Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for March 29, 2013

for bomb runs, two tails should be plenty

It’s really to hot to focus enough to get my teeth into what those bats did.

I wonder if Wang Pengfei has a liquids-only diet…

I read that some of the bats goty loose and started a major fire at an Army base.

The U. S. Air Force was born 18 September, 1947. That should probably read U. S. Army Air Corp if it was during WWII.

Bat incendiary bombs (attaching napalm to bats dropped over Japan) worked per initial tests, but were overtaken by massive B-29 incendiary bomb raids and finally the A-bomb.

Jerry Lee Lewis had a flame throwing piano.“Great Balls of Fire”.

Definitely unsuitable for playing cool jazz.

The bat bombs would have been a rousing success. And yes, they did set a military base on n fire, parts of it anyway. The bats “performed” flawlessly. But by the time they were ready, the military had bombs that would do the job, and just didn’t have faith in the animals.The pigeons that would have guided bombs to their targets would have worked well too. (well, did in tests) Most of the animals projects would have worked pretty good.Even when the russians strapped bombs on to dogs to attacks tanks. They just didn’t teach the dogs to distinguish GERMAN tanks, from RUSSIAN tanks. But it did work some.The biggest failure, was probably the “cat bomb”. A aerial bomb, guided by a cat. To be dropped on ships at sea. The “theory” being cats don’t like water, and would guide the bomb to the “safe, dry” boat. But they mostly passed out, and the bombs went where they were dropped. Cats were not used to flying, but the pigeons were.

The idea behind the bat bomb was for the bats, when they were dropped and became active, would seek shelter in the attics of Japanese houses – hard places to reach to put out the initial flash – and with numerous houses burning, fire departments would be overwhelmed. Yes, some got loose at the base they were being tested and took out a number of wooden military buildings.

The poor bats couldn’t support the weight of the bombs. But maybe this batboy could. Better than he could play a flaming trumpet, anyway.

Poor Wang Fang..If he really looks like that having vampire fangsis the least of his problems…

BTW it’s Josey Wales isn’t it? Get off your hoveround and send in some facts to Ripley’s you old coot. Jeez what a complainer. He thinks the Dick Tracy art is bad ??? you must need glasses. Old troll go away!

Yes, I think I too would like to know just how many "worthy’ facts josiewhales has contributed to this strip. The “incredible, unbelievable, and true” cannot be manufactured in the same way a story/character based strip can be. I think the folks at Ripley’s, while being somewhat dependent on reader submissions for the enormous amount of material they put out in any given week, do a pretty darn good job of keeping it interesting, educational, and fun. And the artwork here is top notch! Come on people, let’s try to remember that this is ENTERTAINMENT! Lighten up!

those bats apperantly blew up the base the tested them on.