1 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:11,359 Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and death spy stories and 2 00:00:11,439 --> 00:00:17,199 the amazing devices and operations that made them possible. Now let's get started. 3 00:00:27,879 --> 00:00:32,359 Well, this story, we're gonna be talking about Stanley Lovell, the Chemist. 4 00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:37,000 He was an inventor and the man behind some of the worlds the war's 5 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:43,079 craziest, deadly schemes. So let's take a look at Stanley Lovell before we 6 00:00:43,119 --> 00:00:45,880 get started. Make sure to share and subscribe if you like this podcast. 7 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:49,479 He was a chemist, as I mentioned in a very good one, he 8 00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:53,320 signed up to contribute when the US joined the Second World War. His talents 9 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:58,399 and skills were immediately recognized by a doctor Vanivar Bush, the divector of an 10 00:00:58,439 --> 00:01:03,359 American wartime agency known as the National Defense Research Committee, who assigned Lovell L. 11 00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:08,840 O. V Ell to help the Quartermaster Corps design innovative chemical solutions to 12 00:01:08,959 --> 00:01:15,359 common military problems posed by a truly global war. Some of these would include 13 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:19,719 how to make gromets like an islet on a shoe or tarp at a plastic 14 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:23,239 instead of metal to save the metal for other uses. How to make mold 15 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:29,359 proof tents, shoes, and leggings, This was immensely important work, and 16 00:01:29,439 --> 00:01:34,480 Lobell was making a contribution, but he found himself bored. One of the 17 00:01:34,519 --> 00:01:38,319 common themes we've seen in many of these spy stories they seek out adventure, 18 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:45,920 and doctor Lovell was no different this time. Doctor Bush was now helping to 19 00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:52,319 recruit scientists for another organization, an organization that was inundated with spies. The 20 00:01:52,359 --> 00:01:59,480 oss. Lovell couldn't just say a tactical nuclear weapon was what he was working 21 00:01:59,519 --> 00:02:04,200 on, But what he did say was this. He spent about a week 22 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,680 concocting an answer and describing a weapon. This is what he said. I 23 00:02:07,719 --> 00:02:14,759 want a completely silent flashless gun, a cult automatic submachine gun or something. 24 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:16,879 Technically this would be cheating. Of course, I can pick off the first 25 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:22,039 century with no sound or flash to explain his collapse, so the next century 26 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:24,439 will come to him instead of sounding an alarm. Then one by one I'll 27 00:02:24,479 --> 00:02:29,840 pick them off and command the wireless station. Quite devious for a chemist, 28 00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:32,199 and it was enough to get Bush's attention. Shortly after, Lavelle was told 29 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:37,280 to report to address in Washington, and it was the first time he would 30 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:43,080 meet William Wild Bill Donovan, that's right, the director of the newly formed 31 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:47,840 intelligence agency called the OSS the Office of Strategic Services now known as the CIA. 32 00:02:49,599 --> 00:02:52,439 Donovan kept it simple. You know your Sherlock Holmes, of course, 33 00:02:52,479 --> 00:02:55,960 he said, Professor Moriarty's a man I want for my staff here at OSS, 34 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:00,199 and I think you're it. Donovan can continued, I need every set 35 00:03:00,199 --> 00:03:05,080 of device and every underhanded trick to use against the Germans and the Japanese by 36 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:08,639 our own people, but especially by the underground resistance groups in all these occupied 37 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,599 countries. You'll have to invent them all, Lavell, because you're going to 38 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:16,680 be my man. Lovell had found his war. He was in. He 39 00:03:16,759 --> 00:03:21,319 found something to get rid of the boredom. Bill Donovan, of course, 40 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:23,120 was a firm believer the power of science to help win the war. He 41 00:03:23,159 --> 00:03:29,439 thought the side that most effectively and efficiently applied science and technology to intelligence and 42 00:03:29,479 --> 00:03:36,719 combat operations would have the decisive edge. Donovan formed the OSS Research and Development 43 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:42,800 R and D and put Lovell in charge. Like the OSS writ large, 44 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:46,759 the OSS R and D unit has some smashing successes, but of course some 45 00:03:46,800 --> 00:03:50,280 failures as well. Some of the failures was a cat bomb, based on 46 00:03:50,319 --> 00:03:54,240 the undisputed premises that cats always land on their feet and also hate water. 47 00:03:54,639 --> 00:03:58,960 The plan was to hang a poor kitty cat and a harness from the bottom 48 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,319 of a bomb, with some kind device that allowed said cat movements to guide 49 00:04:02,319 --> 00:04:05,400 the bomb as it fell if he dropped it in the vicinity of a naval 50 00:04:05,479 --> 00:04:11,000 target such as a German battleship, and the cat's natural instincts would be to 51 00:04:11,039 --> 00:04:14,000 think, oh, no, I'm falling into water, so let's try to 52 00:04:14,039 --> 00:04:19,720 land somewhere dry like the German battleship, and then unfortunately, boom, a 53 00:04:19,879 --> 00:04:26,040 martyred kittie cat. Of course, it was a preposterous idea. The test 54 00:04:26,040 --> 00:04:30,279 cab became unconscious and thus uneffective during the first fifty feet of the fall. 55 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:35,279 Also, the OSS learned that Hitler and Mussolini would be holding a war conference 56 00:04:35,319 --> 00:04:40,560 at the Brenner Pass, located in the Alps between Italy and Austria. Lavell 57 00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:44,560 proposed an attack which they cannot anticipate. He was probably right, They couldn't 58 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:47,319 have seen this one coming. Lavell's plan called for smuggling in a vase of 59 00:04:47,399 --> 00:04:51,959 cut flowers to be placed on the table between Hitler and Mussolini. In the 60 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:58,160 vase's water would be an odorless, colorless chemical derivative which would seep into the 61 00:04:58,199 --> 00:05:01,319 two tyrants via their eyeballs Hitler and Mussolini, and annyone else in that room 62 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:08,040 will be permanently blinded as the chemical atrophied the optic nerve, rendering it non 63 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:12,040 functional. But that was only part one of the planets. Surprisingly, the 64 00:05:12,399 --> 00:05:16,079 less crazy part Part two required the assistance of the Pope. Despite the Vatican 65 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:20,600 being officially neutral, who in isiual a papal bull stating that God himself has 66 00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:26,360 smitten the two leaders for their evil ways. The OSS was now asking the 67 00:05:26,439 --> 00:05:30,839 Pope to lie. Yet for Lovel this would be justifiable. In one action, 68 00:05:30,959 --> 00:05:34,240 the Pope could stop the war and be advancing the cause of Christianity more 69 00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:40,680 than any man on earth. Unfortunately, for Lovel, the plan fell apart 70 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:44,600 when the war summit was moved to Hitler's private railway car, surrounded by some 71 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:48,279 of his best troops. The OSS was good, but not that good. 72 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:55,120 These are just some of the unusual hijinks of the OSS r in d unit. 73 00:05:55,480 --> 00:06:00,079 But the Kramdela krem of I guess craziness was an operation known as capricious. 74 00:06:01,319 --> 00:06:03,800 For Stanley level, this was the high point of his time as the 75 00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:11,560 Professor Moriarty. What is capricious, Well, let's take a look. In 76 00:06:11,639 --> 00:06:15,560 a war in which tens of millions were killed in almost every matter possible conventional 77 00:06:15,639 --> 00:06:18,639 weapons, disease, starvation, genocide, and so forth, nations would be 78 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:23,519 hesitant to use a type of weapon because they often thought it was unethical. 79 00:06:24,079 --> 00:06:28,120 And although the United States formed the Committee to research the unity of biological pathogens, 80 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:30,879 the Merk Committee, named after its chairman, doctor George George Murk, 81 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:34,199 president of American Company, there was a little appetite among the American leadership to 82 00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:40,279 go beyond the causal casual thinking about things. For a phase, Roosevelt was 83 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:45,240 vehemily opposed to the use of durim warfare. Military leaders such as George Marshall 84 00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:47,439 and Bill donnovand himself thought it was in a moral way to fight a war. 85 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:58,279 However, special circumstances can require sometimes special means of operations. We've seen 86 00:06:58,319 --> 00:07:01,800 a lot of documentaries about Operation Torch in the Battle of Cassermine Pass. I'm 87 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:05,720 sure you can find it somewhere on the History Channel. But adding injury to 88 00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:12,120 injury, the OSS officers in Morocco were reporting the large numbers of Germany's best 89 00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:16,920 and most battle tested troops were flooding into Spanish Morocco. Franco Spain was nominally 90 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,480 neutral, but he was a fascist and highly sympathetic to the Axis cause. 91 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:26,000 Clearly, these German troops were entering Morocco with the consent and maybe even the 92 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:30,879 cooperation of Franco's government. This could be a frightening omen for things to come. 93 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:35,040 What if Spain finally joined the access Spanish Morocco could become a staging point 94 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:39,360 for hundreds of thousands of German troops who can get cut off the vital supply 95 00:07:39,519 --> 00:07:45,319 lines to Allied forces who were trying to dislodge Germany from the African continent. 96 00:07:46,319 --> 00:07:48,079 Something drastic had be done, as I mentioned a minute ago, and so 97 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:54,040 they turned to level mister doctor Moriarty. Now that the handcuffs were off, 98 00:07:54,079 --> 00:07:58,240 German warfare could be the answer to the Allies problems in North Africa. His 99 00:07:58,319 --> 00:08:01,839 mission was to execute the perfect, perfect covert action, a German warfare attack 100 00:08:01,879 --> 00:08:05,639 against the Germans in North Africa without their knowing would hit them. This was 101 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:09,279 more than a desire to be sneaky. It was important to the Allies to 102 00:08:09,319 --> 00:08:11,720 maintain the moral high ground in the war and to prevent the Germans from retaliating 103 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:16,079 with their own biological attack. One key aspect would be to employ a less 104 00:08:16,079 --> 00:08:22,279 than lethal strain of biological agent. The idea wasn't to kill all the Germans 105 00:08:22,319 --> 00:08:24,920 in the region just to make them all wish they were dead. Hordes of 106 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:30,519 six soldiers might be chalked up to just bad luck. Thousands of dead sogiers 107 00:08:30,560 --> 00:08:35,039 and someone's going to be asking questions. So imagine the worst stomach fool you've 108 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:39,840 ever had. That could be a good one. So Lobell and the German 109 00:08:39,879 --> 00:08:46,000 cocktail oss created containing a swarming of bacteria from tularemia and set acosist to all 110 00:08:46,039 --> 00:08:50,360 the pests known to the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This would bring the 111 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:54,360 German war machine in Spanish Morocco to a sandsill, and when the troops came 112 00:08:54,399 --> 00:08:58,960 back, they'd be significantly demoralized. LaBelle set out to federalize and finalize his 113 00:08:58,039 --> 00:09:01,879 plans. As research of the region had uncovered several important facts. There were 114 00:09:01,919 --> 00:09:05,759 more goats than people in Morocco. Moroccan goats pooped. There was also a 115 00:09:05,799 --> 00:09:11,080 ridiculous number of flies North African flies were particularly pesky. They flocked to the 116 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:15,759 moisture from the eyes, nose, and mouths of humans. Flies wegurget to 117 00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:18,879 what they had previously eaten when new food comes their way. Each of these 118 00:09:18,919 --> 00:09:24,360 facts, taken together, crafted a recipe for a perfect German warfare operation. 119 00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:30,440 If Levell could lace the poop with biotoxins, the flies would provide the perfect 120 00:09:30,559 --> 00:09:35,720 vector to encampuss incapacitate the German army. But how do you guarantee the flies 121 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:41,360 would be attracted to your particular brand of biotoxin lay school goat poop? Well, 122 00:09:41,399 --> 00:09:43,000 the oss wasn't going to leave this up to chance. Laville had the 123 00:09:43,039 --> 00:09:48,720 answer. They would manufacture a synthetic variant of goat poop with a pull so 124 00:09:48,799 --> 00:09:52,840 powerful that it would never fail to bring them flies home. The chemical attracted 125 00:09:52,919 --> 00:09:58,000 was apparently so powerful it would wake North African flies out of hibernation. The 126 00:09:58,039 --> 00:10:01,200 only challenge that remained was to figure out the deliver the synthetic goat poop to 127 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:05,960 Spanish Morocco without being observed. Lovell decided that the only way to do this 128 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,720 was introduced. Their concoction into the region was via air drop. It was 129 00:10:09,759 --> 00:10:13,679 then that one member of Labelle's team spoke up, and it did invited a 130 00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:18,039 major kink in the plan. Most of the houses in Morocco have flat roofs, 131 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:20,720 a whole lot of the goat poop would end up dropped on the roofs, 132 00:10:20,759 --> 00:10:24,720 and unless the OSS was also planning on developing a new genetically flying goat, 133 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:28,799 be hard to explain the poop away. Lavell responded with the oders are 134 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:33,080 to take out Spanish Morocco in order to do so. If we do, 135 00:10:33,159 --> 00:10:37,000 there might there'll be mighty few people inspecting rooftops. They did have a valid 136 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,080 point. Fortunately, the progress of the war intervened before Lovell could test this 137 00:10:41,159 --> 00:10:45,360 theory and a synthetic poop. In the midst of development and testing, the 138 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:50,159 OSS learned that the Germans were completely pulling their troops out of Spanish Morocco and 139 00:10:50,159 --> 00:10:54,039 redeploy them to the Eastern Front to reinforce the effort to capture the Soviet city 140 00:10:54,080 --> 00:10:58,559 of Stalingrad. Hitler's al fate obsession would take in the city named after his 141 00:10:58,639 --> 00:11:07,000 nemesis, save the OSS and by extension, the US. In addition to 142 00:11:07,039 --> 00:11:11,080 this, Stanley level was really known for a lot of other things too. 143 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:13,720 He made so many it's hard to even possibly cover them all on the podcast. 144 00:11:15,879 --> 00:11:18,519 But under Levell's direction, the OSS developed a number of devices for use 145 00:11:18,559 --> 00:11:26,600 in clandestine warfare. Among these were the high standard pistol, the bino grenade, 146 00:11:26,720 --> 00:11:30,960 which was actually an interesting grenade, and we'll talk about that here. 147 00:11:31,799 --> 00:11:39,440 The bino grenade, as it's known, was a specialized grenade and it had 148 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:45,440 as time delay fuses. These grenades explode on impact, making them effective against 149 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:48,440 hard to hit moving targets, unlike most grenades, which have time to lay 150 00:11:48,559 --> 00:11:52,039 fuses. I guess my bi apologies. It was unlike most grenades. These 151 00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:56,679 grenades impact exploded on impact, making them effective against hard to hit moving targets. 152 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,279 The name gammon is a British word for ham. But we saw the 153 00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:09,080 CIA Beino grenade was the one he created again to explode on impact, which 154 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:11,960 is something they hadn't had before. In addition to that, he created which 155 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:16,480 you might have seen, the match box camera. I don't know if you 156 00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:20,679 ever seen the matchbox camera. That was a pretty cool camera. The Kodak 157 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:24,399 camerack developed a sixteen millimeter for use by the OSS during World War Two, 158 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,279 was made in the shape of a match box and could be camouflaged by adding 159 00:12:26,279 --> 00:12:30,480 a matchbox label appropriate for the country in which it was to be used. 160 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:37,279 In addition to other ideas including an explosive disguised as flour which could even be 161 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:43,200 baked without exploding, and a plan to attack Japanese cities by releasing we'll get 162 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:48,200 this bats to which incendiary bombs had been attached and as we seem to hear 163 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:52,440 a lot about bats these days, but this was one of the attaching bombs 164 00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:56,200 to it In World War two at US Dennis suggested arming one million bats with 165 00:12:56,240 --> 00:13:01,039 a timed incendiary device and dropping them over Japan, roost in its military wooden 166 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:07,000 buildings and start a firestorm. So scientists began Operation or Project X Ray. 167 00:13:07,799 --> 00:13:13,200 Hibernating bats were clandestinely collected from local caves. Engineers designed a tiny device and 168 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:16,320 a sendjury device with a time delayed igniter to fit each bat, plus a 169 00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:22,200 special container to drop by parachute and release the bats in midair, and tests 170 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:24,159 all went well, actually too well. The bomb deployed as plan, but 171 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:28,320 the bats settled in the rafters of a newly built hangar at the airbase and 172 00:13:28,399 --> 00:13:35,320 set the building ablaze. The project was then canceled the bat Bomb I like 173 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:37,399 the name. That's it for now.