Disguise the limit
SNEAKY HAIR-BRUSH WITH THE LAW
★ INNOCENTLY disguised as a hair smoothing device, the dagger of a female World War Two assassin, found hidden inside a hairbrush, is set to go on display in an Essex museum, as we revealed yesterday.
★ And the grooming accessory, below left, is not the only everyday item from history which was pretending to be something else. Here KIM CARR combs over 10 things you never knew were secretly a weapon…
1 Top Nazi officers wore belt buckles which were actually guns. A German officer called Louis Marquis came up with the idea for the Koppelschlosspistole, below, while staying at a POW camp in World War One. By World War Two refined styles offering double or four-barrels were made to be strapped on, but it’s unknown if they were ever fired.
2 Looking like a simple dollop of poo, the 12th-Century Chinese tried to fool people by dropping turd-filled bombs which were also stuffed with gunpower and poison. Punji sticks covered in poop were also used in the Vietnam War as booby traps.
3 It was a sign of high social standing for men to carry a cane during the 1850s, but showing off they were wealthy was pretty daft as it made them targets for thieves. So canes which hid swords inside them, above right, were invented – and later cane guns to tackle any dodgy types.
4 Named Aunt Jemima, a mix of regular baking flour and a lethal explosive HMX, was used to bake edible bombs. Loaves of bread and muffins, above, looked innocent enough but when they came out of the oven they’d wipe out enemies in one quick bite.
5 Despite their tiny size, in 1854 key guns, above left, were made to protect prison officers while opening cells. The problem was, to fire them, a lit cigar needed to touch the gunpowder hole on the end. And of course, criminals trying to get past guards once their door was open would attempt to snatch the keys to help them scarper.
6 New Zealand took the decision in World War Two to turn Caterpillar bulldozers into tanks as they were short of proper weapons. Adding metal panels around them with six machine guns, they struggled to change into the gear they needed to be at a complete standstill. Luckily Japan didn’t invade so they were never put to the test.
7 During the Cold War, the KGB hid a single-shot 4.5mm pistol inside a lipstick holder. There is one on display at Washington’s International Spy Museum.
8 Injecting a small poisonous pellet full of ricin from its tip, a Bulgarian umbrella, right, was responsible for killing playwright Georgi Markov, who defected to the West, in 1978, when it was stabbed into him while he was walking down The Strand in London.
9 Like something from a James Bond movie, a dagger disguised as a fountain pen was discovered along with the belongings of Beatrice Jackman, a special operations agent, in 2012 after her death. She’d carried it while working in Nazi-occupied Denmark.
10 A similar item was used by Lieutenant Colonel Donald Hamilton-Hill, who served with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders.