GAS RAID MENACE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 51, 7 September 1928, Page 9

GAS RAID MENACE

DEFENCE OF LONDON

SEARCH FOR ANTIDOTE

AUTHORITIES ACTIVE

'jnitca Press Association—By Electric Telct'rapli—Copyright. "Timte" Cables. LONDON, 6th September. Kocalliiig the criticisms following tho recent air manoeuvres that tho authorities arc apparently making no effort to provide London with some form of defence against poison gas attacks, "Tho Times" aeronautical correspondent says: "On the contrary, the authorities arc alive to this problem, and arc actively searching for an antidote for civilian use." Tho correspondent points out: "Obviously the more successful that antidote the less necessary it is to demonstrate it, and to advance with secrecy is a national necessity, even though it may give an impression that nothing is being done." MASKS INEFFECTIVE. Japan recently rehearsed a gas attack, serving out gas masks to the population, but the correspondent says: "If London's preparation for gas attacks is the storage of ten million gas masks ready for distribution, then London is not prepared now, and will not be for many years to come. It is also clear that huge underground shelters arc valueless, especially against, a heavy gas of the mustard type, which creeps along and lies on the ground. Such shelters may be effective against explosive bombs, but against gas the logical refuge appears to bo roofs and upper stories, where the gases cannot reach, or will become innocuous in contact with the free air currents." I SECRECY NECESSARY. • The writer adds: "The only effective protection must rest in the use of some voadily acquired material, and not in <ho issue of special apparatus from a central store. That is the ideal aimed at, but the extent to which the authorities have been successful is necessary to be kept secret, as an announcement of a particular defence measure would inevitably lead to a further experiment to find a gas to defeat tho antidote."