Speaker 1: Ye, welcome to the show ridiculous historians as well as
Speaker 1: fans of The Hunt for Red October, the Thrillers starring
Speaker 1: Sean Connery. What about dust Boot? Das Boot is more
Speaker 1: of a classic, I would say, and set a precedent
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, do you know? You don't? Directed das
Speaker 1: Boot Wolf Kan Peterson Pearson. That's our super producer, Casey Pegram.
Speaker 1: He's already on the case, but we haven't. How do
Speaker 1: we do that? Can we combine this Casey fairy sound
Speaker 1: effect with the don't well? I like the way that
Speaker 1: it just rolled in with the with the sound effect
Speaker 1: after you know what? Yeah? Who cares? May we double
Speaker 1: it up? Sure? I don't know, it's already happened. I'm ben,
Speaker 1: I'm null and yeah Wolf. Kane Peterson also directed um A,
Speaker 1: A Nightmare Fuel movie from mine and probably many other
Speaker 1: people's childhoods. The never ending story nightmare Fuel. Really it's
Speaker 1: an amazing it is, but as a kid it is
Speaker 1: a very dark, depressing film, like when the horse gets
Speaker 1: sucked into the swamp, and like those creepy sphinx that
Speaker 1: shoot lasers and have breasts. Those were cool, though I
Speaker 1: still think of what I'm trying to describe various rites
Speaker 1: of passage to people. I use the metaphor of those
Speaker 1: three gates that a tray who has to go through. No,
Speaker 1: it's true. I think it just it traumatized me a
Speaker 1: little bit as a child. And that's a sort of
Speaker 1: a bit of an internet trope where it's a screenshot
Speaker 1: of that scene where the horse is like sinking into
Speaker 1: the swamps of sadness, and it's sort of like, this
Speaker 1: is where it all started going south for me mental
Speaker 1: health wise. Speaking of fantastic segues, today's episode is not
Speaker 1: about the never ending story, but it is related to
Speaker 1: maritime adventures dust Boot, thus Boot the hunt for Red October,
Speaker 1: which to me, for nostalgic reasons, is probably closer to
Speaker 1: my heart. In a previous episode, we explored life on
Speaker 1: submarines because of that potato war. Yes, yes, very short
Speaker 1: lived potato war. Very a potato skirmish, yeah, And today's
Speaker 1: episode brings us to another tale of maritime mishaps. There
Speaker 1: we go, that's the way to say it. We are
Speaker 1: traveling back to April fourteenth, nineteen, and we are aboard
Speaker 1: one of the most advanced submarines at the time. A
Speaker 1: little thing called a U twelve oh six. Now, is
Speaker 1: not that? Not not the harp on dust Boot because
Speaker 1: obviously I like to say it, But isn't that what
Speaker 1: that movie was about. Wasn't it about the crew of
Speaker 1: a of a of a of a U boat? Yes? Yeah, cool, Um,
Speaker 1: that's right. Then today's episode is in fact about a
Speaker 1: sort of two point o version of one of these boats,
Speaker 1: because this was kind of the skirt urge of the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party, well, their scourge on the Allies. That was
Speaker 1: one of their most covert and successful ways of wreaking havoc.
Speaker 1: Isn't that right? Uh? That is correct. U boats were
Speaker 1: quite dangerous, and one of the reasons they were dangerous
Speaker 1: is because they were very difficult to detect and they
Speaker 1: were very nimble last yeah, fast, agile creatures. I believe
Speaker 1: the submarine in dos Boot is uh based on a
Speaker 1: U nineties six. All the U boats submarines were called
Speaker 1: boats at the time to all the U boats had
Speaker 1: that designation of you dash something And in the case
Speaker 1: of today's story, we're looking at you twelve o six.
Speaker 1: The U twelve oh six was premier vessel. I mean,
Speaker 1: this thing was a big deal. It went into service
Speaker 1: in March of nineteen four. It's emblem was a white
Speaker 1: store on a black shield with a green beak and legs.
Speaker 1: So let's get an idea of the size of this thing.
Speaker 1: It was two hundred and twenty ft seven inches long,
Speaker 1: or for the rest of the world outside of the US,
Speaker 1: that's sixty seven point to three meters. It was about
Speaker 1: thirty one ft or nine point six ms high, and
Speaker 1: it was able to, despite its size, disappear under the
Speaker 1: water pretty quickly. It could operate at depths of up
Speaker 1: to seven hundred and fifty ft or two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty meters. It also, in addition to its heightened functional capacities, right,
Speaker 1: it's a superior armament and so on, it had a
Speaker 1: couple of amenities which were pretty rare for submarines at
Speaker 1: the time. In particular, it had a very high tech toilet,
Speaker 1: a complicated toilet, very complicated. Let's backtrack just slightly. In
Speaker 1: previous model UM they they did have toilets, but they
Speaker 1: hadn't quite cracked the code yet on how to get
Speaker 1: these toilets to flush and expel the waist while the
Speaker 1: boat was submerged. While the sub was submerged, right, there
Speaker 1: was a problem with operating the previous models of the
Speaker 1: toilet at depth. This one, however, they figured it out.
Speaker 1: Those crafty German engineers figured it out. But as you said, Ben,
Speaker 1: it wasn't easy. In fact, it was so complicated. They
Speaker 1: had to designate a toilet specialist to be on board
Speaker 1: who could assist with the flushing of this latrine. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine that, Ben, having to call in the toilet
Speaker 1: specialist to flush down your your business. They had multiple specialists.
Speaker 1: In fact, yeah, they had multiple specialists because someone who
Speaker 1: was trained in the operation of this contraption had to
Speaker 1: be present to flush it. It had a complicated system
Speaker 1: of valves. That's essentially what it boils down to. You
Speaker 1: couldn't just hit a handle and then call it a day.
Speaker 1: This thing was complicated, um, But it was also poorly
Speaker 1: placed in terms of the interior of the submarine. It
Speaker 1: was directly over the batteries that powered the sub the
Speaker 1: power of the sub when it was submerged, because the
Speaker 1: engines had to be shut off at that right And
Speaker 1: I actually wasn't aware that battery technology was quite as
Speaker 1: advanced as it clearly was in this time. Um. They
Speaker 1: were banks of batteries that would supply an ordinate amount
Speaker 1: of electricity because can you imagine like how much you
Speaker 1: would need to keep a boat like that moving. That's right.
Speaker 1: These batteries provided five sixty killer lots of power for
Speaker 1: propulsion when there was when the sub was submerged. And
Speaker 1: you're right about killing the engines as well. Because diesel
Speaker 1: electric submarines had a had a larger signature when they
Speaker 1: were running underwater, it was allowed it was easier to detect,
Speaker 1: so ideally you want a quieter source of power. And Ben,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out we're getting a little
Speaker 1: bit of this information from a website with a delightful
Speaker 1: U r l. It is toilet dash Guru dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm also a fan of War is Boring dot com,
Speaker 1: very very good, and I've got a little spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: a surprise that I'm saving for the end I think
Speaker 1: you will appreciate. But for now, onward onward to this
Speaker 1: the very epitome of sub technology at the time. On
Speaker 1: April six, this fantastic submarine with it's very complicated toilet,
Speaker 1: the U twelve oh six leaves the ports city of
Speaker 1: Chris Johnson in Nazi occupied Norway, and it goes on
Speaker 1: its first combat patrol. It's mission, like that of many
Speaker 1: U boats, is to seek out and destroy British and
Speaker 1: US ships, so you can destroy like the like the Stooges,
Speaker 1: there's a search and destroy, same death. You know, you're
Speaker 1: looking for something and then you know. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: on patrol for about eight days. And I mentioned this
Speaker 1: too underline the fact that the U twelve O six
Speaker 1: was in the service of the Nazi war effort that
Speaker 1: only had three more weeks to go at best before
Speaker 1: it was the end of the game for them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think at this point Hitler was already hold up
Speaker 1: and what I had not heard the term for until
Speaker 1: just a little while ago, his furor bunker. That's true, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think on April thirty he commits suicide in
Speaker 1: that same fuel bunker. Um. Seven days after that, Germany
Speaker 1: completely surrenders and the war is over. But no one
Speaker 1: knew that on the U twelve O six at the time.
Speaker 1: They knew they were just out to find and obliterate
Speaker 1: any Allied ship they could they could get in their sight,
Speaker 1: so within range of their torpedoes. And so they're out
Speaker 1: on the open sea and it's fairly uneventful. How big
Speaker 1: was their crew again, it was around forty. So these
Speaker 1: thirty to forty crew members trapped in this tin can
Speaker 1: beneath the waves, um while they have their eyes peeled,
Speaker 1: they're not running into their they're not running into any action,
Speaker 1: any war. But they are doing the normal things that
Speaker 1: you do. They're eating, they're sleeping, and shifts. They're using
Speaker 1: that very very fancy toilet. Again, this is this is
Speaker 1: like the version of this is too sub toilets as
Speaker 1: the Japanese Toto bidays are too normal. I think we've
Speaker 1: talked about this re a our sponsorship by Tushi, but man,
Speaker 1: those things are high tech and incredible life changing. I know,
Speaker 1: listen to US America. You've got to stop pooping like barbarians.
Speaker 1: Seriously so so, but that's that's actually fairly accurate comparison
Speaker 1: because a lot of people were confused by this. And
Speaker 1: this is when we introduced Captain Carl Adolph Schlit to
Speaker 1: the story. He was twenty seven years old and in
Speaker 1: charge of the sub at the time. Yeah, it's true,
Speaker 1: and it was just it was it was in fact
Speaker 1: his first rodeo, and when it comes to going out
Speaker 1: on a sub, he was very new to the game,
Speaker 1: a little bit green. Uh, And if I'm not mistaken, Ben,
Speaker 1: where our story really starts to get interesting, um is
Speaker 1: about eight miles off of the coast of Scotland, at
Speaker 1: about two hundred feet below the surface of the ocean.
Speaker 1: That's when our man Schlit had to take a schlit
Speaker 1: Captain Schlit he okay, to keep the chain of command there. Yes,
Speaker 1: So he decided that he wasn't going to request the
Speaker 1: assistance of the toilet technician. Right, surely, I'm a captain
Speaker 1: of a submarine, the chief commotist. I can operate a toilet.
Speaker 1: I can do this. The toilet tinker was either not
Speaker 1: desired or not around, And so Schlitz said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm I am in charge of this, this entire sub
Speaker 1: I'm a captain. I know how everything works. And the
Speaker 1: instruction manual is right here by the toilet. Did we
Speaker 1: mention that it had a comprehensive instruction manual? I'm picturing
Speaker 1: a massive tone uh, spiral bound hanging from a chain
Speaker 1: on the wall. That's what I don't know. That's that's
Speaker 1: just how I'm looking at it, which is helpful from
Speaker 1: a design perspective when you think about it, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people like to read when they're using the restroom,
Speaker 1: so this is this is actually good engineering. But whatever,
Speaker 1: Maybe he was in a hurry because being captain he
Speaker 1: had other things to do. Maybe he just misread it.
Speaker 1: Maybe he wasn't as smart on the quick on the
Speaker 1: uptake as he thought he was, because something went wrong.
Speaker 1: And then he goes, you know, sch and so he says, okay,
Speaker 1: I know when I need to delegate. Where's the toilet specialist? Right?
Speaker 1: Where's the Yeah, so Schlitz asked that crew member to
Speaker 1: come help them out, and then that crew member takes
Speaker 1: a stab, and maybe because something was already messed up
Speaker 1: with the valves, they make the problem worse. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were not trying to throw this specialist under the
Speaker 1: bus here, you know. I'm sure he knew his craft,
Speaker 1: but I have a feeling that our boy Schlit kind
Speaker 1: of pre botched. The whole works right, right, And there's
Speaker 1: the toilet, there's the commode, probably still full of Schlitz.
Speaker 1: And now the specialist has to figure out not just
Speaker 1: how to operate the toilet correctly, but how to make
Speaker 1: up for Schlitz mishap. And so the specialist opens the
Speaker 1: outside valve of the commode, the one that goes directly
Speaker 1: to the sea, while the inside valve is still open,
Speaker 1: and this causes a deluge of seawater into the sub
Speaker 1: and also probably the rest of Schlitz leaving right, it's
Speaker 1: fun to say. And we talked about the bank of batteries.
Speaker 1: Did we talk about the design and where they were
Speaker 1: located or just the fact that the sub operated on them.
Speaker 1: The we did mention it did mention that the batteries
Speaker 1: are directly under the toilet, right, And it's problematic. It's
Speaker 1: tough to design this kind of stuff, you know, it's
Speaker 1: tough to to put all the needed gadgetry into a
Speaker 1: space with such a sharp, strong form constraint. Totally, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like they keep making the iPhone thinner and thinner,
Speaker 1: so they got to remove the headphone jack. Sure, just
Speaker 1: like that. I don't buy. I don't buy. They actually
Speaker 1: brought it back, but they made it a little thicker, right.
Speaker 1: Or it's it's like looking under the hood of a
Speaker 1: high end sports car because so much stuff is put
Speaker 1: in this weird tetris like arrangement. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what was happening in this sub I mean, clearly it's
Speaker 1: not a good idea to have the power source directly
Speaker 1: under something like the toilet. But then it's a question
Speaker 1: of where else are you going to put it? Right,
Speaker 1: you don't want it necessarily near the torpedoes. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it seemed like it probably seemed like a good
Speaker 1: idea the time, probably seemed very clever to those crafty
Speaker 1: German engineers. Right, So, Ben, is this the part where
Speaker 1: we want to get into a little chemistry. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It is so salt. The symbol for that
Speaker 1: in a c L right, water is H two O,
Speaker 1: and if you dissolve salt in water you get a
Speaker 1: solution of various ions. And H two on itself is
Speaker 1: not conductive, doesn't conduct anything, but an ionic solution certainly
Speaker 1: is conductive, and it certainly does conduct stuff. So when
Speaker 1: this water floods in through the valve system of this
Speaker 1: complicated toilet, the water and the salt in the sea
Speaker 1: water hit the sub battery, and the sub battery as
Speaker 1: a result of this chemical interaction, produces lie plus hydrogen
Speaker 1: gas plus most importantly, chloring gas because the sub battery
Speaker 1: is full of acid. So The problem chlorine gas is
Speaker 1: that it is a deadly, deadly poison. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: in a tube, a metal tube, under the water with
Speaker 1: their pants down. Well you presumably let's pantser up at
Speaker 1: this point. I like the idea of him still having
Speaker 1: his trousers around his ankles in a blind panic. That
Speaker 1: would be yeah, just kind of you know, scooting around
Speaker 1: doing the little penguin run. That's the one. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so we don't have pictures of it, of the scene
Speaker 1: at that pictures, mental pictures. We have imaginings, we have
Speaker 1: dreams of this, of this moment, but we do know
Speaker 1: what happens next. The submarine is filling with chlorine gas.
Speaker 1: This could be a death sentence if they don't do something.
Speaker 1: Do you think they clocked instantly what was happening on
Speaker 1: a chemical level or do you think they just started
Speaker 1: gagging and choking uncontrollably and new, oh, schlet something's gone wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely sure they knew, because they were very well
Speaker 1: aware of how the batteries worked. That's if the toilet
Speaker 1: was complicated, that's because it was new, But diesel electric
Speaker 1: battery power would have been familiar to them. So this
Speaker 1: is when our boy schlit has to kind of jump
Speaker 1: into action, and despite having sort of botched the whole
Speaker 1: thing to begin with, had to sort of exercise his
Speaker 1: thinking on his feet muscles, right, and the captain quickly
Speaker 1: realized that he had no choice but to order the
Speaker 1: submarine to surface because they had to vent this gas
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible and then replace it with breathable air.
Speaker 1: Mind you, they're doing this in enemy territory, off the
Speaker 1: coast of Scotland, about eight miles. Yeah, and so they
Speaker 1: surface within sight of the Scottish coastline. In one story
Speaker 1: you will hear that they surfaced almost directly beneath an
Speaker 1: Allied ship, but we do know for sure they surfaced
Speaker 1: so close to shore that they were quickly spotted by
Speaker 1: Allied aircraft. They were attacked and the captain to order
Speaker 1: the crew to abandon ship. UM three three members of
Speaker 1: the crew fell overboard and drowned, and I believe one
Speaker 1: died in the malay fighting that occurred. So we're right
Speaker 1: at forty crew members then, because thirty six survived. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is correct. So what happened? What happened during this attack?
Speaker 1: The U twelve or six was badly damaged and couldn't dive.
Speaker 1: And this is when Schlitz starts ordering the crew into lifeboats.
Speaker 1: And then he makes the game time decision that only
Speaker 1: a captain can make abandoned ship. Right, get on, get
Speaker 1: ye hands to a lifeboat. He's done that, But now
Speaker 1: he does the very last thing. He scuttles the ship.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't I don't think I
Speaker 1: know that term. It means to purposefully sink a ship
Speaker 1: of any sort. So in the rough definition, it means
Speaker 1: to cut a hole through the bottom deck or side
Speaker 1: of a ship. But you you know, you destroy it.
Speaker 1: That's what he did. He destroyed the submarine his own ship,
Speaker 1: and it went down, and as the ship sank, he
Speaker 1: got away. By the way as the ship sank. We
Speaker 1: can only imagine what he thought. Maybe he thought I
Speaker 1: should have just contacted the toiletsman when I was supposed
Speaker 1: to the headsman. Sure, that's that's that's something different. That's
Speaker 1: someone that's like an executioner. They can or like. But
Speaker 1: he also entered into history, the annals of history, as
Speaker 1: the captain of the only warship in the entirety of
Speaker 1: naval history to be doomed by its own malfunctioning toilets cool,
Speaker 1: he gets on his tombstone. I think they probably he
Speaker 1: probably wanted to go with something a little more prestigious,
Speaker 1: like loving father or husband or something. So presumably they
Speaker 1: were captured by the Allies, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thirty
Speaker 1: six members of the crew were rescued by small boats
Speaker 1: in the area. Uh. Some people made it to shore
Speaker 1: in their lifeboats, and then we're captured, but nobody really
Speaker 1: got away. So they would have ended up in like
Speaker 1: pow camps or something. Right, yeah, they would have ended
Speaker 1: up in pow camps, and they probably would have been well.
Speaker 1: They were certainly well aware of the severity of the
Speaker 1: situation on the Axis side. They knew getting towards the end.
Speaker 1: And speaking of the end, we are reaching the end
Speaker 1: of our story today, but we're reaching the beginning of
Speaker 1: something else. We just went off Mike for a second
Speaker 1: and realized that this episode is coming out on New
Speaker 1: Year's Day, So happy New Year's though. Happy New Year's
Speaker 1: to you, Ben, Happy new year to you, Casey, thank you,
Speaker 1: Happy New Year's to everyone, and to all a good night.
Speaker 1: No it's been it's been a hell of a good run.
Speaker 1: And uh we we didn't even don't think we even
Speaker 1: talked about this, but not too long ago. I remember
Speaker 1: the exact day we reached a solid year of doing
Speaker 1: this show. That's true. I don't think either of us
Speaker 1: realized it until we were well off air, and or
Speaker 1: we were well past the time, and then it was
Speaker 1: just too late. So if we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: New Year's business, I think we could recognize that fact
Speaker 1: and and just say how much we appreciate all the
Speaker 1: folks that tune in and seemed to dig the show,
Speaker 1: and then allow us to kind of keep doing it.
Speaker 1: I sure enjoy doing and hope we can keep doing
Speaker 1: it for many years to come. Agreed. You know, if
Speaker 1: I could turn back time, uh, the only thing I
Speaker 1: would change is a little bit more energy at the
Speaker 1: opening of this episode, because we totally forgot it's our
Speaker 1: first episode of twenty nine. That's true. It's okay, we
Speaker 1: saved it for the back end. There we go, There
Speaker 1: we go. It's a reward for everyone who's stuck around, right,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. We would like to hear.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, no, I forgot the surprise. I found a
Speaker 1: lovely list of wacky submarine terms. Because you'll remember in
Speaker 1: our Potato episode, we use some terms that I think
Speaker 1: we're a little bit off because neither of us, you know,
Speaker 1: have a history in the Navy, So there are so
Speaker 1: many terms that people have. There's burn, a flick, it
Speaker 1: just means watch a movie. There's bull George. By Navy tradition,
Speaker 1: the most junior incident is called George, and the most
Speaker 1: senior is called the Bull. And the submarine force, it
Speaker 1: takes so long for junior officers to get to the
Speaker 1: boat to six months. Schools attend weeks school at least
Speaker 1: two moves and a oh and a bunch of red tape.
Speaker 1: That most arrived as lieutenants junior grade. When you only
Speaker 1: have one incident, as many of them do, by tradition,
Speaker 1: he is both the Bull and the George, or the
Speaker 1: bull George. And things that don't work are called broke dick.
Speaker 1: Anything that doesn't work, that pump has been broke dick
Speaker 1: for a week, broke dick, broke dick. I like it.
Speaker 1: There there are a lot of vulgar terms on this thing,
Speaker 1: so we we learned even more strange slang phrases, many
Speaker 1: of which are not fit for air on this show.
Speaker 1: But we would like to hear some of your favorite
Speaker 1: military slang or naval slang phrases. Uh, anything that that
Speaker 1: made you laugh, anything that made no sense, or anything
Speaker 1: with a really compelling story behind it. Let us know.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We
Speaker 1: especially like to recommend you check out our Facebook community page,
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, where you can interact with your fellow listeners,
Speaker 1: many of whom have some fascinating stories to tell. Have
Speaker 1: you been checking out some of that tooth fairy stuff
Speaker 1: you love? The tooth fairy stuff that seemed to hit
Speaker 1: a nerve like in your tooth nervous nerve endings. I
Speaker 1: don't know, No, I thought I really enjoyed that episode
Speaker 1: a lot. I want to say, I really had a
Speaker 1: good time doing it. And And uh, when we listen back
Speaker 1: to these um sometimes it feels like a chore. And
Speaker 1: I actually found myself kind of enjoying that one. It's
Speaker 1: good to hear, man, It's good to hear what well. Oh,
Speaker 1: we want to thank our super producer, Casey Pegram. Sure,
Speaker 1: we do want to thank Alex Williams, who composed our track.
Speaker 1: We'd like to thank Gabe Losier, our wonderful research associate
Speaker 1: who hipped us to this topic. Uh, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank you. It's it's been a great year, Ben.
Speaker 1: I think you as well. It has been a great
Speaker 1: year and I look forward to many more on ridiculous history.
Speaker 1: See you next year, folks. M