We will fight them on the beaches – with poison darts

Published on Thursday 25 June 2009 23:04

THE government considered showering enemy troops with lethal poisoned darts dropped from aircraft during the Second World War.

Secret records released for the first time by the National Archives today outline the gruesome physical effects of such a military attack which could have caused death in 30 seconds.

The concept, developed between 1941 and 1945, involved dropping small anti-personnel darts carrying a sufficient amount of poison to cause "death or disablement" on enemy troops.

These would be released from cluster bombs, raining down on the enemy troops below, according to the file, entitled Research Into Use of Anthrax and Other Poisons for Biological Warfare.

Assessing the potential impact of the weapons, one report notes: "If penetrating into the flesh, will cause death if not plucked out within 30 seconds. If plucked out within this time, will cause disablement by collapse. Collapse occurs within one to five minutes, and death within 30 minutes."

A hand-written comment scrawled in the margin next to this observed: "I doubt whether the darts can be plucked out. The paper tail would come off."

Symptoms displayed by sheep and goats used in early experiments were predicted to be similar in humans.

"The subject collapses and lies on its side with twitching muscles. Where the dose is lethal, death occurs on 30 minutes, usually preceded by convulsions."

Should a victim recover, it concludes he would not be physically fit for 24 hours and morale may be "severely lowered owing to the nature of the symptoms".

It was assumed that no medical treatment could be devised to prevent the death of anyone who received a full dose.

The darts, some of which were made from grooved zinc alloy with a paper tail, weighed about 3.5 to four grammes and had the potential to cause effects which could not be produced by any other chemical weapon at the time.

When the bombs were dropped from high altitude, the darts could go through two layers of clothing and penetrate the flesh "for six inches or until stopped by bone," the file said.

The file shows the darts were never used because they were a "highly uneconomical weapon" and only a small percentage of people would have been killed.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that cheese which had been contaminated with mustard gas was fed to members of the public who volunteered as guinea pigs in government experiments during the Second World War.

Demonstrations were carried out in 1943 to show how commodities could be salvaged after a chemical warfare attack.

Records explain how "user trials" took place across England and Wales to prove decontaminated food was fit for human consumption and encourage "gas mindedness" among the civil population.