Gadgets and Ingenious Devices

image-Exploding rat Mini-submarines, exploding rats and time bombs disguised as bottles of Chianti were all part of a James Bond-style armoury used by British agents during the Second World War. The previously secret files, released on 27th October 1999 by the Public Record Office in Kew, shed new light on the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose agents were parachuted behind enemy lines to help local resistance movements carry out sabotage and subversion.

The declassified SOE files consist of headquarters papers recounting the methods used to recruit, train and deploy the secret agents. Located in six buildings in Baker Street under the cover of the Inter-Services Research Bureau, the SOE employed a plastic surgeon to alter some agents' appearance permanently, skin dyes lasting up to four days, wrinkle creams which aged the skin and someone from the film industry to seek out props for the undercover operators.

image-Exploding Chianti! On an average day, the film man would be asked to find 150 rat skins "to be cured, filled and armed as explosive devices"; 100 types of coal, to be hollowed out and packed with explosives. The exploding rats were hidden in piles of coal next to boilers at German facilities. When they were thrown into the boilers, the flames set off the fuse. Fake bottles of Chianti, made of celluloid, were split into two sections; each was filled with plastic explosives and topped up with wine. A raffia cover completed the disguise.

The camouflage section of SOE's research department hid arms and ammunitions for the secret agents inside fake logs made of plaster and "garnished" with moss, green lichen and other tree fungi. Ammunition was also concealed in plaster and papier mâché fruit and vegetables. There were cigarette lighters that hid messages and bombs disguised as sugar beet or cow dung.

At first, this type of subversive operation was not taken seriously by the top brass. The Chiefs-of-Staff, the War Office, Air Ministry and Admiralty all thought "it was a cloak- and-dagger party which did not amount to any real force in the field of operations against the enemy". Gadgets and gizmos for the SOE were given low priority when the research and development section was set up in 1938.

image-Fake log with cache of grenades. By the end of 1940, production of certain devices, such as "pencil" time fuses had risen significantly. The elaborate and inventive forms of camouflage and weaponry were the product of research conducted at Station XI and Station XII based at Aston House, Stevenage. By 1942, 150 different articles had been produced.

Itching powder, composed of minute seed hairs, came disguised in foot powder tins. "The greatest effect is produced by applying the powder to the inside of the underclothing," according to the archived instructions. An Electrolux vacuum cleaner was doctored to conceal a wireless. Aerials were disguised as rope clothes lines or window sash cords. Neck ties could conceal a secret code on a piece of silk. Microprints were fitted inside the hollowed out shaft of a door key and the back of a collar stud.

image-Incendiary briefcase. Among the experimental gadgets supplied to the agents were: a one-man submarine with a range of 400 miles and carrying an explosive charge capable of sinking a capital ship; a long-range motorised submersible canoe for dropping agents and stores, called the Sleeping Beauty; and a foldaway motorbike that could be put in a parachute container. Incendiary items included briefcases and shaving brushes. Balinese "wood carvings" made entirely from explosives were sold to Japanese troops embarking on ships.

Noxious liquids could be inserted into food supplies, "rendering them unfit (not poisonous) for human consumption". Face cream could be used to sabotage optical instruments.

Not all the devices considered went into production. Incendiary cough mixture and guns made out of fountain pens or bicycle pumps were among the ideas rejected.