You ever wonder how Britain planned to fight back against the Russians at the end of the Second World War in the event of an attack by the mighty Red Army? Well, the long term plan was to build enough nuclear weapons to flatten downtown Moscow. But until the bomb was developed, Britain had a problem. It had to find an alternative defence to make up for the relative weakness of its rapidly demobilising army. And what a defence they had. In fact, those brainy boffins over at British military intelligence had perhaps the most dastardly weapon ever conceived up their sleeves.
British spy chiefs secretly considered training pigeons to fly into enemy targets carrying explosives or biological weapons, it has been revealed.
British intelligence set up a “pigeon committee” at the end of World War II to ensure expertise gained in the use of the birds to carry messages was not lost.
Documents now released to the National Archives reveal that the War Office intelligence section, MI14, warned: “Pigeon research will not stand still; if we do not experiment, other powers will.”
“A thousand pigeons each with a two ounce explosive capsule, landed at intervals on a specific target, might be a seriously inconvenient surprise,” Mr Rayner wrote.
The first suicide bombers?
