The UK Biological Weapons Program - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 54

completion by 1955 and were classed as “projects which are so important
as to call for continuous effort regardless of date of completion.” 28
A year later, in a broad strategic review that characterized the Cold War
enemy as an expansionist Soviet Union, the Chiefs of Staff also noted
that in the future there should be “some form of supersonic unmanned
bomber or other vehicle which will take atomic and other weapons to the
heart of Russia.” 29 In this scenario, “other weapons” almost certainly in-
cluded CBW as complements to the nuclear bomb.
The Microbiological Research Department
With BW assuming such a high priority, the scientists at the Biology De-
partment Porton, now renamed the Microbiological Research Depart-
ment (MRD), enjoyed a period of relative prosperity. David Henderson,
the new superintendent, presided over the building of expensive new fa-
cilities and an expansion in the scale and scope of the research program.
The MRD recruited sufficient staff, despite general personnel shortages,
to carry out an ambitious program of basic microbiological research. A
fermentation plant to mass-produce nonpathogenic organisms was built,
and plans were soon in place to build an expensive new experimental
plant to study the bulk production of pathogenic organisms. Research on
the design of the biological bomb was passed to the neighboring Chemical
Defence Experimental Establishment (CDEE) and, in a few recorded in-
stances, was designated by the code name Project Red Admiral. 30 Beyond
the laboratory, Operation Harness, a large-scale field trial at sea using
pathogenic organisms, was approved and carried out in 1948 off Antigua.
A series of further “hot” trials followed.
Operation Harness
Prior to Operation Harness, several remote sites were surveyed for their
potential suitability for trials, and the BWS eventually chose a site on
Antigua, Parham Sound, as a suitable headquarters. Although the con-
duct of the trials remained entirely in the hands of the British scientists
and military, the US agreed to provide additional supplies and personnel,
and the Canadians supplied additional scientific officers. 31 The experi-
ments, which ran from December 1948 to February 1949, involved some
450 personnel and a menagerie of experimental animals. In each trial,