Your environment editor’s report on
how chickens face a painful fate following
the weakening of animal welfare guidance by the British Poultry Council (“Chickens will
die in pain after welfare rule change, “ The Times, April 6) reminds me of a gruesome fate
engineered for chickens during the Cold War.
Twelve years ago this month a blood
curdling exhibition opened at the National Archives at Kew, called ‘Secret
State,’ crated by former Times
Whitehall correspondent, Professor Lord Peter Hennessy.
The exhibition revealed that British
boffins working on an atomic land mine -
meant for deployment underground in Germany’s northern plains to destroy
advancing Soviet tanks - realised that it could fail in winter if vital
components become too cold, so they explored ways of keeping the inner workings
warm.
One proposal put forward consisted of
filling the casing of the mine with live chickens, which would give off
sufficient heat - prior to suffocating or starving to death - to keep the
delicate explosive mechanism from freezing.
Despite the potential importance of
chickens to the project, the mine was codenamed ‘Blue Peacock’.
This story was mischievously revealed
on 1st April – but it was true!
[Ministry of Information poster (Hydrogen
Bomb) Document reference: INF 13/281/7]
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