I guess the "good guys" using anthrax is justified.

UK planned to wipe out Germany with anthrax

http://www.sundayherald.com/19248

Allies World War Two shame
By George Rosie

AS THE world recoils at the horrific possibility of al-Qaeda terrorists waging anthrax war against United States citizens, the Sunday Herald can reveal that Britain manufactured five million anthrax cattle cakes during the second world war and planned to drop them on Germany in 1944.
The aim of Operation Vegetarian was to wipe out the German beef and dairy herds and then see the bacterium spread to the human population. With people then having no access to antibiotics, this would have caused many thousands -- perhaps even millions -- of German men, women and children to suffer awful deaths.

The anthrax cakes were tested on Gruinard Island, off Wester Ross, which was finally cleared of contamination in 1990. Operation Vegetarian was planned for the summer of 1944 but, in the event, it was abandoned as the Allies' Normandy invasion progressed successfully.

Details of the wartime secret operation are contained in a series of War Office files (WO 188) at the Public Record Office in Kew. Some of the files are still classified . The man whose task was to carry out Operation Vegetarian was Dr Paul Fildes, director of the biology department at Porton Down near Salisbury in Wiltshire. Fildes had previously been in charge of the Medical Research Council's bacterial chemistry unit at Middlesex Hospital.

In early 1942, Fildes began searching Britain for suppliers and manufacturers of linseed-oil cattle cake to make five million small cakes. Large quantities of the bacillus itself had to be produced, while special containers to carry the cattle cakes had to be designed and made. Some RAF bombers had to be modified to deliver the anthrax-infected payload. And all of it had to be done as cheaply as possible.

The raw material for the cake was provided by the Olympia Oil and Cake Company in Blackburn. The contract to cut the cattle cake into small pieces went to J & E Atkinson of Bond Street in London, perfumers and toilet-soap manufacturers and suppliers to the royal family. The Atkinsons calculated that they could produce 180,000 to 250,000 cakes, each 2.5cm in diameter and 10 grammes in weight, in a 44-hour week. The price was to be between 12 and 15 shillings per thousand . The firm pledged to deliver 5,273,400 cakes by April 1943. By the middle of July 1942, the Atkinsons informed Fildes that 'we are now producing at the rate of 40,000 per day'.

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The anthrax was manufactured by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at its veterinary laboratory in Surrey. An Oxford academic named Dr E Schuster was set to work devising the pump to inject the bacilli into the cattle cakes. The Porton Down scientists settled on cube-shaped cardboard containers, 18cm square, to carry the infected foodstuff.

Each held 400 cakes. They would be fitted with a steel handle 'of a size which enables the operator to grasp the handle without difficulty when wearing thick leather or moleskin gloves ...' Thirteen women were then recruited from various soap-making firms, sworn to secrecy and given the job of injecting the cattle cakes with anthrax spores.

At the same time, Fildes and his team were working on the best way to deliver the diseased cattle feed to the German herds.

The RAF's research unit came up with a simple solution -- easily made wooden trays that fitted on to aircraft flare chutes. Their Bomber Command Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings were chosen for the job.

By the beginning of 1944, Operation Vegetarian was ready to go. It was crucial to mount any attack in the summer months. Fildes said: 'The cattle must be caught in the open grazing fields when lush spring grass is on the wane.' 'Trials have shown that these tablets ... are found and consumed by the cattle in a very short time. 'Cattle are concentrated in the northern half of Oldenburg and northwest Hanover. Aircraft flying to and from Berlin will fly over 60 miles of grazing land.'

Fildes calculated that, at an average ground speed of 300mph, the distance would be covered in 18 minutes. 'If one box of tablets is dispersed every two minutes, then each aircraft will be required to carry and disperse nine, or say 10, boxes.'

One Lancaster bomber returning from a raid on Berlin would be able to scatter 4000 anthrax-infected cakes over a 60-mile swathe in less than 20 minutes. A dozen aircraft would have been enough to litter most of the north German countryside with anthrax spores. Operation Vegetarian was a seriously deadly project.

But, by the time Fildes's operation was ready to go in the summer of 1944, the Normandy invasion had taken place and Allied armies were crashing through northern France and up through Italy. The war against Nazi Germany was instead being won by conventional means. At the end of 1945, five million anthrax-infected cattle cakes were incinerated in one of Porton Down's furnaces.

What's your point???

Germany at the time was murdering thousands of people daily in concentration camps.  It's a little different story.  Oh, that's right, they were Jews, so it didn't matter.  And before you make some ridiculous remark about us killing thousands every day, I will say bullshit to that.

Interesting historical note, but nothing more than that. The cattle would have sickened first and no one would eat meat from sick cows. Even in wartime Germany.  Sickining a serious number of people would have been a "best case" scenerio, fairly unlikely and not something the plan could hinge on to be worthwhile, unlike spreading anthrax spores. This has to be considered a economic weapon, with the primary target being the cattle and swine themselves.

Hence the name "Operation Vegetarian"

I would have cried almost as much as the Germans did when they used gas on the Jews. Times are very different now, and the Germans are part of the greater good. I dont hold any ill feelings against them nor would I have any against the Brits if this plan had unfolded...pat

Ask the Germans what they would have done had they developed the a-bomb before the US.

And I second LARRYG's question. Invictus, what is your point? What do you hope to gain by posting this stuff? I fail to see the need for it.

The point is obvious.....WE (the US) are the evil ones..can't all see that this is all our fault and that we brought all on ourselves?  We deserve to be punished.  Crap like Sept. 11 wouldn't happen if we just stayed in our little hole and left everyone else alone.

sgtar15

"I guess the "good guys" using anthrax is justified."

Yes,the good guys your right!
The people that want save and not kill and if they have to only BAD people that do bad things.

I did not think it's was that tuff to get.

Anthrax, V-1's V-2's, etc.  All weapons of terror during WWII.  Its war.  The object was to win (within the confines of the Geneva Convention of course; unless you were on the Axis side)

Guz

Geeze A2carbine...you make it sound like there is good and evil in this world.  I though everyone was good if we (again the US) would just leave them alone.  Or maybe it's because we don't [i]understaaaand them[/i], we need to find out how they [i]feeeel[/i], maybe even learn how to [i]respeeeect[/i] them.  

They need our love...our support...our understanding.
NAH-----[-!-!-] THEM. I don't care how they feel and I don't respect them.  They are evil and repressent satan....end of story.

Sgtar15

[size=5]Schweinhunde![/size=5]

Was fur ein schlecter Volk sind die Englander?

Eric The(AllesIstVergeben,KommenSieHeimBitte!)Hun[>]:)]

Well there are 3 things really.

You have good
and we have evil
and we have the dumb asses.
These are the people that are to dumb to see the evil and like the good.
They are made up of:commies,"bums"(cry babirs that don't vote),people that are all mixed up on the the good vs. bad thind like 90% militia types and pissed off tree huggers.

These people are very funny but sometimes they get there hands on things like this and try to make some point about it,
The people that looked at doing this are NOT here now so why start crap over it?

There really is a good and a bad,it's not up to us to like it or even se it.
Good and evil was here befor you and me and will still be if we die right now,somethings don't need to have people want then to be true for them be true.

There will always be somebody that will go way the hell out of there way to start a fight over something,some people still fight over Nam. like a bunch of fools.

I just block this type of bull out,it's in the same line as the peacenics,I don't need to know anything about that war only this one.

Damn foriegners!!!  Who left the door open!![;)]

Sgtar15
[img]http://www.tartarus.net/images/smily/poof.gif[/img]

Democrats, as usual!

Eric The(HopingForThe'Anti-American'Vote)Hun[>]:)]

Eric, I always thought "pighounds" sounded cool in those old war movies.  Now thats an insult!

Guz