Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » The Bat Bomb and Pigeon-Guided Missiles

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May 25th, 2006

The Bat Bomb and Pigeon-Guided Missiles

Some of the strangest innovations in weaponry have involved the enlistment of kamikazee animals.

In 1941, a dental surgeon named Lytle Adams wrote a letter to the White House proposing that bats be employed as bomb delivery devices. According to Wikipedia, “Four biological factors gave promise to the crazy-sounding plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (each of four caves in Texas are occupied by several million bats.) Second, bats can carry their own weight in flight (females carry their young-sometimes twins.) Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require food or complicated maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then find secretive places (such as flammable buildings) to hide in daylight.”

Lytle’s notion was that bats could be dropped from the sky with small time-delay explosives attached to their underbellies. They would seek out the eaves and attics of Japan’s wooden homes and set off fires over vast swaths of territory. “Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped,” Lytle said. “Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life.” Roosevelt okayed the plan and testing was carried out by the Army, Navy, and later the Marines. However, the Manhattan Project was completed before the bat bomb could ever be operationally deployed.

More on the bat bomb from the Air Force Association magazine.

World War II also spawned B.F. Skinner’s pigeon-guided missile, an idea whose brilliance was never fully appreciated by the military brass.

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