As the US Navy brings in dolphins to search for mines in the Gulf, Nick Morrison looks at how animals from glowworms to elephants have been used to fight our battles.

SURROUNDED by high walls and protected by patrolling submarines, Base 99727 at Bukhta Kazachya, near Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsular, was home to some of the Soviet Union's most secretive work during the Cold War. Inside the forbidding Black Sea compound, dozens of special operatives were trained with just one purpose in mind: to seek out and destroy the enemy.

But the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union saw these agents cast adrift, no longer useful enough in a time of financial stringency to justify keeping them on. Instead, some of them were considered so expendable they were sold, while others were retrained to play with psychologically damaged children.

The Dolphin Division was one of the most cherished units of the Soviet Navy. Its ranks of dolphins, Beluga whales, walruses and sea lions were trained to find hostile submarines, guard bases, film ships and even plant mines on enemy vessels and deadly explosives on divers.

The Soviet trainers used the dolphins' highly developed sonar - capable of detecting objects up to a metre below the sea bed - to locate mines, missing torpedoes and missiles. Parachute harnesses were created so they could be dropped, undetected, out of aircraft, while others were pitched directly into the sea from helicopters. Their trainers even boasted that the dolphins could tell the difference between friendly and hostile submarines, by the pitch of the engine.

Yesterday, the US Navy's own marine unit started work. Makai and Tacoma are two Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, trained to detect mines in the Gulf, and then mark them with buoys to enable vessels to pass by safely. The two are among more than 20 dolphins on the US Marine Mammal Project, based in San Diego, California, nine of which have spent the last few weeks in special tanks on board a warship in the Gulf, before being forwarded to the port of Umm Qasr.

From their first recorded use in Vietnam in 1970, the intelligence and skills of dolphins have made them one of the most useful of animals to be employed by the military, from acting as an early warning system to the more destructive extreme of planting explosives on a hostile vessel or diver. Some of the Soviet dolphins were also reported to have been trained to carry out kamikaze missions, sent to blow up enemy ships with explosives strapped to their backs. Around 2,000 dolphins are said to have died on such operations, and another 300 died during training in the Black Sea.

In one of the most bizarre sell-offs of the former Soviet arsenal, 27 of the dolphins, whales and sea lions were bought by Iran three years ago, to be deployed in the Gulf. Six dolphins were deployed in the Gulf by the US Navy in the late 1980s, to protect US ships and escort oil tankers.

But man's willingness to turn animals into weapons of war did not start with dolphins. From around 2,000BC, when the Hyksos conscripted horses to draw their new machine - the chariot - into battle with the Egyptians, animals have been seen as an opportunity to gain advantage over an enemy. From glowworms to elephants, few creatures have escaped our desire to exploit their military potential.

Horses have been among the most regular of animal recruits, and such was their importance that they could be subjected to terrible cruelty. The Egyptians severed the tendons of any captured horses, leaving them unable to walk and dying in the heat.

About eight million horses died in the First World War, when they were used to transport supplies, soldiers and the wounded. Of the 34,000 donkeys sent to the East African theatre during that conflict, only just over 1,000 survived.

The Great War also saw glowworms used to guide soldiers and illuminate maps for navigating in darkness; canaries to detect gas and cats to patrol the trenches, looking for rats.

Dogs have been widely used: by the Romans as warriors; by the Russians as suicide dogs, throwing themselves under enemy tanks with bombs strapped to their backs, and detecting mines and delivering messages in First World War trenches. One Welsh terrier, Ricky, was scarred by a shell exploding three feet away from him, but still carried on with his mine work. Another dog was found to have been carrying messages for weeks with a bullet in his lungs and shrapnel in his spine.

During the Second World War, Gander the Newfoundland dog served with distinction as Canadian forces tried to defend the island of Lye Mun from the Japanese, with his heroics recognised in the award of the Dickin Medal, known as the animals' VC. Gander perished when he chased and picked up a grenade and carried it towards the Japanese, saving the lives of dozens of Canadian soldiers.

Rob, a collie, is thought to be the most decorated dog in history, for his exploits in making more than 20 parachute landings with the SAS in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War. With a parachute strapped to his back, he had the advantage over other canines of being able to contain his impulse to bark during missions.

Hannibal may have used elephants to cross the Alps in his battle against the Romans, but they were also employed to transport equipment used to build bridges and roads in Burma. But the use of camels by the British in Africa was less successful: around 30,000 died, largely through being poorly looked after.

Camels were not the only animals to suffer at the hands of their masters rather than the enemy: transport mules used by the British in south-east Asia had their vocal chords removed so they wouldn't betray their position to the Japanese.

Pigeons were an important tool of 20th century war, being used to transport messages and even guide lost airmen in both world wars. During the last three years of the Second World War, 16,500 homing pigeons were parachuted into Europe, but only around 2,000 returned. One pigeon, Mary of Exeter, went on her first mission in 1940, and by the end of the war had 22 stitches. She delivered one message with her neck torn open, and another with one wing partly shot away. Another pigeon, Winkie, flew 129 miles from her downed bomber to her Scottish base to prompt a search for the crew, which proved successful. Winkie became the first recipient of the Dicken Medal.

But not all attempts to use animals in war have proved successful. Thousands of bats were dropped from a plane over Germany in the Second World War, with bombs strapped to their legs, but the temperature at 12,000ft meant they froze to death and were unable to disperse their destructive cargo.

Gerbils were thought to have a use in anti-terrorist work, with their ultra-sensitive noses being able to detect minute rises in adrenalin from the sweat of passengers at airport security desks. Unfortunately, the gerbils were unable to differentiate between anxious terrorists and nervous flyers.

And the CIA tried to turn cats into spies during the 1960s. One feline was fitted with listening devices and his tail turned into an antenna, so he could slink up to Soviet spies and allow his masters to eavesdrop. Sadly, on the way to his first mission he was run over by a taxi and the project was abandoned.

But potentially the most significant development in the history of animals as weapons of war has come in the last 12 months, with experiments at the State University of New York. Rats have been fitted with microelectrodes which are linked to computers, enabling scientists to control the rodent's movements. So far, they have been guided through mazes, but they may be able to carry spy cameras or trigger landmines. In the race to gain military ascendancy, it seems no creature will be left unturned.

27/03/2003