A strong military is of necessity a diverse force—a
combination of different kinds of troops with a wide variety of skills. Most Americans are unaware of the existence
of one of our most effective fighting groups—a numerous and unique force
(although the extent of their exploits remains a subject of both rumor and
debate). Our story starts almost 200
years ago.
The success of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition triggered
decades of exploration—the United States owned vast territories full of...
well, the country didn't really know what the hell was out there. Multiple expeditions were sent west to draw
maps, to meet the Native Americans, to locate landmarks, and (most important)
to discover if rivers were navigable and where their headwaters were located.
The 1820 westward expedition was sent to discover the
headwaters of the River Platte, and was particularly successful. Rivers were mapped, Pikes Peak was discovered
and climbed, and the vast herds of buffalo were documented in detail.
This was the expedition that extensively explored the
Midwest plains—indeed the leader of the expedition called this land the
American Desert, a phrase that stuck.
Even the Native Americans of the area felt safe with the explorers, as
the land was absolutely unsuitable for farming—at least with the technology of
the time. Ironically, today this is the
heartland of American farming, and in part, helps feed the world.
Like most of the expeditions of the time, a naturalist and a
botanist accompanied the surveyors and explorers, to document the new fauna and
flora that were discovered. One of the
discoveries was the Leptinotarse
Decemlineata, or Colorado Beetle.
Thomas Say, the expedition naturalist discovered this distinctive beetle
eating nightshade plants. The beetle is
about half an inch long and bright yellow, with five brown stripes on its body
(giving it the nickname, the ten-striped spearman—one of several).
When the expedition members returned, they were fairly sure
that the land they had explored would stay isolated and unpopulated, as it
seemed unsuitable for habitation.
However, technology changed rapidly after the Civil War: railroads, windmills, and barbed wire helped
make the plain states into profitable farm lands. One invention in particular had a major role
in turning the prairies into farms: a
new kind of plow.
The problem was that the traditional iron plow was useless
on the dense roots of the sod that made up the plains. The iron plow could be sharpened easily, but
within minutes, the dense sod would dull the blade, making plowing
impossible. While a steel blade would
hold an edge much longer, a steel plow would be impossibly expensive. Besides, at the time, everyone knew that
steel poisoned the top soil, making any plants that managed to grow hazardous
to eat. (Isn't it amazing how often the
things we all know turn out to be wrong?)
The solution turned out to be the "singing plow"—the
marriage of an iron plow with bolt-on steel blades that could be sharpened at
night, and then used again the next day.
As the sharp blade cut through the dense matted roots of the sod, it
vibrated, making a musical note, giving it the new nickname.
With new technology, farmers poured into the Midwest all
the way to the edge of the Rockies, bringing new plants with them. The Colorado beetle quickly discovered a new
food, a cousin of the nightshade it was already devouring: the potato. It was simply amazing how fast this beetle
could strip the leaves off a potato plant.
It was also astounding how fast the beetle—now called simply
the potato bug—spread eastward. Within
fifteen years, the voracious pest made it from Colorado to Pennsylvania, and
ten years later, the 'tater bug' was present in the Americas wherever potatoes
were grown.
European farmers, still reeling from the potato blight that
had destroyed the potato harvest from 1845 to 1852, pushed their governments to
enact laws forbidding the importation of American potatoes. American potatoes stayed out of Europe—for
the most part—until the 20th century, when World War I made importation
necessary. Whether the potato bug was
introduced into Europe by the shipment of food, or simply hitchhiked on the
ships, cargoes, or trucks transported to the European war is still being
debated, but the pest quickly spread across the farmlands of Europe and Asia.
In Europe , after World War II, the bug was particularly
devastating to agriculture, and in East Germany, after the Russians cut the
country off from the rest of Europe, the potato bug became the major threat to
one of the chief agriculture crops of a nation already struggling to feed its
people.
East Germany began distributing pamphlets to farmers to be
on the lookout for the pest. Several
farmers publicly testified about American bombers flying low over their fields,
and invariably, the next day their fields were infested by the Colorado Potato
Beetle. East Germany claimed that
America was 'bombing' its fields with the pest in order to destroy the economy
of the socialist workers paradise.
School children were taken to the fields daily and told to
pick the beetles off the plants in a patriotic effort to defeat the Amikafer
(Yankee Beetles). This was difficult to
do, since the underside of every leaf had to be checked, and a single beetle
can lay up to 800 eggs. East Germany
even complained to the United Nations that the Americans were engaged in
agricultural warfare.
It might have been true. The CIA certainly burned sugar cane fields in
Cuba, and the US sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam, and experimented with
dropping bomb laden bats in Japan during World War II. (You can read about this here.) But, it would be hard to keep silent the huge
number of Air Force personnel that mounting such a project would require. And I have no idea how you could gather
enough of the pests to make an effective payload. Do we have secret bug bombers hidden in Area
51?
This wasn’t the first time that a country had considered
drafting the potato beetle for military purposes. The French had considered using them against
the Germans in the World War I, and Germany and England each had proposed using
them against the other during World War II, with the Germans going so far as to
actually breed the insects and to experiment with dropping them. As far as we know, however, neither country
ever actually used them.
Now, 75 years later, there is still no proof that the United
States was responsible for the Cold War infestation of Eastern Germany. There are a couple of other explanations: one
is that there was a shortage of pesticides in the satellite countries that made
up the Soviet Union and what few were available were used in Russia. The potato bug has proven remarkably effective against most forms of natural
pesticides (remember that the original food supply of the beetle were varieties
of nightshade, a naturally toxic plant).
Another possible explanation goes back to the experiments
the Germans had conducted during World War II.
Captured documents show that the Germans painted the beetles to make
them easier to locate and recover, and then airdropped 54,000 of the beetles on
a German field. Soldiers recovered fewer
than 150 of the bugs,''! ("Bug
painter"—what a job description!)
Today, the bug is still a pest anywhere potatoes are
grown. For a while, the bug was
controlled by DDT, but the potato beetle (as befits an enemy whose ancestors
lived by dining on deadly nightshade) has proven remarkably adaptive to
pesticide use.
Russia is currently the country most seriously affected by
the potato beetle. Is it just a
coincidence that this is happening as the "Cold War" is heating up
again? Or have we called the "tater bugs" back to active
duty, dropping them from those stealth helicopters now?
Now you're going to promote another conspiracy theory, Mark. Have you no shame?
ReplyDeleteI can hear it now. President Obama's black helicopters are spreading tater bugs over potato fields in rebellious red states.
What will more likely happen is they'll retaliate against Portales because you have revealed their secret to the public. They'll develop a Valencia peanut beetle in their secret labs and attack the fields around ENMU in retaliation for you outing the CIA's big secret weapon.
All I can say is, "Now you've done it!"