Humans
have enlisted animals to help fight their battles since the dawn of
war, and today’s militaries use an even wider range of creatures for
everything from bomb sniffing to coastline patrolling. Here we count
down some of the creatures that have become unwitting recruits in both
ancient and modern warfare.
1. Bat Bombs
These
nocturnal flying mammals became part of a bizarre animal experiment
during World War II. A dental surgeon upset by the Japanese attack on
the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor proposed attaching tiny incendiary
bombs to bats. The creatures were meant to set thousands of small blazes
across Japan’s cities as they flew to roost beneath building roofs. But
the idea floundered after receiving the green light from President
Roosevelt. Many uncooperative bats simply dropped like rocks or flew
away, despite the U.S. Army using as many as 6,000 of the mammals in
their experiments. The U.S. Navy spent $2 million after taking over the
effort, before finally giving up. Still, the bat bombs did manage to set
fire to a simulated Japanese village, a U.S. Army hangar and a
general’s car. Nowadays, Pentagon scientists study how bat flight
mechanics could inspire future aircraft designs and spy robots.
2. Camel Cavalry
Camels
only provide a few modern militaries with patrol mounts, but camel
cavalry once flourished in certain regions of the world. Camels found
much use in the arid or desert regions of North Africa and the Middle
East during ancient times, given their ability to survive harsh and
often waterless conditions. The smell of camels reportedly frightened
enemy horse cavalry, even if the camels did not provide as much of a
shock to enemy troops during charges. The Parthian and Sassanid Persians
sometimes armored their camels as heavy cataphract cavalry (picture
camels equipped with armor, artillery and carrying cavalrymen), and Arab
warriors often rode camels during raids against other tribes or during
the Muslim conquests of North Africa and the Middle East. Camels fared
less well outside their natural ranges, where horses became the
preferred battle mount. The combat role of camels rapidly declined with
the development of guns throughout the 1700s and 1800s, but they still
saw some action with British general Lawrence of Arabia and Arab forces
during World War I.
3. Angry Bees
Stinger-equipped
bees could become effective weapons when provoked. The ancient Greeks,
Romans and other civilizations occasionally used the insects as tiny
weapons of war to deter enemy troops. Besiegers would sometimes catapult
beehives over the walls, and Greek defenders of Themiscyra supposedly
returned the favor by barraging Roman attackers with hives. The
Heptakometes of the Trebizond region in Turkey even tricked Roman
soldiers under the command of Pompey with a tribute of toxic honey,
which led to the defeat of the subsequently vomiting, intoxicated
Romans. A more direct use of angry bees continued during castle sieges
of the Middle Ages, as well as during World War I and the Vietnam War.
These days, U.S. scientists have found more peaceful uses for bees by
training the insects to detect land mines.
4. Sea Lion Patrol
California
sea lions have gained odd fame in the service of the U.S. Navy’s marine
mammal program, alongside dolphins and a beluga whale or two. The
marine mammals have excellent low-light vision and underwater hearing,
can swim 25 mph (40 km/h), and do repeated dives of up to 1,000 feet
(300 m). The U.S. Navy has accordingly trained sea lions as minesweepers
that can locate and mark mines. The animals can even attach a special
leg cuff to human divers or saboteurs, which allows sailors to haul the
suspects to the surface. A special sea lion harness also carries cameras
that provide live underwater video. Just one sea lion, two human
handlers, and a rubber boat can replace a full-sized naval vessel, its
crew and a group of human divers in searching for objects on the ocean
floor.
5. Messenger Pigeons
Carrier
pigeons carried messages for conquerors and generals throughout much of
human history, based on their homing ability and navigational skills
that enable them to return home across hundreds of miles. But the
pigeons gained much of the military fame during World War I, where
Allied forces used as many as 200,000 of them. One pigeon named Cher Ami
even earned the French “Croix de Guerre” for delivering 12 messages
between forts in the Verdun, France region. He made his last message
delivery despite suffering serious bullet injuries, and is credited with
saving the “Lost Battalion” of the U.S. 77th Infantry Division, which
had become cut off by German forces. Another group of 32 pigeons earned
the British Dickin medal for animal valor during the D-Day invasion of
World War II, when Allied soldiers kept radio silence and relied upon
the pigeons to relay messages. The birds have since retired from
military service because of advances in communications technology.
6. Navy Dolphins
Bottlenose
dolphins have served alongside sea lions in helping the U.S. Navy
patrol the seas since the 1960s. The brethren of Flipper use their
sophisticated biological sonar to search for mines based on the concept
of echolocation. A dolphin will send out a series of clicks that bounce
off objects and return to the dolphin. That allows the marine mammal to
get a mental image of the object, and it can then report to its human
handler using certain yes or no responses. The handler can also follow
up on a yes response by sending the dolphin to mark the object’s
location with a weighted buoy line. Those mine-marking abilities came in
handy during both the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War, with Navy
dolphins helping to clear the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq during
the latter. Dolphins can also tag enemy swimmers, but the U.S. Navy
denies rumors about training dolphins to use weapons against humans.
7. War Elephants
The
largest living land mammals on Earth left their mark in warfare as
creatures capable of devastating packed formations of enemy troops.
Elephants could trample, pierce soldiers with their tusks and even throw
hapless humans with their trunks. They sometimes wore armor or carried
archers and javelin throwers. Ancient kingdoms of India may have been
first to tame elephants as living tanks, but the practice soon spread to
the Persians in the Middle East. Alexander the Great encountered enemy
elephants during his conquests of the ancient world, and eventually the
Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans made use of war elephants at certain
times. Horses feared the sight and smell of elephants, and human
soldiers also had to deal with the psychological terror of facing down
the huge animals. Still, elephants could go mad with fear or pain after
taking too much punishment, and the advent of cannons on the battlefield
essentially ended their combat role.
8. Military Mules
Mules
have played an unsung but crucial role throughout the history of
warfare by carrying or pulling along much of the food, weapons and other
supplies needed by armies. Born from a male donkey and a female horse,
they became preferred over horses for carrying loads because of their
greater endurance. They also displayed more intelligence and
unwillingness to push to the point of injury, which led to the
stereotype of being stubborn. Still, the ancient Roman legions marched
with about one mule for every 10 Roman legionaries. Napoleon Bonaparte
himself rode a mule across the Alps, in addition to using the animals in
his baggage trains. The U.S. Army alone used about 571,000 horses and
mules in Europe during World War I, and lost about 68,000 killed in
action. Mules have continued to find use even today, as U.S. Special
Forces, marines and soldiers rely upon the animals to keep supply lines
open for remote outposts in the mountains of Afghanistan.
9. Dogs of War
Most
people may look upon man’s best friend as a cuddly creature, but humans
have let slip the dogs of war for thousands of years. Large breeds
served as war dogs on the battlefield and as defensive sentries for
everyone from the Egyptians to Native Americans. The Romans equipped
some of their dogs with spiked collars and armor, and the Spanish
conquistadors also used armored attack dogs during their invasion of
South America in the 1500s. Many European factions and nations used war
dogs in ancient conflicts and throughout the Middle Ages, but more
modern warfare reduced the battlefield role to that of messengers,
trackers, scouts and sentries. The U.S. military and others have more
recently trained dogs as bomb-sniffing detectors to work in Iraq and
Afghanistan, where the four-footed companions get their own bulletproof
vests.
10. Horses
Perhaps
no other animal has played so great a role in the history of warfare as
the horse. Humans domesticated horses as early as 5,500 years ago in
modern-day Kazakhstan, and the spread of horses across Eurasia soon gave
rise to their use in large-scale warfare. The ancient Egyptians and the
Chinese used horse-pulled chariots as stable platforms to fight from,
before the invention of an effective saddle and stirrup gave mounted
warriors a decisive edge. Armored knights on horseback could deliver
devastating charges against all but the most steadfast foot-soldier
formations. The stability provided by the saddle-and-stirrup combo
allowed the Mongols to fight and shoot arrows effectively from
horseback, and gave them the mobility to conquer much of the known
world. A thunderous appearance of horses on battlefields often signaled
the beginning of the end for civilizations that lacked similar warrior
mounts. Major combat use of horses did not waver until the modern era of
warfare, when tanks and machine guns entered the fray.