ANIMALS INVOLVEMENT IN WORLD WAR II

PEOPLE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF MANY ANIMALS IN WEIRD, YET EFFECTIVE, WAYS.

ANTI-TANK DOGS

• Taught to carry explosives to tanks, armored vehicles, and other military targets.
• Originally taught to carry bombs to targets, drop them off, and get away before the timer went off.

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BAT BOMBS

• Air Force searched for ways to deteriorate Japanese cities
• The idea was to strap small explosives to bats and drop them over targeted areas
• Easily obtainable Mexican free-tailed bats used

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PIGEON GUIDED MISSILES

• The pigeons were easy to obtain, easy to train, and were costly effective.
• Trained to fly missiles to their targets and be suicide bombers
• Invented by B.F. Skinner, an American behaviorist

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• Rats were stuffed with plastic explosives
• The tedious process made it difficult to implement
• The idea was that the bodies would be dropped into factories and someone who found it would throw it into the boiler, deteriorating the whole factory

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WAR RATS

• Rats that were infected with the disease Tularemia were gathered and set loose by the USSR
• They wanted to send deadly pathogens to the enemy and these rats were an easy way to do it
• It proved effective especially in the battle of Stalingrad, but soviet soldiers also ended up being infected

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