Stinkbombs & Stench Warfare

[Occams Barber]

JUNE 27, 2018

Stinkbombs & Stench Warfare



In 1943, towards the end of WWII, Stanley Lovell, head of research and development for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited chemists Ernest Crocker and Lloyd Henderson to design one of its most creative weapons—a military-grade stink bomb that could be distributed to resistance groups and used to make its target “a source of derision or contempt,” according to declassified OSS files.

…documents reveal that the researchers were asked to create a cocktail of noxious odours that could be inflicted on an individual or used to clear out Axis meeting spaces and storage facilities. The substance should be persistent, “produce unmistakable evidence of extreme personal uncleanliness,” and, ideally, induce nausea. But its real purpose was psychological—to destroy morale through embarrassment. The project—cheekily code-named “Who, Me?”—would require Crocker’s team to create a universally repulsive smell.

The British were already on the case. By the time Crocker was recruited, British intelligence had extensively researched the aromatic composition of excrement—one declassified document called “Facts About Faeces” provides details right down to the chemical distinctions between alkaline excretions associated with meat-based diets and the “voluminous stools” produced by diets rich in milk. The Brits had also developed a concoction called “S Liquid” (S being short for “stench”), which contained skatole, a compound formed in the intestines that gives faeces their aroma.

Crocker spent months testing combinations of the world’s most vile odours, and by March 1944 he had settled on a mixture of skatole, amyl mercaptan, and butyric, valeric, and caproic acids that together assaulted the senses with smells of vomit, rancid butter, urine, rotten eggs, foot odour, and excrement. In late 1944, Crocker also developed a second formula to use against the Japanese. Concern that Japanese people might be accustomed to open sewers and the racist Western belief that they might even be immune to the stench of human waste led him to remove skatole and incorporate alpha ionone to add cadaverous notes.

(Unfortunately (or fortunately) the war ended in 1945 before the deadly Aromatic Armaments could be deployed. I have no doubt that somewhere in the foetid bowels of the Pentagon there exists a secret research facility we will call the ‘DSW’ – the Department of Stench Warfare. OB)


SOURCE
The stench of war | MIT Technology Review

 

[Sabertooth]

Your report on this topic stinks...!

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout should be appointed as DSW's director.

Sahra [sic] Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (1972)

 

[Gene2memE]

In the 1880s, some German chemists discovered Thioacetone. This possibly the smelliest chemical compound known to man.

"But Gene2Meme", you say, "how bad could it be?"

Well, curious reader, in 1889 in the southwestern German city of Freiburg, they synthesised some of the stuff, and something went wrong. Almost instantly, an immense stench was created. This floated out of the lab and dispersed into the surrounding area.

The smell was so terrible that people 750 meters away were reported as vomiting or fainting in the streets. Such a panic ensued that the entire locality was evacuated.

In 1967 at a lab in Oxford, the stopper on a bottle of Thioacetone residues was knocked off. Despite being swiftly replaced, the smell was so bad that the occupants of buildings 200 yards away were rendered sick/nauseous.

The stuff is so vile that people report feeling sick after smelling single drop of it, from 400m away.

 

[Occams Barber]

In the 1880s, some German chemists discovered Thioacetone. This possibly the smelliest chemical compound known to man.

"But Gene2Meme", you say, "how bad could it be?"

Well, curious reader, in 1889 in the southwestern German city of Freiburg, they synthesised some of the stuff, and something went wrong. Almost instantly, an immense stench was created. This floated out of the lab and dispersed into the surrounding area.

The smell was so terrible that people 750 meters away were reported as vomiting or fainting in the streets. Such a panic ensued that the entire locality was evacuated.

In 1967 at a lab in Oxford, the stopper on a bottle of Thioacetone residues was knocked off. Despite being swiftly replaced, the smell was so bad that the occupants of buildings 200 yards away were rendered sick/nauseous.

The stuff is so vile that people report feeling sick after smelling single drop of it, from 400m away.

I would have given my left arm for a small supply of this in my high school chemistry class.

I could have created havoc.

Maybe the Ukrainians could drip (sic) it on the Russians.

OB

 

[Estrid]

Lab- created each de skunk is available.
Sometimes used for " area denial" by police.

 

[sjastro]

I would have given my left arm for a small supply of this in my high school chemistry class.

I could have created havoc.

OB

Much more effective is nitrogen triiodide NI₃.
It is a pressure sensitive explosive when kept wet is unreactive.
As a university prank locks would be packed with the wet material when dry would provide a nasty surprise to anyone using a key.

 

[FireDragon76]

What's interesting is that some of those scents, like skatole, are actually used in flavorings in foods. In low amounts it has a floral, jasmine-like scent, but in high concentrations, it smells like poop.

Civitone is another chemical that in its concentrated form is quite foul, but it's also used in fragrances when it is extremely dilute.

 

[The Liturgist]

What's interesting is that some of those scents, like skatole, are actually used in flavorings in foods. In low amounts it has a floral, jasmine-like scent, but in high concentrations, it smells like poop.

Civitone is another chemical that in its concentrated form is quite foul, but it's also used in fragrances when it is extremely dilute.

To paraphrase Bombast, the dose makes the poison.

 

[Estrid]

To paraphrase Bombast, the dose makes the poison.

Read the American chem assn safety data sheet
on regular old table salt. (ACS SDS for NaCl)

https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/21105.htm

 

[The Liturgist]

Read the American chem assn safety data sheet
on regular old table salt. (ACS SDS for NaCl)

https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/21105.htm

Indeed sodium chloride is quite dangerous even in relatively low quantities. I used it in my youth as a part of a set of substances intended to kill spiders that got sucked into the vacuum cleaner used in my garage, due to its desiccating properties. This combination of substances did have the effect of mummifying the various black widows and other creepy crawlies, rather than dissolving them as I had hoped, given my arachnophobia.