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