Monday Morning Smile LXIV – Holy Bat Bomb Batman

The witches, goblins, zombies, and other assorted politicians revellers are about to resurrect  for the festival of horrors. Of course I refer to Halloween (not the House of Commons senate debate).

Now bats have always had a special place in the annuls of All-Hallows-Eve. Creatures of the night, they navigate by sound and stealth and, well, they just look kind of creepy.

So how much do we know about bats? Everyone knows that bat’seyesight is poor, and they use sound (sonar) to flit around at night. Did you know they can carry two to three times their weight when they fly? Interesting, but who cares, you might say. I’ve eaten BBQ chicken wings bigger than the average bat.

Well, a smart fellow named Lytle S. Adams, a dentist in the early 1940’s thought that bats would make better bombs. What?!

You can’t make this stuff up..In the early 1940’s the U.S. military had Project X-Ray under development. Get this…. trap millions of bats and glue small bombs to their backs. These bats would be put into a state of induced hibernation in a specially constructed “Bat bomb”. The small incendiary bombs glued to the back of each bat works on a timed release.

The bomb was to be released over Tokyo. The bats would wake up, get their bearings and find small nooks and crannies to hide with the light of morning. Each small bomb would go off creating thousands and thousands of fires in the city. Given Tokyo homes and buildings in the 40’s were chiefly made from Bamboo, wood, and other flammables, it would go up thousands of fires. Plus the Japanese people would never know what caused it.

Absolutely crazy. So did it work?

Tests showed that is was significantly more effective than conventional bombs (if by effective you mean create more destruction).

However, the bats were never deployed to Japan – or anywhere else for that matter.

The U.S. military machine had come up with an even better weapon – the atom bomb. They used that instead.

Here are some other cool Halloween and Bat facts….

Halloween – traditionally the day before All Saints Day. A day for little cuties to dress up and collect candy, and for young men and women to dress up and do things they never would otherwise.

Saying: “Blind as a bat“ – for obvious reasons. Bat eyesight is very poor.

Batman movies – the series of movies has grossed over $3.7 billion and is one of the most watched series of movies of all time. (Pirates of the Caribean, and James Bond also up in the running)

SamBat baseball bats – made in Canada with hard Canadian maple. These bats are favoured by a large number of major league players.

Bat boy –  a kid that collect bats from a baseball field.

Little Boy and Fat Man – the names given the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.