Posted on 05/21/2004 7:38:18 AM PDT by knak
Military officials considered sending flocks of homing pigeons armed with biological warfare agents such as anthrax against enemy targets, a secret report for British intelligence chiefs said.
The plan, developed by an enthusiastic RAF wing commander immediately after the second world war, is revealed in MI5 files released today. There were also plans to train birds carrying explosives to fly into enemy searchlights.
By the end of the war conventional uses of pigeons had been rendered obsolete by radio and telephone, and the armed forces told Whitehall's Joint Intelligence Committee they would no longer pay for bird lofts. The re-evaluation is documented in three files labelled "Pigeon Policy", which record inter-departmental disputes over budgets.
To keep the birds just in case, the military decided to maintain a loft in peace time. MI6 offered £150 a year to a civilian to look after some 100 pigeons.
Wing Commander WEL Rayner, the head of the air ministry's pigeon section, circulated a paper on the "Future Uses of Pigeons". Drawing on studies suggesting birds used electromagnetic fields as guides, he declared: "We can now train pigeons to home to any particular object.
"All we need is a model of the small target and three weeks for special training by experts. There are several possibly useful developments of this. Bacteria might be delivered accurately to a target by this means. [Pigeons] can be used against an enemy target in a distant theatre of war by release 100 or 200 miles away from enemy interference. They can carry a load of 2oz over such a distance. They are not detectable by radar.
"With the latest developments of explosives and bacterial science _ this possibility should be closely investigated _ a thousand pigeons each with a 2oz explosive capsule landed at intervals on a specific target might be a seriously inconvenient surprise."
His contributions were not always appreciated. "Rayner has always been a menace in pigeon affairs," one record noted.
MI14 - the section monitoring Germany - also devised extra uses for the birds, including "possible dropping of pigeon by rocket"; "training pigeons to fly into searchlights armed with an explosive charge"; and the "development of a capsule stimulant to be fed to birds prior to service flight".
When Captain James Caiger, who ran the loft from his home in Surrey, asked for extra funding in 1950 it was advised the Pigeon Committee be wound up - the loft had barely been used in five years.
Too risky, it could backfire as pidgeons land elsewhere, other than target....
"When the car halted, it was embedded halfway into the doorframe. And at that very moment, the momentum of the collision blew the tailgate open and flung the car's contents into the mall.
"Two hundred thirty-three pigeons. Two hundred thirty-three extremely dangerous pigeons.
"All up and down the mall, the shoppers came to see what had happened. Hundreds of them. And the pigeons fanned out to great them, their wings madly beating the air into a cloud of highly diseased fecal dust.
"A mass baptism of rampant infection."
Or maybe Pierre knew about them.... 1950's.... oops
Like our own incendiary bats did. Cost us a hangar.
"Kamikaze Anthrax Pigeon" would be a great name for a rock band! (apologies to Dave Barry)
Didn't this story come out about 6 months ago?
The bat idea was good in theory, but not in practice.
(made for a funny story though).
8 hours ago according to google
Wouls they have served alongside The Queen's Own Kamikaze Highlander Regiment?
PING
Ping.
That was my thought. This sounds more like a Monty Python skit than a series proposal.
Not my fault!
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