WEBVTT - Can You Make a Sherman Tank Float? 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:29.370 Pushkin d day has dawned, and the gray brooding skies 0:00:30.010 --> 0:00:35.930 on gray storm tossed seas. Thousands upon thousands of gray 0:00:36.090 --> 0:00:41.170 warships are descending on the French coast. Ahead lies a 0:00:41.210 --> 0:00:46.690 broad ribbon of yellow sand, codenamed Omaha Beach by the 0:00:46.730 --> 0:00:50.490 Allied military planners. In happier times it was a magnet 0:00:50.530 --> 0:00:55.690 for vacationers, but now the gently sloping sands are strewn 0:00:55.770 --> 0:01:01.690 with explosive mines, barbed wire, and fearsome metal obstacles designed 0:01:01.690 --> 0:01:06.210 to rip apart any boat trying to land. Verdant green 0:01:06.370 --> 0:01:10.290 hills rise behind the beach, and hid amongst their folds 0:01:10.290 --> 0:01:16.650 are trenches, machine gun nests, and cannon emplacements. This is 0:01:16.890 --> 0:01:22.130 Hitler's Atlantic War, part of the three thousand mile chain 0:01:22.290 --> 0:01:27.010 of fortifications built from the Spanish frontier to the Arctic 0:01:27.170 --> 0:01:31.370 tip of Norway. The Nazis have sunk vast sums of 0:01:31.410 --> 0:01:36.730 money billions into the project, with just one aim to 0:01:36.850 --> 0:01:43.930 stop any Allied invasion dead in the surf. The battle 0:01:44.010 --> 0:01:48.090 chips offshore are hammering these fortifications with their big guns. 0:01:48.570 --> 0:01:52.290 But while the Germans are many things, they're not stupid. 0:01:53.570 --> 0:01:57.410 Their pillboxes are angled to make them impervious to these shells, 0:01:57.890 --> 0:02:02.450 whilst still giving the defenders inside a perfect sideline to 0:02:02.490 --> 0:02:08.690 shoot left and right along Omaha Beach. Each hour is 0:02:08.730 --> 0:02:13.090 appro and when the first American troops storm ashore, they'll 0:02:13.090 --> 0:02:17.250 be at the mercy of this withering barrage. Running across 0:02:17.490 --> 0:02:21.570 hundreds of yards of open sand under German fire will 0:02:21.610 --> 0:02:25.250 be a task as murderous as anything seen in World 0:02:25.290 --> 0:02:31.650 War One. The death toll could be enormous, and that's 0:02:31.770 --> 0:02:38.970 where an unlikely secret weapon comes in. We're aboard a 0:02:39.090 --> 0:02:42.570 landing craft with men of the seven hundred and forty 0:02:42.610 --> 0:02:47.130 first Tank Battalion. These tank crews are scheduled to hit 0:02:47.170 --> 0:02:50.330 the beach ahead of the infantry, with orders to train 0:02:50.490 --> 0:02:54.130 their cannon on the German defenders, knocking them out before 0:02:54.130 --> 0:02:59.170 they can annihilate the poor foot soldiers following behind. The 0:02:59.170 --> 0:03:03.090 seven hundred and forty First tanks won't be arriving by 0:03:03.210 --> 0:03:08.610 landing craft, though, in a cunning twist, these tanks will 0:03:08.690 --> 0:03:13.930 swim into battle all by themselves. The Germans have never 0:03:13.970 --> 0:03:18.290 seen anything like it in the water. Our tanks look 0:03:18.490 --> 0:03:22.970 just like small boats, says tank crewman Private Bill Murkert. 0:03:23.730 --> 0:03:25.690 Will be a big surprise for the Germans. When we 0:03:25.770 --> 0:03:31.890 come out of the surf. These special tanks are able 0:03:31.930 --> 0:03:35.210 to swim thanks to a set of propellers and a 0:03:35.250 --> 0:03:40.610 flimsy looking canvas screen allowing them to float. It's taken 0:03:40.690 --> 0:03:45.210 a huge effort to make these Sherman tanks seaworthy, but 0:03:45.490 --> 0:03:48.650 ally generals think it's the best way to reduce bloodshed 0:03:48.650 --> 0:03:53.570 on the invasion beaches. But can you ever really make 0:03:53.650 --> 0:04:00.490 a thirty three ton tank seaworthy? Even by the standards 0:04:00.530 --> 0:04:04.810 of the English Channel. D Day June sixth, nineteen forty 0:04:04.850 --> 0:04:09.730 four is something of a washout. It's the word summer 0:04:09.770 --> 0:04:13.890 weather in memory and more akin to the storms of winter. 0:04:15.410 --> 0:04:20.010 The sea's pretty heavy. Notes Bill Murkert brought his d 0:04:20.170 --> 0:04:23.730 D tank. He never practiced in this kind of weather. 0:04:25.570 --> 0:04:29.010 But more than three miles from shore, a yellow signal 0:04:29.050 --> 0:04:33.690 flag still goes up. The landing craft drops its ramp 0:04:34.330 --> 0:04:39.450 and builds. Sherman tank platters forward and into the waves. 0:04:43.730 --> 0:05:12.610 I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to another cautionary tale. 0:05:12.810 --> 0:05:15.930 The tank was a defining weapon of World War II. 0:05:16.890 --> 0:05:20.570 German panzas had defeated Poland in the first weeks of 0:05:20.570 --> 0:05:26.650 the conflict, then rolled across Western Europe. These clanking, clattering 0:05:26.730 --> 0:05:30.970 guns on tracks that bested the mighty French army and 0:05:31.130 --> 0:05:36.170 thrown the British back into the sea. The blitzquig tactics 0:05:36.210 --> 0:05:39.850 of Hitler's tank commanders had taken them to the gates 0:05:39.890 --> 0:05:43.450 of Moscow and had very nearly swept the British out 0:05:43.450 --> 0:05:47.250 of North Africa. It was all very annoying for Prime 0:05:47.250 --> 0:05:51.450 Minister Winston Churchill. During the First World War, he had 0:05:51.490 --> 0:05:54.570 been in charge of the Royal Navy and had diverted 0:05:54.650 --> 0:05:58.530 a fraction of its immense budget to fund the building 0:05:58.610 --> 0:06:04.170 of so called land ships. These weren't ships at all. Rather, 0:06:04.610 --> 0:06:08.490 they were primitive tanks, and thanks to forward thinkers such 0:06:08.530 --> 0:06:11.850 as church the British had enjoyed an early lead in 0:06:11.890 --> 0:06:16.930 the development of armored warfare, but this foundational work was 0:06:17.010 --> 0:06:22.090 regrettably squandered at war's end. The defeated Germans were keen 0:06:22.210 --> 0:06:24.850 to learn all about the tanks that had helped seal 0:06:24.930 --> 0:06:28.850 their fate, but the British officer class preferred to return 0:06:28.930 --> 0:06:32.450 to a more traditional way of waging war on involving 0:06:32.690 --> 0:06:40.370 stirrups and swords and big beautiful horses. That neglect has 0:06:40.490 --> 0:06:44.890 robbed us of all the fruits of this invention, lamented Churchill. 0:06:45.250 --> 0:06:49.210 In the darkest days of World War II, these fruits 0:06:49.250 --> 0:06:55.170 have been reaped by the enemy with terrible consequences. Churchill 0:06:55.610 --> 0:07:02.330 adored adventures and adventurers. He loved bold schemes and unorthodox 0:07:02.410 --> 0:07:07.250 thinkers almost to a fault. Angered that his army had 0:07:07.290 --> 0:07:10.370 been left behind in the tank ray, the new Prime 0:07:10.370 --> 0:07:14.730 Minister decided to back his hunch and promote one Percy 0:07:15.010 --> 0:07:20.930 Cleghorn Stanley Hobart. Hobart was a fifty six year old 0:07:21.010 --> 0:07:24.970 lance corporal in the Home Guard, a ragtag army of 0:07:24.970 --> 0:07:28.850 old men and teenage boys who guarded against the Nazi 0:07:28.890 --> 0:07:33.370 invasion in their spare time, occasionally armed only with carving 0:07:33.450 --> 0:07:39.250 knives tied to broomsticks. Of course, Hobart hadn't always been 0:07:39.250 --> 0:07:42.210 a lowly lance corporal. He had been a major general 0:07:42.250 --> 0:07:46.690 in the regular Army and a fanatic about tanks. He 0:07:46.730 --> 0:07:50.450 wrote about them, he talked about them, and finally badgered 0:07:50.490 --> 0:07:53.490 his superiors into giving him command of a new tank 0:07:53.570 --> 0:07:58.570 brigade to test his theories. The German high command rather 0:07:58.610 --> 0:08:02.690 admired his work, copying his ideas so much so that 0:08:02.850 --> 0:08:07.210 after one panzer exercise. It was said to have raised 0:08:07.250 --> 0:08:13.850 a Champagne toast in his honor to Hobart. Hobart's fellow 0:08:13.890 --> 0:08:19.530 British officers, however, found his dedication to armored warfare rather tiresome. 0:08:20.570 --> 0:08:24.170 Hobo was drummed out of the army, and his many 0:08:24.330 --> 0:08:28.970 enemies in the General Staff fought fiercely any campaign to 0:08:29.010 --> 0:08:34.370 bring him back. Winston Churchill was not, however, a man 0:08:34.450 --> 0:08:37.730 to accept defeat, so he wrote to the Chief of 0:08:37.770 --> 0:08:42.490 the Imperial General Staff, this is a time to try 0:08:42.570 --> 0:08:46.690 men of force and vision, and not to be exclusively 0:08:46.810 --> 0:08:51.610 confined to those who are judged thoroughly safe by conventional standards. 0:08:52.330 --> 0:08:55.930 Will you kindly make sure the appointment is made the 0:08:56.170 --> 0:09:02.970 earliest moment. Further plots were hatched to have Hobart pensioned off, 0:09:03.490 --> 0:09:07.010 but he survived them all and eventually found himself in 0:09:07.130 --> 0:09:11.130 charge of a unit that was pretty experimental, even by 0:09:11.170 --> 0:09:18.610 his standards. The seventy ninth Armored Division was unique. Its 0:09:18.690 --> 0:09:22.010 role was to develop and deploy on the battlefield tanks 0:09:22.170 --> 0:09:27.050 capable of quite remarkable feats. Feats all intended to allow 0:09:27.170 --> 0:09:32.930 the Allies to crack Hitler's Atlantic Wall and invade Europe. 0:09:33.010 --> 0:09:35.770 If there was a minefield in the way, Hobart had 0:09:35.770 --> 0:09:38.530 a tank which was fitted with a rotating drum of 0:09:38.730 --> 0:09:43.690 chains to flail the ground and clear the explosives. If 0:09:43.690 --> 0:09:47.290 the Nazis had dug a deep anti tank ditch and 0:09:47.370 --> 0:09:50.050 the seventy ninth could bring up a tank carrying its 0:09:50.050 --> 0:09:55.890 own section of bridge, Hobart had tanks for every job imaginable, 0:09:56.370 --> 0:10:01.370 able to blast and burn and generally overcome anything Hitler's 0:10:01.410 --> 0:10:06.130 Invasion Beaches had to offer. These vehicles became known as 0:10:06.330 --> 0:10:14.410 Hobart's Funnies, and of course included a swimming tank. The 0:10:14.450 --> 0:10:18.410 idea of a swimming tank had been floating around for decades, 0:10:18.970 --> 0:10:23.850 but under a cloak of secrecy, the British now perfected 0:10:23.930 --> 0:10:31.170 the concept well almost To stay afloat, DD or duplex 0:10:31.250 --> 0:10:35.450 drive tanks had to displace a weight of water greater 0:10:35.570 --> 0:10:39.610 than their own weight. To achieve this buoyancy, a tall 0:10:39.770 --> 0:10:43.850 canvas screen was erected right around the vehicle, held in 0:10:43.890 --> 0:10:48.930 place by metal struts and inflatable rubber tubes. Even so, 0:10:49.690 --> 0:10:54.970 the vehicles still rode worryingly low in the water. To 0:10:55.170 --> 0:11:00.530 our eyes, DD tanks seem precarious, even a little mad. 0:11:01.290 --> 0:11:03.450 The Shermans looked a bit like they were hiding at 0:11:03.490 --> 0:11:07.410 the bottom of a big canvas bucket, but they seemed 0:11:07.450 --> 0:11:11.130 to have impressed the British top brass. Since D Day 0:11:11.250 --> 0:11:14.970 was to be a combined Anglo American effort, Churchill and 0:11:15.050 --> 0:11:21.370 Hobart needed some American buy in. Hobart had overseen many 0:11:21.570 --> 0:11:25.810 thousands of practice launches of swimming tanks with just as 0:11:25.890 --> 0:11:29.730 single sinking, so he set up a demonstration for his 0:11:29.810 --> 0:11:34.650 American counterparts. The US generals turned their noses up at 0:11:34.650 --> 0:11:38.930 Hobart's other funnies, his flameed ower tanks and bridge layers, 0:11:39.650 --> 0:11:43.370 but they rather liked the DD. They were fearful that 0:11:43.410 --> 0:11:46.810 if a German shell struck a landing craft on D Day, 0:11:47.090 --> 0:11:51.930 then four tanks would be sunk in one go. Swimming tanks, 0:11:52.090 --> 0:11:57.010 being harder to hit, seemed to solve this problem. The 0:11:57.050 --> 0:12:02.050 American generals instructed Washington to approve the immediate construction of 0:12:02.290 --> 0:12:05.570 hundreds of the contraptions and gave them a triple A 0:12:05.890 --> 0:12:10.690 priority rating at the same rating as the atomic bomb, 0:12:11.330 --> 0:12:13.930 a sign of the high hopes many had for the 0:12:14.010 --> 0:12:19.130 DD tank and the importance they placed on it. Now 0:12:19.170 --> 0:12:23.250 that swimming tanks were rolling off the production lines. Training 0:12:23.330 --> 0:12:29.530 could begin in earnest. Exercise Smash was scheduled for April 0:12:29.690 --> 0:12:33.610 nineteen forty four and would be a rehearsal as close 0:12:33.690 --> 0:12:38.450 to battle conditions as possible, complete with the firing of 0:12:38.570 --> 0:12:45.170 live ammunition. Under the gaze of Winston Churchill, General Eisenhower 0:12:45.410 --> 0:12:50.450 and King George. A force of DD tanks swam towards 0:12:50.490 --> 0:12:55.050 a deserted English beach. We knew we weren't going to 0:12:55.090 --> 0:12:59.090 make it, said one of the tank commanders. Wins in 0:12:59.130 --> 0:13:02.810 the English Channel that day were reaching force four and 0:13:02.930 --> 0:13:06.730 the waves were a meter high, causing the commander to 0:13:06.890 --> 0:13:11.730 eye the canvas screen around his tank nervously. A great 0:13:11.890 --> 0:13:16.250 wave crashed over the top, he said, and we sank 0:13:16.290 --> 0:13:24.170 to the bottom. Six tanks were lost on Exercise Smash, 0:13:24.530 --> 0:13:29.810 and six men drowned. A seventh tank got stuck on 0:13:29.850 --> 0:13:33.610 a sandbar and was abandoned by its crew. It then 0:13:33.890 --> 0:13:38.770 refloated and began drifting out to sea. Fearing it might 0:13:38.810 --> 0:13:42.250 float off and be discovered by the Germans, the Royal 0:13:42.410 --> 0:13:47.650 Navy blew it to pieces in the choppy waters of 0:13:47.690 --> 0:13:50.690 the Channel. It was no small thing to turn a 0:13:50.770 --> 0:13:56.050 tank into a boat, nor was it straightforward to turn 0:13:56.210 --> 0:14:10.850 soldiers into sailors. Cautionary tails will return shortly on D Day, 0:14:11.210 --> 0:14:15.890 the seas off Omaha Beach were running, if anything, even 0:14:16.010 --> 0:14:21.530 higher than they had during the ill fated exercise smash. 0:14:21.690 --> 0:14:26.170 Following those sinkings in April, the US Navy thought it 0:14:26.210 --> 0:14:29.450 had been agreed that the DD tanks would only be 0:14:29.610 --> 0:14:33.690 launched weather permitting, and that the tank crews would heed 0:14:33.730 --> 0:14:36.930 the advice of its sailors before venturing out into the 0:14:36.930 --> 0:14:41.570 winds and the waves and the wicked tide. Sadly, it 0:14:41.730 --> 0:14:45.130 was never set out what happened if the soldiers and 0:14:45.250 --> 0:14:50.730 sailors disagreed. Aboard the ships carrying the DD tanks of 0:14:50.810 --> 0:14:54.690 seven hundred and forty First Battalion, The most senior sailor 0:14:55.330 --> 0:14:58.890 thought it was obvious that the sea was too choppy, 0:14:59.050 --> 0:15:02.330 but the army officers looked at the same rolling waves 0:15:02.810 --> 0:15:08.370 and decided they'd take the risk. Everyone from Churchill down 0:15:09.170 --> 0:15:13.490 nearly thought the DD tank was a splendid idea, and 0:15:13.570 --> 0:15:16.930 after all the trouble and training, were the officers of 0:15:16.970 --> 0:15:20.130 the seven hundred and forty First really going to give 0:15:20.210 --> 0:15:24.050 up now because of a few waves. They had a 0:15:24.170 --> 0:15:35.330 job to do. On other D Day beaches and even 0:15:35.530 --> 0:15:40.610 further along Omaha Beach, Naval commanders were successfully arguing that 0:15:40.690 --> 0:15:44.410 it was folly to launch the DD tanks, so their 0:15:44.530 --> 0:15:47.490 landing craft were taking the armor right up to the shore, 0:15:48.530 --> 0:15:51.690 but Private Bill Murkert and his comrades in the seven 0:15:51.810 --> 0:15:55.850 hundred and forty first were ordered to set their propellers 0:15:55.890 --> 0:15:59.970 spinning and swim the three miles or more to shore. 0:16:02.410 --> 0:16:07.170 The swell was really big. Bill remembered. One moment you'd 0:16:07.290 --> 0:16:09.090 ride a crest and get a view of the beach. 0:16:09.930 --> 0:16:12.130 The next he'd be at the bottom of a trough 0:16:12.170 --> 0:16:16.130 and just see water all around you. The D Day 0:16:16.210 --> 0:16:20.490 plans were meticulous, calling for Bill's tank to land at 0:16:20.490 --> 0:16:24.970 a specific spot on Omaha Beach. In calm weather, this 0:16:24.970 --> 0:16:28.450 would have been most cinch, but against the seas that day, 0:16:29.050 --> 0:16:34.810 even an experienced sailor would have struggled. The DD tanks 0:16:34.890 --> 0:16:38.930 soon found themselves being swept off course, so the crews 0:16:39.170 --> 0:16:42.810 desperately steered their craft to fight the wind and currents. 0:16:43.570 --> 0:16:47.250 But this was a mistake no seasoned mariner would have made, 0:16:47.530 --> 0:16:51.690 because by doing so, the tanks only exposed their vulnerable 0:16:51.810 --> 0:16:55.930 sides to the butting waves. The struts holding up the 0:16:55.970 --> 0:17:00.490 canvas screen started to buckled. Bill recalled he had been 0:17:00.610 --> 0:17:04.330 standing atop his Sherman. I was bracing a struck, but 0:17:04.370 --> 0:17:06.850 I was in no doubt we were in serious trouble. 0:17:09.210 --> 0:17:13.370 Was soon proved correct. We were the first tank to 0:17:13.410 --> 0:17:17.370 sink and went straight down with a big gulp, dragging 0:17:17.370 --> 0:17:21.530 a couple of guys down with it. Twenty six other 0:17:21.730 --> 0:17:26.810 tanks soon followed Bills to the bottom. Some soldiers bobbed 0:17:26.850 --> 0:17:34.450 free in the chilly waters, but others sank with their vehicles. 0:17:34.490 --> 0:17:38.610 Bill Murkert dragged himself into a half inflated life raft 0:17:38.650 --> 0:17:42.610 to await rescue and reflected on the squandering of nearly 0:17:42.850 --> 0:17:48.290 half of the entire DD force. That lost firepower could 0:17:48.330 --> 0:17:51.250 have made a big difference to the soldiers fighting on Omaha, 0:17:51.650 --> 0:17:58.130 he concluded. Nineteen year old Sergeant Ben Franklin was one 0:17:58.130 --> 0:18:01.890 of those soldiers wading through the surf and sorely missing 0:18:01.930 --> 0:18:05.690 the support of a Sherman tank and machine gun bullets 0:18:05.690 --> 0:18:08.370 were hitting everywhere. Were scared of death, and there was 0:18:08.370 --> 0:18:10.530 nothing I could do but duck under the water when 0:18:10.570 --> 0:18:13.090 they came close and hold my breath as long as 0:18:13.090 --> 0:18:18.970 I could. The young infantrymen reached dry land, but with 0:18:19.090 --> 0:18:22.810 so few tanks to blast the German pill boxes and 0:18:22.890 --> 0:18:26.930 machine gun nests, he faced a daunting sprint up the 0:18:27.010 --> 0:18:32.210 exposed beach. In his bunker on the hill above, German 0:18:32.370 --> 0:18:36.050 private Franz Gockle was able to train his machine gun 0:18:36.130 --> 0:18:40.250 on gis like Ben Franklin, safe from attack by a Sherman. 0:18:41.690 --> 0:18:44.490 The Americans had a lot of beach to cross. As 0:18:44.530 --> 0:18:49.210 they swarmed towards me. I opened fire. The Americans fell, 0:18:49.250 --> 0:18:53.250 and many never stood up again. I don't know how 0:18:53.290 --> 0:19:00.130 many I killed. The lack of armor on that section 0:19:00.210 --> 0:19:04.290 of beach is blamed for the invasion there grinding to 0:19:04.410 --> 0:19:08.610 a halt, with the generals out to sea, pondering the 0:19:08.690 --> 0:19:14.730 idea of abandoning Bloody Omaha altogether and sending reinforcements to 0:19:14.770 --> 0:19:18.450 beaches where their tanks had more successfully cut a swathe 0:19:18.530 --> 0:19:25.330 through Hitler's defenses. That didn't happen. The attacking troops on 0:19:25.450 --> 0:19:30.490 Omaha Beach slowly but surely knocked out one German strong 0:19:30.610 --> 0:19:36.290 point after another. The Atlantic Wall had cost Nazi Germany 0:19:36.410 --> 0:19:40.570 a fortune to construct, but had held up the Allies 0:19:41.090 --> 0:19:45.570 for a few hours at most, so the sinking of 0:19:45.650 --> 0:19:50.130 the seven hundred and forty firsts DD tanks didn't lose 0:19:50.210 --> 0:19:53.570 the Allies the Battle of Omaha Beach. That fight was 0:19:53.650 --> 0:19:58.970 one but that are terrible and perhaps needless cost in lives. 0:20:03.570 --> 0:20:07.730 One wonders why the concept of amphibious tanks was ever 0:20:07.930 --> 0:20:11.810 serious the entertain in the first place, let alone given 0:20:12.010 --> 0:20:17.530 top secret triple A priority, soaking up resources and manpower 0:20:17.650 --> 0:20:23.730 badly needed elsewhere. Here's the thing about DD tanks, historian 0:20:23.890 --> 0:20:28.730 John McManus told the We Have Ways podcast, they solved 0:20:28.770 --> 0:20:32.610 a problem that didn't really exist. We had already worked 0:20:32.610 --> 0:20:38.210 out how to bring tanks ashore. He's right. An official 0:20:38.490 --> 0:20:44.210 Army report said the DD tank was not satisfactory for 0:20:44.250 --> 0:20:49.410 the purpose intended. It noted that up and down the 0:20:49.530 --> 0:20:53.970 D Day Beaches, the Navy had successfully delivered tanks where 0:20:54.010 --> 0:20:58.050 they needed to be without significant losses to German artillery. 0:20:59.050 --> 0:21:01.770 The fear that the fleet of landing craft would be 0:21:01.810 --> 0:21:08.610 decimated proved unfounded. It was ironically the swim in that 0:21:08.730 --> 0:21:14.530 wiped out many of the vital tanks. Zach Morris, author 0:21:14.610 --> 0:21:18.490 of When the Beaches Trembled, notes that in the war 0:21:18.530 --> 0:21:23.010 against Japan and the Pacific, where Incidentally, DD tanks had 0:21:23.050 --> 0:21:27.810 been rejected. The US Navy had instead equipped small landing 0:21:27.890 --> 0:21:32.450 craft with tank cannon. Thus armed, they could sail close 0:21:32.490 --> 0:21:35.970 to shore and bring those guns to bear on the enemy. 0:21:37.210 --> 0:21:41.570 Morris says the D Day planners were thinking, how can 0:21:41.610 --> 0:21:45.090 we make a floating tank? They were asking the wrong question. 0:21:45.930 --> 0:21:48.730 It should have been what can we take that already 0:21:48.770 --> 0:21:53.930 floats and make it into a tank. This all rather 0:21:53.970 --> 0:22:01.370 reminds me of milkshakes. Yes, you heard that correctly. Harvard 0:22:01.410 --> 0:22:06.250 Business School professor Clayton Christensen used the example of milkshakes 0:22:06.690 --> 0:22:09.770 to illustrate how people often set up off down the 0:22:09.850 --> 0:22:14.650 road to solve the wrong problem. Christensen told of a 0:22:14.770 --> 0:22:19.450 fast food chain wanting to boost its milkshake sales. A 0:22:19.450 --> 0:22:23.850 sophisticated research project was launched to find out what customers 0:22:23.890 --> 0:22:28.290 looked for in a shake, should it be cheaper, or 0:22:28.450 --> 0:22:34.890 chunkier or more chocolatey. The recipe was then tweaked accordingly, 0:22:35.690 --> 0:22:41.890 yet still sales and profits stayed flat. Puzzled, the fast 0:22:41.970 --> 0:22:46.170 food firm brought in one of Christensen's fellow researchers, who 0:22:46.290 --> 0:22:50.050 stood in an outlet and asked himself a strange question. 0:22:50.890 --> 0:22:55.290 It wasn't what flavor do people like nor how much 0:22:55.330 --> 0:23:00.250 do they want to spend? Instead, he asked what are 0:23:00.370 --> 0:23:07.290 customers hiring their milkshakes to do. The researcher noticed that 0:23:07.570 --> 0:23:11.370 half of all milkshakes purchased in the mornings by loan 0:23:11.570 --> 0:23:17.490 commuters who bought no other products. Quizzing these customers, he 0:23:17.610 --> 0:23:20.170 found that they had stopped in before their long drives 0:23:20.210 --> 0:23:25.450 to work. They were hiring the shakes to fill their 0:23:25.490 --> 0:23:28.610 stomachs for the next few hours, give them something to 0:23:28.650 --> 0:23:32.290 do as they drove, and all in a convenient package 0:23:32.330 --> 0:23:37.210 that would fit in their car's cup holder. Bagels, bananas 0:23:37.330 --> 0:23:41.130 or doughnuts weren't nearly as easy to consume at the wheel, 0:23:41.930 --> 0:23:46.210 and besides, they were guzzled down too quickly. The company 0:23:46.250 --> 0:23:49.930 had wasted time and money on altering the taste or 0:23:50.050 --> 0:23:53.290 cost of its shakes, when what it needed to do 0:23:53.450 --> 0:23:58.050 was make the drinks more attractive to commuting motorists. They 0:23:58.050 --> 0:24:03.330 should have formulated and marketed a breakfast drink a morning milkshake. 0:24:07.930 --> 0:24:11.330 As Dawn Norma and the author of the Design of 0:24:11.490 --> 0:24:16.810 Everyday Things, says, a brilliant solution to the wrong problem 0:24:17.330 --> 0:24:21.690 can be worse than no solution at all. DD tanks 0:24:21.890 --> 0:24:25.450 might have looked a bit rickety, but they were brilliant too. 0:24:26.610 --> 0:24:30.130 A tank able to ride the waves then rise up 0:24:30.170 --> 0:24:34.490 onto an enemy held beach to begin blasting away clearly 0:24:34.570 --> 0:24:40.050 impressed everyone who saw it trialed it solved the problem 0:24:40.130 --> 0:24:43.010 of how to make a tank float in calm seas, 0:24:43.810 --> 0:24:47.810 But was it solving the real problem at hand, how 0:24:47.810 --> 0:24:53.650 to invade Europe. Good designers never start by trying to 0:24:53.770 --> 0:24:57.690 solve the problem given to them, says don Norman. They 0:24:57.690 --> 0:25:01.090 take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a 0:25:01.130 --> 0:25:03.970 final statement, and they don't try to search for a 0:25:04.010 --> 0:25:09.850 solution until they've determined the real problem of The DD 0:25:10.130 --> 0:25:14.850 tanks were ingenious and their crews were heroic, but in 0:25:14.930 --> 0:25:20.090 hindsight it's all too easy to see that DD tanks 0:25:20.090 --> 0:25:26.530 were an unnecessary diversion. It's widely agreed that if only 0:25:26.610 --> 0:25:30.290 the seven hundred and forty first tanks had been landed 0:25:30.330 --> 0:25:35.170 on Omaha Beach in the conventional way, many soldiers' lives 0:25:35.210 --> 0:25:39.650 would have been saved. But that's not the end of 0:25:39.690 --> 0:25:44.050 the story. D Day was just the start of the invasion, 0:25:44.810 --> 0:25:50.210 and waiting in land was something more impenetrable and more 0:25:50.330 --> 0:25:56.970 deadly than Hitler's beach defenses. The soldiers leaving Bloody Omaha 0:25:57.610 --> 0:26:02.730 were about to enter a hellscape for which no ingenious 0:26:02.730 --> 0:26:08.570 Sherman tank had been designed. Cautionary tales will be back. 0:26:16.290 --> 0:26:22.770 Adolf Hitler, ever, the lover of garish and gargantuan architectural projects, 0:26:23.490 --> 0:26:27.490 was convinced that the entire coastline of Europe could be 0:26:27.570 --> 0:26:33.930 made impregnable. If only enough concrete was poured, the lands 0:26:33.970 --> 0:26:41.570 he had conquered would become He decreed a festoon, a fortress. Field. 0:26:41.690 --> 0:26:46.210 Marshal Erwin Rommel, the man Hitler sent to oversee the 0:26:46.250 --> 0:26:51.610 defenses in France, took her more realistic view. Hitler was 0:26:51.650 --> 0:26:55.970 living in vulcan cuckook sheim cloud Cuckoo Land if he 0:26:56.010 --> 0:27:01.530 thought the Atlantic Wall would prevent an Allied invasion. Touring 0:27:01.650 --> 0:27:06.450 the Normandy beaches before D Day, Rommeld quickly realized that 0:27:06.490 --> 0:27:12.530 the much publicized Atlantic was far less formidable than Nazi 0:27:12.570 --> 0:27:17.530 propagandists would have the world believe. There were great stretches 0:27:17.610 --> 0:27:22.050 of coast where no fortifications existed at all, and many 0:27:22.050 --> 0:27:25.210 of the completed bunkers were equipped with a mishmash of 0:27:25.250 --> 0:27:29.970 weaponry and manned by substandard troops or foreigners from Russia 0:27:30.130 --> 0:27:34.570 or Eastern Europe fighting for the Nazis only under duress. 0:27:36.890 --> 0:27:41.930 Even had the fortresses of Hitler's ravings been real, many 0:27:41.970 --> 0:27:45.490 of his generals doubted the military logic of the whole 0:27:45.690 --> 0:27:50.610 Atlantic Wall project. These bunkers would be pommeled from sea 0:27:50.930 --> 0:27:55.170 and air by the Allies, with the defenders trapped inside 0:27:55.250 --> 0:27:59.050 until the invading armies overran them and took them prisoner. 0:28:00.090 --> 0:28:05.050 It would be better to retreat inland, slowly, making the 0:28:05.170 --> 0:28:10.530 Allies spill blood for every foot they advanced. The Germans 0:28:10.570 --> 0:28:14.330 would be helped in this by a formidable defensive network 0:28:14.650 --> 0:28:18.450 stretching miles back from the coast, and for which they're 0:28:18.690 --> 0:28:23.290 not spent a penny. It was built not by German 0:28:23.410 --> 0:28:30.850 engineers nor enslaved laborers. Instead, it had evolved over centuries 0:28:31.410 --> 0:28:39.370 thanks to Norman farmers and landowners. I'm speaking of the Bokage. 0:28:39.450 --> 0:28:44.170 The Bokhage was a patchwork of small fields divided by tall, 0:28:44.250 --> 0:28:50.250 thick hedgerows and deep sunken lanes. Such a landscape was 0:28:50.530 --> 0:28:56.530 easy to defend and a nightmare to attack. Coming to 0:28:56.570 --> 0:29:02.210 the first hedgerow, said one American soldier, we immediately saw 0:29:02.370 --> 0:29:08.530 death and destruction in its most violent form. A couple 0:29:08.530 --> 0:29:13.130 of German machine guns cleverly positioned could cut anyone wandering 0:29:13.170 --> 0:29:18.090 into the fields to ribbons. Sherman tanks could have tipped 0:29:18.130 --> 0:29:21.730 the balance in the Alli's favor, but they simply couldn't 0:29:21.850 --> 0:29:26.730 move in the Bokhage. These hedgerows weren't made of concrete, 0:29:26.770 --> 0:29:31.450 but centuries of compacted dirt and a criss crossing tangle 0:29:31.490 --> 0:29:35.650 of roots. The next best thing. Even a thirty three 0:29:35.810 --> 0:29:39.650 ton tank couldn't smash through them. The best a Sherman 0:29:39.730 --> 0:29:44.250 could do was drive up and over the embankments, but 0:29:44.330 --> 0:29:49.050 in the process they might fatally expose their vulnerable bellies 0:29:49.050 --> 0:29:54.490 to the enemy. One bitter two day battle saw the 0:29:54.530 --> 0:29:59.170 Americans advance just half a mile through the Bokhage, with 0:29:59.290 --> 0:30:03.450 more than four hundred tank crewmen killed or wounded in 0:30:03.490 --> 0:30:09.770 the process. According to one gi many American tankers fled 0:30:09.810 --> 0:30:13.250 the carnage. I saw dozens of them running like hell 0:30:13.370 --> 0:30:20.370 for the rear. He recalled. Such panic is understandable. These 0:30:20.410 --> 0:30:24.650 American soldiers had trained for months for the invasion, learning 0:30:24.690 --> 0:30:28.570 how best to cross the beaches and neutralize the Atlantic Wall, 0:30:29.490 --> 0:30:32.290 but no lessons had been offered on how to fight 0:30:32.530 --> 0:30:36.410 and win in the Bokhage, and while much thought and 0:30:36.530 --> 0:30:39.130 effort had gone into the DD tanks and the other 0:30:39.250 --> 0:30:44.370 Hobart funnies, there was certainly no armored vehicles specially modified 0:30:44.770 --> 0:30:50.330 to deal with these ancient Norman hedges. Although there had 0:30:50.370 --> 0:30:54.530 been some talk before D Day about hedgerows, said one 0:30:54.730 --> 0:31:01.410 American general, nobody anticipated how difficult they would be, so 0:31:01.610 --> 0:31:05.770 just a few miles inland from Omaha Beach, the advance 0:31:06.210 --> 0:31:10.810 ground to a halt. It had taken mere hours to 0:31:10.890 --> 0:31:15.210 break through the vastly expensive Atlantic Wall, but for week 0:31:15.730 --> 0:31:22.890 after week, the Americans struggled to beat the Bokhage. America's 0:31:22.970 --> 0:31:26.810 mechanized army was at its best when performing great sweeping 0:31:26.930 --> 0:31:31.570 movements with speeding tanks and trucks and jeeps, but it 0:31:31.690 --> 0:31:37.570 had been slowed to a snail's pace and then stopped altogether. 0:31:39.330 --> 0:31:44.330 We're stuck, complained one tank crewman. Things are going very awry. 0:31:45.290 --> 0:31:48.170 The whole theory of mobility we've been taught of our 0:31:48.290 --> 0:31:53.290 racing across the battlefield has gone up in smoke. In 0:31:53.370 --> 0:31:57.570 the dark maze of lanes and hedges. The death toll 0:31:58.090 --> 0:32:01.890 rose to an alarming level, and many of those untouched 0:32:01.930 --> 0:32:06.090 by bullet or shell left the battlefield with mental exhaustion 0:32:06.770 --> 0:32:11.650 so called battle fatigue, or simply lay down their weapons 0:32:12.290 --> 0:32:17.170 and deserted. It wasn't clear that anyone in command had 0:32:17.210 --> 0:32:20.930 the slightest idea what to do to break the stalemate. 0:32:25.330 --> 0:32:27.730 Why don't we get some saw teeth and put them 0:32:27.730 --> 0:32:29.930 on the front of the tank and cut through these hedges. 0:32:31.450 --> 0:32:35.290 The assembled tank crews laughed at the suggestion. The men 0:32:35.330 --> 0:32:38.170 had been brought together to brainstorm a solution to the 0:32:38.210 --> 0:32:42.250 Brakhage problem, but few saw much merit in this suggestion 0:32:42.370 --> 0:32:47.130 by their comrade from Tennessee. Wait a minute, said staff 0:32:47.170 --> 0:32:51.370 Sergeant Curtis Cullin, defending the man. He's got an idea there. 0:32:52.850 --> 0:32:57.050 The twenty nine year old Cullin mouled over the problem. 0:32:57.090 --> 0:33:00.250 What kind of teeth could cut through a hedgerow that 0:33:00.330 --> 0:33:08.130 had stood solidly for centuries? Steel teeth, presumably, But where 0:33:08.250 --> 0:33:11.810