ENGLAND PREPARING AGAINST AIR RAIDS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page VI (Supplement)

ENGLAND PREPARING AGAINST AIR RAIDS

Gas Masks Being Made

During the war there was a soldiers’ saying :"If you’re for it. there's a bullet with your name on it.” In a factory at Blackburn there is a gas mask for yon, with, figuratively speaking, your mime <>u it. states the ■‘Sunday Chronicle."

Tiiis factory, just opened, is already turning out 150,000 respirators a week and will shortly been a full production schedule of half a million a week.

Soon there will be a tested gas mask for every man, woman and child in the country, safely stored and ready for distribution.

Here is the story of how Hie Blackburn plant came into being. 'When the Government woke up to the' fact that the civil population of Britain was completely unprotected against air attacks and against, gas the Air Raids Precautions Department got to work with unusual departmental energy. In Blackburn there was a large cotton mill which had been idle for three years. Government officials saw the mill and decided to convert it into a gas-mask assembly factory. The looms were taken out and the mill was reconstructed into Hie most modern massproducing plant in the country. New and elaborate machinery was put in. Chemical laboratories were built and equipped. The employees, mostly girls, were recruited locally. They were unemployed cotton weavers.

At present 360 people arc employed. working one shift a day. When the factory is producing at full pressure there will be at least 450. Their job is to assemble the components of gas-mask. The "container'’ is the part of Ihe mask that filters the poisonous gases out of the air you breathe. The type made at Blackburn is proof against any known gas which may be used in war. As well as being the safest if is also tlie most comfortable respirator yet devised. In the container are wire gauze, cotton pads, titter pads, charcoal, muslin diaphragms, and a small inlet valve to regulate the airflow. These parts are made in different parts of the country, and are sent to Blackburn for assembling. Tlie face-piece is just a plain piece of India rubber with a transparent window for Hie eyes. Face-pieces are being manufactured and stored separately in Manchester. They are kept in an inert gas so that the rubber will not perish.

A network of sub-depots "ill appear in every town and district of the country. and from tlie sub-depots gasmasks will be sent out to a local supply station. At the screech of an air raid warning all people will have to do is hold the musk by the straps, push their chins in first, draw tlie face-piece over their faces and fasten the straps round their heads. This can be done all in tt second.