Adams was very disappointed. He maintained that fires set by bat bombers could have been more destructive to Japanese cities than the two atomic bombs. He noted that bats had scattered up to 20 miles during the tests, adding, ‘Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life.’

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Meanwhile, tests had been ongoing for some time to train birds as kamikaze pilots. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a behavioral psychologist at the University of Minnesota who believed that pigeons could be trained to guide missiles, originated the idea of using birds as bombers. A scientist noted for his view that learning occurred as a result of an organism responding to, or operating on, its environment, he did extensive research with animals, notably rats and pigeons, and concluded that a rat or pigeon could learn to press a lever in order to obtain food. Skinner wondered, after the Germans bombed Warsaw in 1939, whether a shell or missile could be designed that could be guided to a ground target from an aircraft. He was riding on a train at the time and saw a flock of birds lifting and wheeling in formation as they flew alongside the train. ‘Suddenly I saw them as `devices’ with excellent vision and extraordinary maneuverability,’ he recalled. ‘Could they not guide a missile? Was the answer to the problem waiting for me in my own back yard?’

Skinner, who already had much experience with birds, chose to work with them in many experiments because they have better vision than humans, are faster in their movements, can distinguish colors, don’t get airsick and are more easily handled than many other animals. He decided to focus on pigeons because he discovered that they are more predictable than other birds.

Skinner bought some pigeons at a poultry store and started teaching the birds to earn kernels of grain by pecking at a specific target image. During this training the birds were held in position in front of a screen by means of a special harness. ‘Feet and wings would be hard to harness,’ he reasoned, ‘but the head and neck might be used. The pigeon’s eyes could pick out a target, movement of its neck could produce signals to steer the missile, and its head and neck together could pick up grain as a reinforcer.

‘I found that I could conveniently package a pigeon in a man’s sock with its head and neck protruding through a hole in the toe and its wings and legs drawn together at the back and lightly tied with a shoestring. The jacketed bird could be strapped to a block of wood and put into an apparatus.’

Skinner built a system in which the pigeon steered by moving pairs of lightweight rods around its neck. By lifting or lowering its head, the bird closed electrical contacts operating a hoist. By moving its head from side to side, it drove a hoist back and forth on an overhead track.

A bull’s-eye was placed on a far wall of the room, a few grains of food were placed in a small cup in the center, and the apparatus was pushed toward it. By moving up or down and from side to side, the pigeon could reach the wall in position to take the grain.

‘My pigeons became quite adept at this,’ Skinner recalled in his autobiography. ‘I pushed them faster and faster across the room until they were operating the moving hoist as fast as the motors permitted.’

He next worked out a system whereby the pigeon pecks were picked up as an electronic signal and transferred to a control system. As the image moved off center, the pigeon would peck frantically to bring the device back on track; the resulting signals would operate the simulated missile control system to center the device on the target. With practice, his birds hit the target with near perfect accuracy and could easily distinguish one target from another.

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