The Special Operations Executive, whose agents included Violette Szabo, left, developed an interesting sideline in creating smelly weapons to turn Nazi officers into the objects of mockery COLLECT/Rex FeaturesOf all the hideous weapons devised during the Second World War — Little Boy, the Doodlebug, the bouncing bomb — the British secret service came up with the silliest. Declassified letters in an American archive reveal that the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Winston Churchill’s cherished forerunner to MI6, set up a programme to undermine German and Japanese officers in occupied countries by squirting them with stinking fluid. A diagram of the spray sent to the American militaryConcealed in brass perfume sprayers or little gelatine grenades, the devices were designed to contaminate enemy officers with a “highly persistent smell suggestive of personal uncleanliness”. In an exchange that could have been…

Source: The Times September 12, 2016 23:03 UTC