蝙蝠计划(英中对照)

古德明《征服英语》之英语军事故事，古德明，香港英语教育作家，他开了一个《征服英语专栏》，在专栏中专门用英语写了世界近代史上的军事小故事，用英语讲述历史中那些惊心动魄的战争。
蝙蝠计划
a pennsylvanian dentist was driving home in december 1941 when he heard about the pearl harbor attack. he had an idea, and sent it to president roosevelt, who agreed to give it a shot.
the idea was simple: hundreds of thousands of bats would be captured and stored, asleep, in freezers. a one-ounce bomb would be attached to each one's chest. the bats were to be dropped from a plane over japan in containers that would open at 1,000 feet. startled, the bats would head for the nearest cracks in buildings and chew off the bombs, which would explode.
early testing at an army air force base had mixed results. some bats slept through free fall and dropped like rocks; others escaped and set the entire base on fire. the project came to a halt in 1944, when the atomic bomb was near completion.

一九四一年十二月,宾夕凡尼亚州一位牙医开车回家途中,听到珍珠港遇袭,心中有了个主意,写信告诉总统罗斯福。罗斯福决定一试。
那主意很简单:活捉数以十万计的蝙蝠,藏于冷冻柜,使之冬眠,再把一盎斯重的炸弹系在每只蝙蝠胸前。然后用盒子盛着蝙蝠,驾飞机到日本上空投下。那些盒子在离地面一千尺左右,会自动打开;蝙蝠受惊,会飞到建筑物的狭缝藏身,再咬开胸前的炸弹,引起爆炸。
这计划在陆军的空军基地初步试验,成效不一。有些蝙蝠从飞机上投下来,沉眠不醒,像石头般直摔下去;有些则逃脱,把整个基地烧着。一九四四年,原子弹将近制成,这个蝙蝠计划也就告终。