It's also worth noting that on the first day it was acceptable to respond to either IFF signal with the other, so if you heard a clicker, you could respond with "Thunder" and if you heard "Flash" you could respond with two clicks. This was especially helpful since the 101st had at least one native German in their ranks, as their accent could have gotten them shot by friendlies if they had responded verbally.
Why would there be a need for a native German when you could just have an American with German born parents fluent in German? Would seem harder to source and could have concerns of allegiance during wartime etc?
@@Usertrappedindatabase Born in Germany, moved to the US pre Hitler coming to power, Hitler came to power, guy said "uh oh" and enlisted in the US military
Crazy to think that people discount the idea of German partisans so much. Haven’t looked into it much because it’s not the most compelling story but still important nonetheless.
I don't know about the events depicted in the movie; but, I distinctly remember an interview with a veteran in a documentary where he claimed that the clickers didn't work out very well. With all of the clickers going off, the Germans figured something was going on. With enough allied bodies lying around, they found their own clickers and started using them. This led to confusion among the allies. My father told me that something similar happened in Vietnam. The NVA would monitor coalition radio frequencies. One group learned that they could protect themselves from air assault by listening to coalition calls for air support to determine what color smoke was used to indicate friendlies. Then they would pop the same color smoke. Eventually, they had to make an agreement with the air support crew to the effect that they would announce the wrong color smoke and that the air crews would fire at any smoke of the announced color.
In the machine world, there are screws called "Acme Screws". Reportedly first manufactured in 1894 by the Acme Screw Machine Company of Hartford, Connecticut. Acme screws are still sine qua non for heavy duty, precise machinery operation.
yup. it's now a generic term for inch sized trapezoidal thread (the metric ones are just called trapezoidal, but some people will say ACME regardless) and it's commonly used to translate rotational into linear motion or vice versa rather than to just fasten things in place.
The machine world? Is that where Neo went to parley with the machines and make the deal to save Zion in exchange for destroying Agent Smith? Have you seen baby incubators? 😂
We use acme threads all the time in industry. But every bench vise in a garage or basement workshop has an acme threaded rod. They are precise and are way more durable than traditional threads. You can loosen and tighten your vise basically indefinitely
Additional info on Flash/Thunder - those two words were chose specifically because German native speaker will pronounce them differently than English or Americans (more like Flass or Tzunder if I recall correctly). Same logic applied in Pacific Theather where one of the calls was Lollapalooza (as Asian natives will tend to pronounce it Roraparooza)
That's a slightly different but vital component of the trick. It's known as a "shibboleth", and there's lots of really funny ones. For example, the Scottish usually struggle with "purple burglar alarm".
You are right about the Tzunder part. Native German speakers struggle with the 'th' when first learning English because the sound doesn't exist in German. 'S' is the closed equivalent and that's what it sounds like to them and that's how they pronounce it. They have to learn to hear a difference. The Flash part in your explanation baffles me, though. I see no scenario where they couldn't pronounce it. Many "sch" (sh) sounds in German.
It'd make the accent more apparent, more than being impossible. The reply would be there to trip them up as they'd not have enough time to practice it before it becomes out of date. So while yes it could be said, shouting "flash" is still going to make your accent obvious even if you speak English.
I was issued with an Acme Thunderer when I worked as a loco driver during the construction of the channel tunnel. I've still got it, and it's very LOUD.
I have an Acme Thunderer in my hand now, exactly like yours! It was my grandfather's, who I grew up with and he gave it to me. I'm now 60 and still treasure it. Hello from Oakleigh, Melbourne, Australia. Love your work.
I also have an Acme Thunderer that was passed down from my grandfather. Holy balls is it loud. I am a guitarist and have used 100 watt tube amplifiers that I have turned up to 10 and played vigorously. They don't make my ears ring like that whistle does.
Acme Products was a company in Burbank California that was known for their cleverness in coming up with special effects, camera setups, and general movie production gear. The company lives on in the company Photosonics, which pioneered high speed cameras and large precision tracking mounts for military test ranges. It was a Looney Tune inside joke that Wily E. Coyote got all his stuff from the clever and resourceful Amce. I suppose receiving a big crate with "ACME" on it was common at the studios back then.
@@paulsto6516 I think that's what the actors had in The Longest Day. The ones used on D-Day were the square ones shown. And the original company still makes them with the original tooling.
I've had one of these in a draw for years and barely knew what it was. The top and sides say: "6 JUIN 1944" "DES ALLIES" "EN NORMANDIE" "DEBARQUEMENT" I was given it by a family friend when I was a kid so it's nice to know a bit more history about it even if it's probably not an original.
My 5th grade science teacher had one of these. He also saw the Hindenburg pass over Boston on her fatal flight and had a tiny patch of the skin, (though now that I try to remember it, maybe it was from the Graf Zeppelin). Best and coolest teacher I ever had.
@@Genesh12 My god, you're right. Clearly, there is no possible way that an artifact of such an event that happened in one place could possibly make it anywhere else in the world, not even 40-plus years later, especially not into the hands of someone obviously deeply interested in it. Absolutely inconceivable. Gump, you are a g-- d---- genius.
My grandfather served in WW2 and he told a tale he heard about the click of something else it wasn't a rifle bolt it was like as screen lid or something and the guy got shot by German soldiers. Once again he was told this do lots third hand at best but grandpa served in the Siegfried lines proudly and made it home, his main objective was protecting the com. Engineers while they figured out how to take out the infamous dragons teeth that was a blockade built for our tanks to not go through.
The Acme Thunderer, or the City long whistles are still British Military and Police issue, the batteries don't go flat, you don't have to check for a signal.
4:16 In the movie _The Longest Day_ they mistakenly show the 82d Airborne using clickers which wasn't the case. In his memoirs the 82d Airborne Commander for D-Day GEN Matt Ridgeway looked at the 101st's "clickers" as "gimmicks" and not necessary for well trained troops.
I remember these when I was a kid too. Grew up around a lot of WW2 vets including my grandfather. Only seen one that looked like this one but crickets overall were pretty common to have around. Crazy how a simple thing made such a difference. Saw the thumbnail and had to check this out.
I don’t know when “Poll Parrot” shoes were popular, but I have clicker from them. Tin litho, yellow with a green parrot. I’m guessing it came with a pair of kids shoes. Likely a good sales tactic, like giving away one walkie talkie & needing to buy another pair of shoes to get the other.
I remember a clicker toy from when I was a kid, seems like you would click it, set I’d down and it would jump up. It did sound a lot like this device in my memory. May have been a disk, a lot of kids had with them.
Believe or not there were amusement companies that stocked gumball machines, distributed inexpensive 5 to 25 cent toys and sold candy. There were those clickers that were made of plastic and metal during my first 8 years 1958 to 1966 in Tampa Fl.
I had a toy one as a kid. Shaped differently. Sorta like a shoe heel. It was yellow tin lithograph, with red polka-dot and a little green cartoon cricket on it.
Cudos for using the exact thumbnail pic in your story. I noticed the side stamping in the thumbnail, and enlarged the image from the story. I was going to ask you about the date being stamped on the cricket, but you already have taken care of that. So refreshing that tje click bait matches the story. Thank you.
IIRC the code words "flash" with "thunder", and "hustle" with "along" weren't random words. They were chosen because it's a logical word sequence or common enough phrase for American soldiers to remember, while also being difficult for German soldiers to pronounce in English with a British/American English accent due to the nature of the German language. So, not only did the enemy need to know the code words, but if they were also pronounced with a strong German accent, then it was a giveaway.
I was literally thinking about this thing just like 2 nights ago. I havent seen or thought about one in years. Why is this randomly in my recommended? I swear we live in a simulation.
Strange that a kids toy was used to make a call and respond signal. But it was the simple stuff the GIs were able to come up with that saved many lives back then. However, we rely too heavily on the technology today, with the GI carrying tons of radio and computer gear, when the use of other technology like body armor and heat signature reduction is more important.
As a kid, I watched the Longest Day. I immediately got my grandfather’s Mauser K98 he poached back from WW2 and worked the action and it didn’t sound at all like the Acme cricket clicker one bit! I was so disappointed! 😢
I still have the Acme Thunderer pea whistle my father used in his first job delivering telegrams. It has PMG for Post Master General engraved on the side.
I bought a couple of repops from SARCO a few years ago, mostly because I wondered how significantly they differed from the toy crickets I had as a kid [I'm the only one of my friends over the years who wore one out (metal fatigue is real!); OCD much? 🤣] The D-Day crickets are LOUD in comparison to any of the toy crickets I had over the decades. Which makes sense, since if I was going to be going into a firefight at any moment, I'd want to have my earplugs in all the time...
I still have an old whistle on my retirement from counter terror. Funny because they're not used in the police or army anymore I only had ten years in so I got an original tin whistle but my dad who had 30 years in got a gold one , very special . That whistle sound is still used but only in some prisons notably winson green and strange ways in Manchester
I have a replica ACME clicker ( manufactured 2000s) which I used when I was a hypnotherapist. To explain - there are some hypnosis techniques which require you to click your fingers. I am not very good at clicking my fingers so I used a clicker instead. The clickers used in the film 'The Longest Day' don't look like ACME clickers. They look more like a more modern version which was around in the 60s which looked like a sea shell.
I have a co-ordination problem so could never click my fingers like other kids. In my late teens, I learned (with practise) to click with my left hand, despite being right-handed. Met somebody else in the same situation. Can't explain it but worth a try.
@@nevillewran4083 I had, as a child and into my early 20s severe fine motor skills deficits, not with speaking which ive oddly enough excelled at from a young age, (likely to the occasional irritation of my parents) Now at 25 with exercises and use of perscribed stimulants during those exercises ive managed to almost entirely close the gap, except for a mild on and off tremor i can now write almost entirely without trouble minus the occasional off day, and stuff like keyrings, pulling cards out of wallets, tieing shoes ects, are not the arduous tasks they where in the past and can ususally be done without difficulty. Just putting this here in case other people with similar issues, Keep at it! you can find solutions if not direct than you can find work arounds. Its a challenge to overcome, a problem to be solved not a place to be stopped.
Stephen Ambrose in his work D-Day wrote of an American paratrooper who was from a German family that had immigrated to the US. He spoke with a prominent German accent. Ambrose wrote that the guy was so worried about getting shot by friendly fire if he spoke that on the plane he stuffed these clickers in every pocket!
Regarding trying to be the first listed in the telephone book, some companies tried to be the last. I recall one year the final entry in the Baltimore phone book was Zyzzy Zyzzy Zubb Zugg. I don’t recall what product or service they provided.
For the myth of the Kar 96 sounding like the clicking in The Longest Day, I'd reach out to Bloke on the Range. They've done some stuff with the Garand Ping and other similar WWII myths and misconceptions, maybe they could figure it out.
Mikeburnfire does a video on it already. Conclusion...they really sound nothing alike to eachother. Edit: I'm getting my Mike's confused. MikeB on RUclips is the one who made the video
I had a sporterized amburg made mauser 98... no, working the bolt in no way sounds like a tin cricket. There were, however, cheap stamped toy versions in the 60s (shaped and painted to resemble frogs) that sold for a nickel or a dime, and sounded fairly authentic
I really enjoy your videos. Perhaps one day will cover the Kurta calculator. That's an interesting piece of business. It looks like a grenade and calculates mechanically. Fun!
I love the Curta calculator. Really wish I could justify the purchase of one, but they sell for $1500-2000 the last time I checked. Maybe I will see if I can pick up a poster-sized exploded blueprint of the device to put on the wall; there's a good reason they were made similar to fine watches, tons of small parts and jigs used for assembly.
The scene from the Longest Day still bothers me. As you saw from the clip shown, the Wehrmacht soldier FIRED TWICE. The KAR 98K fires once per operation of the bolt. Also, as the clip shows, you got the two clicks when you unload a spent cartridge and loaded a new round into the chamber. This implies that the soldier deliberately had a fired round (or an empty chamber) when he heard the first click. Wehrmacht soldiers are obviously trained to keep a live round and the bolt closed and locked when investigating a noise. This implies that the only way a soldier would have the chamber of his rifle empty when investigating a noise would be if he just put in a new stripper clip of ammo to charge his magazine. We didn't hear that, though the American soldier was close enough to hear the German soldier moving around. Feeding a magazine via stripper clip makes a distinctive and recognizable noise. Yes, it bothers me. But I'm not bothered when I'm accused of being a gun nerd, despite never having owned one...🙄😛😉 Edit: the Mauser KAR-98K does NOT have a loaded chamber indicator. Thus the only other possibility that comes to mind, of the soldier looking at his rifle and going "crap, I don't have this thing loaded" can't happen. 😖
Not only that but the German soldier went in to check the downed foe, close enough to touch him, with a spent round in the chamber. I'll grant you that's just stupid not a physical impossibility.
Re: your edit, perhaps he had forgotten whether he was loaded, and cycled the bolt again (or just short-stroked it to check the chamber), to make sure.
I just found it implausible that the rifle should produce anything close to the hollow two-tone click sound of the clicker. Just as I find it implausible when I hear, in a movie or TV show, a gun making random rattling noises as if it were a cheap plastic toy.
@@yetanother9127 😳. You're right! But if he short stroked it, (partially opened the chamber to feel if he has a round loaded) wouldn't do him much good, unless he can see or feel the dented primer. A more likely scenario is that the soldier had gunfighter's syndrome...he just got out of a firefight earlier, and as he heard the American soldier nearby, he deliberately ejected the unfired round in his chamber to make ABSOLUTELY SURE he had a live round ready to fire, because he can't remember if he loaded a fresh round. Better to eject a perfectly good bullet out of his gun, than to squeeze the trigger and hear the firing pin go "Tink!" And nothing else happen...😵😵
The flash/thunder is still used by the US Military except there are three words. Two words are the challenge and password, but the third one is used under a specific situation in place of one or both. In the case of D-Day it was Flash/Thunder/Welcome for all three.
Also interesting, the Acme company for years distributed a very unprofitable and unsuccessful line of specific tools and explosives for use in the California desert.
I'm amazed anyone would hear that beyond a few yards away, especially in the noise of a battle. How far away was someone expected to be and still hear this?
i wonder why the "crickets" displayed in museums are slighty different than all the genuine reproductions we can buy (i bought one 12 years ago in Normandy and i immediately noticed it was different than those in the museum, the shape is not the same). In the movie "the longest day" their "crickets" are totally different (for the cinema i can understand but for a museum i can't because they have real ones on display...why those they sell are different than those they show)
Its amazing how much war production no longer exists. Id imagine the world as a whole was so discusted with the entire mess it felt good to destroy any remnant of it
With how spread out some paratroopers were, I'm sure if there were any that mistook the rifle as a friendly signal probably didn't get to stick around to tell anyone about it.
a use for the modern novelty item clickers was exploited by this fellow who was tired of having to fight his way through crowds of Hare Krishna people at airports. they would get quite in your face with their chants and such. so dude bought this huge box of crickets and started passing them out for free to his fellow regular business travelers. this was in the late 1960s. pretty soon when a clump of Krishna devotees started gathering they’d find themselves surrounded by people clicking crickets at them. no threats or anything, just clicks. eventually the Krishna folk found new cricket free places to annoy people in.
An additional thing about the clicker in the longest day they guy who gets shot by the German is in the 82nd and would have never had a clicker to begin with
That clicker is funny. Growing up I want to a catholic grade school and the nuns would use their clicker to have us do things. In church, standup, sit down, kneel etc, etc. In class SHUT UP!
It's also worth noting that on the first day it was acceptable to respond to either IFF signal with the other, so if you heard a clicker, you could respond with "Thunder" and if you heard "Flash" you could respond with two clicks. This was especially helpful since the 101st had at least one native German in their ranks, as their accent could have gotten them shot by friendlies if they had responded verbally.
thank you for this info mr Nixon
Why would there be a need for a native German when you could just have an American with German born parents fluent in German? Would seem harder to source and could have concerns of allegiance during wartime etc?
@@Usertrappedindatabase Well, maybe that German persona was still a loyal American citizen. Perhaps we ought not to make prejudiced assumptions.
@@Usertrappedindatabase Born in Germany, moved to the US pre Hitler coming to power, Hitler came to power, guy said "uh oh" and enlisted in the US military
Crazy to think that people discount the idea of German partisans so much. Haven’t looked into it much because it’s not the most compelling story but still important nonetheless.
I don't know about the events depicted in the movie; but, I distinctly remember an interview with a veteran in a documentary where he claimed that the clickers didn't work out very well. With all of the clickers going off, the Germans figured something was going on. With enough allied bodies lying around, they found their own clickers and started using them. This led to confusion among the allies.
My father told me that something similar happened in Vietnam. The NVA would monitor coalition radio frequencies. One group learned that they could protect themselves from air assault by listening to coalition calls for air support to determine what color smoke was used to indicate friendlies. Then they would pop the same color smoke. Eventually, they had to make an agreement with the air support crew to the effect that they would announce the wrong color smoke and that the air crews would fire at any smoke of the announced color.
In the machine world, there are screws called "Acme Screws". Reportedly first manufactured in 1894 by the Acme Screw Machine Company of Hartford, Connecticut. Acme screws are still sine qua non for heavy duty, precise machinery operation.
yup. it's now a generic term for inch sized trapezoidal thread (the metric ones are just called trapezoidal, but some people will say ACME regardless) and it's commonly used to translate rotational into linear motion or vice versa rather than to just fasten things in place.
sine qua non?
The machine world? Is that where Neo went to parley with the machines and make the deal to save Zion in exchange for destroying Agent Smith? Have you seen baby incubators?
😂
I single point cut many Acme threads. Pretty cool !
We use acme threads all the time in industry. But every bench vise in a garage or basement workshop has an acme threaded rod. They are precise and are way more durable than traditional threads. You can loosen and tighten your vise basically indefinitely
Additional info on Flash/Thunder - those two words were chose specifically because German native speaker will pronounce them differently than English or Americans (more like Flass or Tzunder if I recall correctly).
Same logic applied in Pacific Theather where one of the calls was Lollapalooza (as Asian natives will tend to pronounce it Roraparooza)
That's a slightly different but vital component of the trick. It's known as a "shibboleth", and there's lots of really funny ones. For example, the Scottish usually struggle with "purple burglar alarm".
You are right about the Tzunder part.
Native German speakers struggle with the 'th' when first learning English because the sound doesn't exist in German. 'S' is the closed equivalent and that's what it sounds like to them and that's how they pronounce it. They have to learn to hear a difference.
The Flash part in your explanation baffles me, though.
I see no scenario where they couldn't pronounce it. Many "sch" (sh) sounds in German.
It'd make the accent more apparent, more than being impossible. The reply would be there to trip them up as they'd not have enough time to practice it before it becomes out of date. So while yes it could be said, shouting "flash" is still going to make your accent obvious even if you speak English.
IM DYING 😂 CUZ IT’S TRUE…
It may have sounded more like flaysch from a german
I was issued with an Acme Thunderer when I worked as a loco driver during the construction of the channel tunnel. I've still got it, and it's very LOUD.
I have an Acme Thunderer in my hand now, exactly like yours! It was my grandfather's, who I grew up with and he gave it to me. I'm now 60 and still treasure it. Hello from Oakleigh, Melbourne, Australia. Love your work.
You have one of the 7 surviving clickers
I also have an Acme Thunderer that was passed down from my grandfather.
Holy balls is it loud.
I am a guitarist and have used 100 watt tube amplifiers that I have turned up to 10 and played vigorously. They don't make my ears ring like that whistle does.
He isn't claiming that at all. He literally said "Exactly like yours". So it is one of the commemoration pieces. @@JinKee
@@JinKee
The Acme Thunderer is the whistle, not the clicker.
They still make Acme Thunderers. Or they did at least until recently. I wore one on my uniform everyday until my retirement 5 years ago.
Acme Products was a company in Burbank California that was known for their cleverness in coming up with special effects, camera setups, and general movie production gear. The company lives on in the company Photosonics, which pioneered high speed cameras and large precision tracking mounts for military test ranges. It was a Looney Tune inside joke that Wily E. Coyote got all his stuff from the clever and resourceful Amce. I suppose receiving a big crate with "ACME" on it was common at the studios back then.
Yea but these were made my ACME Whistles, a Brit company from iirc Birmingham...Different company.
A snapple cap slightly modified makes an amazing cricket clicker.
I remember in the late 1950's the cricket clickers were sold in the local 5 & dime Woolworths. Us kids in the neighborhood would play with them.
I had one in the shape of a little frog.
@@paulsto6516 I think that's what the actors had in The Longest Day. The ones used on D-Day were the square ones shown.
And the original company still makes them with the original tooling.
I've had one of these in a draw for years and barely knew what it was.
The top and sides say:
"6 JUIN 1944"
"DES ALLIES"
"EN NORMANDIE"
"DEBARQUEMENT"
I was given it by a family friend when I was a kid so it's nice to know a bit more history about it even if it's probably not an original.
That's neat
KEEP IT! NEVER SELL IT!
that right there is unique history and will hold many generations of family stories.
I means
June 6 1944
The allies
In normandy
Landings
i think its what its meant to say
@@tom4208 Nah, it's just a replica. It could be pretty cool if it turned out to be a very early replica, but a replica is exactly what it is.
you dont know that for sure without laying eyes on it@@Dee_Just_Dee
My 5th grade science teacher had one of these. He also saw the Hindenburg pass over Boston on her fatal flight and had a tiny patch of the skin, (though now that I try to remember it, maybe it was from the Graf Zeppelin). Best and coolest teacher I ever had.
HINDENBURG EXPLODED IN NJ. IF YOUR TEACHER LIVED IN BOSTON AREA, HOW DID HE GET PART OF THE SKIN FROM THAT FIRE?
@@Genesh12 My god, you're right. Clearly, there is no possible way that an artifact of such an event that happened in one place could possibly make it anywhere else in the world, not even 40-plus years later, especially not into the hands of someone obviously deeply interested in it. Absolutely inconceivable. Gump, you are a g-- d---- genius.
My grandfather served in WW2 and he told a tale he heard about the click of something else it wasn't a rifle bolt it was like as screen lid or something and the guy got shot by German soldiers. Once again he was told this do lots third hand at best but grandpa served in the Siegfried lines proudly and made it home, his main objective was protecting the com. Engineers while they figured out how to take out the infamous dragons teeth that was a blockade built for our tanks to not go through.
The Acme Thunderer, or the City long whistles are still British Military and Police issue, the batteries don't go flat, you don't have to check for a signal.
4:16 In the movie _The Longest Day_ they mistakenly show the 82d Airborne using clickers which wasn't the case. In his memoirs the 82d Airborne Commander for D-Day GEN Matt Ridgeway looked at the 101st's "clickers" as "gimmicks" and not necessary for well trained troops.
And he was kinda right, the lads still did an incredible job
For a Gomer like me who’s read more WW2 nonfiction than I can count, and so many have mentioned the crickets. So great to see & hear an original! 👍
I picked one of these up when I visited Normandy in 2011(?). Really cool little piece of history
Hey, it looks like we went to the same museum!
I remember these when I was a kid too. Grew up around a lot of WW2 vets including my grandfather. Only seen one that looked like this one but crickets overall were pretty common to have around. Crazy how a simple thing made such a difference. Saw the thumbnail and had to check this out.
A similar, smaller, more compact version of these things were a VERY popular toy in the second half of the 1980s and early 90s in Spain!
Not so popular among their parents, I imagine... 😀
I had one at some point in the 1970s (US). It was smaller than the WWII one, without the box-shaped end.
I don’t know when “Poll Parrot” shoes were popular, but I have clicker from them. Tin litho, yellow with a green parrot. I’m guessing it came with a pair of kids shoes. Likely a good sales tactic, like giving away one walkie talkie & needing to buy another pair of shoes to get the other.
I remember a clicker toy from when I was a kid, seems like you would click it, set I’d down and it would jump up. It did sound a lot like this device in my memory. May have been a disk, a lot of kids had with them.
I have been on a tour of the J Hudson company factory - they do one once a month - a really worthwhile experience!
Believe or not there were amusement companies that stocked gumball machines, distributed inexpensive 5 to 25 cent toys and sold candy. There were those clickers that were made of plastic and metal during my first 8 years 1958 to 1966 in Tampa Fl.
I had a toy one as a kid. Shaped differently. Sorta like a shoe heel. It was yellow tin lithograph, with red polka-dot and a little green cartoon cricket on it.
Cudos for using the exact thumbnail pic in your story. I noticed the side stamping in the thumbnail, and enlarged the image from the story. I was going to ask you about the date being stamped on the cricket, but you already have taken care of that. So refreshing that tje click bait matches the story. Thank you.
I bought one when I visited the Normandy and museums.
Very impressive
Aw, I recalled that movie when first watching this video. I'm glad you mention it.
IIRC the code words "flash" with "thunder", and "hustle" with "along" weren't random words. They were chosen because it's a logical word sequence or common enough phrase for American soldiers to remember, while also being difficult for German soldiers to pronounce in English with a British/American English accent due to the nature of the German language. So, not only did the enemy need to know the code words, but if they were also pronounced with a strong German accent, then it was a giveaway.
I was literally thinking about this thing just like 2 nights ago. I havent seen or thought about one in years. Why is this randomly in my recommended? I swear we live in a simulation.
I love how things like these look like they work well and look like they would work forever as well as being simple af
Strange that a kids toy was used to make a call and respond signal. But it was the simple stuff the GIs were able to come up with that saved many lives back then.
However, we rely too heavily on the technology today, with the GI carrying tons of radio and computer gear, when the use of other technology like body armor and heat signature reduction is more important.
As a kid, I watched the Longest Day. I immediately got my grandfather’s Mauser K98 he poached back from WW2 and worked the action and it didn’t sound at all like the Acme cricket clicker one bit! I was so disappointed! 😢
Cool story bro!
DO YOU STILL HAVE THE MAUSER?
what a twist that second sentence was
I still have the Acme Thunderer pea whistle my father used in his first job delivering telegrams. It has PMG for Post Master General engraved on the side.
Perfect timing. I'm currently half-way through BoB for the manyth time.
Absolute masterpiece isn’t it… I’ve said for years it should be mandatory viewing in high schools.
I bought a couple of repops from SARCO a few years ago, mostly because I wondered how significantly they differed from the toy crickets I had as a kid [I'm the only one of my friends over the years who wore one out (metal fatigue is real!); OCD much? 🤣] The D-Day crickets are LOUD in comparison to any of the toy crickets I had over the decades. Which makes sense, since if I was going to be going into a firefight at any moment, I'd want to have my earplugs in all the time...
No earplugs back then
@@gratefulguy4130 there were ear plugs, but only issued to troops that used larger guns like artillery.
Acme is still in business. I recently bought a "Trench" whistle from them
I still have an old whistle on my retirement from counter terror. Funny because they're not used in the police or army anymore
I only had ten years in so I got an original tin whistle but my dad who had 30 years in got a gold one , very special .
That whistle sound is still used but only in some prisons notably winson green and strange ways in Manchester
thanks for explaining the Acme trope.
I have a replica ACME clicker ( manufactured 2000s) which I used when I was a hypnotherapist. To explain - there are some hypnosis techniques which require you to click your fingers. I am not very good at clicking my fingers so I used a clicker instead. The clickers used in the film 'The Longest Day' don't look like ACME clickers. They look more like a more modern version which was around in the 60s which looked like a sea shell.
I have a co-ordination problem so could never click my fingers like other kids. In my late teens, I learned (with practise) to click with my left hand, despite being right-handed. Met somebody else in the same situation. Can't explain it but worth a try.
@@nevillewran4083 I had, as a child and into my early 20s severe fine motor skills deficits, not with speaking which ive oddly enough excelled at from a young age, (likely to the occasional irritation of my parents) Now at 25 with exercises and use of perscribed stimulants during those exercises ive managed to almost entirely close the gap, except for a mild on and off tremor i can now write almost entirely without trouble minus the occasional off day, and stuff like keyrings, pulling cards out of wallets, tieing shoes ects, are not the arduous tasks they where in the past and can ususally be done without difficulty.
Just putting this here in case other people with similar issues, Keep at it! you can find solutions if not direct than you can find work arounds. Its a challenge to overcome, a problem to be solved not a place to be stopped.
Stephen Ambrose in his work D-Day wrote of an American paratrooper who was from a German family that had immigrated to the US. He spoke with a prominent German accent. Ambrose wrote that the guy was so worried about getting shot by friendly fire if he spoke that on the plane he stuffed these clickers in every pocket!
Had an old jeopardy board game that had some clickers. We drove my mom nuts.
The movie , the longest day shows a great reprisitation of the use of the cricket use on D-day,...
Regarding trying to be the first listed in the telephone book, some companies tried to be the last. I recall one year the final entry in the Baltimore phone book was Zyzzy Zyzzy Zubb Zugg. I don’t recall what product or service they provided.
Medical equipment
@@kingcosworth2643 I dunno if you’re joking, or correct. If that IS what they were, I’m amazed you knew.
It's the short videos that are getting me interested in your channel. Just a little data for you!
For the myth of the Kar 96 sounding like the clicking in The Longest Day, I'd reach out to Bloke on the Range. They've done some stuff with the Garand Ping and other similar WWII myths and misconceptions, maybe they could figure it out.
Mikeburnfire does a video on it already. Conclusion...they really sound nothing alike to eachother.
Edit: I'm getting my Mike's confused. MikeB on RUclips is the one who made the video
I had a sporterized amburg made mauser 98... no, working the bolt in no way sounds like a tin cricket. There were, however, cheap stamped toy versions in the 60s (shaped and painted to resemble frogs) that sold for a nickel or a dime, and sounded fairly authentic
They still make them to this day, I think using some of the origional tooling.
I really enjoy your videos. Perhaps one day will cover the Kurta calculator. That's an interesting piece of business. It looks like a grenade and calculates mechanically. Fun!
I love the Curta calculator. Really wish I could justify the purchase of one, but they sell for $1500-2000 the last time I checked. Maybe I will see if I can pick up a poster-sized exploded blueprint of the device to put on the wall; there's a good reason they were made similar to fine watches, tons of small parts and jigs used for assembly.
The scene from the Longest Day still bothers me. As you saw from the clip shown, the Wehrmacht soldier FIRED TWICE. The KAR 98K fires once per operation of the bolt.
Also, as the clip shows, you got the two clicks when you unload a spent cartridge and loaded a new round into the chamber. This implies that the soldier deliberately had a fired round (or an empty chamber) when he heard the first click. Wehrmacht soldiers are obviously trained to keep a live round and the bolt closed and locked when investigating a noise. This implies that the only way a soldier would have the chamber of his rifle empty when investigating a noise would be if he just put in a new stripper clip of ammo to charge his magazine. We didn't hear that, though the American soldier was close enough to hear the German soldier moving around. Feeding a magazine via stripper clip makes a distinctive and recognizable noise.
Yes, it bothers me. But I'm not bothered when I'm accused of being a gun nerd, despite never having owned one...🙄😛😉
Edit: the Mauser KAR-98K does NOT have a loaded chamber indicator. Thus the only other possibility that comes to mind, of the soldier looking at his rifle and going "crap, I don't have this thing loaded" can't happen. 😖
Not only that but the German soldier went in to check the downed foe, close enough to touch him, with a spent round in the chamber. I'll grant you that's just stupid not a physical impossibility.
Re: your edit, perhaps he had forgotten whether he was loaded, and cycled the bolt again (or just short-stroked it to check the chamber), to make sure.
I just found it implausible that the rifle should produce anything close to the hollow two-tone click sound of the clicker. Just as I find it implausible when I hear, in a movie or TV show, a gun making random rattling noises as if it were a cheap plastic toy.
Probably TWO germans or more.
@@yetanother9127 😳. You're right! But if he short stroked it, (partially opened the chamber to feel if he has a round loaded) wouldn't do him much good, unless he can see or feel the dented primer. A more likely scenario is that the soldier had gunfighter's syndrome...he just got out of a firefight earlier, and as he heard the American soldier nearby, he deliberately ejected the unfired round in his chamber to make ABSOLUTELY SURE he had a live round ready to fire, because he can't remember if he loaded a fresh round. Better to eject a perfectly good bullet out of his gun, than to squeeze the trigger and hear the firing pin go "Tink!" And nothing else happen...😵😵
The flash/thunder is still used by the US Military except there are three words. Two words are the challenge and password, but the third one is used under a specific situation in place of one or both. In the case of D-Day it was Flash/Thunder/Welcome for all three.
Came here for the clicker info but stayed for the Road Runner trivia
Very interesting. I haven’t heard of these before.
Thank you for posting!
click click click...pops out to wave
Wonderful story. Thank you! 👏👏
Also interesting, the Acme company for years distributed a very unprofitable and unsuccessful line of specific tools and explosives for use in the California desert.
I remember that scene from “The Longest Day.”
I got one as a kid and still have it. Loved clicking it incessantly haha
Remember these from the Longest Day film. Unfortunately in that film the loading of a Mauser rifle sounded just the same!
I remember those clickers in the old war movies,great video thumbs up
Imagine a 1944 soldier watching him talk about them
My Dad worked at Acme Steel. As a kid I thought he made Wile E's stuff. Apparently, they made train brakes shoes. Not so interesting for a 7 year old.
Very good video. Thank you Sir.
I'm amazed anyone would hear that beyond a few yards away, especially in the noise of a battle. How far away was someone expected to be and still hear this?
i wonder why the "crickets" displayed in museums are slighty different than all the genuine reproductions we can buy (i bought one 12 years ago in Normandy and i immediately noticed it was different than those in the museum, the shape is not the same).
In the movie "the longest day" their "crickets" are totally different (for the cinema i can understand but for a museum i can't because they have real ones on display...why those they sell are different than those they show)
That's why my dog gets ww2 flashbacks everytime I use the clicker lol
Its amazing how much war production no longer exists. Id imagine the world as a whole was so discusted with the entire mess it felt good to destroy any remnant of it
"I've been Norman Mailered and Maxwel Taylored..."
Where I worked we used to sell thunderers they are still very popular today.
I regret not buying one of these when I was at the Overlord museum in France.
2:25 pre-internet equivalent to SEO, lmao.
ACME: "A Company Making Everything" That's the joke I've always heard about Acme.
A fascinating video, thanks very much for sharing it. :)
1990s kids know Acme from The Road Runner Show
With how spread out some paratroopers were, I'm sure if there were any that mistook the rifle as a friendly signal probably didn't get to stick around to tell anyone about it.
Clicked to learn a little about ww2 history.
Left with a deeper appreciation of the humor from Looney Tunes
My brother in law gave me one of these for Christmas.
I used an acme thunderer in the fire brigade and I use one now on the railways.
first thought: its 5x bigger than i thought
I think my history teacher told us story about American Cricket: click! and German Gewehr: click-click!, but apparently he took it from the movie :D
I heard crickets 🦗
I have a replica as well, where from exactly I forgot. I annoyed the hell out of my parents with it for a while.
That wooden rattle sounded a little sick
Growing up in the early 70s there were toys that made the same sound.
That was awesome! Thank you!
7 left is just wild.
Always wondered why only the 101st. used them and not also the 82nd. and the British parachute units.
Crickets were known for being good luck, so I wonder if that is in part where they got their name from.
a use for the modern novelty item clickers was exploited by this fellow who was tired of having to fight his way through crowds of Hare Krishna people at airports. they would get quite in your face with their chants and such. so dude bought this huge box of crickets and started passing them out for free to his fellow regular business travelers. this was in the late 1960s.
pretty soon when a clump of Krishna devotees started gathering they’d find themselves surrounded by people clicking crickets at them. no threats or anything, just clicks. eventually the Krishna folk found new cricket free places to annoy people in.
I find the image of policemen with wooden rattles hilarious.
I bought my clicker at the same spot as you did. It sits in the drawer and I have to click it every time I see it.
Interesting. I wonder if the modern M57 "Clacker" detonator now works as a good alternative?
You could just buy one from the original maker. They still use the same tooling the WW2 ones were made with.
An additional thing about the clicker in the longest day they guy who gets shot by the German is in the 82nd and would have never had a clicker to begin with
I never knew that,thank you!!!
Its really quite inappropriate Gilles to wear a parachute regiment tie if you never served. Bit of a Walter Mitty.
Dang I have always wondered about the proliferation of ACME as a name.
Thank you for very interesting content! Definitely a like)
Very cool, thank you
That clicker is funny. Growing up I want to a catholic grade school and the nuns would use their clicker to have us do things. In church, standup, sit down, kneel etc, etc. In class SHUT UP!
Have I seen this video before?
Yes, i saw too
I use the clicking sound for incoming SMS now .. 😁
Naming my company 1a because sorting schemes tend to be numeric-alpha even though we call them alpha-numeric.
ACME THUNDERER..best police whistle made
Thank you, keep working.