Post by Die Fledermaus on Jun 22, 2009 21:57:22 GMT -4
Very unknown story I just saw on PBS.
Early in WW II there was a scheme in the U.S. Army to train German Shepherd dogs to attack en masse Japanese soldiers. . . by scent!
Over 20,000 (!) dogs were supposed to land on islands and find and kill Japanese based on their alleged scent.
Worse, Japanese-American soldiers were ordered to serve as "bait", and to even beat the dogs to get them angry enough to attack.
Of course, Japanese have no specific "racial" scent. Of course the entire project was impracticable. Obviously, the person who convinced the Army to try this was soon fired, and put under FBI surveillance owing to threats
against his superiors and the President.
Dogs functioned as sentries and messengers, of course.
I suppose when a war is going badly, as it was in 1942, desperate measures are considered, however briefly.
From PBS' "History Detectives".
www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/701_wardogletter.html
>> * War Dog Letter - A World War II collector from Kansas City, Kansas, has a cryptic letter from a soldier to another military man. The soldier explains that military investigators have questioned him about a man named Prestre - specifically about his character and qualifications as a dog trainer. The contributor wants to know why the military was investigating Prestre and what the dogs were being trained to do. The search takes Tukufu Zuberi to remote Cat Island near Gulfport, Mississippi, and Fort Lee in Virginia. The military put great effort into a new "War Dogs" program during WWII. What went wrong on Cat Island? <<
www.kqed.org/tv/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=12000
Early in WW II there was a scheme in the U.S. Army to train German Shepherd dogs to attack en masse Japanese soldiers. . . by scent!
Over 20,000 (!) dogs were supposed to land on islands and find and kill Japanese based on their alleged scent.
Worse, Japanese-American soldiers were ordered to serve as "bait", and to even beat the dogs to get them angry enough to attack.
Of course, Japanese have no specific "racial" scent. Of course the entire project was impracticable. Obviously, the person who convinced the Army to try this was soon fired, and put under FBI surveillance owing to threats
against his superiors and the President.
Dogs functioned as sentries and messengers, of course.
I suppose when a war is going badly, as it was in 1942, desperate measures are considered, however briefly.
From PBS' "History Detectives".
www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/701_wardogletter.html
>> * War Dog Letter - A World War II collector from Kansas City, Kansas, has a cryptic letter from a soldier to another military man. The soldier explains that military investigators have questioned him about a man named Prestre - specifically about his character and qualifications as a dog trainer. The contributor wants to know why the military was investigating Prestre and what the dogs were being trained to do. The search takes Tukufu Zuberi to remote Cat Island near Gulfport, Mississippi, and Fort Lee in Virginia. The military put great effort into a new "War Dogs" program during WWII. What went wrong on Cat Island? <<
www.kqed.org/tv/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=12000
