COLD WAR BOMB WARMED BY CHICKENS

BBC ^ | Thursday, 1 April, 2004 | Staff

[Leisler]

Plans to fill a nuclear landmine with chickens to regulate its temperature were seriously considered during the Cold War.

Civil servants at the National Archives say it is a coincidence the secret plan is being revealed on 1 April.

The Army planned to detonate the seven-tonne device on the German plains in the event of having to retreat.

Operation Blue Peacock forms part of an exhibition for the National Archives, in Kew, London, on Friday.

Professor Peter Hennessy, curator of the Secret State exhibition, told the Times: "It is not an April Fool. These documents come straight from the archives at Aldermaston. Why and how would we forge them?"

The bomb was designed to stop the Red Army advancing across West Germany during the height of the Cold War.

But nuclear physicists at the Aldermaston nuclear research station in Berkshire were worried about how to keep the landmine at the correct temperature when buried underground.

In a 1957 document they proposed live chickens would generate enough heat to ensure the bomb worked when buried for a week.

The birds would be put inside the casing of the bomb, given seed to keep them alive and stopped from pecking at the wiring.

The landmine would be remotely detonated.

Tom O'Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, told the paper: "It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes."

[Cheburashka]

Now I know why Slim Pickens rode the A-bomb down. To keep it at the correct temperature.

And I guess we could call these birds the Slim Pickens Chickens.

[pepperdog]

I saw that on the Science Channel the other night, I'd never heard of it before. Pretty amazing.

[muawiyah]

Maybe the atomic handgrenade was vetoed, but the Davey Crockett Rocket (with an atomic warhead) was deployed. Your Infantry battalion HQ crypto-clerk was in the loop to deliver any order to use it.

We have Freepers here who are so young they are under the very false impression that all the nukes have always been under tight lock and key, and available to be fired only on the command of the very highest levels.

Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!

[billorites]

Throw in a few shrimp, you have a meal.

[Ma3lst0rm]

"they generally are jokes in my experience, the ones that aren't, are usually ex-military types"

There I put in the commas.

[Professional Engineer]

SOMEONE SET UP US THE CHICKEN BOMB.

[FreedomCalls]

There I put in the commas.

Thanks.

[FreedomCalls]

There I put in the commas.

Thanks.

[Age of Reason]

That's pretty good.

But the plans to train British seagulls to crap on German periscopes has it beat.

[TXnMA]

"Pikecrete" -- after the inventor, Geoffrey Pike. Mix of paper pulp and seawater. They overlooked the minor fact that seawater is difficult to freeze...

[Leisler]

[RightWhale]

I know one of the people who launched the firebomb weather balloons at Oregon. A weatherman, just another day at the office for him.