like the way you're pronouncing that.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, and that squadron consisted of the Fletcher, the Radford,
the Jenkins, the Lavalette, the Nicholas, the O'Bannon, which was oh,
the Nicholas was actually the flagship, the O'Bannon, the Chevalier,
I think it was in after Maurice, the French singer.
Surely Casey Maurice Chevalier. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, Okay,
Casey on the case, big underwhelming case in the case,
(05:40):
but by no fault of his That was a silly
question because it's not fair for me to put that
much on Casey.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
You know what, though, we do hold him to a
very high standard.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, he is the standard. He is the bar which
we strive for on this show every day, daily basis.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But I like how we're talking about assumptions because an
assumption is going to play a big role in this story.
Oh and by the way, I should mention that, yes,
the USS O'Bannon was named after the famous hero of Derna,
Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, but it was actually the second ship
to be named after him.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
This guy is ship rich. Oh and then, just to
wrap up the squadron list, we've also got the Strong,
the Tailor, the de Haven, the Howorth, and the Hopewell
the Hope.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, that last one's pretty inspiring, right. So this is
the group of ships known as Desron twenty one. On
April fifth, nineteen forty three. They were returning from a
night of shelling attacking shore installations deep in the Solomon
(06:44):
Islands in an area known as New Georgia. A lot
of this story comes to us from a first hand witness,
a sailor named Ernest A.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Hare.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
You can read his direct account on destroyerhistory dot org.
So there they are, they're on the way back from
shelling these installations, and one destroyer, the Obannon picked up
a radar ping that turned out to be Dunt Dunt Dune,
a huge Japanese submarine cruising on the surface.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah, and the uh the Japanese naval men sub mariners.
I said that earlier. I don't know if that's accurate.
And I know it's a superhero, the sub mariner. Yeah,
sub mariner works work, okay, because you know they're on
a submarine. They're like asleep on the deck. Seems super risky, right, Like, yeah,
I don't even think of submarine really having a deck,
it's got this tower that you crawl up. But then
I guess it's got a flat parth that you can
(07:36):
hang out on. And that's what they were doing, and
they were asleep. And one description I found of this
event on shipcomrade dot com has a very specific description
of these sleeping sailors has them wearing dark shorts and
dinky blue hats. So I'm guessing in substantial little blue.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Hats, yes, small or insignificant.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Is that part of the nay of the Japanese naval
uniform It must have been.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I mean navies have uniforms, but yeah, these were dinky
would mean tiny, so essentially saying that they have tiny.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Ye and bring that word back. You're gonna bring it back. Yeah,
I don't think people use that word or not. You know,
Chuck likes to use hinky. That's different.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
He goes through a hinky phase every so often. That's
Chuck Bryant from movie Crush and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You should know. That just means things are a little
dicey or there's like a yeah problem, it's like wonky.
It's not quite problematic, right, but it's getting there. It's
get it could well get as is this situation. Hey, hey,
nice Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, so this submarine, wonder of wonders is already surfaced,
and it's not appearing to react to the presence of
these destroyers of the Obannon in particular, so they take
the advantage. They say, well, if we have caught this
enemy vessel unaware, we better make the best of it.
(08:55):
They approach at a rapid speed and they're preparing to
ram the sub to you know, physically knock the tar
out of it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Because I saw some videos actually of these destroyers at
work doing that, and that was a thing I didn't
didn't really think about that. But they were like these
you know, seaborn battering rams, and they could pick up
speed pretty quickly and were made of pure steel and
could withstand tons of damage and inflict tons of damage
(09:23):
on smaller vessels.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, and think about it from a strategic standpoint, you're
saving resources if you don't have to waste any kind
of artilleries, right, So in.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
A close range that's probably a more effective way of
dealing with it anyway, especially if you're pretty sure that
the lookouts of said target are asleep at the wheel
or the periscope as it were, or in this case
on the deck of the submarine. Right, So the.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Captain of the Obanon is trying to identify what sort
of sub this is, and then at the last minute
they said, wait, we shouldn't ram this thing because we
might blow ourselves up. If this sub is, for instance,
the kind of sub that lays minds in the water.
I don't know why I say it in the water.
(10:15):
It's not like they're just laying mines in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Maybe that's a very weirdly specific type of sub. But
so they didn't want to blow themselves up, and they
decided that they're not going to ram them. So at
the last minute they swing to avoid collision, and they're
really close to the submarine.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
I imagine that probably caused the Japanese sub mariners to
awake with a start, right, wouldn't you think, because.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
As you said, they were on board the sub the
surface of the sub right, yeah, asleep. So they are
close enough now because of their last minute decision not
to ram the submarine. They are close enough now that
they can actually see the Japanese sailors on the deck.
And you know, while that might sound weird for them
to be just sleeping out in the open on deck.
(11:02):
We have to remember how claustrophobic a submarine environment could be.
You're gonna do whatever you can, probably to get some
fresh air.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
A friend of mine, who was talking about the story says,
I bet submarines smell like farts all the time.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Oh man, have you heard of hot racking?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Okay, so this is just a side note. Space is
at a premium and so I believe it's called hot racking.
Different different individuals will share the same bunk just based
on their schedule. So you could have like three people
sleeping in the same bunk depending on their shift. So
you get up, you go to work, someone else lays
(11:37):
down in the bunk, they get up, they go to
work at the same time. You're walking back, and you
sleep where they slept.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
What does this have to do with farts.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
I'm just saying it's an unhygienic situation.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Ah, yes, yes, agreed.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I don't want a hot bunk hot rack with anybody.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, as you said hot bunk, and I immediately thought
of hot box. Oh no, that's just where you fart
and pull the covers up. Wow, this is really gone
off as an it man so here we go.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's understandable that these guys want to get some fresh air.
But the ship is now awkwardly, very awkwardly close to
this submarine, and they have this Larry David seinfeldesque moment,
that level of awkwardness because their ship was way too
close for them to fire guns on the sub and
(12:27):
since no one on deck carried a gun either, there
was not a shot at all from the US side.
See what I'm saying. They were too close for the
trajectory of their guns to work.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Those are meant to be like longer range weapons, or
at least medium range. You got to be able to
get a beat on them and get a little arc right,
because these are shells. These aren't just like high powered
machine guns you can shoot directly. You got to kind
of lob these things. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, Oddly enough, there was a similar situation on the
Japanese sub because none of the people on the deck
there had handguns. There was one gun that could have worked, though,
right at least on the sub.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, it was like a three inch deck gun. What
does that mean? Three inch like caliber? What are we
talking about here?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think it means primarily that the gun fires a
projectile that's three inches long.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Okay, so that would be much more of a machine
gun type situation, right right, much more powerful than a handgun,
but also much more able to fire at close range
and hit a target. True, So these Japanese sailors are
scrambling to get to this gun because they, you know,
this giant ship is just right up on them. Can
you imagine how terrifying that must feel. Oh yeah, on
(13:37):
both sides, well, on both sides, but especially on the
dudes who were just naked up there on top of
this little raft thing. I mean, not that a submarine small,
but in comparison to the size of the destroyer, it
would have been like, you know, being out in the
ocean and like coming up on a whale that wanted
to kill you. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And then on the obannon side, on the US side,
can you imagine the escalating panic they see when they
realize that they can't fire anything and they're watching, They're
literally watching the folks on the submarine wake up, see
what's going on, and start running toward that deck gun
(14:13):
and they have to think fast.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
They did think fast, Because you may have mentioned this before, Ben,
I apologize if I missed it. But the Americans didn't
have handguns either on them for whatever reason, I guess,
I guess that's not I guess naval officers don't really
carry handguns.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Well, the thing I think that's important here is on
a destroyer, you're not really building it with the assumption
that you will get boarded or the individuals will be
in close hand to hand combat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And just the official word is that no, Navy officers
do not carry handguns. They're trained in weaponry, but that
is not part of their kit, that is not part
of their uniform, their usual equipment.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Right, So they have to think fast, flicking around, who
has a gun? No one has a gun. Wait, the
sub has a deck gun and if they if these
guys reach it, then we are in for a terrible,
terrible time. So the guys on the USS obannon look
(15:12):
around and they see these storage bins.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not it's not even clear from
reading up on this if they really, even in the moment,
knew quite what was in there. I think they were
just kind of like just frantically grabbing at anything, scrabbling
for purchase. And it turns out that these bins were
full of potatoes.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, and they so they started throwing these at the
guys on the submarine, and the Japanese sailors panicked because
they thought the potatoes were hand grenades, because that's the
kind of thing you would logically throw at someone in
a war.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, these Japanese folks must have thought that these American
sailors had their act together much more than they actually did.
They gave them a little credit thinking, oh, surely they're
lobbing hand grenades at us, and it was dark, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but you think when they gripped it, they would sense
the feel of the potato and then not have those
you know, traditional hand grenade rivets that you'd be used
(16:08):
to feeling, probably if you were a soldier.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, but I think the adrenaline, yeah, it probably triggers
a fight or flight things.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
The mind took over and made those potatoes into hand
grenades in the mines of the Japanese and so they
started lobbing back. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't run away. That's
the best part.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
This is essentially a food fight at this point because
the Japanese sailors think that these are hand grenades, and
they try to get rid of them by picking them up,
catching him, throwing them back at the obannon, and then
as this ensued, just lobbing potatoes back and forth at
each other. The crew of the obannon was able to,
(16:48):
as Ernest Harris says, put a little distance between our
ship and the sub essentially to get far enough away
to be outer range of that deck gun. And it's
important to note at the same time they're getting out
of range of the submarine's deck gun, they're getting far
enough away for their own guns to come into play. Specifically,
(17:09):
those guns are five dual purpose five inch thirty eight
caliber guns on single mounts, and those those five guns
are not the entirety of the armament. There were also
torpedoes aboard, and they also had anti aircraft armament, but
those five guns themselves, the five inch thirty eight caliber ones,
(17:30):
that's a game.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Over, yeah, for sure. And it was game over because
they lobbed off a good shot and they caught the
Japanese right in the little tower thing what's it called,
with the conning tower conning tower, which is where they
you climb out of it to get to the top
to get to the deck. And I believe that's also
where the periscope is located, I believe, so run up
(17:51):
into that and that's the little piece that you see
if that's always you know, kind of floating over the
top when them when the submarine's not fully fully underwater
but mostly submerged, because yeah, I was trying to go
for a dive. It was trying to get out of there,
and they must have caught it right in the nick
of time because they you know, hit that tower and
it disabled the sub enough that it wasn't able to escape.
(18:13):
And then the the obannon uh kind of maneuvered on
top of it and hit it with a depth charge. Yeah,
which is like, how does that work?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Just picture a picture like a slow orb or bomb
dropping down. Yeah, so a bop on the head, Oh
my gosh, which is I you know which. I'm not
saying to diminish the tragedy of human life, but all
indications we could find show us that the sub did
indeed sink due to that depth charge and the shot
(18:43):
at the Conning Tower.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Human life is indeed quite a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Ben Yeah, yeah, I don't want to diminish that. And
off the obannon went. But we have we have two
other things that we thought were very interesting about this story. Uh,
the Association of Potato Growers of heard about this potato
battle and they loved the idea.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah, they did. They loved it so much. And they
presented the crew of the Obannon with a plaque with
some problematic language.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, Yeah, a tribute to the officers and men of
the USS Obannon for their ingenuity in using our now
proud potato to sink a And again this is a quote.
This is an offensive phrase to sink a submarine in
the spring of nineteen forty three, presented by potato growers
(19:34):
of the State of Maine on June fourteenth, nineteen forty five.
One thing it's weird about this is they have sink
in quotation marks.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, that seems like kind of a dig. Was it slang?
I don't know sure. I have a question too, bem. Yeah,
why why is this considered a main incident, the main
potato episode? And why were they in the waters of
Maine though I thought they were lake somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No, they're in this by the Solomon Island.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I know, That's what I thought. So why would Maine
have to do with then?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
I guess because they grow potatoes.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I no. I mean they literally called this event the
main Potato episode. I've seen it called that a bunch
of times.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Must have been main potatoes. Then the potatoes were supplied
by Maine.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It's so weird, dude, It's such a strange nomenclature. Like
the only mention of Maine other than the fact that
it's called the main Potato incident multiple places, is the
fact that the O'Bannon itself was forged in Bath, Maine.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Right, Yeah, that's a good call back in March of
nineteen forty one. So so now we don't know for sure,
but we have two I would say, pretty good guesses.
It was made to main or it was using potatoes
for Maine. There's a main element here, mainly mainly a
main element. It's not the main part of the story,
but now Maine is an important But we got there, we.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Got it there, here we are I think this is
the end. Well, no, no, there's a little bit more.
Do you want to talk a little bit more about
the ship and about destroyers, just as a little supplementary
wrap up?
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Sure, man, because destroyers are fascinating ships in the Obannon
in particular has way more war stories than just this
one potato incident.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right right. And there's another great account from this guy,
Ernest Hare, just about like being a cadet or what
do you call, like a rookie first year sailor on
the Obannon, and you know, going into the Battle of Guadalcanal.
And it's an angel fire website, which I thought I
thought went the way of geo cities still around. Huh, Yeah,
it's crazy. You ever try to find your old MySpace profile? Ben,
(21:33):
not a door I always care to open still around.
I'll have to look it up and report back. But no.
In this account, he talks about his early days on
the brand new, shiny new destroyer, the Obannon, fresh from
the iron works, he says, of bath Maine.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Also, the crew was as new as the ship, right.
Seventy percent of them were just.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Raw recruits, a green ballz R. His stars in their eyes, right.
But they're training, they're learning how to, you know, put
on gas masks and you know, nurse severed limbs and
all of this stuff. And he says, a really interesting
thing we're talking about the gas masks. Says, surely we
are not going to be so unlucky as to need
one of these things. Everyone knows you can get hurt
out here and maybe even killed, but these are things
(22:14):
that happened to the other guy, not you. Nevertheless, a
laugh or a smile became a rare item. And then
you refers to people over thirty as being old timers,
which makes me feel like a Grandpapa's right.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But again, you know a lot of these recruits are
people who are straight out of high school too, you know,
in many ways still kids.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's right, But in this account he does take some
solace in the fact that he's told his whole crew
is told that this ship is damn near impenetrable and unsinkable,
and is loaded with all kinds of bells and whistles.
What kind of bells and whistles are we talking about it?
We've mentioned a few, but what else we got right?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So we mentioned some of the guns, both the anti
aircraft and the surface guns, also torpedoes, and you know,
we mentioned depth charges are but he points out that
submarines actually run from this destroyer.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, except when they're you know, asleep right.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Right right, which again we have to empathize with the
utter terror the Japanese sailors must have felt with this thing.
Rolling up on them, as you said, like an angry whale.
But let's get more specific. We mentioned those five inch guns.
They also had ten forty millimeter guns for anti aircraft,
(23:27):
seven twenty millimeter anti aircraft guns, ten torpedo tubes, six
depth charge projectors, and two depth charge tracks. So this
thing is pretty much ready to tangle.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, that's right. And you know, like I said, the
crew of this Maiden Voyage, you know, took some comfort
in that fact. But they were first engaged in a
battle called the Battle of Guadalcanal, which was fought in
the Pacific Theater of WW two around the island of Guadalcanal,
and it was the first big attack by the Allies
(24:02):
against the Empire of Japan. And this is the moment
when Hair and his sailor buddies kind of got a
taste of what war was really like. We always hear
about this idea of the romanticization of war by these
young bucks that come in thinking they're going to find
glory and instead they find you know, severed limbs and destruction,
(24:24):
flotsam and jetsam floating in the water.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
It reminds me of a poem from World War One
by a guy named Wilfred Owen called dulce it decora mest.
I won't recite the whole thing because it's a little
bit long, but it I think encapsulates this I don't know,
this universal idealism and then disillusionment and often death. It's
(24:47):
involved with war. The first engagement of the naval Battle
of Guadalcanal was relatively short in terms of time, but
there was massive damage to American light cruise and four
destroyers went down. Two Japanese destroyers were sunk.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It was.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
It was terrible war as well, and so I think
we've established that the obandon had a number of other
adventures that were not potato related. However, I gotta say
the war is a terrible, terrible thing. I love the
(25:27):
image of these grown people having this sudden food fight,
to say.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's a food fight, you know, among grown men. I
love it. Yeah, I know we need more food fights
in general. It did it did It did end in
the Japanese men being you know, brutally exploded by a
depth charge. That is true. That's not super cool.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
No, but again, food fights. Let us know, if you
ever want to get involved in a food fight, I
would totally be in a Wait. Really, no way, you
wouldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
No way? Do you hate fun? I don't hate No,
it doesn't sound like fun to me. It sounds like
a mess. I don't even like it when it happens
in movies. It grosses me out. Oh really yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I think it depends on the type of food for me,
Like a potato is not a messy thing. And actually
potato could hurt you if it's hard enough.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
You ever shot a potato gun I built? Do you
ever make napalm? No? No, just potato guns?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
And let us know about your experience with Where do
we go here? Potatoes? Life in the Navy building potato guns?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Anarchist cookbook recipes what you.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And speaking of you? Enough about us? What do you
say to some listener mail?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I say asa. Our first listener mail comes from Michelle k.
Subject is weird people who built with beer bottles? Hello.
I had gotten a little behind and finally listened to
the Weird people who Built Weird Things episode on the
five hour drive to visit my parents in the small
California coastal town of Cambria, which is just below Hurst Castle.
(26:54):
It's about halfway between San Francisc's the Famoushurst Castle of
William Randolph Hurst, famously depictedtionalized in Citizen Kane, but it
is literally as it sounds, a castle. It's about halfway
between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In that episode, you
asked about other weird buildings, and I had one immediately.
One of my favorite places in Cambria history is a
truly bizarre home built by hand called Nitwit Ridge, which
(27:17):
I love. It was built by a man named Art
Beal over the course of fifty years, mostly out of
trash that he dragged down the coast of Hurst Castle,
where he worked in native materials such as abalone shells.
Tying in with another episode. There are beer cans built
into the structure as well. It's about our Heineken Bottle
Bricks episode. He lived there for most of his life.
(27:38):
It's uninhabitable at this point, but still sound enough for tours.
It's a time capsule inside because when he left, he
left everything behind, so there are old clothes, food cans,
et cetera. And then she attached a couple of photos
here and it looked like a crazy Peter Pan treehouse.
It's awesome. Thank you so much for the podcast. I've
(27:58):
enjoyed every episode so far and look forward to many more.
Thanks for the company on my long drive.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That's awesome. Thank you so much for writing to us, Michelle.
Also thanks to everyone who responded and sent us weird
buildings from your neck of the Global Woods. You know,
please keep sending them as well, and let's do one more.
May M writes to us and says, Hi, there, Ben
and Noel. I'm a big fan of the show. I
(28:24):
love the segment Casey on the case, Hi, Casey right on.
I just finished listening to The States That Never Were,
says May and during the episode, I was pondering, note,
I am from Massachusetts, where I feel the attitude on
the South can often be derogatory or patronizing, but I
try my best to be inclusive of all folks.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's cool. We feel the same way about you in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I think Massachusetts is great.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
No, it's great.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'm joking, so May continues. I can't help but notice
the two of you do not speak in a Southern accent.
I heard one of your fathers during extra credit and
was delighted by his pride in his Southern heritage and accent.
I was wondering if you two naturally have an accent
and smooth it over because you're on the radio and
it alienates others, or if it's a thing you picked
up from TV and other media. I don't mean to
(29:11):
be rude. I'm and you're not being rude. Made this
is a great letter. I'm just curious on the ridiculous
history of why there is this divide and how our
country speaks, which is quite diverse in reality but in
movies and TV only if it is relevant. Is the
Southern accent ever used late for work? Have to get going?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Should we show her our real voices? Ben? All right, man,
that's May. That's a real voice May. The first time
ever is May no Brown? This is how I sound,
bear my soul for you people. No more putting on
airs for this podcast.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, you can hear Nole's German accent.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Coming out there. No, I'm obviously kidding. No, I don't know.
It is funny though we don't have any kind of
Southern accent. You're very strong. Do you have a code
switch though, and you're around like your folks, or you
go back home to Tennessee and you see some family
who have more of an accent. Do you ever kind
of find yourself drifting into it a little bit? No?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
No, The only thing is sometimes vowels will come out strange,
you know. But I actually I responded to this, and
one of the points that we wanted to make is
that here in the information age, a lot of people,
at least in the US, are going to speak with
a more neutral Midwestern kind of accent because that's what's
(30:32):
encouraged in television on your local news station, for example.
And I think we can all agree that diversity of
accents is a really fantastic thing, and they could be
more well represented in the media. Also, this is great embarrassment.
I cannot pronounce you all to save my life.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You just did it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
No, you know what I mean? The contraction. Yeah, you
can't say y'ao. I just can't pull it off. Kind
of Southerner are you?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Man.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I quarrel with this, but well you got I got
quarrel with you now, Oh yeah, af up.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Well, our creative differences aside. The point that I think
the three of us wanted to make with accents is
that regardless of how people may or may not judge
you for the way you speak Uh. I would say,
embrace your accent.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
It's part of what makes you you. And also accents
are dynamics. So if you move somewhere where people pronounce
things differently, such as Madonna moving to the UK or
US moving to Australia, eventually some things are gonna sink in.
You're gonna start I mean, you're not automatically gonna start
yelling gooday at people.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But good day. But we tend to we tend to.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
At least UH speak the way that people around us speak.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
So thank you so much to May and Michelle and
everyone else who wrote in. This is the end of
listener mail, but not our show. You can find us
on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We're especially delighted with our
community page, Ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Historians that we are. We made some lifelong friends there,
ridiculous Historians, and you can be a part of that
pool of humans as well by going to Facebook and
signing up. All you gotta do is tell the robot
what our names are, only one of them, and we
get a kick out of the ways people spell my
name and the ways people spell your last name. Ben.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It is whot We also we also have T shirts
now we're legit.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, with our names on them spelled correctly.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
You can find one of our favorite T shirt designs
featuring our old pal slash nemesis Jonathan Strickland, the quister.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah used to go to tea public dot com slash
ridiculous History. And you can get that stuff slapped on
a mug or a mouse pad, or a backpack or
a laptop sleeve, anything pretty much you can think of
you you can slap a logo on it there. And
if you have ideas yourself for designs, anything you hear
in the show you think would be cool on a
piece of merch, let us know rt us at Ridiculous
at HowStuffWorks dot com. I'd like to thank super producer
(33:11):
Casey Pegram, like to thank Alex Williams, who composed our theme.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Like to think, our research associates, Christopher Hasiotis Eves, Jeff Coat,
and most importantly, thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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