EFL
Plans to fill a nuclear landmine with chickens to regulate its temperature were seriously considered during the Cold War. Civil servants at the National Archives say it is a coincidence the secret plan is being revealed on 1 April.
The Army planned to detonate the seven-tonne device on the German plains in the event of having to retreat. Operation Blue Peacock forms part of an exhibition for the National Archives, in Kew, London, on Friday. The bomb was designed to stop the Red Army advancing across West Germany during the height of the Cold War. But nuclear physicists at the Aldermaston nuclear research station in Berkshire were worried about how to keep the landmine at the correct temperature when buried underground. In a 1957 document they proposed live chickens would generate enough heat to ensure the bomb worked when buried for a week. The birds would be put inside the casing of the bomb, given seed to keep them alive and stopped from pecking at the wiring.
"How were you going to stop them from pecking?"
"Nigel volunteered to sit with them." |
The landmine would be remotely detonated.
"Golf-34 this is Alpha-17. Time to bail, Nigel!"
"Drat! And I was just about to have tea!" |
Tom O’Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, told the paper: "It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes."
| "No, ma'am. The National Archives does not have a sense of humor that we are aware of!" |
But obviously nuclear physicists at the Aldermaston nuclear research station in Berkshire do. And their jokes have a very long fuse. Either they were joking or Blair should seriously consider barring all nuclear researchers from the pubs during lunchtime. |