Science: Bomb-Bats

Some intense strategic planner had it all figured out: two million bats, each toting a time-set incendiary bomb, would be carried aloft in planes. Tossed out over Tokyo, they would at first fall free, but on being revived by warm air near the ground they would seek shelter under Japanese rafters. Then the time fuse would ignite the incendiaries.

The military actually gave the scheme a try. In the first experiments in California, the bats plummeted to the ground like bats out of hell. The project was dropped when a Naval officer pointed out that bats, being disease carriers, might start epidemics and lead to a charge that the U.S. was waging bacteriological warfare.