Boeing hid this entire factory with a fake neighborhood during the Second World War – Jalopnik

During the fearful days of the Second World War, the American army was understandably jumpy. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the west coast felt like a sitting duck, especially the industrial hubs that were needed to throw away the hardware needed to win the war. One of the biggest likely goals was Boeing’s Plant 2 in Seattle. This was not just a factory; It was the birthplace of the legendary B-17 Flying Fort, with thousands of them rolling from the Assemblagelijn. It was not entirely the size of Ford’s Mile Long Willow Run factory back to the east, yet impressive. At its peak, Plant built 2 to 300 B-17 flying forts per month. That made it an excellent goal for the opposition. Losing it is said to have been a catastrophic synergy failure.

That is why the US Army Corps of Engineers cooked a plan, so it could only come from one place: Hollywood. They decided that the best way to hide a vast aircraft factory was to build a completely fake district in the suburbs on the roof. That’s right. From the air, which was perhaps one of the most critical industrial locations in the country, was designed at that time to look like just a sleepy corner of the suburbs, complete with houses, streets and trees. Seattle is known for many things – such as losing the best team name in the NBA to Oklahoma City, and that left Tesla Cybertruck – but this one belongs in the Annals of Seattle Lore.

To get a cajol of this size, the army needed people who were professionals in building fake things, fast – and specifically looked good at a distance. They turned to Hollywood -set designer John Stewart Detlie, an art director of MGM. Detlie and his team went to work and transformed the vast roof of the factory into the “Boeing Wonderland”. These were not just a few painted lines on the roof; It was a complete production.

Crews used more than 1 million board feet of wood and huge amounts of chicken wire and jute to construct a convincing illusion. They built Nephuizen – most of them only a few feet long, because the only perspective that mattered was from above. The city came complete with garages and even a small gas station. False trees, made of chicken wire, tar and feathers, strewn the landscape. They even explained tar paper roads with tongue-in-cheek names such as “Synthetic St.” and “Burlap Blvd.” To complete the effect, factory ventilation openings were disguised as chimneys or fireplace, and employees were encouraged to walk through the city on the roof during their breaks, adding a hint of life to the enormous production.

The wildest part of this entire schedule? The “Boeing Wonderland” was actually an open secret among 30,000 employees and the broader community of Seattle. Yet nobody spoke and the secret was held until the war was almost over in July 1945. Fortunately, no enemy bombers ever came to Seattle to put the extensive list to the test. However, the camouflage was so convincing that it is said to be friendly American pilots trying to find their way back to basics. If your own boys cannot find the factory, it is a safe gamble that an enemy navigator would also have doubted their cards.

The project served as a huge sign of the war efforts at home, a tangible sign that things were done to protect the home front. After the war, the charming Nepbuurt was demolished in 1946. Plant 2 continued to produce aircraft for decades before it was finally demolished in 2010. Unfortunately, no matter how iconic, just like the C-17 Globemaster-the time to retire, eventually comes in the end. The factory may have disappeared for a long time, but just like the buoy-pilot-Refuge, the story of Clever Engineering remains one of the most brilliant and wonderfully unique examples of resourceful ingenuity.