Now I Know

by Lewis, Dan

  So they are almost certainly still there. But they aren’t very American anymore.

  The colors on nylon fade over time, and a nylon American flag on Earth, set outside somewhere for forty or fifty years, would be washed out—closer to pink, white, and azure than red, white, and blue. The same item on the moon, though, would fade much more quickly, because the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, and therefore, the sun’s UV rays hit the surface uninhibited.

  It is widely agreed that the flags on the moon are, therefore, blanched white—except for Apollo 11’s, which was probably vaporized.

  BONUS FACT

  The Apollo 11 flag appeared to be waving in the wind, which is impossible, because there is no wind on the moon. What happened? Another error (with a neat result) caused the illusion. To get the flag to the moon, NASA furled it up in a heat-resistant tube. NASA outfitted the top and the bottom of the flag with telescoping arms that, when Armstrong unfurled the flag, were supposed to extend. But the bottom one didn’t fully do so, creating a permanent ripple in the flag (until it was likely vaporized when Armstrong and Aldrin departed, of course).

  MAROONED ON THE MOON

  WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF NEIL ARMSTRONG AND BUZZ ALDRIN WERE STRANDED ON THE MOON?

  Sometimes, the grandest plans go awry. And because of that, we often plan for the worst-case scenario.

  When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin disembarked from the lunar lander in the summer of 1969, they became the first people ever to walk on the moon. The landing, according to NASA, was not the troubling part. Rather, NASA’s biggest concern was whether the lunar lander would be able to leave the moon’s surface and return to the lunar orbiter, piloted and manned by Michael Collins, awaiting them for the return to Earth. If the lunar lander’s liftoff failed, both Armstrong and Aldrin would be marooned on the moon, with the world watching on television.

  Then-President Richard M. Nixon’s speechwriter, William Safire (who would later become a New York Times columnist), took it upon himself to draft a plan and a message from Nixon in case of this disaster. That message outlined the plan. First, Nixon would call (in Safire’s words) the “widows-to-be,” offering the nation’s condolences. Then, communications with the moon would be cut, and a member of the clergy would offer a prayer similar to one used for a burial at sea, and close with the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, Nixon would read the following statement to those watching on television:

  Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

  These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

  These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

  In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

  In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

  Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

  For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

  The address was never used, and it’s unclear if Nixon himself ever knew of its existence until well afterward. The astronauts, however, did learn of it. In 1999, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the successful moon landing, the late Tim Russert had Aldrin, Armstrong, and Collins on Meet the Press and read the statement to them.

  BONUS FACT

  On June 6, 1944, Allied forces successfully pulled off the now-famous D-Day landing on Normandy Beach, France, a tide-turning victory in World War II. Had it failed, then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower was prepared to issue a statement:

  Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

  Having a lot on his mind, he dated the draft incorrectly—it reads “July 5.” He threw the paper aside when it became clear that the invasion was a success, but a historically aware assistant realized the value of the document and retained it. And it would come up again two decades later: Safire cited Eisenhower’s decision to draft a worst-case-scenario statement as his reason to do the same for the moon landing.

  D-DAY’S DOOMED DRY RUN

  THE PRACTICE D-DAY INVASION THAT WENT TERRIBLY WRONG

  On June 6, 1944—D-Day—the fate of World War II hung in the balance as Allied forces attempted to liberate Nazi-occupied France. More than 150,000 troops crossed the English Channel that day aboard nearly 7,000 ships supported by 12,000 planes, landing on a series of beaches in Normandy, France. By the end of August, more than 3 million Allied troops were in France. D-Day and the larger Battle of Normandy were decisive victories for the Allies and on August 25, 1944, the Germans surrendered control of Paris back to the French.

  But D-Day almost never happened.

  American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, led the U.S. and UK troops in northwest Europe. In this role, he assumed command of the planned D-Day invasion. He wanted to do everything possible to make sure it would work, so he ordered a practice called Exercise Tiger. A beach called Slapton in the south of Great Britain was to be the staging ground for a faux invasion, with the assault coming from across Lyme Bay directly to Slapton’s east. The roughly 3,000 people living in the area were evacuated and on the evening of April 26, 1944, Allied troops began their “assault” on the beach. It did not go so well.

  The plan was to make the dry run “invasion” as realistic as possible, so gunships were to shell the test beach starting at 6:30 A.M. on April 27 for thirty minutes. At 7:30 A.M., landing ships would drop off the soldiers and tanks. At that point, the artillery would fire live ammunition well over the heads of the troops landing, much as they would be doing during an actual invasion. However, some of the landing ships were delayed, which in turn delayed the artillery fire. The battle cruiser received the orders to wait until 7:30, but some of the landing parties were not similarly instructed to wait until 8:30 to disembark. Some Marines lost their lives as they raided the beach at 7:30, just as the cruiser opened fire.

  Then it got worse. The next day, nine German E-boats happened upon Lyme Bay. British sentries detected these enemy fast-assault ships but opted to let them through rather than give away the location and size of Allied fortifications in the area. Instead, the British commanders radioed ahead to the HMS Azalea, a warship escorting a convoy of nine American LSTs (landing ships carrying tanks) through the bay. The American and British forces, however, were using different radio frequencies. The HMS Azalea believed that the LSTs knew about the E-boats, but they didn’t. The LSTs’ lone escort was insufficient to repel the attack and the LSTs were, colloquially, sitting ducks. Two of the nine LSTs were sunk and another two were damaged before the other LSTs could effectively return fire and force the E-boats to retreat. Many soldiers jumped into the water but put on their life jackets incorrectly; as a result the jackets worked more like anchors than floatation devices. All told, nearly 1,000 men died. Decades later, Steve Sadlon, a radio operator from the first LST attacked, described the carnage to MSNBC. He jumped off his ship, aflame, into the English Channel. He spent four hours in the cold water until he was res
cued, unconscious from hypothermia. His memories of the day are harrowing:

  It was an inferno … The fire was circling the ship. It was terrible. Guys were burning to death and screaming. Even to this day I remember it. Every time I go to bed, it pops into my head. I can’t forget it … Guys were grabbing hold of us and we had to fight them off. Guys were screaming, ‘Help, help, help’ and then you wouldn’t hear their voices anymore.

  From a macro perspective, the E-boat attack caused a massive strategic problem. The actual D-Day invasion was supposed to be a surprise. Now the military had to figure out how to keep the deaths of nearly 1,000 soldiers under wraps. This was done via threat of court martial. Subordinate soldiers were informed that families were being told that the dead were simply missing in action, and any discussion of the tragic two days was patently disallowed.

  But even this was not enough. Ten of the men who went missing due to the E-boat attacks knew details of the D-Day invasion plans. Initially, Eisenhower and the rest of Allied leadership decided to delay the actual invasion, fearing that if any of those ten men were captured by the Germans, the enemy could obtain intel about the otherwise secret plan. Not until their bodies were discovered did the D-Day plan go back into action—with improved life jacket training and a single radio frequency for both American and British forces.

  For decades after Exercise Tiger, the story went mostly untold. Before D-Day it was a secret; after D-Day it was old news. But in 1984, a resident of the Slapton Beach area managed to raise a sunken tank from Lyme Bay and turn it into a war memorial, with a plaque describing the tragedy.

  BONUS FACT

  The only general to land at Normandy by sea with the first wave of troops was Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the son of former president Teddy Roosevelt. He was also the only American to fight at Normandy alongside his son—Theodore Jr. was fifty-six, and his fourth child, Quentin Roosevelt II (named after his late uncle), was a twenty-four-year-old captain at the time of the invasion.

  IF DAY

  THE NAZIS’S ONE-DAY INVASION OF CANADA

  On February 19, 1942, the Nazis invaded Winnipeg, the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Thirty-five hundred troops entered the city starting at 5:30 A.M., just hours after a one-hour blackout as fighter planes flew over the city in an apparent bombing run. More bombers followed at around 7 A.M., and by 9:30 that morning the few Canadian troops in the area surrendered. The province’s premier, the mayor of Winnipeg, and other officials were sent to an internment camp about seventeen miles north-northeast of the city. The leader of the invaders, a man named Erich von Neurenberg, took control of the province. He issued a decree turning Manitoba into a de facto police state.

  According to von Neurenberg’s decree, Manitoba was now part of Nazi Germany—the “Greater Reich,” as the document stated—and everyone was subject to the whims of the Germans. A strict curfew was established; Manitobans were not allowed out from 9:30 P.M. until daybreak the next day, and public places were shuttered to citizens altogether. Gatherings of more than eight people were barred, even in private; households were required to provide lodging for up to five German soldiers. Many private organizations were disbanded and the Boy Scouts were made a sub-organization of the Nazis. Farmers were required to sell everything—even things they’d consume themselves—through a central authority. All cars, trucks, and buses were to be forfeited to the “Army of the Occupation.” Any attempts to leave or enter Manitoba, organize resistance to the occupiers, or hide any goods from the Nazis (or possess a weapon, hidden or otherwise) was punishable by death, without trial.

  And then, at 5:30 P.M. that same day, the occupation ended. It was fake.

  In order to fund Canada’s part of the war, the country did what many nations opted to do and issued war bonds. The war bonds were, effectively, loans to the government that would allow for additional spending in the war effort. Manitoba was expected to raise $45 million (Canadian) in the effort; Winnipeg itself was responsible for more than half of that. To encourage the purchase of “Victory Bonds,” as they were called, a group called the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Organization devised a plan. They broke the city up into forty-five districts and initiated the fake invasion. Citizens of Winnipeg and those of neighboring towns were alerted to the ruse a few days beforehand—scaring people to death was not the goal here—and how to escape the rule of the faux Nazis. When your district raised a preset target amount for the Victory Bonds effort, you and your neighbors went free.

  Although the “occupation” was only going to last a day, the Victory Loan Organization pulled few punches. Churches were barred from holding services. Armed soldiers searched buses. One of the principals of a local elementary was “arrested” and replaced by a Nazi propagandist. There was even a book burning in front of the city library. (The books used were scheduled to be destroyed anyway; they had fallen into disrepair.)

  The event, called “If Day” in the press, was a fundraising success. The Victory Bonds effort raised C$3.2 million from Winnipeg that day alone—in today’s dollars, that’s about $40 million (U.S. dollars) from a city of about 250,000 at the time. Manitoba as a whole raised C$60 million—33 percent more than its target amount—during the fundraising month. However, If Day failed in another capacity: recruitment. Roughly three dozen men signed up daily to join the war effort during the weeks before If Day, but only about twenty to twenty-five signed up on If Day itself.

  BONUS FACT

  Winnie the Pooh is, indirectly, named after the city of Winnipeg. Christopher Robin Milne, the son of author A. A. Milne, had a stuffed teddy bear that he named Winnie, upon which the character is based. But Winnie (the teddy bear) was originally named Edward. During the First World War, a British cavalry regiment smuggled a Canadian brown bear into London, donating it to the London Zoo. The cavalry’s veterinarian was from Manitoba and named the bear Winnipeg after his hometown. Over time, “Winnipeg” became “Winnie.” Christopher Milne became fond of the zoo’s new attraction and renamed his teddy bear after it. (The “Pooh” part? Pooh was a swan.)

  UNHIP TO BE SQUARE

  THE BEST MARKETING SCHEME YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

  Shreddies is a brand of breakfast cereal common in the UK and Canada. The cereal is comprised of squares, similar in size and design to Chex in America, and is made from whole wheat. Shreddies come in a variety of flavors, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary as far as cereal is concerned. It is a reliable yet milquetoast breakfast option and has been since 1939.

  Which creates a problem for those who are charged with growing sales for the product. How do you make a half-century-old, tried-and-true product seem new or different?

  For years, Shreddies’ ad men had achieved limited success advertising a bland product. For years, they successfully positioned the brand using the tagline “Keeps Hunger Locked Up Until Lunch,” a straightforward appeal to everyday hunger. In 2007, they launched a TV ad campaign featuring a factory of grandmothers—who better to show the wholesome goodness promised by a generations-old product?—knitting lattices of whole wheat together. Like many other cereals, at times, the boxes had toys inside (often Tom and Jerry stickers). Through these the manufacturers hoped to give parents an added reason for purchasing the cereal (or, for the cynics, reasons for the children to ask for it).

  All fine, but nothing really interesting. Until 2009, when an intern at Post Foods Canada suggested that the brand shake things up. Or, more accurately, spin things a bit. The marketing campaign? A whole new product—Diamond Shreddies—created by an accident at their factories.

  The product, of course, was exactly the same—a diamond is just a square, rotated bit. But the public wasn’t sure. Post approached the product launch the way one would expect a launch for a “new and improved” product: with a multimedia ad campaign trumpeting the difference. Square Shreddies were “Old (Boring)” whereas the Diamond ones were “New (Exciting!).” TV commercials showed prank market research panels, with members
trumpeting the much more tasty diamond ones. Regular square Shreddies were pulled from the shelves in favor of new boxes of Diamond Shreddies; “researchers” asked purchasers to vote for their preferred shape-slash-product at a now-defunct website DiamondOrSquare.com. Some people, playing along, preferred the old square product. So as a final coup de grace, Post responded to the traditionalists in the crowd and released a Diamond Shreddies “Combo Pack”—both square and Diamond Shreddies combined (mixed?) in the same box.

  The tongue-in-cheek ad campaign worked. As MacLeans reported, the promotion resulted in a measurable and significant increase in sales.

  BONUS FACT

  If there’s one breakfast staple more common than cereal, coffee probably deserves the honor. But coffee hasn’t always played that role, at least not in Europe. According to a report by National Geographic, the use of coffee (and tea) in the West only began around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Before then, the breakfast drink of choice, per Nat Geo, was beer.

  LIMONANA

  WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU ADVERTISING SPACE, MAKE LEMONADE

  Lemonade is a summer staple in the United States and elsewhere, and few would object to calling it the unofficial drink of the season. It comes in many varieties and combinations and for many schoolchildren, provides temporary summer employment. The nickel or quarter a glass lemonade stand, one could fairly assert, is the first business experience of generations of marketing and advertising professionals.

  But in one case, the professionals came before the lemonade.

  Limonana is a type of lemonade common in the Middle East. It’s made of lemon juice mixed with ground mint leaves and sweeteners added to taste. The combination, which is typically made fresh, made its way into the public eye in the 1990s, when an advertising agency in Israel crafted a campaign depicting local celebrities drinking the green lemonade. The ads, which were displayed exclusively on public buses, worked. Thirsty Israelis went to their vendors of choice, asking for their first taste of limonana.