Churchill's Exploding Rat

[imntxs554]

How do these ideas come about ? It makes wonder what other Exotic Device were used like this in WW2.

After the fall of France, Winston Churchill vowed to “set Europe ablaze.” To that end, British secret agents were equipped with an assortment of disguised explosive devices that would have made even James Bond jealous — bombs that were made to look like soap, shoes, bottles of chianti, bicycle pumps, suitcases — and even rats.

Churchill's most exotic device was "The Explosive Rat". A hundred of the rodents were procured by an SOE officer posing as a student needing them for laboratory experiments. The rats were skinned, filled with plastic explosive, and sewn up. The idea was to place a rat among coal beside a boiler. When they were spotted, they would immediately be thrown on to the fire, causing a huge explosion.

That was the theory. As one of the SOE files records: "This device caused considerable trouble to the enemy, but not quite in the way that was intended." The Germans intercepted the container of dead rats before they could be used for "operational purposes". But all was not lost. According to an SOE report, their discovery had an "extraordinary moral effect": the rodents were exhibited at all German military schools, prompting a hunt for "hundreds of rats the enemy believed were distributed on the continent".

SOE concluded: "The trouble caused to them was a much greater success to us than if the rats had actually been used."...Makes me Laugh.

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[browningautorifle]

This item was breezed past in the movie "The Guns of Navarone"...when the Germans were searching for explosives before the guns blew up, they found one of these rats devices.

[imntxs554]

So one of Churchill's Secret devices made it into the Movies...I seen that Movie before but dont recall that part in it. Next time it's showing I will look for it.

[browningautorifle]

It's after the Germans break into the gun position at the end. The rat is held by the tail in big pincers and the pencil goes off while being transported. It would have set off powder bags...

[imntxs554]

If these Rats weren't Confiscated by the Germans all the Stokers operating the Boilers would of been blown to bits. I can see if this worked how confused the Germans would of been.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen that movie and missed that. Will watch a bit closer next time.
How aout the Bat Bombs develouped in the US to set Japan ablaze.
"Desperate times call for despriate measures" I suppose.

[imntxs554]

How aout the Bat Bombs develouped in the US to set Japan ablaze.
"Desperate times call for despriate measures" I suppose.

I'm going to have to look this one up and read about it...

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I'm going to have to look this one up and read about it...

Great story. Cant remember the details but a bat researcher proposed the idea of sending napalm bombs strapped to hibernating bats via bat hutches attached to balloons to Japan to fire bomb there predominately wood structures. Government funded tests until the demonstration. End of the story is quite funny.

[Flying10uk]

Wasn't there a similar idea to have "exploding coal" for steam railway engines??? I seem to recall seeing or hearing that they came up with an idea of disguising explosive as coal for steam railway engines and when the "coal" was shovelled into the fire, the boiler exploded.

[Sentryduty]

The coal torpedo concept from the Amercian Civil war for use against steam ships if I recall correctly was credited as the first example of casting fake coal to house an explosive filling.