Episode BAT. Bat Bombs of WWII

Part 1. Operation: Do a Lot by Doolittle

1. Sunday, December 7, 1941. The Empire of Japan commenced a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor which was nestled on the south side of O’ahu island which butts up to the west side of Honolulu. 

   1. This attack is a dumpster fire in its own right and will be a future episode. 

   2. There are all sorts of conspiracy theories out there about the attack which we aren’t going to get into because ultimately we know the outcome. 

   3. However, the Empire of Japan for the past few decades modernized like crazy and really wanted to be a part or at least considered on par with other developed nations like America, Britain, France, Spain, (Germany but with a bunch of *’s). 

   4. The issue is that even though Japan had come a long way and was extremely technologically savvy, the developed world really didn’t take Japan seriously. Which caused a lot of resentment and subsequent extreme nationalism. 

   5. America was also putting a strangle hold on its oil production and sales to Japan for a bunch of social and economic reasons. 

   6. I could go on for hours about the Japanese side of WWII and why they attacked, but this isn’t the episode.

2. All that matters is that Pearl got bombed, the next day Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his “Day of Infamy” speech to congress and to the nation asking our government to declare war.

   1. A PRESIDENT CAN’T DECLARE WAR, PEOPLE!!!! HE CAN DO A LOT OF WARLIKE THINGS, BUT DECLARING WAR AND MOBILIZING THE ENTIRE COUNTRY TO PRIORITIZE WAR IS NOT IN THE PRESIDENT’S PERVUE. BUT HE CAN ASK CONGRESS WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT FDR DID. 

3. By the end of December 8, 1941, the House of Representatives voted 388-1 to go to war against Japan

   1. The one dissenter was Representative Jeannette Rankin (R-MT) who was a huge pacifist and felt that she cannot vote to go to war if she can’t sign up and she wouldn’t send anyone in her stead. She also voted against WWI in 1917. 

   2. Unfortunately Representative Jeannette is our only badass lady of the episode. I wouldn’t mind reading up on her background as she’s a Montana Republican and you know how they work. Albeit, democrats and republicans were slightly different back then compared to today. 

4. However, one thing that was rampant on most Americans’ minds was revenge. America was fine going to war, but they really wanted to give Japan a taste of their own medicine, like a surprise attack on their homeland capital of Tokyo. 

   1. People didn’t care how much damage was inflicted in the early days of the WWII, just as long as they could send a message to Japan saying, “you hit us in our territory, we’re going to hit you back just as hard”

5. The issue is that Japan was a very hard country to attack… especially on a surprise basis. 

   1. The island of Japan is thousands of miles across the world's largest ocean. Japan spent months trying to plan its attack on Pearl Harbor, and admittedly, America wasn’t expecting much. Now that the Japanese had attacked America, Japan would be expecting a retaliatory response of some sort. 

   2. In terms of preparedness, Japan had America beat in every category:

      1. Much larger navy

      2. Much larger army

      3. Much larger airforce

      4. More experienced soldiers

      5. Superior technology from aircraft, ships, and even guns and artillery

      6. Established strategy and long term battle plans

      7. Higher morale and drive to keep fighting

   3. In fact America was so far behind the curve with its military, that the first year or so, America was getting its butt handed to it over and over again and some were beginning to think that America didn’t have what it took to fight against the Japanese Empire. 

6. Introduce the Doolittle Raid

   1. On April 18, 1942, about five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle commanded a 16 crew B-25 Mitchell bomber squadron that bombed various Japanese military targets including Tokyo.

   2. The bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet which was insanely risky and in inclement weather and flew to Tokyo which burned up most of their fuel. The attack did minimal damage to Japan’s military capacity, killed about 50 people, injured 400 more and for the most part didn’t really do much else. After the bombers dropped their bombs, they flew to Japanese occupied China where they had to ditch their planes when they ran out of fuel and were promptly captured

   3. 14 of the 16 crews eventually made it back to the United States after the war and Doolittle himself was worried that he was going to be court marshalled for missing most of the important targets during the raid. Instead he was given the Congressional Medal of Honor and was promoted to Brigadier General!

   4. The reason for all the praise is that the Doolittle Raid administered a lot of psychological damage to Japan. Japan, up to April of 1942 felt it was unimpregnable or invincible. Everyone envisioned Japan as a heavily armored samurai, incapable of being harmed or defeated. The Doolittle Raid damaged that vision. 

   5. Because of the raid, Japan felt it hat to act on its next phase of the war plan and attack Midway… which American Admiral Chester Nimitz was hoping for…

7. After the Doolittle Raid, Americans felt as though they could see the chink in Japans armor. This massive empire (I think surface area-wise, the Empire of Japan was the largest empire in history), wasn’t undefeatable. 

8. The raid piqued a rather unique American perspective known as the Underdog. 

9. The Underdog idea was a relatively new idea in American culture that shows that Americans no matter how small or “bottom of the ladder” they are, they can accomplish incredible things. It’s a “one man against all odds” idea that the imaginations of all walks of life stated to plot schemes that could bring down the Japanese mainland with one blow. 

   1. The Doolittle raid showed that it was possible to attack the heart of Japan, but instead of massive military force bombing Japan, there has to be a way where good old fashion American know-how and ingenuity can win the day. 

10. And this is probably the only thing I love about a total war such as World War II: a mega war such as this opens the flood gates of eccentric people with unique ideas to come to the surface and offer their hairbrained creations and actually be taken seriously. 

Part 2. Operation Dentist Overlord

1. Believe it or not, before the Doolittle Raid, Dr. Lytle S. Adams, a dental surgeon from Irwin, Pennsylvania had a bat brained idea so crazy, it might just work. 

   1. Dr. Adams is a very colorful person. Yes he was a dentist, but on the side he was a closet inventor and the dude had some interesting ideas. 

   2. In 1934, he came up with an idea of using airplanes with long dangling hooks to fly over skyscrapers to “snag” giant bags of mail to be taken to god only knows where. He even figured that it would be possible to transport people in this manner. 

      1. It was an idea that looked good on paper, but in practice, proved to be tricky. First of all the hooks would rip open the bags of mail as the plane flew over at 100+ mph thus making it rain mail all over the city streets. If those hooks could rip open giant canvas bags of mail… it could do a similar thing with water filled leather bags like human beings. 

         1. The idea was used in The Dark Knight movie as a way to exfiltrate Batman from China with a certain criminal who was helping mobsters in Gotham with their money…

   3. Another idea Dr. Lytle had that really interested me was a vending machine that could dispense fried chicken. 

      1. That’s right, our hero of today’s story came up with the idea of having a vending machine fry chicken on the spot and dispense it on demand. At the time, the idea flopped, but today there are several different iterations of his concept either in production or development such as brb BOT, Birdbot, Snacky Fry, and KFC (Australia, it was built to dispense free samples of the Colonel’s best as recently as 2026)

2. When Pearl Harbor took place, people like Dr. Adams came out of the woodwork to offer up some of the craziest ideas to fight the enemy that even Archamede’s would be jealous of. At a time of war, every idea, no matter how strange, is entertained at least for a short period of time. During peace time, crazy ideas would get the inventor locked away in an asylum, admonished in society, discredited based on their day job, or voted in as a top CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Here are some of the more “interesting” weapon ideas of WWII:

   1. Panjandum- rocket propelled explosive wheel

   2. Krummlauf- a bent rifle barrel for corner shooting

   3. Explosive rats developed for sabotage

   4. Pigeon guided missiles

   5. Wind cannons

   6. 1,350 tonne Schwerer Gustav railway gun

   7. Soviet suicide dogs

   8. Fugo balloon bombs

   9. Spy weapons such as the umbrella gun and the beano grenade (grenade shaped to look just like a baseball)

   10. And for the purposes of this episode and Dr. Adams’ most noteworthy contribution to the war effort: BAT BOMBS!

3. Our intrepid dentist/inventor had an idea that would be so devastating to the japanese, that if implemented correctly, it could rival that of another $2 billion ($36 billion today) project in terms of devastation… the Manhattan Project. 

   1. Hopefully by now, we’re for the most part familiar with the Manhattan Project. I actually did an episode on the Manhattan project called “Oppie’s Demon Core” (episode 17). Check it out on thedaysdumpsterfire.com.

   2. But for those who don’t know, the Manhattan Project was the American initiative to develop the atomic bomb. The idea was to create a “device” that when detonated it would generate an explosion so massive that it could wipe out an entire city in one bomb. Towards the end of the war, America could eliminate entire Japanese cities in the course of a night with incendiary bombs, but the atomic bomb was designed to do the work of thousands of bombs in one session. 

4. However, Dr. Adams had an idea that could potentially save American billions of dollars in an expensive R&D project, and millions of dollars in bombing runs. 

   1. However, I don’t think Adams was thinking about saving money with his idea, he wanted revenge for the attack on Pearl Harbor and he combined his stereotypes of Japanese architecture with a specific bat he found fascinating while on vacation in New Mexico.

      1. Ironically, New Mexico is where the Manhattan Project would be based. Who would have thought that NM would play such a pivotal role in ending WWII. 

5. At around the time that Pearl Harbor was being bombed, Dr. Lytle S. Adams was vacationing in Carlsbad, New Mexico to check out the cave systems there. Carlsbad is home to the famous Carlsbad Caverns which is one of America’s largest cave systems that still hasn’t been fully researched yet. 

   1. There are a lot of critters that live in these caverns including a wide variety of bats.  Lytle was especially fascinated with the Mexican Free-tailed bat. 

   2. While studying these bats during his vacation (not sure what sort of life outside of dentistry this guy has to be studying bats while on vacation) he heard about the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and very quickly started to hatch a batbrained idea that would be so clever, so dangerous, so devious, so perfectly planned, that when implemented, the island nation of Japan would be burnt to a crips

6. Essentially, Dr. Adams devised nothing else other than the “Bat Bomb” [insert batman transition sound]

   1. Adams’ idea was this:

      1. Take a bunch of these Mexican Free-tailed bats. 

      2. Strap a little incendiary bomb with a tiny little timer onto it. 

      3. Stuff about 1,000 of them into a canister with a parachute.

      4. Fly a bunch of bombers over Japan filled with these bat canisters and drop them. 

      5. The canisters would slow their descent and the bats would want to fly out because they would be exposed to daylight and would want to find cover. 

      6. The thousands of bats would fly all over populated parts of Japan looking for attics, rafters, stairways, wooden bridges, or anywhere else that would be a good place for a freaked out confused Mexican Free-tailed bat in the middle of Japan to hang out while it figured things out. 

      7. Eventually the little timers would run out and the incendiaries would ignite thus causing the bats to catch fire and whatever shelter they were hiding in. 

      8. If enough of these bat bombs were dropped over Japan, the entire country would go up in flames! What could possibly go wrong! Japan’s defeat would be imminent and humiliating and a lesson learned for attacking Pearl Harbor. 

7. Adams, as we’ll see, is a bit of an eccentric character with quite the imagination. 

   1. He, along with many other Americans, had some stereotypes about the Japanese that were being used in the planning of this bat bomb. 

   2. The most prevailing stereotype (and most Americans thought this, not just Adams) was that all of Japan consisted of buildings made of bamboo and paper and everyone was stacked up in these paper buildings for many stories. 

   3. He figured that one little burning bat could inflict unfathomable damage to Japan given that their entire culture is just paper. 

   4. I cannot confirm that this was said, but I read somewhere that Adams believed that bats would be a perfect candidate for this task because the shape of the Japanese eyes made it impossible for anyone to see the bats or the fires. It’s so stupid and racist that I hope it’s not real…

8. On top of Adam’s stereotypes, he also believed that the Mexican Free-tailed bat was placed by god in Carlsbad NM for the sole purpose of helping with the war effort. 

   1. He claimed that “the millions of bats that have for ages inhabited our belfries, tunnels and caverns were placed there by God to await this hour.”

   2. He also was extremely paranoid, noting that the plan “might easily be used against us if the secret is not carefully guarded.” So the bat bomb had to be top secret!

Part 3. Operation Not a Nut

1. In the months following Pearl Harbor, Adams really did his research on the Mexican Free-tailed bat and even went back to the caverns a few times to collect a few of them to run experiments. 

2. Slowly but surely he pieced together his proposal to FDR with such great detail and schematics, that it would be impossible for anyone at the government level to think his idea wasn’t stupid. 

   1. In January of 1942, Americans from all over the place were sending their ideas to the White House regardless of how crazy their ideas were. 

   2. The one nice thing about this kind of war, is that hairbrained ideas were considered for at least a moment. You’d be shocked how many dumb ideas actually turn out to be great ideas when given the chance. 

3. In Adams’ case, his bat bomb idea went before the generals and was promptly shot down unceremoniously. 

   1. For some odd reason, no one that high up thought his bat bomb idea was feasible, logical, or downright any good. I personally cannot see why they would think that this idea was so terrible…

4. Normal people would just admit defeat and go home and tell our families that we did our best. To be able to present an idea to a group of generals this high up is more than what any military man could ever hope to achieve. 

5. But Adams was not one to give up. He knew somebody that didn’t work in the government but was married to someone who was. He also knew that the wife of any government official would outrank any multistar general behind a desk. 

   1. Adams wrote a letter outlining his plan which went on to espouse that the humble bat is the lowest level of lifeform on earth and completely expendable for the purposes of defeating the Japanese. 

   2. He also felt as though the Japanese weren’t much higher on the animal list than the bat. While this is beyond racist by today’s standards, during WWII, many Americans believed that the Japanese were like cowardly rats that must be exterminated at all costs as though they were an infestation. Just look up the war time propaganda at the time and you’ll see what I mean. 

   3. Adams went on to describe his plan in great detail and really focused on the mathematics of his plan. In short, bats are cheap and expendable. American men are worth a lot and not expendable. To send American men overseas to potentially get injured or killed fighting the monstrous Japanese when we have millions of bats who probably would rather die than than carry on their existence as some wretched winged creature whose sole job is to terrify humans, be animorphized vampires, and poop upside down that would accomplish more devastation at much less cost. 

   4. Here is what he actually wrote, not sure if this dude is fully convinced and filled with resolve or simply bat crap crazy:

      1. “[The] lowest form of life is the bat, associated in history with the underworld and regions of darkness and evil,” Adams wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt. “Until now reasons for its creation have remained unexplained. As I vision it the millions of bats that have for ages inhabited our belfries, tunnels and caverns were placed there by God to await this hour to play their part in the scheme of free human existence, and to frustrate any attempt of those who dare desecrate our way of life.” A fire attack by millions of bats, he continued, “would render the Japanese people homeless and their industries useless, yet the innocent could escape with their lives.”

6. That politician’s wife was none other than Elanor Roosevelt, and the politician in question was Franklin Delano Roosevelt! That’s right, when you can’t get what you want via military channels, then be very good friends with the First Lady of the United States and she can get things done for you. 

7. The next thing Adams knew, his proposal was sitting in the oval office being read by FDR himself (actually, the president does very little in the oval office. There is another smaller more secluded room in the white house that the president works in that is much quieter and a more clearly defined door than the oval office). 

   1. Shortly after reading the bat bomb proposal that came from his wife in chief, FDR greenlit the program of making a bat bomb called Project X-ray as he wrote to the Office of Strategic Services Colonel William Donovan, “This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but it is worth looking into.” 

8. And that is how you get a hairbrained idea put into action in case anyone was wondering what to do. MURICA!!!!

Part 4. Operation Project X-Ray

1. Now that Adams’ bat bomb project got the okie dokie from Roosevelt himself, the next step was to create an elite team of experts and key members of the science and engineering societies. 

2. Adams immediately sought out to recruit the best of the best to work on his baby project of the Bat Bomb. I could only imagine what he told his patience why he was closing his practice even though Project X-Ray was top secret he could probably tell them the truth, “I’m tasked to head of a group of super brains and leaders of engineering to develop a bomb full of bats to burn down Japan” I’m assuming no one would believe him and he wouldn’t be called out for disclosing his new job. 

3. Some of the key people he recruited with the skills needed to put something like a bat bomb together were:

   1. Dr. Jack von Bloeker- a mammalogist from the Los Angeles Museum

   2. Lieutenant Tim Holt- pilot turned movie actor a the age of 24

   3. Brothers Bobby and Eddie Herrold- Bobby was an ex-hotel manager and Eddie was a workout enthusiast

   4. Patricio “Patsy” Batista- claimed to be a gangster who worked for Al Capone back in the day…

   5. Frank and Mark Benish- a random set of brothers

   6. Ray Williams- a lobster fisherman turned Marine

   7. Jack Couffer and Harry Fletcher- two high school students who worked in Dr. Jack von Bloeker’s lab part time. 

   8. Lastly, Dr. Theodore Fieser who was a Harvard chemist who had just recently developed the composition of napalm. 

4. Out of the entire team, there were only two legit scientists, the rest were a bunch of dudes who were waiting to be a part of Deadpool’s “X-force” but settled on the next best thing which was to build a bomb full of explosive bats. 

   1. The hiring of two scientists and even their student interns makes sense, but the hiring of a former mob member or a lobster fisherman makes no sense and it didn’t to most of the people on the team and it really made no sense to the military folks brought in to help out and keep an eye on things. 

   2. However, Adams was very charismatic. He had a way of selling things to people in a way that people would inherently want to get on board with. His rhetoric was always ensconced in the realm of Pathos and he would play up human emotions. There is nothing wrong with that I guess, but it can get in the way of putting the right people in the right spot. 

5. With the “elite” team of experts selected, the task was to start hammering out the specifics of how to build the bat bomb. Right off the bat (get it?) there were some issues that needed to be worked out:

   1. What species of bat was going to be the best fit for the job?

      1. This would also entail how the hundreds of thousands of bats would be captured.

   2. Then came the issue of what sort of incendiary would be best used.

   3. How will the bats wear the mini bombs and still be able to fly?

      1. Keep in mind, timer technology was insanely primitive in the 40s and very unreliable. Talk to anyone who was a part of assassinating hitler in the Third Reich. Making a timed explosive was the bane of their existence. 

   4. Once selected, the bats would need to be collected and chilled to induce a hibernation phase. Once the bomb was deployed the bats would need to be headed up to activate their search for a new home. 

   5. How were the bats going to be transferred to the target so that they can wake up in time to do their duty to save democracy?

   6. Then there was the matter of testing and supplying results that the military could actually use. 

6. So let’s take each of these issues and see how this elite team of engineers, thinkers, lobster fishers and hotel managers faired:

   1. The team selected the Mexican Free-Tailed bat as mentioned above. It seemed like Dr. Adams was truly a fan of these critters. 

      1. According to Feiser (who, based on how much reading I did on this case was the brains of the operation) the Mexican Free-Tailed bat was a good choice due to Adams’ extensive notes, especially in their lifting capabilities. 

      2. These bats could lift over double their weight which was going to be needed. A 10 gram bat could lift 20 to 30 grams. 

      3. The project was going to be housed outside LA so that millions of bats could be captured and moved to a nearby location such as Muroc CA (Edwards Air Force Base today). The military and Adams agreed that his team would be responsible for collecting 3,000 bats for testing purposes. The military would collect tens of thousands more bats for deployment in Japan. 

   2. Once again Dr. Feiser was put to use in determining what sort of “bomb” the bats were going to wear. 

      1. Originally the plan was to use red phosphorus which is some truly nasty stuff. Red phosphorus was used in match making and was simultaneously very reactive (will burst into flame being exposed to air) and very toxic especially to the bats. The latter didn’t matter since the bats were giving their all for the American war effort anyways. 

      2. Dr. Feiser decided to use his own creation: Napalm

         1. Napalm is one of the worst things that has ever come out of the human race next to taxes. 

         2. It is made by mixing various gasolines like gasoline, benzene, or kerosene, with a soap or by mixing naphthenic and palmitic acids (hence the name NaPalm) Today its high grade fuel mixed with aluminum soaps or synthetic polymers like polystyrene)

         3. Note! Do not make this crap at home!!!! It burns extremely hot and for a long time. Once it’s on your skin you’re going to have a tough time putting it out. It spreads easily like jelly and it sticks to everything. 

         4. Normally the stuff is kept in 55 gallon drums with a detonator attached and when dropped from an airplane, it can produce a wall of gelatinous flame nearly a mile long and a hundred feet high

         5. It sucks up all the oxygen in its blast radius so if the fire doesn’t kill you, the smoke doesn’t choke you, the lack of air will suffocate you. This is one substance that rivals the nuclear bomb in its efficacy.

      3. Feiser came up with the idea that a thimble sized container of napalm can be connected to a timer device that will set the capsule on fire at a specific time. Yes the “explosion” would be comparatively small, BUT the detonation would create enough fire to light anything on fire within a 1 foot radius and napalm will stay burning long enough to light any wooden structure on fire. 

   3. Now came the matter of getting bat and bomb to become one effective unit. 

      1. A.C. Gilbert, a company famous for making the ubiquitous toy, Erector Set, came up with and produced the timers needed for the bats. They key was to make them small enough and accurate enough to detonate when the bats got to the ground and settled into an unassuming Japanese house. It also had to be light. 

      2. To mount the little bomb to the bat, Feiser resorted to super gluing the 15 to 17.5 gram “bomb” to the bat. A weight well within the lift capabilities of the Mexican Free-Tailed bat.

   4. The next step was to get the freshly collected bats from New Mexico and Texas  to California. On the surface it seems like a weird minigame inside Animal Crossing where you run around a cave with a net and try and catch as many bats as possible. Then stick them in a container with prepaid postage to LA. However, in order for the bats to properly do their job, they needed to be in a hibernation state. So the bats had to be cooled since it was getting pretty warm in the South West United States. 

      1. To help with this problem of logistics, the Army came in clutch at Wright Field in Dayton, OH with a custom built refrigerated truck. 

      2. This truck had a special refrigeration mechanism that could be adjusted to any temperature needed. Since these early large refrigeration units weren’t super reliable or fast to chill things down, it was determined that the trucks would be set to the coldest setting prior to picking up the freshly caught bats to reduce fuel usage and the time for the truck to get to temp. 

   5. Now it was time to figure out how to actually “bombify” thousands of bats so that they can be dropped on a target all at once. 

      1. Our mega smart team put together the epitome of American ingenuity and planning. They planned to use a 5 foot tall metal canister with 1.5 inch holes drilled around the outside to let the bats do three things while in transit:

         1. Start warming up from their hibernation truck travel

         2. Be able to fly out of the canister after they wake up

         3. Lastly but more importantly, breathe. Dead bats in a bomb are nothing more than a bioweapon of disease than an incendiary weapon of mass de-Japanification. 

      2. The canister could hold up to 1,030 bats and the B-25 bomber that was intended to drop these things could hold up to 25 shells. Therefore nearly 26,000 napalm wielding bats could be in the air in one B-25 bomber. Each bat was “clipped” to its niche inside the shell and a little wire stemmed from the napalm charge / timer combo to the perch the upside down bat was clipped to. The idea was that when the bat flew out of the shell, the wire would disconnect and arm the bat bomb and start the timer. 

      3. Once over the target, the shells would be dropped. At 4,000 feet a parachute would deploy thus slowing the rate of descent. In theory the bats would wake up over the target, fly out of the shell and start looking for a place to hang up for the night. Once they found a building, rafter, attic, or whatever domicile available, the bats would ignite and start tens of thousands of fires all over the place. 

      4. Note: today we have bombs, missiles, rockets etc which operate with surgical precision. Modern propelled explosives are laser guided, with GPS assist and all sorts of other top secret technology that when deployed the projectile can be guided to a specific window outside the target and only destroy that specific thing. In World War II, no one cared about precision. This is Japan that we’re talking about, many Americans wanted to see the whole country go up in flames regardless of the target. Accuracy was irrelevant just as long as the right country was being bombed. 

   6. Lastly, Adams and his team of super scientists ultimately reported to the Army. While the Army likes to see explosions and total destruction, believe it or not, they like numbers, figures, projections, and accurate results even more. 

      1. Once again Adams turned to Dr. Fieser (to be honest, I have no idea what anyone else on the team did. I’m sure they served a purpose of some sort, but what it was specifically is not determined…) to come up with some projections of destruction before the testing day which was going to be the middle of May of 1943!

      2. Fieser concluded that a standard incendiary bomb could start approximately 400 fires after detonation. I am not sure where he got this figure from, but since Dr. Fieser seemed to be only 1 of a few people with working brain cells on this project I am going to trust his assumption. 

      3. However, the bat bomb, according to Fieser, could start up to 4800 fires with one pass. That is a 12X increase in destructive power. 

      4. In essence this bat bomb idea could be the middle ground between conventional bombs and the nuclear bomb that was being worked on at this time, but nobody knew about it of course. 

   7. It seemed as though Adams and crew had worked out pretty much everything pertaining to the bat bomb, and Fieser’s projections raised a lot of eyebrows with military leaders covered in brass and ribbons for actions performed nearly 30 years prior…

7. By May 15, 1943, Project X-Ray was ready to start testing.

   1. On May 17th, Fieser and two officers from the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service arrived in SoCal and proceeded to Adams’ house for a pretest discussion of this insanely top secret project that literally no one should know about.

      1. Upon arrival Fieser and the military men were absolutely flabbergasted by what they saw. 

      2. According to Fieser: “We were horrified to find that Adams had invited a large company, including ladies, to a dinner party in celebration of the initiation of field tests.”

      3. Instead of being top secret, Adams did the exact opposite and decided to celebrate his accomplishment with a bunch of people who should know nothing about the project!

      4. To make matters worse, Adams’ team was supposed to collect 3,000 bats from NM and TX remember? Well they only had 150… according to Adams it was mating season and bats had different priorities in mind instead of serving their country. It’s funny how human males are no different. 

   2. CWS Lt. Colonel R. Bruce Epler went into action and took the assigned B-25 bomber, some of Adams' men and some Army men and flew to Carlsbad for an overnight bat collecting marathon… and yes they stopped at the Nation Park Services building and acquired permits to collect the bats…

   3. The next morning the plane returned to LA with a cargohold of 8 crates of thousands of screeching bats. With live testing right around the corner, the bats were loaded into the refrigerated truck (turned to max cold) so the bats could be put into an induced hibernation. 

   4. Even with the truck running at full blast, it was taking too long to get the bats to quiet down (they figured a quiet bat was a hibernating bat) and blocks of ice were positioned inside the truck with fans blowing on them. In very short order, the bats began to quiet down one by one until there was nothing but silence. 

Part 5. Operation Bat Flavoured Popsicles 

1. At this point, I think it’s the 19th at this point but, there is so much craziness ensuing I am losing track of my days… and it was time to test this bat bomb once and for all. 

2. The team loaded up a 5ft x 30 inch shell with around 1000 snoozing bats. 

   1. However, Adams hadn’t finished a working metal shell for the test. Instead all he had was a cardboard mock up of the actual bomb.

   2. Fieser hadn’t finished the safety wire mechanism yet and the pilots wouldn’t allow anything explodey on the plane without safety. On top of the bomb being constructed of cardboard and tape, the pilots only allowed the bats to have a small smoke bomb on them. That way when things went wrong the plane wouldn’t go up in flames. I think these pilots were among only a handful of dudes with functional logic.

3. The trusty B-25 that had been around for some time running errands and doing other things took the bat bomb to an altitude of 10,000 to 20,000 feet. The testing ground was Muroc, CA and the target was going to be a dried up lakebed just outside LA. 

   1. Once up to altitude, problems began to happen. The major one was that the cardboard bomb began falling apart and sleeping bat bombs fell out and started to roll all over the inside of the bomber. I guess they didn't, they didn’t have military grade, hi-spec cardboard back then for bomb making lol.

   2. Much like a play, the experiment must go on. So the crew inside ran all over the inside gathering up armloads of bat bombs, manually armed them, and threw them out the window. Since the bats had been out of the cooling truck for some time at this point, they figured that bats would wake up at around 2,000 feet. I am not sure where they got that figured from or how they calculated it, but at this point I’m just along for the ride. 

4. Adams, Fieser, the Army folks including Lt. Colonel Epler and an undetermined number of other onlookers that had zero top secret clearance were on the ground with binoculars waiting for the show to start. 

5. Instead of seeing one large shell being dropped from the B-25, they saw handfuls of bats being thrown out of the fuselage in clumps of a dozen or more. 

   1. The Project X-Ray team figured that something went wrong, but at least this test would see how the detonation mechanism would work. 

   2. Seconds passed and at around the 2,000 foot mark, something was terribly wrong. None of the bats were waking up! They were just falling like little rocks. The plan was that the bats would wake up at around 2,000 feet and begin flying toward a covered location and once they settled down for the day wondering what in the hell was going on, the little bat bomb would go off and the spectators would see plumes of smoke emanating from wherever they landed. 

6. Instead, the onlookers heard (not saw) minute, pffft, pooff, splat, plop, followed by little puffs of dust on the bottom of the lake bed. After about 10 minutes, the test was over with approximately 1000 bats splattered all over the ground. 

   1. Some men were sent to the lakebed to see what had happened and why the bats didn’t wake up and why the smoke bombs didn’t detonate. 

   2. A few of them returned to Adams and the Army men with some intact bats and it became very apparent what went wrong. The bats were frozen solid from the day before when they tried to chill the bats into hibernation. Their method of speeding things up worked too well. 

   3. According to our Harvard graduate, Dr. Fieser: “Eventually it became clear that the bats were not in hibernation but dead. Instead of freezing them to hibernation, we had frozen them to death the night before.”

7. While on the way back to the lab, one of the bat popsicles’ smoke bomb went off inside the car thus filling the cab with smoke nearly causing the car to crash. As frustrating and disastrous as this test had turned out, the key part of the plan worked, detonating a timed charge on a bat to go off at a specific time was a huge success. For Adams’ and his team as well as the Army folks, this was good enough to move on to the next test. 

Part 6. Operation Mayhem

1. Lt. Colonel Epler decided to move on to phase 2 of testing, but decided to take some controlling stake away from Adams and his team. They were still going to play a major role, but this time with a bit more oversight from the military. 

   1. Epler wanted to see an actual shell get dropped from a bomb, fall to a height of 4,000 feet where a parachute to eject, thus slowing the descent and he wanted to see 1000+ bats fly out and head for cover and from there see plumes of smoke billowing out of wherever they landed. 

   2. To check all those boxes and maintain a more military presence, Epler moved everything to a freshly built landing field near Carlsbad NM replete with barracks, control tower, command building, hangars, and other military things. 

      1. Epler, only being a Lt. Colonel, told the full Colonel of the base that they needed to conduct a top secret experiment at his base and that he and his men would need to be excluded from the experiment as a result. So on the day of the testing, almost everyone was removed from the base. 

      2. Thankfully the full Colonel understood and even postponed the inauguration ceremony of the airfield for some time so this top secret test could be initiated. 

2. Adams and (let's be real here, the real brains of the operation) Dr. Fieser hammered out a lot of details between the first test and this one. 

   1. An actual 5ft x 30 inch bomb shell was manufactured by Crosby company (this was the company founded by Bing Crosby and his brother to help manufacture supplies for the war effort) and it was a full fledged working prototype complete with parachute, timers to open up at 4,000 feet and little perches for the sleeping bats to hang out on. 

   2. A fresh batch of bats was collected days before instead of the day before. This allowed the refrigerated trucks to slowly cool the bats down to put them in hibernation without freezing the bats to death. 

   3. Dr. Fieser still hadn’t quite figured out the safety wire system so the pilots wouldn’t allow live ordinance on their plain, but smoke bombs were perfectly functional and more safe anyways. The last thing they needed was the whole base burning to the ground. 

3. The day of the test actually went smoothly… for the most part. 

   1. The bomber got to altitude without any issues. The crew inside prepped the bat bomb to open the parachute at 4,000 feet. They checked to make sure the bats were in fact still alive and they checked to make sure the smoke bomb detonators were ready to go. 

   2. Adams, Fieser, Lt Colonel Epler, and for good measure, Marine Corps Generals Louis DeHaven and his brand new Jeep with all the stars befitting a general of his rank. 

   3. Eventually they all saw a tiny cylinder drop out of the bomber. Thankfully gravity decided to work that day and the bomb dropped straight down where at exactly 4,000 feet a parachute could be seen ejecting upwards and unfurling without a hitch. The shell slowed to a crawling descent as planned. 

   4. A few minutes later, Jack Couffer (one of the high school students brought onto the team) wrote, “Soon tiny motes began to flutter across the sky, flying in all directions, most borne northward in a fluttering clump by the breeze.” So far things were looking really good. 

   5. Investigators hopped into jeeps scurrying in all directions to track the bats as they looked for hidey holes. 

      1. They tracked some bats flying into a barn to hole up for the day. The investigators talked to the rancher asking if he had seen anything unusual, “Like bats flyin’ ‘round in broad daylight? Unusual like that?” the rancher asked. 

      2. The investigators were quick to ask for secrecy of the rancher as this was a top secret military project that could help end the war sooner. The rancher replied, “I got two sons somewhere in Europe fightin’ the Hun,” If you tell me that what yer doin’, however damned fool as it looks like to me, is a military secret, nobody’s goin’ to get me to say a peep even by puttin’ bamboo splinters under my fingernails and allighten’ fire to ‘em.” He then pointed to one of the bats wearing a dummy bomb sitting on the window sill just chill’n. 

4. The plan was going perfectly! Back at the base bats could be seen flying into all the buildings on site and hiding in dark locations. No smoke could be seen yet, but that was by design. Fieser purposely devised the timers to take about 15 to 30 minutes before detonating. 

   1. To show his brilliance to the General, Fieser took one of the bats with a dummy bomb on it and pointed out the timing mechanism. He said it’s based on a copper chloride dissolved trigger. Once the copper chloride is administered, the timing wire corrodes at a control rate and once the wire is gone, then the trigger activates the smoke bomb. 

   2. In front of a bunch of photographers and witnesses, he injected some copper chloride into the bat bomb mechanism and within minutes a little poof could be heard followed by a plume of white smoke. The bat the bomb was attached to freaked out and flew away. 

   3. Adams and Fieser did the same demonstration to a dozen or so other sleeping bats they had on hand and like clockwork, they flew off to the military base to find cover. 

5. This day couldn’t have gone better for Adams and his team. They were at the pinnacle of military genius that would bring Japan to its knees in bat bomb destruction. 

6. About 30 minutes later people pointed out that smoke was coming out of the rafters of the barracks, then the control tower, followed by the supply buildings and finally the command building. Some investigators began laughing when they saw the general’s jeep start smoking. 

7. The light hearted moment turned sour when someone asked if there were supposed to be flames inside the barracks? Everyone turned to see the barracks erupt in flames, then the control tower went up like a torch, the supply buildings were engulfed in flames and lastly, the command building erupted into an inferno. 

8. Absolute mayhem broke out as people tried to find fire extinguishers… however it was evident that none were brought along because this test wasn’t supposed to have live incendiary bombs. All the men of Project X-Ray could do is just stand there watching while the military tried to put the base out in futility. 

9. The general turned to Adams and Fieser after seeing his beloved new jeep explode before their eyes.

   1. Without so much as raising his voice, or displaying any emotion, the general simply asked, “Gentlemen, is it safe to assume that not all the bats were fitted with dummy smoke smoke bombs?” When there was no reply from the dumbfounded men, the general continued, “I may not be an expert in these matters, but it does appear that some of these bats had live bombs on them.”

10. An hour later or two later, the freshly built base near Carlsbad, NM was nothing more than a pile of ashes. 

11. Meanwhile 300 miles to the north in Los Alamos. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer got the go ahead to start mass producing Uranium-235 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Los Alamos lab itself was instructed to increase the speed of research and development of the first nuclear bomb in world history. Adams, nor Oppenheimer, had any idea of each other’s projects at this time. 

Part 7. Operation Change of Plans

1. After the destruction of an entire military base in New Mexico, the Army decided to hang up Project X-Ray and see if anyone else wanted the research. Shockingly, the Marines wanted it. 

   1. The marines were in the thick of fighting the Japanese at the time of the bat bomb incident. Even though an entire military base got destroyed, they figured that the bat bombs potential would be beneficial.

2. The Marine’s assumption of the potential was further corroborated when an investigation found out that the fires that took down the base were not from the bats dropped from the bomber. 

   1. The bats that caused all the damage were the dozen or so that Adams and Fieser set off for demonstration purposes in front of the investigators and photographers. 

   2. You see, the bats in the bomb were in fact fully loaded with dummy smoke bombs. However, the dozen or so that Adams and Fieser used, weren’t expected to be in the plain and were thus never switched out with a dummy bomb but a live napalm version. 

   3. The fact that 12 bats could do so much damage was promising to the marines and they were happy to take on the project because imagine what would happen if thousands of these bats were set loose in Japan? Some even argued that the bat bombs would be more effective than the nuclear bomb. 

3. It would have been an experiment of the ages to see what would be more effective, hundreds of thousands of little tactical bat bombs, vs the might of a nuclear bomb. The world will never know because by the time the bat bomb was deployable on the Japanese front, a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima which vaporized tens of thousands of men, women, and children in seconds and another one was dropped on Nagasaki a few days later thus doing the work of divisions of napalm wearing bats. 

4. As for Dr. Lytle Adams, he stepped away from military projects after the bat bomb initiative ran out for him in 1944. After the war he continued his career as an eccentric inventor and tried his hand at making an aerial seed dropping program to help rebuild the fauna of destroyed lands across the globe. He also pursued ecological engineering programs and spent his active years trying to fix the world rather than trying to burn it to the ground. He died on December 29th 1970 in Tucson, AZ at the age of 89 years old. 

5. Dr. Louis Fieser went back to Harvard and studied organic chemistry. Throughout the decades he was asked if he ever felt bad about creating napalm, kind of like Oppenheimer’s feelings about his role in the nuclear bomb. For the most part he remained unapologetic about napalm, but he refused to do any more military related projects. He and his wife, Mary, wrote very successful chemistry textbooks. In 1962 he served on the Surgeon General’s 1964 report that showed the relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. In 1965 he developed lung cancer himself  and quit smoking and actively promoted the committee’s findings. He died in 1977. 

6. Lastly, Lt. Colonel Epler continued to work on classified developmental technical work until his untimely death on January 28, 1944 in a plane crash at Elgin Field Florida. And yes, his plane was top secret. 

7. While the bat bomb of WWII was a crazy and far-fetched idea with many humorous segments, Project X-Ray did show that a result in science is still a result especially if it ends in disaster. During WWII, America was not afraid of trying new ideas and the country knew that not all ideas are going to work but it’s important to understand that doing something is better than doing nothing.

Images:

The Project X-Ray team 

What the Bat Bomb actually looked like

The Bat Cannister

Napalm explosion

Napalm survivor during the Vietnam War. 

Sources

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/bat-bombs-wwiis-project-x-ray/

https://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/tag/Dr.+Lytle+S.+Adams

https://historynet.com/behind-lines-bats-hell/

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1090bats/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/bat-bomb