This is the memory palace.

I'm Nate Demet.

They needed a plan.

The Japanese had attacked the US naval base Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Bullets and Bombs

and torpedoes had slammed down out of nowhere, killing more than 2,000 Americans in less than

an hour and a half.

The Imperial Army had already rolled through much of northern and central China, before the

communist slowed its assault by intentionally destroying dams along the Yellow River,

killing thousands of Japanese soldiers, but as many as a million Chinese civilians.

They were vicious, these japs, or whatever they were called behind closed doors and cabinet

meetings, or in the war planning rooms or send offices.

They had slaughtered as many as 200,000 civilians in the Chinese capital.

Who knew how long it would be before the Japanese were bombing San Diego, or Seattle, or

Salem, Oregon?

The Americans needed a weapon.

They found a dentist.

Or rather a dentist with a weapon found then.

On December 7, 1941, that same day that will live in Infamy Day, Dr. Lightal Adams, a

country dentist from Irwin, Pennsylvania, coming up on retirement, was in New Mexico on vacation.

At dusk, in a crowd of tourists, he watched millions of bats pour out of the mouth of

Carlsbad Cavern.

It was incredible.

...