ince the Integration of the SAS special forces in 1940, the British were always trying to push their troops over their human abilities and limits in order to get closer to what was believed to be the ultimate soldier. At the point where a human reaches its maximum potential or capacity (even after years of training), there is only one thing left that can truly enhance him or her in some apparent cases.
A new type of warfare
It was said that such tests actually began around early 1958 when the Cold War was about to begin. It is true that Britain itself wasn’t a very big part of this war, however, just like all other nations around the world they also felt the tension as well as the belief that a 3rd World War was just around the corner.
The difference this time was that they wanted to be more on the offensive side and the British also knew that this war would be very different. The Soviets and Americans were already preparing the most devastating and powerful nuclear weapons the world had seen. I presume that the British, as well as other nations, knew that a nuclear war would just bring an end to humanity.
Therefore they started testing powerful drugs to create chemical weapons in order to prepare for psychochemical warfare. What they were planning to do was to create chemical bombs that would be spread over the enemy infantry and affect them on a psychological level to the point where they would just be incapacitated by the side effects.
However, you could not just launch drugs out of thin air as this had to be tested, and who better to use than some young foolish recruits? Over 7000 British Soldiers took part in such tests and over 250 of them died, as far as the declassified records state. The soldiers would be given an exact amount of water and food and after a couple of hours, they would be administrated a small or “inoffensive” dose of acid (LSD).
After a short period of time, the soldiers would start acting very strange and they were not able to follow any orders received from their commanders. Most of them started laughing out loud. Have a look at this short clip portraying the British soldiers on LSD:
So the acid was working, however, it was still not optimal as some of the soldiers were still able to follow orders even under the influence of such chemical drugs which meant that they were able to fight. However, the majority of the soldiers actually forgot that they were in the middle of a battlefield as they were no longer taking cover or were barely able to aim their guns.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25 was the main drug that was used on these tests, the only problem apart from being a very strong drug was being very costly. These tests continued for over a period of 15 years going through very different doses and chemicals. As mentioned before, over this period of 15 years over 250 soldiers died.
Hiding the truth
The new high command questioned the ethics of such an experiment and therefore they decided to shut it down. Some rumors came out from a certain Russian spy stating that he knew the truth about the tests but in order to hide the story, the British decided to accuse the Americans of such tests in order to cover themselves up. It is true that the Americans also tried some acid tests on their soldiers but not on such a large scale or with the exact thought in mind.
It is surprising how this flew from the present media however, at the same time most were focusing on the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is imperative to mention how cruel they must have been at the time to actually test drugs and chemicals on their own men.
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