Dated 30 April 1942, the report noted the arrival in England from
the USA of a B-24 Liberator aircraft with a cargo of
15,000 Colorado potato beetles plus an unknown number
of Texas ticks. In response to this report, the OKH
(German Army High Command) asked whether Germany
was vulnerable to damage in the event of an invasion
of either Colorado potato beetles or Texas ticks.
The answer, from Kliewe and the Surgeon General’s
Office, judged the Texas tick “no great danger”. With
that, the Texas tick appears to have vanished as a concern
of the German military.
Not so the Colorado potato beetle.2 The authorities
seem to have antiestéticared an Allied scheme to use the beetle
to reduce Germany’s food supplies, thereby weakening
her ability to fight and shortening the war. Whatever
the reason, orders were given during 1942 to establish a
Kartoffelkäferabwehrdienst (Potato Beetle Defence
Service) complete with a Kartoffelkäferforschungsinstitut
(Potato Beetle Research Institute) in Kruft.3
The work of these groups quickly shifted from defence
against the Colorado potato beetle to its offensive
use. The east coast of England, thought to be the site of
some 400,000 hectares of potato fields, was deemed a
suitable target. It was estimated that some 20–40 million
beetles would be needed for full coverage. To meet
this need, German resources were diverted in June
1943, to large-scale breeding of the Colorado potato
beetle. It was expected that sufficient quantities would
be on-hand by summer 1944, to permit beetle attacks to
begin.
In preparation for these attacks, field trials were conducted
to study dispersal characteristics for air release
of the beetles, observing the effects of temperature,
winds, and release height. In October 1943, some
40,000 living potato beetles were released over fields
near Speyer. The beetles were painted to aid in their recovery.
Even so, less than 100 beetles were recovered
on the ground. A second trial, with 14,000 living beetles,
resulted in a mere 57 beetles being recovered. Additional
trials were attempted with inanimate (wooden)
beetles, also painted to help locate them. Recoveries
were only slightly better.
These results were variously interpreted as indicative
of either very effective, large-scale dispersal (i.e.,
only a few were recovered because the rest had travelled
far away, and that was good) or, conversely, rather ineffective
dispersal. It appears no one considered the prospect
that Germany might be subjecting herself to a BW
attack during such aerial releases.
Without, apparently, much more regard for the results
of the Speyer field trials, work with the Colorado
potato beetle continued. In June 1944 the German High
Command was informed by Kliewe’s office that all experiments
had been concluded, all preparations completed,
and “use [of the Colorado potato beetle] is
possible at any time”.
There is scant evidence to suggest the Colorado potato
beetle ever made it into battle, despite all these
preparations. A 1970 news article quoted the prominent
British naturalist Richard Ford, who professed firsthand
knowledge of various beetle bomb attacks, starting
with one in 1943 near Chale, off the English coast on the
Isle of Wight. According to Ford, teams of children,
pledged to secrecy, were dispatched to sites of suspected
beetle attacks. The children aided in rounding
up the black and yellow beetles, which were then
dropped into boiling water to kill them.4 This one article
seems not to have prompted an out-pouring of similar
stories from others claiming to be veterans of
England’s war on the Colorado potato beetle.
There is, however, a document suggesting the problem
with the Colorado potato beetle in England predated
German interest in use of or defence against this
very same insect. On 6 December 1941, Britain’s
Prime Minister Winston Churchill received a memorandum
from Lord Hankey, a member of his War Cabinet.
Then classified ‘Most Secret’, the memorandum deals
largely with anti-crop and livestock weapons. In it,
Hankey writes “I would not trust the Germans, if driven
to desperation, not to resort to such methods [as biological
warfare]. It is worthy of mention that a few specimens
of the Colorado Beetle, which preys on the potato,
were found in some half a dozen districts in the region
between Weymouth and Swansea a few months ago: although
these are not important potato districts and no
containers or other suspicious objects were discovered,
there were abnormal antiestéticatures in at least one instance
suggesting that the occurrence was not due to natural
causes”.5
Hankey concludes by asking for authorization for
preparatory measures against such BW attacks. Permission
was granted 2 January 1942, which might explain
that report on 15,000 Colorado potato beetles being
shipped to England in April 1942 — four months after
Hankey’s memorandum and a year before the Germans
initiated large-scale breeding of the beetle. Therefore, it
is altogether possible the whole fuss over the Colorado
potato beetle stemmed from the presence in England of
this beetle (or of some close relative), owing to innocent,
non-military circumstances — such as arrival from
the USA in lend-lease or shipments of goods. Having
found the Colorado potato beetle and having concluded
a threat to Britain if the beetle should go unchecked,
British authorities initiated steps to study means of beetle
control. Observing them, an already suspicious German
military might well have interpreted what they saw
as evidence of BW preparations.
The notion of the Colorado potato beetle as an offensive
weapon appears to have lived on after the Second
World War, however. In June 1950 Paul Mercker, Minister
of Agriculture and Forestry in the German Democratic
Republic, accused the USA of discharging
Colorado potato beetles from airplanes flying over East
Germany.
No proof was offered, and US authorities
dismissed Mercker’s accusations as propaganda.
Dr Garrett is Research Leader, Chemical Weapons
Destruction, with the Edgewood (Maryland, USA)
office of the Battelle Memorial Institute. The opinions
offered are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of his employer.
