"White Rabbit Project S01E03 "Crazy WW2 Weapons" Air Date:" "December 9, 2016" "Synced and corrected by:" "DeruGuy" "♪ [Intro music playing] ♪" "[speaking German]" "GRANT:" "From his rise to leadership in 1921 to his death by suicide in 1945, over 40 attempts were made on Adolf Hitler's life." "When it comes to the more eccentric proposals to terminate the Nazi madman... the British Secret Service surely takes the cake." "Gentlemen, we need a new approach." "None of the usual methods have worked." "Several would-be assassins have tried killing him with bullets." "At least two time bombs have been used." "And attempts have been made to poison his food." "On each occasion, his tasters paid the price." "His followers call him "Superman."" "He's no Superman, gentlemen, but he is a "super-male."" "He has the aggressive personality type, associated with an excess of testosterone." "THOMAS:" "What are you proposing?" "That we neutralize him with... estrogen." "The female sex hormone." "[laughing]" "Gentlemen!" "This is not a laughing matter." "This is based on serious science." "Are you kidding me?" "Is this for real?" "I know it's hard to believe, but it is totally true and it's our first contender for crazy World War II weapons." "Now, I imagine it gets crazy during war, but I don't think I'm ready to go down this rabbit hole." "GRANT:" "Yeah, it's going to get weird." "We're investigating six of the strangest weapons the Allies dreamed up during the war..." "MAN:" "Straight from Washington." "to find the most wacky." "Jolly good." "From an eccentric British bid to unlock Germany's D-Day defenses..." "The Great Panjandrum, sir." "to a bizarre attempt to give the French resistance a whiff of victory." "This place is contaminated." "Get out." "And a radical proposal for landing battle supplies without parachutes." "I love rockets." "We'll score and rank all six to see which will become our craziest weapon of World War II." "How are we gonna score the contenders?" "Let's go over the criteria." "Number one." "How long was the project live?" "Criteria number two." "How well did the project work?" "And criteria number three." "How crazy was it?" "Speaking of which, what happened to your plan to turn Herr Hitler into Her Hitler?" "All right, well, just let these Secret Service guys explain to you the details of the plan." "We already have agents in place to make this work." "This is one of our men here." "Secret Agent Benson." "He simply needs to add doses of estrogen to Hitler's food." "But won't his tasters pick it up?" "RUSSELL:" "No, estrogen is tasteless and the effects will be subtle and slow to act." "[speaking German]" "[speaking German]" "THOMAS:" "So, how long will this take?" "The time frame is elusive." "Perhaps within a month or two, his powers of empathy and compassion will increase." "[sneezes and sniffles] [in German] God bless you." "[in German] Pardon me." "Thank you, my führer." "RUSSELL:" "He may even experience maternal instincts." "Have you got a cold?" "I think so." "[Hitler grunts]" "Blow." "Blow." "Blow." "Again." "Again." "[blowing]" "HITLER:" "Good." "HITLER:" "Good." "After several months, we should see signs of Hitler becoming less aggressive." "When the older ones among us falter." "The youth will stiffen and remain until their bodies decay." "[speaking German]" "RUSSELL:" "The science is still in its infancy." "Eventually, we believe he may develop a greater connection to mankind." "TORY:" "No way." "This cannot be true." "Look, I knew you wouldn't believe me, I wouldn't either, so I contacted Brian Ford, the researcher that discovered the story when it was recently declassified." "The Americans put it rather well." "They said, "Take away his mustache and give him breasts."" "Really?" "You're kidding me?" "I'm being serious, this was actually considered." "The number of secret agents in Germany was quite high and it would certainly have been possible to have got something into his food." "So, like a chemical estrogen?" "Yes." "So, fill me in on the rest of the plan." "FORD:" "In the 1930s, it was believed chemicals in the body controlled everything." "So, it seemed fairly logical." "Give it to Hitler and he'll stop being an aggressive man and turn into a gentle and mild-mannered... woman." "And instead of going to war, he might turn his back on the whole idea." "It's entirely possible, even likely, that he will grow breasts." "Yes... [singing in German]" "All right, so we believe you that this is a secret plan, but no way this got off the ground." "Did it?" "Might as well hear it from the man himself." "Believe me, the whole idea from top to bottom was silly." "If it would have had any effect at all, it would have been to upset his hormone balance and that could have made him more angry, not less." "And, therefore, strengthen and carry on their shoulders the German State, the German Reich!" "[gags]" "GRANT:" "Among the possible side effects the führer might have suffered were nasty bouts of nausea [retches]" "as well as headaches, which wouldn't have lightened his dark side at all." "And then there were those other developments, which would hardly have improved the mood of the leader of the master race." "First one ball, now two breasts." "And finally, Hitler's famously testy nature would have been put under severe pressure as his manhood limped away." "[speaking German] [speaking German] Nein." "[speaking German] Nein." "KARI:" "Oh, he would have been so mad." "TORY:" "That is insane." "What are we gonna give this out of ten?" "A nein?" "[Grant and Kari chuckle]" "Seriously, we have to score this and rank all the contenders, so number one criteria is:" "How long did the project last?" "Never went live, so that gets a zero." "Criteria number two." "How well did it work?" "The fact they never did it, that gets a zero as well." "Criteria three." "How insane was it?" "This one is super insane." "Oh, yeah, ten out of ten." "They were doing some weird stuff all over." "TORY:" "Yeah, my first contender took place in America." "On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacks Pearl Harbor." "Two people declare war on Japan." "President Franklin Roosevelt..." "and Pennsylvania dentist..." "I'll make them pay." "Lytle S. Adams." "This part-time inventor plots to destroy Japan's major cities... with bats." "Bats?" "What the f--?" "Three things impress him about the free-tailed bat." "They weigh less than half an ounce but can carry around three times that weight." "And they roost in dark nooks and crannies." "Adams puts the three together and has an idea for a secret weapon." "Barely a month after Pearl Harbor, the daring dentist sends his plans to the White House." "Now, you might think Roosevelt dismisses the proposal as crazy and gets back to the pressing issue of waging global war, but you'd be wrong." "Because Adams is a friend of the first lady." "So, the president floats the idea with military advisors who, believe it or not, give the proposal the thumbs-up." "A presidential memo concurs." ""It sounds like a perfectly wild idea, but is worth looking into."" "Adams wins approval to build and test his weapon in cahoots with the US Air Force." "And in March 1943, he reveals the bat bomb." "He takes a bomb casing and inserts 1000 separate little compartments." "Inside each compartment, he places a hibernating free-tailed bat complete with incendiary device." "Adams' plot is to deploy ten B-52 bombers, each carrying 100 bomb casings, to release 1 million individual bat bombs over target cities... and release the rudely awakened bats, which Adams predicts will roost in buildings" "over a 40-mile radius." "When the incendiary bomb timers go off minutes later," "Pearl Harbor will be avenged." "But testing revealed that this weapon had a few wrinkles." "Like the time that the bats set fire to a US airbase in May of 1943." "They incinerated a test range, destroyed a hangar and burnt a general's car to a crisp." "Despite this setback, they continued secret trials up until the summer of 1944." "I mean, some top-ranking military officials actually believed that this bomb is gonna be what stops the war with Japan." "[imitates buzzer]" "Suddenly, out of the blue, the project is canceled." "Has the military finally come to their senses and realized this whole thing is completely nuts?" "Well, not really." "It's just that a very different bomb comes along." "[explosion]" "At the last minute, Adams' free-tailed bats are, well, free." "And the rest is history." "Bat bombs, really?" "How long were they working on this?" "TORY:" "Two and a half years." "Wait, did this even work?" "The experts felt this was gonna be a viable weapon, then a little thing called the atom bomb came along and they didn't use it." "Well, on the crazy scale, this one rates pretty high." "I don't think the bats liked it." "This was batshit crazy." "KARI:" "In our quest to rank the six maddest World War II weapons, my first contender is truly birdbrained." "World War II." "The battle for supremacy of the seas hangs in the balance." "In September 1943, the Nazis unleash Fritz X, the world's first precision-guided weapon." "Lift up your hearts, all will come right." "In this, the Allies' darkest hour, the American military counter with a guided missile of their own." "An anti-ship bomb, steered by..." "Pigeons?" "[cooing]" "Project Pigeon was the brainchild of one Burrhus Frederic Skinner." "Psychologist, animal behaviorist and visionary." "How did he do it?" "Here to help me figure it out, animal psychologist Dr. Aaron Blaisdell." "[imitates bird calls]" "Tell me, was Skinner completely crazy, or was he onto something?" "A little bit of both." "He was crazy in the sense that the idea was to put a pigeon into a missile so that it can guide it to a ship and blow it up." "KARI:" "Putting a pigeon in a bomb is definitely nuts, not to mention immoral." "But in theory, it might have worked." "SKINNER:" "One pigeon pecks the ball as it comes toward him and knocks it toward the other." "If it goes past one pigeon, the other pigeon can eat." "KARI:" "Skinner thought if you can train them to play a passing shot, you can train them to be bombardiers." "Okay, you ready for work?" "Now, this I have to see for myself." "Go get 'em." "Private Pigeon in basic training." "No pigeons will be harmed in the making of White Rabbit Project." "AARON:" "First, you have to familiarize the bird with the box, acclimate it, and we do that by putting it in the box, give it some food to eat, and they start associating the box with the food, so it's a nice place." "Then you train them to eat out of the food hopper, you light up a light in the hopper when you deliver food so they start associating that light with food." "Look, Mom, I'm training a pigeon." "Come on, peck it." "Then put a visual stimulus on the screen, followed by delivery of food." "Visual stimulus, food." "Visual stimulus, food." "[Kari chuckles]" "KARI:" "This got Skinner thinking." "AARON:" "Just do that a bunch of times... and they start associating the stimulus with the food and start pecking at the stimulus." "KARI:" "What if that visual stimulus was an actual enemy target?" "This pigeon's so smart." "The seeds of a bomb guidance system were planted." "Here's a rundown of Skinner's scheme." "In phase one, he trained his pigeons to recognize and peck at images of enemy warships." "Phase two, the pigeons underwent battle condition training, complete with turbulence, sudden changes in altitude, and sounds of warfare." "They proved unflappable." "Phase three, the bomb." "In most respects, it was a conventional glider weapon with two key differences." "A tail fin steering mechanism and a cockpit for a pigeon pilot in the nose cone." "Actually, three pigeons." "Insurance against individual pilot error." "Pressure-sensitive screens sent adjustments to the tail fin so as the pigeons pecked, they controlled the flight path... straight at the enemy warship." "Sadly, a successful strike would make it the first and last mission the pigeons ever carried out." "Incredible as it may sound, successful lab tests meant" "Skinner's proposal received an official sanction and a $350,000 contract in today's money." "Project Pigeon was a go!" "But would it really fly?" "I want to know how effective this crazy idea was." "So, I'm going to conduct my own Project Pigeon." "With Private Pigeon pre-primed to peck, here's the plan." "In place of a bomb, a drone." "In place of a warship, a target." "And in the cockpit," "Private Pigeon, with touch-sensitive screen to control the drone's flight path via wireless link." "If we hit the target," "Project Pigeon scores a bull's-eye." "Okay, we're ready for a run." "Hit the lights." "This is Project Pigeon." "In three, two, one." "Activate the drone." "Come on, birdie." "Get the target." "Come on." "The war depends on you." "Yeah." "Yeah, nice." "This is actually working." "Birdie, you're going off course." "He's doing it." "Come on, birdie." "Come on." "Home stretch, home stretch." "You got this, yeah." "Peck to the right." "As crazy as it sounds, it's a home run all the way." "So, how does it score against our three criteria?" "I can't believe this." "Awesome." "How long was the project live?" "Project Pigeon survived from mid-1943 to the fall of '44." "How well did it work?" "Mission accomplished!" "Wartime test results were surprisingly high, so nine out of ten." "And how crazy was it?" "Luckily for those pigeons, crazy enough to never see combat." "Eight out of ten." "There's three more contenders to come." "Catch that pigeon if you can." "Okay, so my contender is a machine so surreal, it's hard to believe it even made it off the drawing board, but for one brief moment during the Second World War, it was a real contender for liberating Nazi-occupied Europe." "Say hello to the Great Panjandrum." "In 1943, this bizarre Ferris-wheel-like device was being developed as a frontline weapon in the Allied strategy for invading Europe." "See, the Allies needed to land troops and equipment on the beaches of Normandy, which were heavily fortified with all sorts of defenses, including this... the Atlantic wall." "A huge concrete structure, seven feet thick, brimming with artillery." "Enough to bring an allied invasion to a grinding halt." "Enter the Great Panjandrum, brainchild of the British Army's Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development." "Hello, Brain." "[in British accent] Hello, sir." "How's it going?" "Very well, sir." "Good, and this big wheely thing of yours, you think it will give the nasty man with the little mustache" "a bit of a fright?" "Yes, sir, absolutely." "Oh, is it teatime already?" "Yes, that's my tea." "Mm." "Brilliant, carry on." "[in normal voice] Here's the plan." "Build two wooden wheels, about ten feet in diameter." "Pack the hollow central core with about 4,000 pounds of high explosives." "Rockets around the perimeter of the wheels propel the Panjandrum, and launch from a landing craft." "Up onto the beach, over all the obstacles, pushing forward towards the wall itself, where it explodes." "Troops pour through the hole, liberate Europe and bring the war to an end." "That was the concept at least." "The Great Panjandrum was a covert project." "So covert, in fact, that until recently, very few people knew of its existence." "One of those people is Brian Ford, science writer and expert on the crazy weapons of World War II." "So, Brian, this sounds absolutely nuts, but the British really took it seriously?" "It was designed and tested under conditions of amazing secrecy." "They put it on a train and they took it down to a place called Westward Ho." "Now, Westward Ho is a seaside resort and they tested it on the open beach, so thousands of people saw all of these supposedly top secret tests." "The not-so-secret testing gets underway in September 1943." "The Panjandrum actually makes it to the beach... before violently lurching off course," "almost killing an army cameraman." "Private Mills, man that camera." "We need the footage." "Brain?" "[in British accent] Yes, general." "Your enormous wheely thing..." "The Great Panjandrum, sir." "Yes, it seems to have fallen over." "Yes, the centrifugal forces have caused the rockets to shear off, creating massive instability and loss of steering, sir." "Bullocks." "More tea?" "Jolly good." "[Grant in normal voice] And so, with upper lip suitably stiffened, the Panjandrum team presses on, and the problems continue to mount." "Brian, I've gotta say, the rockets around the wheels look extremely unpredictable." "They were like fireworks so they didn't burn consistently and during these tests, the occasional rocket would simply become detached and fly off into the astonished crowd." "In desperation, they added a third wheel for stability." "But still no success." "Next, they added a steering system with steel cables which snapped and nearly decapitated one of the team." "Despite problems of stability, steering and speed," "Panjandrum testing pressed on into the winter." "It's January 1944, and with only six months before the invasion, they have one final chance to prove themselves in front of military officials." "It makes a promising start... and it succeeds brilliantly... [dog barking] in scaring a small dog." "Brain?" "[in British accent] Yes, general." "I'd like you to construct a new weapon." "Yes, general." "A catapult." "Yes, sir." "Then climb in it and launch yourself at that enormous Nazi concrete wall." "Understood?" "Yes, sir." "TORY:" "All right, the Panjandrum, the flaming wheel of death." "That is crazy." "How long was that live?" "Only about six months, but it's a lot longer than some of these crazy projects." "TORY:" "How well did it work?" "It was totally unstable, you couldn't steer it, and even if it did make it to the target, it would've left a hole in the sand rather than blowing up the wall." "I think we can agree on criteria three." "This one is awesomely ridiculous." "Totally ridiculous." "That being said, a wheel of rockets that goes out of control and explodes, that is something we'd build." "We've seen four contenders for craziest weapons of World War II." "Here's the fifth." "A hair-raising invention to air-drop battle supplies at terminal velocity without parachutes." "Keeping lines well supplied was critical for the Army chiefs of the Allies in World War II." "No replacement weapons or vehicles meant no victory over Hitler." "[singing in German]" "But parachute airdrops came with a few issues." "A high percentage never made it to their target." "First of all, if the wind shifts you get drift." "One." "Secondly, it's such a slow descent, it gives your enemy ample time to just shoot your cargo out of the sky." "So, the British came up with the idea that they would just strap rockets onto the cargo." "That way it drops at terminal velocity and, at the last minute, ignites the rockets giving it a nice soft landing." "Now, very little has been written about this project, code named Hajile." "But I did find this in the British Public Office archive." "It says, "Parachute for Hajile Rocket Decelerated Jeep."" "Proof that this was a bona fide World War II military program complete with details of how it was meant to work." "The plane was to drop cargo on a platform with rockets pointing upwards." "Below the platform hangs a long plumb bob connected to a firing mechanism." "When the plumb bob hits the ground, the retrorockets fire simultaneously." "They have enough thrust to counter the effect of gravity, and it lands as gently as a butterfly." "Or that was the theory." "This was the practice." "It is gold." "The project engineers had three key challenges:" "One, the firing mechanism." "The rockets fired a little too late." "Two, stability." "The cargo is toast." "And three... finding the correct thrust." "Let's have a look again." "[chuckles]" "That is awesome." "Even though Hajile seems to have been an epic fail, this was alive for two and a half years." "That is a long time to get to play with rockets." "Getting a bit jealous." "I think it's my turn." "Yep, I'm going to build my very own Hajile to find out just how crazy an idea this was." "One." "[chuckling] I love rockets." "To get started, I need to do some test drops using this toy jeep to figure out those three key areas." "Firing mechanism, thrust and stability." "First, thrust." "This is what I'm working with, they're just basic model rockets." "Each provides one pound of thrust." "According to my calculations, four should be enough to counter the falling jeep's weight." "The big unknown is what configuration of rockets will provide the best stability." "I'm not a rocket scientist, but with my experience just a little bit of instability..." "I think it's going to topple over the jeep." "So, I'm building two platforms." "One with a rocket in each corner... and another with all four grouped in the center." "[chuckles]" "Whichever makes the least mess of my fragile cargo," "I'll use on my full-scale rig." "Ohh." "Is this our plumb bob?" "Yes, it is." "Last but not least, the rocket firing mechanism." "We tried a plumb bob triggering device like the original..." "Hey!" "One." "But I want something more reliable." "So, I'm going to drop the Hajile on a line and fire the rockets at a known height." "It's kind of fail proof, so, it drops, pin pulls rockets are triggered, it's perfect." "With our cargo weighing two pounds and using four rocket motors" "I've calculated that we need 24 feet of height." "Now I can remote trigger, drop the cargo..." "In three." "ignite the rockets, and we should smoothly, gently land." "Two." "Theoretically." "One." "KARI:" "Ohh!" "Oh, no!" "That didn't work out exactly as I'd hoped." "The rockets didn't fire until after Hajile hit the deck." "So, after checking the high speed we clearly have a triggering timing issue." "But this trigger mechanism is easy to adjust, so, a quick reset and we'll go again." "In three, two, one." "[screams and laughs]" "Rockets, same problem as always." "Simultaneous ignition, very important for stability." "Only a couple of the rockets went off, so it took a huge, crazy tailspin before it smashed into the ground." "I gotta say I take great comfort in the fact that I'm experiencing all the same issues they had in the original Hajile project." "The timing and triggering of the rockets themselves." "And stability..." "I mean, all those things are crucial to success." "Clearly corner rockets are totally unstable." "Time to try out my centered configuration." "All right." "So, putting all the rockets right in the middle should give us a better chance of success." "Okay, this is centered rockets drop test." "In three, two, one." "It was better." "Not bad." "The high speed shows that the centered rockets did slow Hajile's fall." "And, while it eventually lost balance, that could be down to uneven distribution of the cargo's weight." "And that I can fix." "When we come back to the Hajile," "I'll be taking it full scale." "Into the desert." "In three..." "To see if this deranged contraption..." "Two... can rocket into our number one spot." "One." "TORY:" "My next contender comes from France." "A secret weapon specially designed for the French Resistance." "Paris, June 1943." "The once proud French nation is under Nazi occupation." "Only the brave fighters of the Resistance continue the struggle." "These fearless saboteurs are planning a daring strike to destroy the morale of Nazi occupiers." "With the help of a secret weapon invented by American intelligence." "Do you have it?" "Yes, I have it." "Straight from Washington." "Don't!" "For God's sake, that stuff is lethal." "Parfait." "I can't wait to use it on those Nazi bastards." "Good luck." "[in German] Our tank division is stronger than the ones from other countries." "We will win." "[in German] Very good." "Beautiful." "TORY:" "Using this weapon demanded immense courage." "It could only be activated at close quarters." "Was that you?" "No." "Disgusting." "Code name, "Who Me?"" "[speaking French]" "It was a revolting malodorant." "A stink bomb that smelt like the worst fart imaginable." "No!" "Oui." "Shit." "Unbelievable." "No!" "Who Me was designed to target Nazi officers... and cause confusion and panic in the ranks." "I know you're thinking this one sounds like it was dreamed up by a bunch of schoolboys." "There's no way this could be true." "But you'd be wrong." "The American Intelligence Agency actually created a stink bomb called the Who Me." "Like, "Who, me?" "I didn't fart."" "To see just how nasty it was," "I've called on a couple of unsuspecting guinea pigs." "I have a feeling this is not gonna be your average day at the range." "GRANT:" "Ah!" "TORY:" "Hey, you guys made it." "GRANT:" "Dude, what is this?" "It's a shooting range." "I can see that." "But..." "What is this?" "Oh, don't worry about him." "We have revolvers, we got some ammo and rifles," "I have some targets set up," "I just wanna see how well you can shoot." "I do like shooting guns so I will do my best to ignore the fact that there's a guy in a hazmat suit behind me." "These guys have no idea what they are in for." "You guys are sharpshooters." "In order to find out how powerful the stink bomb was..." "I'm having them do some target tests." "First without... then, later, with the stink." "But before that, back to the lab to meet the man behind the hazmat mask." "What are you guys all doing here still?" "This place is contaminated!" "Get out!" "Meet chemist Jesse." "My eyes are watering already and we haven't even opened up these jars." "Right, it stinks bad and we haven't even started yet." "TORY:" "Now, your typical chemical weapon is something that causes bodily harm." "This is just an attack on your senses." "TAYLOR:" "Right." "Instead of killing the enemy, this is to deny them terrain or territory." "Can I open it?" "Yeah, go ahead and put the jar down" "on the table and then take the cap off." "Gotcha." "That way I don't drop it." "And the second purpose is to cause a psychological effect." "[groans]" "Disorientation... and even panic." "[groans and gags]" "Oh, that's potent." "So, what have you brought here that they used for that weapon?" "TAYLOR:" "Well, in the stink bomb, number one, the most universal aversion to a bad odor, fecal material, like the chemical 3-methylindole." "TORY:" "So, like, poop." "[gags]" "[Taylor] Another smell, we keep going back to nature for this, is the skunk smell." "Oh, that is foul!" "TAYLOR:" "Octyl mercaptan or 1-octanethiol." "Are you guys smelling this?" "TORY:" "Like some kind of perverse reverse perfumer," "Jesse goes to work blending the ingredients of the original World War II stink bomb." "[blows raspberry]" "Question is, will the Who Me..." "Good grouping." "panic Kari and Grant enough to spoil their aim?" "Well, that was our control test." "You guys ready for the experiment?" "What hell do you have in store for us?" "Jessie and I have been experimenting with making stink bombs." "A little ammonia sulphite and butyl mercaptan." "Wait, mercaptans, isn't that the constituents in a fart that make it stink?" "You got it." "[Kari] No." "I made you guys little fart bombs." "It's gonna be a gun farty party." "Well, at least I'm suffering with you guys." "Doesn't that make you feel a little better?" "[gags] [coughs]" "Oh, my God, I can smell it already." "GRANT:" "What's wrong with you?" "My God." "Oh, my God." "We're gonna start with pistols." "[coughing]" "[Tory gags]" "TORY:" "When I started researching, this story seemed nuts." "[gags]" "It sounded too far-fetched to be true." "TORY:" "Okay, let's move on to rifles." "[all groaning]" "How good is that?" "[gags]" "I gotta get out of here." "Don't give up, Kari." "Don't leave your position." "Now, I can see only too well... what those Second World War scientists were driving at." "Oh, God." "Can we get out of here?" "Can we stop this nonsense?" "TORY:" "Did you enjoy that?" "Well, was that fun or what?" "[chuckles]" "Not my favorite day at the range." "TORY:" "Look at the results, it's really interesting." "Pre-stink, lots of hits." "Now, this is after being exposed to the stink bomb." "[laughs]" "TORY:" "What happened?" "Did you only have one bullet?" "My eyes were watering, I could barely see the target." "TORY:" "Don't give up, Kari!" "[gags] -[both laugh]" "And while I got great results without the stink..." "Who Me made me lose my cool and miss my mark." "[Grant laughs] -[Kari] Ohh!" "TORY:" "Just kind of spread out my pattern." "So, let's see how it scores against our criteria." "How long was the project live?" "Disappointingly, only two weeks." "How effective was it?" "My test suggests it could have caused some serious enemy disruption." "How crazy was it?" "Well, stink bombs are actually being researched by the US military today." "So, it only scores three on the crazy scale." "KARI:" "No lineup for craziest weapon of World War II would be complete without the Hajile." "A bonkers British plan to air drop battle supplies using a retro rocket platform." "What could possibly go wrong?" "One." "I've done my tests." "Now, I'm going full size, for real." "The first thing I need to do is build a platform." "It's gonna be 8-by-8 and extremely sturdy." "It also has to be very, very precise, because we realize that stability is an issue and the rockets have to be perfectly centered right in the middle." "All right, so, here are our rockets." "Basically, we have an electric match that's threaded through a forward closure." "Then we have our fuel grain, which is cut into two pieces to give us a consistent thrust curve." "Then we have our nozzle." "This is the pressure release because if you didn't have a nozzle, this would basically be a pipe bomb." "Now, we have a rocket, which has 40 pounds of thrust." "We are going to create a bank of 30, giving us 1,200 pounds of thrust." "And that is what's going to bring our Hajile box slowly down to the ground... in a gentle landing." "Hopefully." "We are going to war with gravity." "And with 1,200 pounds of rocket power in our arsenal." "I came out to one of my favorite locations, the Mojave Desert." "It's my favorite because you can do crazy stuff out here." "We've got our Hajile platform." "Complete with 30 retro rockets." "Now for the cargo." "Giant fireworks to represent wartime munitions." "They're filled with black powder." "If we fail, they're primed to explode." "All the films were black and white back then, so you may not have realized how colorful World War II actually was." "So, here's the setup." "We have our mock crate filled with all of our cargo which is going to be lifted 150 feet into the air." "It's attached to a quick release." "When I hit the button, quick release is going to drop the cargo, we hit just the right height, a lanyard's gonna pull triggering our rockets and decelerating our cargo gently to the ground." "Let's get our Hajile on." "This is my favorite part right here." "Either everything's gonna go perfect or the whole thing's gonna blow up." "I love my job." "Here we go in three... two..." "one." "Ohh." "Whoa!" "Disaster." "Our triggering system malfunctioned." "And the rockets didn't fire before impact." "With the light fading fast, it's all hands on deck to rig and reset for one more try." "It's D-Day for Hajile." "Now or never." "Dropping in three, two, one." "Go!" "Yes!" "Yes!" "It's working!" "Ohh!" "[laughs]" "Okay, so the rockets triggered and it decelerated for a second... but the rockets went off a little too early." "But it did what it was supposed to do, it decelerated." "It actually floated in the air for just a moment." "And I thought we were in the clear... but then the burn time ended... and the cargo came crashing to the ground and set off all of our munitions." "You know what's cool?" "We had a similar problem to the original World War II Hajile Project which is getting the rockets to trigger at the exact right time." "Which is probably why they abandoned the project." "So, how does it score?" "The project was live for an impressive two years and seven months, but ultimately it was a total fail." "So, one out of ten for how well it worked." "But how crazy was it?" "It seems nuts... but it turns out that Hajile's retro rocket system was later adopted and perfected by NASA to safely deliver Curiosity to the surface of Mars." "So, not as crazy as you may have thought." "TORY:" "That's impressive." "Let's look at all the contenders, average them, and see which one goes to the top." "[in German] The German Empire." "KARI:" "We've survived a barrage of bizarre weapons." "[groans]" "Now, let's see which one's the bomb by scoring them with our three criteria." "How long was the project live?" "How successful was it?" "And how crazy was it?" "At number six, the "Who Me?"" "The project was live for just two weeks." "How crazy was it?" "Military stink bombs are in development, so, last place with three out of ten." "Fifth overall, Her Hitler." "[speaking German]" "This nut job won first place for craziness, but the plan never got off the drawing board." "In fourth place, the Hajile." "It looked pretty nuts... but it pioneered retro rocket landers, so, it ranked low on the crazy scale." "Number three..." "The Great Panjandrum." "This wheel of death was a total flop..." "[Grant in British accent] The centrifugal forces have caused the rockets to shear off, sir." "Number two, the Bat Bomb." "Bats?" "The project was live for two and a half years, and, in tests, proved incredibly successful." "But our craziest weapon of World War II is..." "Pigeon Project." "It was live for well over a year, worked best of all the contenders, and yet, stayed respectably nuts." "As crazy as one and two were, they actually worked." "When you think about it, at this point in World War II, the Allies backs were against the wall." "They were willing to entertain any idea, no matter how crazy." "Just goes to show you, desperate times call for desperate measures." "Apparently really desperate." "♪ [Ending music playing] ♪"