SEALS TO SINK SUBMARINES

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28270, 7 May 1957, Page 11

SEALS TO SINK SUBMARINES

Swedish War Plan That Went Awry

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, May 5. One of Sweden’s top secret defence ideas for World War II has just leaked out, says the Associated Press correspondent at Stockholm. It is the story of how the Swedish Admiralty tried to use seals to hunt down foreign submarines. The idea was to equip seals with explosive “warheads” attached by a special harness after training them to regard submarines as sources of fish supply. The theory was tha*t the explo-sive-equipped seals would see an enemy submarine, imagine it to be the source of a good meal, and rush at it. Things, however, did not work out that way. The story was given to the Swedish papers by Petrus Nordlund, a fisherman, aged 75, and was confirmed by the Swedish Naval Staff. Nordlund said that at the outbreak of war he was rushed by air all over the Swedish coast to capture young seals and bring them back alive to the-Stockholm Naval Headquarters. Then, at onq of Sweden’s bases, submarines were sent to the bottom of the Baltic. Bundles of fresh herrings were tied to their hulls and the released seals wen' to the herrings with a magnificent appetite. The project foundered when, in spite of intensive training, the seals would not go near any submarine not • equipped with herrings There was also an idea to devise means of fastening herrings to the hulls of foreign submarines to attract the seals, but this was given up as impracticable at an early stage.