How does a plan like bombing your enemy with bats(not the Louisville Slugger variety-we are talking Ozzy Osbourne BATS) materialize in the very depths of defeat after Pearl Harbor?
Are you ready?
Add one oral surgeon from Pennsylvania, a visit to Carlsbad Caverns with its robust bat population, and the utter shock and anger of Pearl Harbor and you have the beginning of a plan to bomb Japan with bats. Throw in a letter to President Roosevelt(Einstein wrote a similar letter to FDR on a trivial matter of splitting the atom and making a bomb from it) and the desperate times after Pearl Harbor and you have the recipe for a bombing mission to Japan that was truly BATTY!!!
How can a bat be a bomb? The Army Department reluctantly took control of the plan.
*** The bats would carry a celluloid case about 3/4 of an inch in diameter that was two and a half inches long and it was filled with concentrated napalm gel.
*** The incendiary cansister would be attached to the bat with an umbilical like fuse to its chest.
*** The bats would be dropped from the B-29 bombers in an inert condition and they would be revived as they fell into the warmer air.
*** The bats would then fly and seek out quiet perches in attics, barns, lofts, etc.
*** They would chew through the irritating umbilical attachment and fly away unharmed(breathe a sigh of relief PETA members-no Purple Hearts necessary) and the napalm would detonate 15 hours later because of the delayed fuse starting fires all over Japan and further destroying their cottage industry infrastructure.
Did it work???
The problems the Army encountered were many including:
*** the bats initially had trouble carrying the napalm canister.
*** the bats had trouble being revived dropped from over 30,000 feet(sorry PETA-Purple Hearts for these guys!!!)
*** a bat flew into the command car of the Army major general in charge to the project who was inspecting a trial run, and the bat blew up his staff car and personal belongings.
*** the general should have been happy that the plan could work, but that did it for the Army!
*** the Navy Department took over the project with the Marines doing the actual testing. The Marines did get things settled down and it looked like the project could work. After rigorous testing of the project it was determined that a B-29 bomber full of bats could start 3,600 to 4,700 fires from a single bomber compared to 167 to 400 fires from a B-29 bomber loaded with regular incendiary bombs!!!!
*** the project sensibly was ended when it appeared that the atomic bomb would become operational.
OPERATION OZZY OSBOURNE???
Perhaps our bombers should have been dropping BATS when they had Osama Bin Laden cornered in those caves at Tora Bora back in late 2001-early 2002. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten away!
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