von Bloeker, actor Tim Holt, a former gangster, and a former hotel manager, among others. Von Bloeker, his assistant, Jack Couffer, and Ozro Wiswell, a scientist, self-described "bat lovers", noted that it did not occur to them to question the "morality or the ecological consequences of sacrificing a few million bats". For the duration of the project, many members enlisted in the Air Force, where Adams quickly promoted them to "acting" non-commissioned officers. The team had to determine several variables to make the project feasible, including what kind of incendiaries could be attached to the bats, as well as the temperatures at which to store and transport them. They also had to decide what species of bat to use for the bombs. After testing several species, the Mexican free-tailed bat was selected. Adams had to ask for permission from the National Park Service to harvest large numbers of Mexican free-tailed bats from caves on government property. While the original plan was to arm the bats with white phosphorus, American chemist Louis Fieser joined the team and white phosphorus was replaced with his invention, napalm. Tests were used to determine how much napalm an individual bat could carry, determining that a bat could carry a payload of . The napalm was stored in small cellulose containers dubbed "H-2 units". After trying several attachment methods, they decided to attach the H-2 unit to the bats using an adhesive, gluing them to the front of the bats. The bomb carrier was a sheet metal tube approximately in length. The inside of the tube was fitted with twenty-six circular trays, each of which was in diameter. In total, each bomb carrier could hold 1,040 bats. It was planned that the carrier would be deployed from an airplane, descending to an altitude of before deploying parachutes. The sides of the bomb carrier would then fall away, allowing the bats to disperse. Setbacks and transfer to US Navy A series of tests to answer various operational questions were conducted. In one incident, the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base () near Carlsbad, New Mexico, was set on fire on May 15, 1943, when armed bats were accidentally released. The bats roosted under a fuel tank and incinerated the test range. Following this setback, the project was relegated to the Navy in August 1943, who renamed it Project X-Ray, and then passed it to the Marine Corps