CHEMICAL WARFARE RESEARCH

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25450, 23 March 1948, Page 2

CHEMICAL WARFARE RESEARCH

BRITAIN’S PREPARATIONS DURING WAR . Chemical warfare would have been used by Britain if the Germans had attempted an invasion, said Dr. D. W. Taylor in an address to the Christchurch Businessmen’s Club yesterday. Dr. Taylor, who arrived from Glasgow recently to settle in New Zealand, served with the Royal Navy during the war, and was employed on chemical warfare research work. An argument against the use of gas was that it was inhumane, he said, but all forms of warfare were brutal, and he considered that chemical warfare was less inhumane than some other metiiods. Medical evidence disproved claims that men suffered chronic asthma, bronchitis, and tuberculosis as a result of gas during the 1914-18 War. If a man was caught by a choking gas he either died or recovered completely. Except for persons who were injured during gas tests, the only gas casualties during the recent war occurred in Bari when an ammunition ship carrying mustard gas exploded after being hi? by enemy bombs. At the time it was not realised that the ship was carrying gas, and had it been known many of the casualties would have been avoided. Of about 4000 casualties some 200 dxett. , . .2 7’