The Miracle in East Texas

When it was discovered in the early 1930s, the East Texas oil field was the largest known reserve in the world. Ten years down the road in 1941, that tremendous amount of oil proved absolutely essential in the Allies' fight for freedom from the Nazis. Within one month of the Pearl Harbor attack and America entering the war, and within 22 days, Nazi subs sank 73 of 74 tankers shuttling oil from Texas through the Gulf of Mexico to the East Coast. That oil was meant to supply our fighting soldiers over on the European battlefields. The U.S. so desperately needed the oil that we secretly constructed a 24-inch pipeline 1,254 miles to bring the oil where it could be dispensed to the European stage. Builders stealthily completed it in only 13 months. They called the pipeline the Big Inch, and it carried more than 350 million barrels of crude oil to the Atlantic coast. This allowed fuel to be shipped overseas to the Allies. Therefore, it eventually was German tanks that ran out of fuel, not the Allies. Texan H.L. Hunt said, and Winston Churchill agreed, the Allies floated to victory on a sea of East Texas oil. Kevin Sorbo joins Kevin Freeman in the Economic War to talk about this amazing story.