BONUS EPISODE: The Fu-Go Balloon Bombs of WWII ft. Dr. Patrick Wyman
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Joe and Tom are joined by Dr. Patrick Wyman of the Tides of History Podcast to talk about the idiotic attempts by the Japanese to start wildfires in the western United States during WWII.
Sources:
https://time.com/6276685/japanese-balloon-bomb-history-world-war-ii/
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/project-fugo-the-japanese-balloon-bombs/
https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/18679
https://www.allworldwars.com/Japanese-Balloon-and-Attached-Devices.html
Comments (86)
In fact, Thermapolis WY was a Greek immigrant town. My fam came there in the late 1800s. Joe can probably guess why so many greeks were leaving that part of the world in those decades
Y’all have clearly never been to north jersey, the Japanese already have it. It’s awesome. Go to Fort Lee or Edgewater sometime. Cleanest super markets i have ever seen.
Nuns wear habits, cassocks are generally for men (8 years of catholic school; not by choice)
they started joking about jay culter and i got mad confused because i thought they were talking about former chicago bears qb jay culter
Whoo it's the one time of the year when Wyoming is mentioned. Thermopolis is a few towns away from me and it smells like eggs because of the hot springs that give it it's name. Like everywhere in Wyoming, it's a shithole.
Fuck yeah, Miner Burger mentioned
can confirm Virginia and Maryland and completely interchangeable. All suburbs and military industrial complex
Fun fact about Esperanto is that speakers were persecuted during the Holocaust
This was a delight. I was really hoping the itty bitty bat bombs would get an honorable mention. The bombs in their lil batpacks, the deranged dentist who had the idea in the first place. Feels spiritually related. But maybe you covered it already? Regardless, this was great.
Going to the beginning of the show; on SNL John Belushi had a samurai character and one episode was Samurai Delicatessen where he sliced salami with his sword.
The Jon Bois episode The Dumbest Boy Alive covers the "How many days are in a week" bobybuilder forum argument, it is one of the best videos from a legendary yt creator and journalist in his early days. I'll go back and watch that every now and then and it makes me feel old (I think it's 8 years old)
Dorr Mentioned: It's a small farming town about 10 Miles south of the Grand Rapids Suburbs.
This was an awesome show, always get way too excited when I see an 80 minute episode 😂
Some guy tried to start an isis training camp in Bly once.
Deadpool is a turn your brain off and pretend you’re 14 again. Captain Marvel was just awful
My birth country of Romania keeps coming up lol. LLBD you guys should do an episode about Romania during WW1. Particularly the Romanian Treasure Incident.
Heynow! Pullman and WSU don't deserve to burn...
Toe shoes may have been bullshit bro science, but they were comfortable as hell. Goofy looking, but they let me actually feel the ground while I walked. I loved them.
Loved mine and would have bought new ones if I didn't just end up with a wardrobe that had to also be suitable for work.
This a four salami blade
I can’t believe that Tom ran into measurehead
All of I could think of was James Gandolfini as a Tony Soprano samurai.
Esperanto, to be fair, legitimately did peak in the 1920s and 30s, and most speakers were internationalists like scientists. French as lingua franca was in its way out, and English had yet to take its place, so if you wanted to publish a scientific paper for an international readership in the 20s and 30s Esperanto was one of the better options for doing so. (For comparison, a century or three earlier the obvious choice would have been Classical Latin, hence why so much scientific jargon is to this day still derived from Latin. Esperanto is basically just Classical Latin reinvented as a mish-mash of the modern Romance languages that people speak natively.)
romance and polish
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a new LLBD episode!
Man this episode surprisingly hit close to home! I grew up in Prosser Washington, which is in the Yakima Valley, right by Toppenish and most of the people in town worked at Hanford haha.
You’ve probably heard of Drunk History, but have you heard of Jacked History? Well have I got a podcast episode for you!
LMFAO Tom going crazy in this episode
Was Joe a Para trained Tanker??
A paratrooper no. Just another person who went to airborne school for promotion points.
Is LLBD slowly pivoting to a kink podcast? Total support but I will need to rethink who I recommend you guys to…..
I wonder if there's a seven retention equivalent for AFAB when it comes to muscle building? Regardless, I'm definitely passing that on to the Asexual community, because damn is this something asexuals can excel at!
Surprising amount of 509 area codes in the comments
I did love the description of "niche ethnic prejudice." In other words "white people being racist to other white people."
Very happy to finally get to hear this episode! Been a big fan of Dr. Wyman, since the MMA Prospectus and Heavy Hands days. Great episode all around!
Holy shit Tom was going hard in this one
🥁
This is another " this has not aged well " episode , woof ( looks at flaming west coast in winter )
Massive west-coast wildfires are nothing new. They’ve just been increasing in frequency because of climate change. Pacific Northwest wildfires have been as big and as bad as the current Los Angeles wildfires; the main difference is that Los Angeles is a global center for media production, so wildfires in Los Angeles get disproportionate media coverage. Source: I lived in LA for 8 years. We had wildfires basically every year during the Santa Ana winds. And then there would be torrential downpours immediately afterwards, so any buildings that hadn’t burned would slide into the sea [figuratively; more likely just their neighbor’s backyard] due to the fire burning the plants that prevented erosion. See also: Mike Davis’ 1989 “Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology_of_Fear
As a southwest Washington native, love the Fort Stevens shout out, went camping there all the time growing up and it’s one of my favorite places out on that stretch of the coast
Sci-fi authors of the 60s were also super into Esperanto. Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series comes to mind. I think Asimov was a fan too, as I recall.
Red Dwarf is the only reason I had ever heard of Esperanto.
I am only a weeb for Guido Samurai. Also how dare you re: Five Fingers. I used to get horrible shin splints, but years of running with those has helped me not have them any more.
https://youtu.be/QzcvRDWgRIE
Why did I listen to Tom and google "sonic inflation?" Why? What's wrong with me? God dammit.
Every 509er who listens to this show is going nuts right now, thank you for providing us some celebrity Patrick
Why didn't we like Deadpool v Wolverine?
Most niche racist moment I witnessed was at a model UN conference when I mistook a Serbian for a Croat. She did not like that and went on a rant about Bosnians and kosovars. In my defense her last name was Petrovic like the Croatian basketball player.
Wait, someone tried to start a wildfire and it didn't work? Disbelieve.
I thought the best way to start a wildfire was to try not to.
Fuck the balloon bomb I'm learning deep meathead lore
Has this show discussed the American fire bats?
They did way back in like 2018-2020. They used to do animals of war as bonus episodes. Mentioned how it was so crazy it could have worked.
This guy at the gym Tom is talking about sounds like the antithesis to Mishima. At least Mishima was busting, that guy’s strength deriving from no nut November being every day is unholy and spreading that message is even wilder.
I think the secret to pursuing both gains and busting as serious hobbies is to be gay. The reason for no-nut November for bodybuilders is probably almost entirely down to straight male bodybuilders being weird about straight female bodybuilders. (To be fair this is probably true with most hobbies under patriarchy.)
I can't stop thinking that DB Cooper landed on one of these things and that's why we never found him
And more than Mennonites, they would probably be Hutterites, the rarest of the anabaptists.
Thermopolis is the smelliest town I've ever been to, and that includes Greeley, Colorado. It smells crazy everywhere...
It's the sulfur from the hot springs that dumps into the river right in town, we would drive hours just to float the river. But Greely is compliments of JBS meat packing (I googled it because I remembered it always stank too from your comment) which was a SUPRISE. It's why the town I now live in NE reaks also. 😑
As a native Eastern Washingtonian, Wyman is right. Miner’s, Dick’s, and Gonzaga might be all that is worth saving. The rest is just agricultural extraction.
Don't forget Hanford.
Spokane goes up and the Japanese assume it's the balloons, but it's just the meth labs exploding
Amphetamines were invented in the Japanese empire, still counts.
As a resident of Spokane, I say let it burn
Aww those Japanese children sent something to the American children using balloons they made themselves.
As someone who lives in jersey the fact people were panicking over drones whilst being surrounded by airports was mind boggling
Wasn’t 90% of the drones just planes flying into Newark? I mean common now 😂😂
I'm just glad you guys know Wyoming exists hahaha
Hell yes. Would love to see more Pat Wyman collabs
1st; Helloooo doctor... 2nd; If joe thinks horses have freaky human teeth wait till he hears abt how pigs have such human teeth that archaeological digs send those to forensics just in case.
3rd: I had been sure Kaos was a doing an orphic take; was low key blah when twasnt
Not only was this a great way to start my day, but we need more of Patrick, the chemistry was awesome!!!!!
Marie, the Japanese are attackin’ ova hea. Stir the gravy or imma divine wind ya.
Oh hell yeah. Now you just need Dan Carlin and Mike Duncan to complete the holy trinity
mike duncan is the final gym leader of history podcast guests
This was such a good ep, the Wyman collab was worth the wait 😂
I for one welcome my new Japanese overlords and their universal healthcare
Guido Samurai is one small strip of ocean away from Netflix's Marco Polo
the antiCatholic sentiment would pose a problem for any grounded approach. But if one is not unwhimsical it can work as an issekai: i was a mafioso until i slept with the fishes only to wake up in feudal japan
The scream I scrumpt when I saw Wyman was gonna be on omfgggggg
Been psyched since Tom announced Wyman was coming on. Hopefully he's better than most of the guests on his show! I kid, I kid...sorta.
In the bit at around 49:30, I decided to interpret it as if you were talking about former Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler somehow finding himself in the middle of the Omaha Beach landing, throwing easily picked off hand grenades towards the Germans (wearing Packers uniforms)
Doing it all while rippin' cigs
Joe being fine with Gumby until he realizes his best buddy is a horse, “nah couldn’t be me” haha
I was honestly expecting the Failure to Launch guys
Just what I needed for the drive this morning