Episode 42: Unraveling History: From Pudding to Phantom Soldiers
Nov 27, 2023Episode 42
Marty Smarticus
Who would've thought a dessert with a name like "spotted dick" and inflatable tanks would have anything in common? Well, we at Smarticus Tells History promise to take you on a wild ride exploring the uncanny connections between these two seemingly unrelated topics. Today, co-host Phoenix and I uncover the intriguing and lesser-known stories behind the inflatable tanks or 'spoofs' used by the British Army during World War II, and the traditional British pudding, spotted dick. We've had quite the adventure creating and tasting this classic dessert, and we can't wait to share our experience (and the recipe) with you!
But the fun doesn't stop there. Ready for a ghost story like no other? We reveal the undisclosed tales of the Ghost Army, a special unit during WWII that specialized in the art of deception. Led by the ingenious Colonel Harry L Reeder, this team of artists, engineers, and audio experts successfully used inflatable tanks and planes to confuse the enemy, shaping crucial events such as the D-Day invasion and the Battle of Arnhem. Their legacy lives on, influencing even our popular culture. So buckle up, history enthusiasts! This episode of Smarticus Tells History is filled with laughs, learning, and a dash of culinary fun.
Who would've thought a dessert with a name like "spotted dick" and inflatable tanks would have anything in common? Well, we at Smarticus Tells History promise to take you on a wild ride exploring the uncanny connections between these two seemingly unrelated topics. Today, co-host Phoenix and I uncover the intriguing and lesser-known stories behind the inflatable tanks or 'spoofs' used by the British Army during World War II, and the traditional British pudding, spotted dick. We've had quite the adventure creating and tasting this classic dessert, and we can't wait to share our experience (and the recipe) with you!
But the fun doesn't stop there. Ready for a ghost story like no other? We reveal the undisclosed tales of the Ghost Army, a special unit during WWII that specialized in the art of deception. Led by the ingenious Colonel Harry L Reeder, this team of artists, engineers, and audio experts successfully used inflatable tanks and planes to confuse the enemy, shaping crucial events such as the D-Day invasion and the Battle of Arnhem. Their legacy lives on, influencing even our popular culture. So buckle up, history enthusiasts! This episode of Smarticus Tells History is filled with laughs, learning, and a dash of culinary fun.
History. Alright, enough with the Echo and Fanfare. You're here for history, right, and not that boring crack you learned in high school. This stuff's actually interesting, like things you've never heard about the Civil War, cleopatra, automobiles, monopoly, the Black Plague and more Fascinating stories, interesting topics and some downright weird facts from the past. It's a new twist on some stories you may know and an interesting look at some things you may have never heard. So grab a beer, kick back and enjoy. Here's your host, smarticus.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Smarticus Tells History. I am your host, smarticus, accompanies by my co-host, phoenix. Hello, today we're going to talk about something that not only sounds funny but is also really impressive in its deception. Phoenix, do you like bounty castles?
Speaker 3:
You bet I do.
Speaker 2:
All right, then you'll probably get a kick out of the inflatable tanks that the British used during World War II.
Speaker 3:
Oh yes, the dummy tanks or, as the British armed forces called them, spoofs. But let's talk about food.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we got food to go here first, so we were already joking about this. It's our food, because we already did a British food item. It was a breakfast item, but this time we decided to do a dessert and Wow, it's like welding my mouth shut. Yeah, we chose to do spotted dick.
Speaker 3:
Yes and the jokes we have made the whole time about it. You, yeah, they are endless.
Speaker 2:
We did. We made several jokes about it, because it is it's funny.
Speaker 3:
Oh my gosh, I can really taste the lemon zest in mine, can you?
Speaker 2:
I don't even try to, yet Let me take a bite out of it.
Speaker 3:
I don't know if it's supposed to taste like this or not, because this is my first time making it. I'm making it, but also I had to use gluten-free flour when, but I also looked at a gluten-free version of spotted dick and it was pretty much the same thing. That aside, it's very dense.
Speaker 2:
It's not as fluffy as I thought it would be, so yeah, so, despite its rather unfortunate name, spotted dick is a tasty and subtly sweet-steamed British dessert. Mm-hmm, your whole family can enjoy spotted dick.
Speaker 1:
Spotted dick, sir. What Spotted dick. He believes this kind of trying to get something to use. Ask me if I got the clap.
Speaker 2:
The name comes from the ingredients Traditionally dried currants. There's no dick in this, just to be clear. Oh, spotted dick, oh no, I think I'll pass. I'm not really a dessert man. Dryed currants which create the characteristic spots in an old English name of pudding puddick or puddick probably. Of course, in the US pudding typically refers to a thick, custard-like sweet dessert, but in the UK puddings are boiled or steamed desserts made with flour. The latter is what to expect from preparing spotted dick.
Speaker 3:
Oh my god, I am not mature enough for this conversation.
Speaker 2:
Even while we were talking, I said like I saw it and I was like I'm a child. I think we should probably should go ahead and just do this one.
Speaker 3:
I know we could have done almost anything for this whole situation.
Speaker 2:
You really could have.
Speaker 3:
But we had to do spotted dick to go with our spoofs.
Speaker 2:
Yep, yep, I mean, yeah, I don't know, we could have done tips or French fries for us, I guess, or whatever that would have been boring.
Speaker 3:
It's actually Belgium, by the way.
Speaker 2:
Oh, okay, see, that wouldn't have been right. Just go to show how much I know. But yeah, so we did spotted dick. It's really easy to make for the most part.
Speaker 3:
If you've got a big pot, right, if you've got a big pot to have the steam bath, basically for your container to make the spotted dick, it's a much easier situation.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you had to put a little pot inside of a big pot or a little bowl or a mold. I actually went out and bought a mold this morning actually to make this and I just used a, a bunt mold, the cake, you know just, I guess just a regular upside down cake mold, whatever you want to call it, I had a metal mixing bowl. Yeah, I don't have any of that, so that's all my all my bowls are plastic and they would have melted.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that wouldn't be bad.
Speaker 2:
Although my mixing bowls, I mean like I could use a regular bowl, I guess, and a regular, you know, cereal bowl or whatever, and put it in there. It probably would have been fine.
Speaker 3:
But yeah, the recipe did say if it was, if it was acceptable to for it to be heated, it'd be fine.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. So I went ahead and I bought a four inch bunt cake pan, and I bought a 10 inch one too, actually, but the four inch one worked just fine for this recipe. But it's really simple. You probably already have most of the stuff there at home.
Speaker 3:
I did, unless you're like me and you don't cook with vegetable shortening.
Speaker 2:
Right, If you do a lot of baking you probably already have it, the shortening and whatnot or you know whatever. But it called for a tail. I didn't even use butter Me either. I just sprayed the cake pan. But it says a tablespoon of butter to for greasing the pan. Salter, unsalted is totally fine. One and three quarter cup of all purpose flour you can use. I'm sure you can use pretty much whatever flour you want. Two and a half teaspoons of baking powder. Well, like you, you used.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I used King Arthur's gluten free all purpose flour.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I just used great value. One more brand all purpose flour. So two and a half teaspoons of baking powder, half a cup, plus two tablespoons of the vegetable shortening or suet. So the recipe called for vegetable shortening. So that's what I used Crisco vegetable shortening. Ditto. Three tablespoons of brown sugar lightly packed. It did not say light or dark. I used light. Did you use?
Speaker 3:
I think I used light as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I did both. I just I bought light. I bought light yesterday so I wouldn't have not just used it, but I did have dark brown sugar also. One cup of currants or raisins. Zest of one lemon, so I only had like the tiniest amount of zest came off my lemon.
Speaker 2:
I was very disappointed and I had to like scrape it off the side of the grater to get it to come off on the inside where it wasn't going to cut me. And I did no cuts this time. I was extra careful when I was using it so I had very little to actually put in there, but I put it in there and then and then two thirds cup of a whole milk, of a whole milk, two thirds cup whole milk, and then I did not do this part. I totally forgot about it even after we talked about it was the last night. This is usually served with a custard, I guess, like regular, you know American pudding. I guess we call it you guys. I guess you guys is putting is stuff like this, but a kind of custard, and it has ingredients to make your own little custard type. It's optional. This is one and a half cup heavy cream, six egg yolks, two tablespoons granulated sugar and a pinch of salt.
Speaker 3:
Yep, you have to warm that up slowly, otherwise you curdle the eggs. I did not do the custard either, because I custard to me is not worth it, something to make, because you're using just the yolks and the rest of the white you just posted. I guess save or use in something else. But I don't want to. I want. I want the yolk in the rest of the whites to. It's just not worth it. To me it's like losing half of my delicious ingredient. No, thank you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I told you the other day While we were looking at this, I was just going to get me a snack pack of vanilla pudding or chocolate pudding to go with it, and then I told you I forgot to do that too. So I failed on the second part of this completely.
Speaker 3:
But he wasn't prepared.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it even says it's optional. So Yep, but this is a very British cuisine dessert.
Speaker 3:
It's a dessert.
Speaker 2:
And, if you're interested, apparently there are 453 calories per serving. I don't think you're going to care. Yeah, I just happened to scroll down some more and I read that that's what it said. So Gotcha.
Speaker 2:
It has all of it has 55 grams of carbs. You know, whatever your print, you guys probably don't care. I mean I don't and I mean it anyways. I'm actually trying to lose some weight, so, but for this I'll make exceptions. Um, all right. So Natalie talked about I spotted dick. I just spotted dick. Now we get to go talk about inflatable toys Military grade Military grade inflatable toys. So World War II is a time of great innovation and ingenuity. In spite of nations around the globe trying to gain an edge on the battlefield, in 1940, after the fall of France, britain was left standing alone against the might of Nazi Germany. The British military faced an enormous challenge to protect their island nation from the looming threat of invasion. The British forces were outnumbered and outgunned, and they knew that they needed to come up with a creative solution to fend off the enemy.
Speaker 3:
So the Brits got clever. The 23rd headquarters special troops, better known as the Ghost Army, gathered artists, career military officers and audio experts in one special unit dedicated to deception, the first mobile multimedia tactical deception unit in US Army history. According to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, the Ghost Army developed a simple enough idea to deceive the enemy and make them believe that there were more troops and equipment on the ground than there actually was.
Speaker 2:
Led by Colonel Harry L Reeder, the Ghost Army comprised of 82 Army officers and 1,023 recruits. These recruits were art students from the Industrial Camouflage Program who knew there was even such a thing, and the Pratt Institute in New York. There is also fashion designer Bill Blass, photographer, art cane and painter Ellsworth Kelly.
Speaker 3:
The Ghost Army faced their first daunting task. They had to create a product that was lightweight, durable and realistic. They experimented with various materials, including rubber, canvas and plastic. What they ended up settling on was a wooden sometimes metal skeleton overlaid with inflatable tubes, covered in rubberized canvas colored to look roughly like a real tank from a distance. They were designed to be foldable and thus easily portable. Eventually, they were placed over jeeps for easier and faster arrangement. Wow, that's pretty clever, right? If you ever get the chance to go and look at the pictures from I think it was the World War Two Museum in New Orleans, look at the pictures that they have online. They're really cool because they get up close and then they show you from a distance what it looks like. It's wild.
Speaker 2:
Huh, there's a game called Ace Combat.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
The one that I'm thinking was Ace Combat 7. And they had this in there.
Speaker 3:
Did they really?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
That's cool yeah.
Speaker 2:
The signal company concocted fake radio traffic that mimicked the Morse code sending style called FIST. That was specifically to army units. Larry DeCure's, a curator at the World War Two Museum, is quoted as saying to the trained ear that telegraphic FIST is almost like a fingerprint. In addition to this, the audio engineers pre-recorded military training and construction sound, which was labeled sonic deception. These recordings were played on speakers close enough to German troops so that they were convinced that entire units occupied locations that were actually undefended.
Speaker 3:
The first spoofs were used. In 1942, during the North African campaign, the British military deployed 2000 of the inflatable tanks in the region to see how well their dummy tanks could deceive the enemy. Their biggest hope was that the Nazis would believe that there were more allied troops and equipment on the ground than there actually were. The tactic worked. The German forces were confused and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of equipment and they were forced to retreat.
Speaker 2:
The success of the inflatable tanks in North Africa led to further use in other theaters. War, including the D-Day invasion of Normandy, called Operation Fortitude. The British and American forces deployed a large number of spoofs in the weeks leading up to the invasion in an effort to deceive the Germans in two ways, the first being the size of the units deployed, while the second was to hide and downplay the importance of the actual invasion location.
Speaker 3:
The ghost army went to Padukale, france, well in the line of sight of the German forces, while the actual forces were set to invade Normandy. This was a small part of the whole deception, because at that point in the war the Nazis weren't able to fly reconnaissance planes over England. Dummy landing craft was also stationed in ports of Eastern and Southeastern England where the Germans could see. Of course, operation Fortitude was mostly carried on the backs of double agents in false radio traffic.
Speaker 2:
The British military continued to use inflatable tanks and planes throughout the war, refining and improving the designs over time. One of the most successful uses of this tactic was during the Battle of Arnhem in 1944. The British military deployed a number of inflatable tanks and other equipment to deceive the Germans about the location and strength of their troops. Again, the Germans were cut off guard. However, the success was short-lived, as the Germans soon realized the tanks were not real and adjusted their strategy accordingly.
Speaker 3:
Operation Wirsten was one of the most successful the Ghost Army had during the war. From March 18th to the 25th in 1945, 600 spoofs were deployed, with even more soldiers and engineers in fake uniforms to impersonate actual units. They had the special recordings to fool the Germans into thinking construction was going on by the 30th and the 79th divisions who were preparing to cross the Rhine River. And it worked. The Nazis moved the bulk of their forces to the other side of the Rhine and shelled an army that didn't exist.
Speaker 2:
By creating the illusion of a larger army, the Allied forces were able to confuse and deceive the enemy again and again, helping to achieve strategic objectives and save lives After the war and outside of their military uses, which has not been left behind in history. Newer inflatable tanks and planes also have made an impact on popular culture. They have been used in a number of films and television shows, becoming an iconic symbol of ingenuity and resourcefulness.
Speaker 3:
So, in conclusion, the British military got clever and managed to bring artists and engineers together to help during World War II, with a pure intention of deception. While they had their limitations, these big inflatable vehicles played many important roles in saving lives, while applying every magician's secret weapon misdirection.
Speaker 2:
We hope you've enjoyed learning about this fascinating aspect of history. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Smarticus Tells History. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back with more stories from the past. Until then, keep exploring.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to Smarticus Tells History. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review, and make sure to subscribe and be sure to follow the show at facebookcom slash Smarticus Tells History or just click the link in the show description. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.