CHURCHILL’S ANTHRAX BOMBSHELL: A TOP SECRET TALE

The island was small - just over a mile in length andhalf a mile wide.

It was also unpopulated for many years, which is why it was selected byBritish military scientists.

Holiday on Gruinard Island: don't forget the suit

In 1942, Gruinard Island, off the west coast of Scotland, was infectedwith high doses of anthrax. Scientists wanted to test whether or not anthraxwould be efficacious in a massive biological attack on Nazi Germany.

The plan - codenamed Operation Vegetarian - was to drop linseed cakesinfected with anthrax onto the German countryside. The effect would have beencatastrophic: Germany’s cattle population would have been wiped out, leading tothe death of millions through starvation.

'We shall fight them in the meadows'

The discussions about biological warfare were conducted at the highestlevel. Winston Churchill himself debated it with his Chiefs of Staff. And theoutcome of their discussions was to lead to a top secret order from NorthAmerica of half a million anthrax bombs.

The 1942 tests on Gruinard Island had to

be carried out in totalsecrecy. The island was bought by the government under a compulsory purchaseorder. Soon after, 80 sheep were shipped to the island and spores of theanthrax bacterium were exploded close to the animals.

Anthrax: government health warning

The anthrax strain was Vollum 14578, a lethal and highly virulent typethat took its effect within days. The sheep rapidly began to die.

The scientists were stunned by its efficacy: they realised that a massdetonation of anthrax over Germany would pollute the land for decades, makingit totally unsuitable for human habitation.

More alarming was their inability to decontaminate Gruinard Island. Oncethe anthrax spores were there, they were impossible to remove.

Dead sheep: it worked - a rare anthrax photo

Churchill changed tack and considered the use of poison gas instead. ‘Iwant you to think very seriously over this question…’ he wrote to his Chiefs ofStaff. ‘I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay us to usepoison gas.’

But by the spring of 1944, anthrax was back on the agenda and this timeChurchill approved an order for an initial stockpile of 500,000 anthrax bombs.

Gruinard: island of death

He said he had engaged in ‘most secret consultations with my MilitaryAdvisers. They consider, and I entirely agree, that if our enemies shouldindulge in this form of warfare, the only deterrent would be our power toretaliate.’ An important - and oft forgotten clause - is the fact that he wouldonly drop anthrax on Germany in retaliation for a Nazi biological attack onEngland.

The Inter-Service Sub-Committee on Biological Warfare said that theinitial anthrax order ‘was based on an appreciation that the number would besufficient for retaliatory attack on six large enemy cities. It has now beenconcluded, however, that it may be necessary to arrange provision of 8 timesthis number of bombs in order to achieve results on the scale originallyenvisaged...’

A puff of smoke on Gruinard. But it'll kill you.

The production of the initial order took time - far longer than theexperts had expected. ‘The plant for manufacturing the filling of the bombs[with anthrax] should be in operation by the end of the year (1944) … We couldnot, therefore, engage in this form of warfare on any effective scale beforethe spring of 1945.’

By 1945, a top secret report to a Cabinet Defence Committee revealedthat even deadlier anthrax weapons were now on trial.

‘Judging by its effect on monkeys,’ read the report, ‘[it] might killhalf the population of a City of the size of Stuttgart in one heavy bomber raidand render the site of the City uninhabitable for many years to come... It isclear, therefore, that biological warfare is potentially a most deadly weaponand, if it is ever used in warfare, may have revolutionary effects.’

One Gruinard house for sale: strangely, no buyers.

But the end of the war was by now just around the corner. A new deadlyweapon - the atomic bomb - had been developed and anthrax was no longer needed.The biological weapons project was quietly dropped.

But on remote Gruinard Island, the effects of a deadly anthrax attackremained a reality for decades to come.

The island was contaminated and strictly off-limits until 1990, when theremoval of top soil and spraying of the island with formaldehyde solutionfinally rendered it safe.

There is still no one living on the island. The only inhabitants are aflock of sheep who munch on the grass, blissfully unaware of the deadly sporesthat until recently infected their island home.