Professor Walter's History Lessons

Is it live, or is it Tupolev?

During WWII the United States utilized the Boeing B-29 Superfortress as its "go to" bombing vehicle. The massive plane had an impressive range and performed admirably, even carrying the only nuclear bombs ever used in a war theater. The Soviet Union had no plane that could match it and lobbied for them under the Lend-Lease Act. The Soviet Union saw how the large planes could fly from remote bases, bomb The Empire of Japan, and return. Stalin wanted the same abilities to level the playing field. The U.S., however, wasn't particularly keen on the notion of giving away the technology.

Thus the Soviets were quick to take advantage when three B-29s were forced to make emergency landings in the USSR after bombing runs over Japan. The Japanese-Soviet Nonaggression Pact prevented the USSR from returning the planes to the United States, so Stalin ordered Tupolev, one of the nation's large airplane designers, to duplicate the B-29 exactly. Those direct orders would lead to seemingly endless problems for Tupolev.

They immediatly encountered an issue with the skin of the plane, which was in US measurments. Soviet manufacturers only used Metric. Committee after committee reviewed the necessary changes and Tupelov lobbied high ranking military figures for approval. The same effort would be repeated many times over. The engineers even had to obtain approval to use Soviet parachutes rather than American versions.

At the Aviation Day Parade on August 2, 1947 at Tushino Airport in Moscow, the new Tu-4 made its first public appearance. Initially thought to be the captured B-29s, it became clear that they were Soviet made when a fourth flew overhead.

In all, 847 Tu-4s were built before production ended in 1952. The planes were phased out of service in the 1960s. Three are known to still exist.

-Professor Walter

Shhhh, it's a secret

Intelligence experts in the United States are trusted with this nation's secrets. Within the hidden walls they perform their work, but upon emerging from their lairs they cannot speak of what they have done or even what classification level they have been working on. In order to talk "freely" a not-so-secret cover term has been used informally when these operatives where in public. Instead of saying, "I can't talk about that here it's Top Secret Umbra" or something similar they would say, "I can't talk about that here it's Secret Squirrel".

-Professor Walter

Excuse me Sir, do you have anything to declare?

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 touched down on the surface of the Moon, realizing the dreams of millions throughout the ages. On that historic mission Neil Alden Armstrong, Micheal Collins, and Edwin "Buzz" E. Aldrin Jr. made history. During the short stay on the celestial body they collected rocks and dust samples which they brought back to Earth. On July 24, 1969, they splashed down in the Pacific with their cargo where they were promptly picked up by the USS Hornet and brought to Hawaii.

As with any international traveler they went through customs. It was a little joke at the time, but the three spacemen had to fill out the appropriate paperwork to re-enter the country listing Cape Kennedy as their departure point with a stopover on the Moon and finally to Honolulu. Their collected cargo was documented as well.

This exercise, to the best of my knowledge, was not repeated for subsequent missions. I suppose the customs office may have had a problem with the fact that the astronauts were unable to find an official on the Moon to get their passports stamped.

-Professor Walter

But... but... it was just a socket wrench!

Evening had just begun on a quiet day at the close of summer, but excitement was already brewing. On September 18, 1980, at the Little Rock, Arkansas Air Force Base, a small fuel leak was detected on a Titan missile. Local law enforcement officials alerted the residents and closed neighboring roads.

Despite containing a W-53 ten megaton nuclear warhead, the leak might have been repaired without note, and the incident would have resulted in nothing more than an inconvenience to locals and officials.  If not, that is, for a three pound socket wrench. In the course of repairs, a technician dropped the wrench, puncturing the thin metal shell of the missile's fuel tank. The fuel was unsymmetricaldimethylhydrazine, which is hypergolic, meaning that contact between the two contained chemicals would create instant ignition. The silo and the surrounding area were evacuated, up to distances of ten miles away.

It's arguable whether anyone should carry full blame for the results from a single incidence of clumsiness, but ultimately the buttery-fingers of a repair technician had devastating effects. At 0300 hours there was a massive explosion. The 740 ton closure door was thrown from the silo as the second stage of the missile was ejected, exploding shortly thereafter, injuring 21 people and killing one. The land surrounding the silo was littered with concrete and metal debris. The W-53 landed about a hundred feet from the blast site, but thankfully its safety features prevented detonation. Cleanup operations gathered tons of debris from 400 acres and removed 100,000 gallons of contaminated water from the silo. Total cleanup and replacement costs were estimated to be over $20,000,000; not including the price of a new socket wrench.

-Professor Walter

A genius on the battlefield tells stories powered by tickles

General Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest generals in the Civil War, and arguably in the history of the United States. There are vast tales of his prowess on the battlefield guiding his soldiers in victorious battles and defeats. Yet many do not know of him as a loving father. Before the war, he would hop into his childrens' bed to read them stories with one rule: one of them must tickle his feet while he read to them. If a child became tired and stopped, Lee would announce, "No tickling, no story." Then another child would take over and the story would continue.

-Professor Walter

Be careful what you say, someone may be listening...

1946 was a time of rebuilding across the world as WWII reached it's conclusion.  The allies had won, and the axis powers were defeated.  Hitler and Mussolini were dead, Japan had agreed to unconditional surrender.  The Cold War was just beginning. 

In 1946 a group of Soviet school children gave a beautiful carved replica of the Great Seal of The United States to Ambassador Averell Harriman.  The Ambassador hung the seal in the Ambassador's residence, Spaso House in Moscow, prominently on the wall.  In 1952 a routine security check turned up something strange about the seal.

Within the seal was a small compartment, and inside the compartment was an advanced passive repeater.  The repeater would activate when 330 MHz radio waves were received from an external transmitter.  This meant that the Soviets could hear anything inside the office, and that no power supply was necessary on the device itself.  As such, when the device was dormant, it was virtually undetectable.  George Kennan, the ambassador at the time, spoke of the discovery in his memoirs.

'Quivering with excitement, the technician extracted from the shattered depths of the seal a small device, not much larger than a pencil . . . capable of being activated by some sort of electronic ray from outside the building. When not activated, it was almost impossible to prevent. . . . It represented, for that day, a fantastically advanced bit of applied electronics.'

While simple by today's standards, the device was quite advanced for the time.  According to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., United States Ambassador to the United Nations, there were more than 100 similiar devices discovered in U.S. Missions and residences in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe.

So, always be careful what you say, you never know who may be listening.

-Professor Walter