Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogle bomb here. Shortly after midnight in the early
Speaker 1: hours of June six, nearly twenty thousand, Allied paratroopers dropped
Speaker 1: behind enemy lines to be the first soldiers on the
Speaker 1: ground on D Day. Conditions were terrible. Thick cloud cover
Speaker 1: and fog made it nearly impossible to spot their landing targets,
Speaker 1: and the night sky was pierced with Nazi heavy anti
Speaker 1: aircraft rounds and sniper fire. For those paratroopers who made
Speaker 1: it to the ground, many were separated from their units
Speaker 1: and unsure of their locations. Alone and enemy held territory,
Speaker 1: they had to find their comrades and the fog blanketed
Speaker 1: dark without tipping off the enemy. Good thing they had
Speaker 1: their clickers hours earlier. When boarding the transport aircraft back
Speaker 1: in England, members of the United States A hundred and
Speaker 1: first Airborne Division were each handed a small metal box
Speaker 1: that would serve as a low tech emergency communication device.
Speaker 1: By pushing down on the lid of the box with
Speaker 1: the thumb and releasing, it made a sharp clicking sound.
Speaker 1: Their instructions were simple. If you're on the ground and
Speaker 1: hear someone approaching click once, two clicks in reply means
Speaker 1: a friend. No click could mean trouble. Twenty four hours
Speaker 1: after landing, the paratroopers were told to ditch or hide
Speaker 1: their clickers. Allied commanders were worried that the devices would
Speaker 1: fall into Nazi hands and be used to trick Allied
Speaker 1: soldiers into thinking that an approaching foe was friendly. The
Speaker 1: D Day clickers were only in action for twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: but who knows how many lives were saved by the
Speaker 1: simple ingenuity. Inspired by the seventy anniversary of the D
Speaker 1: Day invasion, this year, the British company that made those
Speaker 1: original D Day clickers is on a search and rescue
Speaker 1: mission of its own. Of the seven thousand clickers manufactured
Speaker 1: by Acme Whistles during World War Two, less than a
Speaker 1: dozen have been recovered. Now the company has launched a
Speaker 1: worldwide campaign to find the lost D Day clickers and
Speaker 1: learned the stories behind the brave troops who carried them.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Ben McFarlane, the head of sales and
Speaker 1: marketing at acmee Whistles, which still manufactures whistles in the
Speaker 1: same Birmingham, England factory that took a direct hit from
Speaker 1: Nazi bombers during the war. He says that the few
Speaker 1: confirmed clickers in circulation are all held by museums and
Speaker 1: private collectors. Acne Whistles itself doesn't possess even one of
Speaker 1: the original clickers, although it sells an exact replica made
Speaker 1: with the original machine presses. Just because there have been
Speaker 1: so few recovered D Day clickers, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: there are not more out there, McFarland said. It just
Speaker 1: means that people don't know that they've got them. Acne
Speaker 1: Whistles has been in business since eighteen seventy and is
Speaker 1: responsible for a number of important whistle firsts. Its founder,
Speaker 1: Joseph Hudson invented the first police whistle used by the
Speaker 1: London Metropolitan Police. Prior to that, the bobby on the
Speaker 1: beat used a wooden rattle. Hudson also invented the very
Speaker 1: first sports whistle, the original Acme Thunderer. Before that, football
Speaker 1: referees that's soccer to Americans in the UK waved a
Speaker 1: white handkerchief to get the player's attention. Not quite as effective.
Speaker 1: But back to the clickers. Since the clickers were exclusively
Speaker 1: supplied to the US hundred and first airborne. McFarland expects
Speaker 1: that many reside in America, either handed down as heirlooms
Speaker 1: from generation to generation or in the hands of antiques
Speaker 1: collectors who may not know the heroic providence of the
Speaker 1: humble looking boxes. The day Day clicker, also known as
Speaker 1: the acmee Cricket, was originally used by marching band leaders
Speaker 1: to click out the tempo of piece of music. They're
Speaker 1: made of brass and are half open rectangular boxes about
Speaker 1: the size of the top joint of a thumb. By
Speaker 1: half open, I mean that one short end and parts
Speaker 1: of two walls are missing from the design. The remaining
Speaker 1: short end is labeled with the ACME made in England.
Speaker 1: If you think you're in possession of an original D
Speaker 1: Day clicker, McFarland wants you to email him personally at
Speaker 1: Ben dot McFarlane at Acme Whistles dot co dot UK.
Speaker 1: He's already heard from at least one American woman who
Speaker 1: appears to have the real deal. Acne Whistle's plans to
Speaker 1: invite all clicker owners to England to take a tour
Speaker 1: of the factory, receive an engraved commemorative whistle, and share
Speaker 1: the story of the brave paratrooper who carried the clicker
Speaker 1: into combat on D Day. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other topics designed to make
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