British Army had fowl plan to repel Russians

Soviet tanks are sweeping across western Europe. The British Army, routed by Russian forces and in retreat, has one last chance for survival - the deployment of its hi-tech weapon of last resort. Step forward, the chicken-powered nuclear bomb.

Soviet tanks are sweeping across western Europe. The British Army, routed by Russian forces and in retreat, has one last chance for survival - the deployment of its hi-tech weapon of last resort. Step forward, the chicken-powered nuclear bomb.

Where America had Polaris missiles and the Kremlin first-strike nuclear submarines, it seems Downing Street was forced to put its faith at the height of the Cold War in a giant plutonium landmine kept functional by a detachment of German poultry.

The seven-ton weapon, codenamed Blue Peacock, was a state-of-the art munition to be buried on the plains of northern Germany during a British retreat and detonated by remote control or timer to destroy advancing Russian forces in the event of the Third World War.

But its inventors at the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Britain's secret nuclear lab complex, were concerned at the effects of the central European winter on their Doomsday armament and resorted to fowl tactics. A 1957 memo shows that scientists recommended burying a flock of chickens with the landmine in order to keep it warm.

Professor Peter Hennessy, an expert on Whitehall in the Cold War, said: "These were things which made us the Ealing comedy nation when it came to nuclear war."