1. Fortunately for Japan, the Plan to Torch it With Bat Bombs Was Never Carried Out
Project X-Ray experienced some testing mishaps, most notable of which occurred on March 15, 1943. That day, armed bats were accidentally released at Carlsbad Army Air Field, New Mexico, and they set the place ablaze. The silver lining was that it confirmed that weaponized bats can, indeed, start major fires. More controlled weapons testing at a specially designed “Japanese Village” confirmed that Bat Bombs were, pound for pound, between 11 to 21 times more effective than standard bombs. As the project’s chief chemist noted: “the regular bombs would give probably 167 to 400 fires per bomb load where X-Ray would give 3,625 to 4,748 fires“.
Despite promising test results, the authorities pulled the plug on Project X-Ray in mid-1944, when they were informed that it would not produce a deployable weapon until 1945. That was deemed too slow a pace, and since the Manhattan Project was on track to produce a war-winning bomb by then, X-Ray was canceled after a 2-year life and a $2 million expenditure. To his dying day, Dr. Lytle Adams insisted that his Bat Bombs plan could have won the war, with fewer horrors than atomic bombs. As he put it: “Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life“.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Atlantic, The, April 4th, 2011 – Old, Weird Tech: The Bat Bombs of World War II
Atlas Obscura – The Almost Perfect World War II Plot to Bomb Japan With Bats
Cave Brown, Anthony – Bodyguard of Lies (1975)
Couffer, Jack – Bat Bomb: World War II’s Other Secret Weapon (1992)
Disciples of Flight – Napalm Bats: The Bat Bomb
Foreign Policy – Exclusive: The Pentagon Has a Plan to Stop the Zombie Apocalypse. Seriously
History Collection – Mao’s Plan to Exterminate Sparrows, and Other Bad Ideas From History
Holt, Thaddeus – The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (2004)
Howard, Michael – Strategic Deception in the Second World War (1995)
Latimer, Jonathan David – Deception in War (2001)
Macintyre, Ben – Operation Mincemeat (2010)
NPR – Dead Man Floating: World War II’s Oddest Operation
Royal Australian Navy – HMAS Abraham Crijnssen
United States Strategic Command – CONPLAN 8888
US Naval Institute News – Camouflaged Ships: An Illustrated History
Warfare History Network – Bat Bombs: WWII’s Project X-Ray
War History Online – The Ship That Disguised Itself as an Island to Evade the Japanese in WWII
Washington Post, February 24th, 1987 – Edward Lansdale, Prototype For Ugly American, Dies
We Are the Mighty – That Time a Dutch Warship Pretended to be an Island to Evade the Enemy
History Collection – What it Was Like in the US Military in Between Wars
