Grunt (2016)
“A good pesticide, if there can be such a thing, combines both qualities. The insecticide rotenone was the topic of a 1942 memo from the US Department of Agriculture to the US Eleventh Naval District. In addition to killing bugs, rotenone, the letter stated, is a powerful fish poison. When added to water at concentrations only feebly toxic to humans, the chemical “stupefied goldfish.” This was encouraging information, except that the Navy had inquired about something for sharks. World War II mar...ked the first time in US military history that battles were being fought on and over tropical seas, and stories had begun to circulate of sailors and fliers being attacked and devoured after abandoning ship or ditching their plane. (During the previous world war, crews wound up in the North Atlantic, where cold devoured them first.) One particular narrative made its way to a man named Henry Field (as in the Field Museum of Natural History), who at the time held the title Anthropologist to the President, as well as a post with—well, hello again!—the OSS.MoreLess
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