WW2: Top 5 Strangest Weapons

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

They say war can be one of the biggest drivers of innovation. Inventions like radar, computers and penicillin, all developed during the Second World War, continue to revolutionise our lives today. Others, not so much.

In this episode, James Patton Rogers is joined by 'The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare' author, John Lisle. Together they discuss the strangest inventions to come out of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. From glowing foxes to bat bombs, this is the real 'Q Branch'.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	They were known as the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, a fledgling
0:06.0	organization that would one day grow to become the formidable CIA.
0:09.6	Yet during the Second World War, this organization was still new and tested and keen to make a name for itself.
0:15.8	And so it was within the OSS that a secret group of scientists were tasked with developing
0:20.5	dirty tricks and cunning weapons for the U.S US and the Allies to help win the war.
0:25.2	They were the Dirty Tricks Department.
0:28.1	I'm your host, James Patton Rogers.
0:30.1	This is warfare, and to help us explore the bizarre inventions and unbelievable missions put forward by this real life cube branch of mad scientists, I'm joined by author and historian John Lyle.
0:42.4	John is the author of the Dirty Tricks
0:44.4	Department published by the history press and it's with his help that we
0:47.6	explore everything from silent pistols and radioactive foxes to bat bombs and
0:52.2	bonkers strategies.
0:54.0	I know you're going to love this one, so drop us a five-star review wherever you get your podcast.
0:58.0	Subscribe to listen early and add free and drop us a line if there's a topic that we need to cover.
1:04.0	But now here is John Lyle on the Dirty Tricks Department.
1:08.0	Enjoy. Hi John, thank you so much for taking the time to come and talk to us about this
1:17.7	key area of your expertise, the secret missions, secret tactics and secret weapons, and just mentioning these sort of secret the head scientist who was in charge of Q branch created and this is literally what your research focuses on investigating the real life inventions and real life missions of the real life
1:42.0	Q branch. So tell us John, where did the real life
1:45.4	Q branch begin? The one that I focus on is called the R&D branch, the
1:50.4	research and development branch. This is a part of the
1:53.0	OSS, which is the Office of Strategic Services. During World War II, the OSS was,
1:58.7	like I said, kind of the precursor to the CIA. It was in charge of
	...

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