Capturing the bats was not difficult. Team members passed nets on long poles back and forth over the cave entrance as the bats emerged from their lairs. As many as 100 were captured in two or three passes, after which they were placed in a refrigerated truck. Adams took some to the Chemical Warfare Service headquarters at Aberdeen, Md., and released them to show Army officials how they could each carry a dummy bomb.
There was much opposition to the project from CWS officials, but in March 1943 the Army Air Forces issued authority for the project to proceed by a memo -- Subject: "Test of Method to Scatter Incendiaries." Purpose: "Determine the feasibility of using bats to carry small incendiary bombs into enemy targets."
Bat-bomb canister that housed the bats
Project members studied the habits of the bats intently. Louis F. Fieser, assigned as chief chemist for the Adams project, began to design bombs light enough to be carried by the free-tails. His research showed that the British had designed miniature bombs during World War I called "baby incendiaries" made of thermite that weighed 6.4 ounces. Fieser made two sizes of incendiaries that were oblong celluloid cases filled with thickened kerosene. A small time-delay igniter fuse was attached along one side. One size weighed 17 grams and would burn for four minutes with a 10-inch flame. The other weighed 22 grams and would burn for six minutes with a 12-inch flame.
The time-delay igniter consisted of a firing pin held in tension against a spring by a thin steel wire. When the bombs were prepared for use, a copper chloride solution was injected into the cavity through which the steel wire passed. The copper chloride would corrode the wire in time; when it was completely corroded through, the firing pin snapped forward, striking the igniter head and lighting the kerosene.
To attach the bomb to a bat, technicians clipped the case to the loose skin on the bat's chest with a surgical clip and a piece of string. The bats were dropped from a plane in a cardboard container that would open in midair at about 1,000 feet. According to one CWS report, the bats were then expected "to fly into hiding in dwellings or other structures, gnaw through the string, and leave the bombs behind."
Oops.... errant bats set the barracks on fire!
In early May 1943, about 3,500 bats were collected at Carlsbad Caverns and flown in a North American B-25 that had been assigned to the project to Muroc Dry Lake, Calif., for tests. The bats were placed in refrigerators and forced to hibernate. On May 21, 1943, five boxes of bats were dropped from 5,000 feet, but the test was unsuccessful because the bats, not fully recovered from hibernation, could not fly.
The project was transferred to an auxiliary field under construction at Carlsbad, and secret tests continued. This time bats were placed in ice cube trays and cooled off to place them in hibernation. They were then positioned in cardboard cartons for the drop tests. Captain Carr explained the procedure: "Bats were taken from the refrigeration truck in a hibernated state in lots of approximately fifty. They were taken individually by a biologist, and about a one-half inch of loose chest skin was pinched away from the flesh. While this operation was being done, another group was preparing the incendiaries. One operator injected the solution in the delay [mechanism], another sealed the hole with wax, and another placed the surgical clip that was fastened to the incendiary by a short string....The incendiary was then handed to a trained helper who fastened it to the chest of the bat."
Drops of the bats were made with dummy bombs from a B-25 and a Piper L-4 Cub, but troubles once again developed. Many of the bats didn't awaken from hibernation in time to be able to fly, the cardboard cartons didn't always open properly, and the surgical clips proved difficult to attach to the chests of the bats. Team members worked to resolve these problems, and more bats were secured. This time, however, they woke up too quickly when they were released, then escaped.
Captain Carr stated in an interim report: "The bats used at Carlsbad weighed an average of nine grams. They could carry eleven grams without any trouble and eighteen grams satisfactorily, but twenty-two grams appeared to be excessive. These didn't fly very far, and three returned in a few minutes to the building where we were working. One flew underneath, one landed on the roof, and one attached itself to the wall. The ones with eleven-gram dummies flew out of sight. The next day an examination of the grounds around a ranch house about two miles away from the point of release disclosed two dummies inside the porch, one beside the house, and one inside the barn."
Tests continued, and more than 6,000 bats were used in the experiments. In a report dated June 8, 1943, Carr stated that if further tests were to be carried out, a better time-delay parachute-type container, new clips and a simplified time-delay igniter should be designed. He added that "testing was concluded...when a fire destroyed a large portion of the test material." What he didn't point out was that a barracks, a control tower and other buildings at the Carlsbad auxiliary field had been set afire by the bats on the not-yet-occupied base.
The Army had had enough of the experiment by August 1943, and the project was passed to the Navy and assigned to the Marine Corps as Project X-Ray. Marines were assigned to guard four bat caves in Texas, and their first tests began on December 13, 1943. Experiments were carried out with improved "egg crate" trays and bomb shells. In the course of those tests, 30 fires were started -- 22 of which went out on their own. New and more powerful incendiaries were ordered, and full-scale tests were planned for August 1944. However, when the Navy learned that it would take until mid-1945 to complete the tests, the 27-month, $2 million project was canceled -- "not based on any shortcomings of the incendiary and time units developed," according to the notice, "but rather upon the shortcomings of the fundamental idea and the opportunity of getting sufficient reliable data in order to plan a timely operation."
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Adams was very disappointed. He maintained that fires set by bat bombers could have been more destructive to Japanese cities than the two atomic bombs. He noted that bats had scattered up to 20 miles during the tests, adding, "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."
Meanwhile, tests had been ongoing for some time to train birds as kamikaze pilots. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a behavioral psychologist at the University of Minnesota who believed that pigeons could be trained to guide missiles, originated the idea of using birds as bombers. A scientist noted for his view that learning occurred as a result of an organism responding to, or operating on, its environment, he did extensive research with animals, notably rats and pigeons, and concluded that a rat or pigeon could learn to press a lever in order to obtain food. Skinner wondered, after the Germans bombed Warsaw in 1939, whether a shell or missile could be designed that could be guided to a ground target from an aircraft. He was riding on a train at the time and saw a flock of birds lifting and wheeling in formation as they flew alongside the train. "Suddenly I saw them as ‘devices' with excellent vision and extraordinary maneuverability," he recalled. "Could they not guide a missile? Was the answer to the problem waiting for me in my own back yard?"
Skinner, who already had much experience with birds, chose to work with them in many experiments because they have better vision than humans, are faster in their movements, can distinguish colors, don't get airsick and are more easily handled than many other animals. He decided to focus on pigeons because he discovered that they are more predictable than other birds.
Skinner bought some pigeons at a poultry store and started teaching the birds to earn kernels of grain by pecking at a specific target image. During this training the birds were held in position in front of a screen by means of a special harness. "Feet and wings would be hard to harness," he reasoned, "but the head and neck might be used. The pigeon's eyes could pick out a target, movement of its neck could produce signals to steer the missile, and its head and neck together could pick up grain as a reinforcer.
"I found that I could conveniently package a pigeon in a man's sock with its head and neck protruding through a hole in the toe and its wings and legs drawn together at the back and lightly tied with a shoestring. The jacketed bird could be strapped to a block of wood and put into an apparatus."
Pigeon in a Skinner box
Skinner built a system in which the pigeon steered by moving pairs of lightweight rods around its neck. By lifting or lowering its head, the bird closed electrical contacts operating a hoist. By moving its head from side to side, it drove a hoist back and forth on an overhead track.
A bull's-eye was placed on a far wall of the room, a few grains of food were placed in a small cup in the center, and the apparatus was pushed toward it. By moving up or down and from side to side, the pigeon could reach the wall in position to take the grain.
"My pigeons became quite adept at this," Skinner recalled in his autobiography. "I pushed them faster and faster across the room until they were operating the moving hoist as fast as the motors permitted."
He next worked out a system whereby the pigeon pecks were picked up as an electronic signal and transferred to a control system. As the image moved off center, the pigeon would peck frantically to bring the device back on track; the resulting signals would operate the simulated missile control system to center the device on the target. With practice, his birds hit the target with near perfect accuracy and could easily distinguish one target from another.
Nose Cone, Pigeon-Guided Missile
1944
Skinner, convinced that his idea had merit, contacted members of the National Inventors Council, who were startled by the proposal and rejected the idea with the comment that it was unrelated to national defense. Undeterred, Skinner made his proposal to the NDRC on June 9, 1941, but again he received a polite "No."
News of the Pearl Harbor attack sparked Skinner to resume his work. He filmed his pigeons in action and again contacted the NDRC, and this time government scientists showed mild interest but felt it was a long shot. When A.D. Hyde, then head of the mechanical division of General Mills Inc., heard about the revolutionary idea, he was at first skeptical that pigeons could be trained as flying suicide bombs. However, he thought Skinner's reasoning was sound and persuaded the company's top management to back the project with technical help until it could be turned over to a government agency.
With this support, Skinner's system was refined. The previous harness was discarded in favor of a more practical lens and screen grid with a special servo-control mechanism. The force of the pigeon's pecking motion was increased by running a bomb's gyro and controls in a vacuum and by placing valves behind the top, bottom and sides of the flexible screen. When the pigeon tapped one of these valves, it opened, permitting air pressure to build up in the system and operate the fins on the bomb. When the target image was at dead center and the pigeon pecked at dead center, all the valves opened an equal amount and the setting was unchanged.
Detail of the three screens of the nose cone. A pigeon was behind each screen.
At this stage, the project showed enough promise that the newly formed Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) awarded Skinner a contract in June 1943 under the name of Project Pigeon for "a homing device." The inventor "recruited" a squadron of 64 pigeons (40 homers and 24 ordinary pigeons) from local sources and began their training. The birds were left without food for 36 hours, then placed in a cage with some grain about 30 minutes a day.
The target for the actual bombing experiments, to be located in Florida, was a white pyramid on a green field, so Skinner used a screen of white triangles cut into green paper. Once a bird learned that pecking the white pyramids would produce a few kernels of grain, it was conditioned to expect to be fed when he saw them. As soon as the bird had learned to break through light paper, heavier sheets were substituted. Eventually the pigeon was pecking with the force of a miniature air hammer.
Once a bird had completed this "primary" training, it was graduated to an advanced trainer. This was a lightproof box mounted over a projection screen. A moving picture of a ground target appeared on this screen, and whenever the pigeon pecked it on the screen it caused an electrical contact to close and a small drawer to pop out containing kernels of grain.
Henschel Hs 293 (on trials) underneath an He-111 - 1942
This training worked well for a time, but the pigeons quickly learned they could get the grain no matter where they pecked the screen and began to disregard the target itself. Skinner outsmarted them by crossing two beams of light at right angles in front of the image. From then on, a pigeon had to peck the target image at dead center in order to break both beams of light and actuate a photoelectric relay to release the food.
Skinner then added a new tactic. He found he could feed the birds at regular time intervals or after a certain number of pecks. After a while, the pigeons learned to rap out as many as four pecks a second for more than two minutes without a break, and would work feverishly to prevent the target image from moving off dead center.
In one final test, Skinner put each bird into a hand-operated trainer. A person sat behind each pigeon and moved a color photo projected on the screen, at the same time operating the food magazine. The pigeon had to peck correctly or he got no food at all. According to the report on these experiments: "There wasn't a single washout in the entire class of 64. Every bird earned his wings with an A grade."
Additional Sources: www.afa.org
www.murdoconline.net
www.amazon.com
history.acusd.edu
www.steve.gb.com
On This Day In History
Birthdates which occurred on July 20:
1304 Francesco Petrarch Italy, poet (Italia Mia) (A founder of Renaissance Humanism)
1519 Innocent IX 230th Roman Catholic pope (1591)
1785 Mahmud II Ottoman sultan, Westernizer, reformer
1824 Alexander Schimmelfennig, Prussia, Brig General (Union volunteers)
1890 Theda Bara actress/vamp (Under Two Flags, Cleopatra)
1890 Verna Felton Salinas Calif, actress (Hilda-December Bride)
1919 Sir Edmund Hillary one of 1st 2 men to scale Mt Everest (namesake of the EX firstlady)
1920 Elliot L Richardson Attorney General (1973)/Sec of Defense (1973)
1924 Thomas Berger US, novelist (Vital Parts, Little Big Man)
1933 Nelson Doubleday publisher (Doubleday)/owner (NY Mets)
1938 Diana Rigg Doncaster England, actress (Emma Peel-Avengers)
1938 Jo Ann Campbell Jacksonville Fla, Lawrence Welk's champagne lady
1938 Natalie Wood [Natasha Gurdin], SF, (Gypsy, Rebel Without a Cause)
1939 Judy Chicago [Cohen], Chicago, artist (The Dinner Party)
1940 Tony Oliva ball player, batting champ (AL Rookie of Year 1964)
1941 Vladimir A Lyakhov cosmonaut (Soyuz 32, T-9)
1943 John Lodge bassist (Moody Blues)
1947 Carlos Santana Mexico, musician (Santana-Black Magic Woman)
1957 Donna Dixon Va, actress, Mrs Dan Ackwoyd (Couch Trip, Bossom Buddies)
Deaths which occurred on July 20:
1031 Robert II de Vrome, King of France (996-1031), dies
1454 Johan II, King of Castille, dies at 49
1636 John Oldham, trader in Mass, murdered by indians
1752 John C Pepusch, English composer (Beggar's Opera), dies at about 85
1819 John Playfair, Scottish geologist/mathematician, dies
1923 Pancho Villa, [Doroteo Arango], Mexican rebel, murdered at 55
1944 Brandt, col/German staff chief, dies in bombing
1944 Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, count/German antifascist colonel, dies
1944 Friedrich Olbricht, German general (July 20th plotter), executed
1944 Heinz Burns, German (Olympic-gold-1936), dies in bombing
1944 Korten, chef gen of Germany Luftwaffe, dies in bomb explosion
1944 Ludwig Beck, gen/chief Germany general staff (July 20th plot), dies
1944 Mertz, German colonel (July 20th plotter), executed
1944 Rudolf Schmundt, gen/Hitler's Army adjunct, dies from wounds
1944 Werner von Haeffen, German lieutenant (July 20th plotter), executed
1951 Abdullah Ibn Hussein Jordan's King assassinated in Jerusalem
1951 Mustafa Shuqri Ashu, tailor/murderer of king Abdullah, shot to death
1954 Blair Moody (Sen-Mich), dies at 52
1973 Bruce Lee, [Lee Yuen Kam], actor (Enter the Dragon), dies at 32
1983 Frank Reynolds news anchor (ABC Evening News), dies at 59
1984 Jim [James] Fixx (52), jogger, writer (Jim Fixx on Running), died of coronary while running
1995 Helmut Erich Robert Gernsheim, photographer/collector, dies at 82
GWOT Casualties
Iraq
20-Jul-2003 4 | US: 4 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Master Sergeant David A. Scott Doha Non-hostile - unspecified cause
US Sergeant 1st Class Christopher R. Willoughby Baghdad airport Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US Sergeant Justin W. Garvey Tall Afar - Ninawa Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
US Sergeant Jason D. Jordan Tall Afar - Ninawa Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
20-Jul-2004 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0
US Specialist Danny B. Daniels II Baghdad Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US Staff Sergeant Michael J. Clark Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - car bomb
US Corporal Todd J. Godwin Ramadi - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire
Afghanistan
A Good Day
http://icasualties.org/oif/ Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
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Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://www.taps.org/ (subtle hint SEND MONEY)
On this day...
0514 St Hormisdas begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1031 Henry I succeeds father Robert II as King of France
1402 Battle of Angora Mongols, led by Tamerlane defeat Ottoman Turks and captured Sultan Beyazid I
1773 Scottish settlers arrive at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada)
1801 Elisha Brown Jr pressed a 1,235 pound cheese ball at his farm (I wonder who cut it?)
1808 Napoleon decrees all French Jews adopt family names
1810 Colombia declared independence from Spain
1858 Fee 1st charged to see a baseball game (50cents) (NY beats Bkln 22-18)
1861 Confederate state's congress began holding sessions in Richmond, Va
1861 The New York Tribune compares Peace Democrats to the venomous Copperhead snake.
1862 Guerrilla campaign in GA (Porter's and Poindexter's) (casualties US 580 and CS 2,866)
1864 Battle at Stephenson's Depot Virginia: 200 killed or injured
1864 Battle of Peachtree Creek-Atlanta Campaign
1868 1st use of tax stamps on cigarettes
1871 British Columbia becomes 6th Canadian province
1872 Mahlon Loomis receives patent for wireless ... the radio is born
1876 1st US intercollegiate track meet held, Saratoga, NY; Princeton wins
1881 Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, surrenders to federal troops
1890 Snow & hail in Calais, ME (More proof of global warming)
1894 2000 fed troops recalled from Chicago, having ended Pullman strike
1903 Giuseppe Sarto elected Pope Pius X
1912 Phillies Sherry Magee steals home twice in 1 game
1914 Armed resistance against British rule begins in Ulster
1917 Pact of Corfu signed: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes form Yugoslavia
1917 WW I draft lottery held; #258 is 1st drawn
1922 Togo made a mandate of the League of Nations
1925 Beirut sultan Pasja al-Atrasj calls Druzen for holy war against France
1927 Lindbergh begins NY flight (Spirit of St Louis)
1930 106ø F, Washington, DC (district record)
1933 Vatican state secretary Pacelli (Pius XII) signs accord with Hitler
1934 118ø F, Keokuk, Iowa (state record)
1938 Finland awarded 1940 Olympic games after Japan withdraws
1942 Legion of Merit Medal authorized by congress
1942 Women's Army Auxiliary Corps began basic training at Fort Des Moines
1944 Pres FDR nominated for an unprecedented 4th term at Dem convention
1944 US invades Japanese-occupied Guam in WW II
1944 Browns Nelson Potter is 1st pitcher suspended for throwing spitballs
1944 Von Stauffenberg fails on an attempt on Hitler's life
1948 Syngman Rhee "elected president" of South-Korea
1948 US Communist Party chairman William Forster arrested
1949 Israel's 19 month war of independence ends
1950 U.S. Army’s Task Force Smith pushed back into the Naktong perimeter by superior North Korean forces.
1950 "Arthur Murray Party" premiers on ABC TV (later DuMont, CBS, NBC)
1954 Armistice for Indo-China signed, Vietnam separates into North and South
1956 France recognizes Tunisia's independence
1960 1st submerged submarine to fire Polaris missile (George Washington)
1960 USSR recovered 2 dogs; 1st living organisms to return from space
1963 Verne Gagne beats Crusher Lisowski in Minneapolis, to become NWA champ
1964 1st surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"
1965 18.18" of rainfall, Edgarton, Missouri (state 24-hr record)
1967 Race riots in Memphis Tenn
1968 Iron Butterfly's "In-a-gadda-da-vida" becomes the 1st heavy metal song to hit the charts, it comes in at #117
1969 1st men on Moon, Neil Armstrong & Edwin Aldrin, Apollo 11
1970 1st baby born on Alcatraz Island
1974 Turkey invades Cyprus
1976 EARTH INVADES MARS! US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, 1st Martian landing (10's of thousands of non-partisan reformers and peace activists meet at Ft. Dodge Iowa to listen to Jesse Jackson, Barbra Streisand, & some guy named Moonbream (who wandered up on stage looking for some brown acid) decry this blatant unwarrented unilateral invasion of a sovereign planet, whille there are still children in this nation (not to mention the world) who don't have yo yo's. when asked to comment on this Ted Kennedy is reported to say "Who took my Scotch!")
1979 44-kg Newfoundland dog pulls 2293-kg load, Bothell, Wash
1985 Divers find wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha
1988 Michael Dukakis selected Democratic presidential nominee
1988 Iran Iraq war ends
1989 93ø F, highest overnight low ever recorded in Phoenix Arizona
1990 Justice William Brennan resigns from the Supreme Court after 36 years
1991 Mike Tyson is accused of raping a Miss Black America contestant
1992 Seven people were killed when a test model of the Marine Corps' controversial V-22 Osprey transport aircraft crashed into the Potomac River
1993 Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster was found shot to death in a park in northern Virginia. His death was ruled a suicide.
1994 OJ Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife's killer (And his search goes on)
1996 At the Atlanta Olympics, Renata Mauer of Poland won the Games' first gold, in the 10-meter air rifle
1999 After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule surfaced.
2000 It's reported that an experiment at Princeton showed light traveling beyond its previous known limit
2003 American generals said a new Iraqi civil defense force would be created over the next 45 days with some 7,000 militia members. Gen. John Abizaid, the top commander of coalition forces in Iraq, predicted that resistance to U.S. forces in Iraq would grow in coming months as progress was made in creating a new government to replace the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein
2004 The U.N. General Assembly called for the structure to be torn down in compliance with a world court ruling. (Israel says what part of no don't you understand?)
Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
Columbia-1819, Tunisia-1956 : Independence Day
Ugly Truck Day
US : Moon Day (1969)
US : National Nap Day
National Lamb and Wool Month
Religious Observances
RC : Comm of St Margaret of Antioch, virgin/martyr (3rd cen)
Old Catholic : Feast of St Jerome Emiliani, confessor
St. Wilgefortis Feast Day
Commemoration of Elijah (Elias), greatest of the prophets (Roman and Greek Churches).
Religious History
1648 The Westminster Larger Catechism was adopted by the General Assembly of the Churchof Scotland at Edinburgh. This and the Shorter Catechism have both been in regular use amongPresbyterians, Baptists and Congregationalists ever since.
1726 Colonial clergyman Jonathan Edwards, 23, married Sarah Pierpont, 16. Theirmarriage prospered for over 30 years, before his premature death in 1758. Sarah herself diedonly six months later, at 48.
1877 Birth of Jesse Overholtzer, who in 1937 incorporated Child Evangelism Fellowshipin Chicago. Today the CEF mission agency works in over 60 countries worldwide.
1910 The Christian Endeavor Society of Missouri began a campaign to ban all motionpictures that depicted kissing between non-relatives.
1962 Pope John XXIII sent invitations to all 'separated Christian churches andcommunities,' asking each to send delegate-observers to the upcoming Vatican II EcumenicalCouncil in Rome.
Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.
Dog Enjoys Diet Of Cheeseburgers, Shakes
POSTED: 10:39 am PDT July 19, 2005
FARMLAND, Ind. -- One of the best customers at The Chocolate Moose restaurant has never even been inside the door. Missy Jo, a 60-pound bulldog mix, comes with owner Tony Mills, 51, to the restaurant for a daily treat of plain cheeseburgers and vanilla milkshakes on the patio.
The tradition started seven years ago, when Mills was mowing his father's lawn and noticed a barking dog next door in the town 15 miles east of Muncie. Mills took a break and walked down to the restaurant, ordered the dog a cheeseburger and fed her over the fence. The barking stopped.
Eventually Mills became acquainted with the dog's owners, and for three years every time he mowed his father's lawn or went over to visit, he took a cheeseburger along for Missy Jo. In 2001 the dog's owners moved and couldn't take the dog to their new home, so Mills asked if he could have her and the owners agreed.
Although the dog may like the special treats, the Mills' veterinarian doesn't approve.
"He doesn't think it's the best idea in the world," he said. "But she (Missy Jo) acts just like she's fine."
Thought for the day :
"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins." Benjamin Franklin
