Thread by @GiveBatsABreak

BAT BOMBS 🦇💣

Ever heard of ‘em? They were a weapon the U.S. intended to use against Japan in World War II and, as the name suggests, they were bombs delivered by our friends: the bat. A thread. 1/

#bats #history #WWII #savethebats #lovebats #GiveBatsABreak

The idea of a bat bomb was born in the imagination of a dental surgeon, Lytle S. Adams, who wrote that bats were “the lowest form of animal life” and therefore found their highest calling in helping the U.S. win the war with Japan. (📸 HistoryCollection.co) 2/

After presidential approval, the project was placed under the care of the U.S. Army Air Force. Mammologists tested the load-bearing capabilities of different bats and chose the Mexican free-tailed bat because of how much weight they could carry in flight. (📸 Wikipedia) 3/

The plan was that each bat would be loaded up with an incendiary bomb containing napalm. After some armed bats accidentally got out and set fire to a military base, the project was relegated to the Navy and named “Project X-Ray”. (📸 ow.ly/Vpma30qz0A7) 4/

1,000 bats would be loaded up into a container that, once the parachute was deployed, would open up and release the napalm-equipped Mexican free-tail bats. Testing in CA (& that accident at the military base) proved that it worked. (📸 ow.ly/Vpma30qz0A7) 5/

Japan’s architecture largely used wood & paper and was therefore susceptible to fire. The bats would fly in a 40-mile radius from the container, roosting in out-of-reach places and, once the timers went off, set fire to homes and farms and other buildings. 6/ (📸 Pinterest)

After the U.S. gov’t had sunk $2 mil into Project X-Ray (approx. $19 mil today), it was determined that it wouldn’t be finished until mid-1945 and called it all off. The atomic bomb project was moving faster and appeared more promising, although at the expense of more deaths. 7/

And so the bat bomb was never put to use, for which we can be thankful! The most famous Mexican free-tail bats can be found at Bracken Cave in Austin, TX where 15 million of them make the cave their summer home. 8/8 (📸 USFWS)
@BatConIntl @AustinBatRefuge @MerlinsBats #bats