‘Trawler steamed through poisonous gas’

Press, 25 July 1985, Page 17

‘Trawler steamed through poisonous gas’

NZPA-AP London A fishing trawler steamed through a cloud of plague gas in a restricted military zone off Scotland where British, Canadian and United States officials were secretly developing a biological bomb in 1952, a London newspaper has asserted. The “Observer” said that the alleged incident was never made public because the aerosol plague droplets, used in germ warfare experiments on monkeys, had dispersed harmlessly, and the fishing crew was not contaminated. It said the research, codenamed Operation Cauldron, was done from June to September, 1952, off the Island of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides. Cages of monkeys placed on a pontoon moored offshore were sprayed with bacterial agents in experiments to create lethal weapons, it said. The paper said its report was based on Government archives released 30 years later in 1982. It said the Ministry of Defence, after studying the documents, refused to comment. The newspaper charged that British authorities continued to hush up the details of Operation Cauldron because Britain has claimed it

stopped research into biological weapons after World War 11. It said the Royal Navy organised the trials, in which American and Canadian military officials allegedly took part. The 400-ton trawler Carella, bound for Iceland, ignored the notified safety zone and steamed through the area as pneumonic plague was being sprayed round the pontoon, the “Observer” said. The plague took about six days to incubate and killed within three or four more days, it said. The Royal Navy did not intervene but established the trawler’s route, the paper said. A destroyer was dispatched with a supply of vaccine and ordered to track the Carella from out of sight over the horizon while tuned into the trawler’s radio frequency. It was ordered to board the trawler if a distress signal was made during its three-week fishing trip, it said. After the incubation period expired, the destroyer withdrew. The plague droplets had “dispersed over very short distances,” the newspaper said. “It made the system ineffective as a system, but saved the trawler’s crew.”