Britain Guards Against Poison Gas

Southland Times, Issue 23438, 19 February 1938, Page 13

Britain Guards Against Poison Gas

By

M. H. Halton

Experts Say People Must Dig Underground To Escape Destruction From The Skies

MILLIONS of words have beet written to prophesy wha will happen in the next war, wher enemy air fleets appear out of the blue with their hundreds of ton; of bombs. Poison gas bombs, incendiary bombs, high explosive: bombs and possibly disease-carry-ing bombs. But all these words have been guesswork. Go anc talk to six military scientists, as I have done, and you will get six different answers. On one extreme you will have the sensationalist, the man who believes that two or three days after the next war begins London will be an indescribable inferno, a ghastly, appalling hell such as men haven’t dreamed of before. On the other extreme is the optimist, dispenser of soothing syrup, the man who says the next war will be bad, all right, but not so bad as all that. Somewhere in between, probably, lies the truth. The Government authorities belong to the soothing syrup type of prophet They are trying to convince the nation that all will be well if they just keep calm, tack wet sacking over their windows, wear the Government gas mask and trust in the air force and fire brigades. This is not quite good enough and thinking people are getting anxious. Is it true, they ask, as stated by the chief research officer of the United States army’s chemical warfare department, that the United States has a liquid poison three drops of which would kill a man, and that one. aeroplane carrying two tons of the liquid could spray an area 100 feet wide by seven miles long and kill every living thing in it? Is it true, as Edison said, that 20 aeroplanes loaded with Lewisite gas could asphyxiate the population of a large city in three hours, masks or no masks? Is it true that incendiary bombs can generate a heat of 3000 degrees Centigrade and make a city a raging inferno of fire in an hour or so? Is it true that disease germs and plagues can be dropped from the air? Is it true, above all, that the 40,000,000 gas masks being manufactured by the British Government are practically useless and a waste of money and time? And finally, why doesn’t- the Government build enough bomb-proof shelters to take care of the people if the bombers should ever come? The answer to the last question is easy. If shelters were built to hold 1000 people each it would require 10,000 shelters for the whole of London. Each one would have to be bomb-proof and gas-proof. It would have to have artificial light and an artificial and bomb-proof ventilating system. These shelters would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build. Further, the building of them would disrupt the whole life and business of 'London. Bomb-proof shelters are out. Londoners must take their chance in the streets and in their homes. But the other questions are important. Masks And Shelters The British Home Office is distributing little yellow booklets telling the people of this country what precautions to take against poison gas attacks from the air. Everybody should set aside one room in the house and make it gas-proof, say the authorities. You must have gummed paper all ready in that room to paste in strips on the windows—this helps to prevent the < glass from breaking from the shock of explosions. Then wooden shutters must : be made to cover the doors and win- 1 dows, covered with some material that is fire-proof and gas-proof. Every crack ] must be filled with paper pulp. The fire- ] place must be blocked up thoroughly. In this way a room can be ready where < the family can shelter safely during t

air raids. Unless, of course, the building is blown to pieces by high explosives or burned by incendiary bombs. It sounded nice and comforting at first, until reputable scientists began to say these “gas-proof” rooms were about as gas-proof as a sieve—apart from the fact that the great majority of families haven’t got a room they can set even partially aside. The anxiety started when D. N. Pritt, K.C., a Labour M.P., informed the House of Commons that the “gas-proof” rooms erected by the Government at the Anti-Gas school in Yorkshire leak so badly that anyone inside them during a gas attack would be dead in an hour. Then a group of Cambridge scientists, including some very famous men, carried out a series of experiments to test the Government’s gas-proof rooms and gas masks. Their reports denied the truth of the Government’s statement that their gas mask was “100 per cent, protection against any known gas” and that their anti-gas shelter was actually gas-proof. Two of these scientists sat in a room prepared under Home Office advice. Then carbon-dioxide was released into the room. The scientists became short of breath and their hearts began to race. But so inefficient was the “gasproof” room that the carbon dioxide disappeared through the walls in a few

minutes. Then a rag soaked in amyl acetate was simply waved in the air outside the chamber where the two men sat. Within eight minutes they could detect the smelL The concentration of amyl acetate used was equivalent to the amount of mustard gas that would prove fatal within an hour. And mustard gas is not the most lethal of these poisons. One-twentieth of an ounce of mustard gas in an ordinary living room would be fatal in half an hour, but so would one-sixtieth of an ounce of superalite 'and one-seventieth of an ounce of phosgene. What about the 40,000,000 gas masks? They are better than nothing. It seems that they are effective against gases like chlorine and phosgene for as much as five hours. But the Cambridge scientists say they are about as much use against the worse kinds of poison gas as so many bowler hats. Unknown Terrors All this might seem to indicate that the sensationalists were right and that in the next war millions will die like agonized, poisoned rats in a hellish shambles such as Dante could never have imagined. But this is an obvious exaggeration, as Professor J. B. S. Haldane points out. Professor Haldane, one of the greatest English scientists, is no purveyor of soothing syrup. He is a great scientist and a great Sdcialist and never ceases his fight for a foreign policy that will make war impossible. He has often told me that London after a large-scale air attack with thermite bombs, poison gas bombs and high explosives will be a hideous thing to see. But he has ■ studied air warfare in Spain and believes its effects are exaggerated. J “I cannot believe that millions would be killed in London,” he said recently, j “An air raid on London in which the ( enemy risked a big fraction of his air , force might result in the killing of . 50,000 people—no more than the num- j ber that died in London during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19. Calculations about poison gas are often based on ridiculous misconceptions. It has 1 been pointed out, quite truly, that 10 £ tons of gas, if rightly distributed, would 1 poison the atmosphere over an area of several square miles. It is also true * that one ton of bullets would kill the ' entire British army if rightly aimed! J “It isn’t likely that an enemy air * force will be able to drop all the bombs they wish exactly where they wish, t Would a big air raid cause panic or . revolution? That would depend on the I political situation.” y Very well. But how about thermite, v or incendiary bombs? Incendiary bombs v are composed of about 90 per cent, f]

magnesium and 10 per cent, aluminium, zinc and manganese. Any bombers that get .through the defences can rain these small deadly bombs down on London in tens of thousands. They generate a heat of 3000 degrees Centigrade. Anything which is not absolutely fire-resis-tant will go up in flames, says Air Commodore L. E. O. Charlton, author of. that nightmare book, “Fire Over England.” So what will be the fate of the millions of people huddled in their “gasproof’ rooms Will they be incinerated? Not likely, says Professor Haldane. “I too used to think that incqndiary bombs would be the most dangerous, but I was amazed at what I saw in Madrid. In the earlier raids these bombs were used to a great extent, but in the later raids they were hardly used at all, which suggests that they are much less efficient than we

supposed.” What about the rumour that the Germans have a new high explosive far deadlier than anything known before? Military sources have predicted that in the next great struggle for power Germany will unleash a gas attack which will surpass in sheer ferocity anything the world has yet imagined. However, these experts neglect to mention the authority for their predictions. “I believe it is nonsense,” said Professor Haldane. “I don’t think it is possible to discover high explosives much more deadly than the ones we have. And as for H. G. Wells’s suggestion that the world will be blown up by bombs which release artificial radio, activity—well, I see no prospect of that within the next few centuries.” Suppose; then, that new and more terrible poison gases are discovered? . . . “I don’t expect that, either,” said Haldane. “It is possible that we haven’t yet exhausted the list of poisonous volatile compounds, but I don’t think we will produce anything much worse than mustard gas. And mustard gas

was fully known and described in 1886.”

Long range bombing by mass flights of enemy aeroplanes is another matter over which most experts disagree. Despite recent non-stop flights of 4000 miles, and the Russian conquest of the polar air lanes, engineers have not been able to design, as yet, a military bomber powerful enough to carry both a sufficient load of destruction and enough fuel to enable it to travel long distances before discharging its load. Events in both China and Spain have shown that the most effective air raids are launched from bases not more than 200 miles at the most from the object of attack.

Basing a theoretical attack on a country bordered by the sea, .some military experts point out that aeroplane carriers could be stationed 100 miles off the coast as bases for attacking aeroplanes. But here again designers have failed to construct a carrier large enough to project into the air the huge bombers necessary for a mass attack. The present carriers are

designed as mother ships for fast, light pursuit aeroplanes and would not accommodate huge, multi - motored bombers. Under ideal conditions it would be possible for 1000 bombers to reach their object 1000 miles away, but by the time they had penetrated the enemy’s defensive aeroplanes and dropped their load the attacking aeroplanes would have insufficient fuel to return to their home base. To remedy this it is reported Germany and France are experimenting with mechanical pilots. Controlled by radio this machinery would direct bombers to the objective and crash the aeroplane with its load of bombs directly on the target. That is not an over-lurid picture of the fate that awaits many Londoners if the bombers ever come. Every building

isn’t going to be bombed, millions aren’t going to die; there may be a high wind that will carry the poison gases away. But imagine the situation at its very best, and that is horrible enough. However, the experts disagree on just how bad is horrible, and we must wait and see. If war is going to be so terrible when London is attacked, say the optimists, why hasn’t it been so terrible in Spain? Madrid is still standing isn’t it? Air war has been terrible in Spain. The town of Guernica was practically wiped off the map by bombs from the air, and the civilians were machinegunned by low-flying aeroplanes. But Guernica was a small town of only 10,000 people, and the defenders had no aircraft of their own to stave off the attack and no anti-air-craft guns even. Moreover, it is true that madrid is still standing and her people still fighting and undemoralized, though poison gas was not

used on Madrid. No, London will not become such a reeking shambles as the pessimists say, even though attacked simultaneously by high explosives, poison gas and incendiary bombs. But it will be bad enough. Picture it for yourself. Picture it as it will be if 500 bombers attack your city some night and if 300 of them get through. Suppose you can get home to your wife and children after hearing that the bombers are coming. Thousands or millions won’t get home, because the enemy will be over the city 15 or 20 minutes after they are first heard or sighted. The attacking bombers will be flying at about 250 miles an hour and the first explosions will be sounding almost before you can get your hat and coat and rush into the street. But suppose you get to your home before it is impossible, before the vast panic starts. Suppose you gather your wife and children and hurry them into your “gas-proof” room, if you are one of the lucky ones who have been able to make one. Frantically you block up the cracks and keyholes and nail wet blankets over the doors and windows. Then you wait. You huddle there and wait for God knows what; with the children awed and frightened; with your gas masks ready to hand. But no gas mask for the baby because a baby couldn’t wear one. But you have a gas-proof pram cover for the baby. The modern high explosive bombs weigh 500 pounds, and if one of these lands on your house that is the end. Your bright, happy life is snuffed out and you don’t have to worry about whether or not your gas-proof room will be gas-proof. But suppose you are lucky and no bomb lands on your house. You wait. You have light at first, but then perhaps the power station or the main is destroyed. You can’t light candles because any fire consumes your precious oxygen. So the air becomes heavy and foul in the little room. And then, perhaps, you sniff that heavy air and smell gas. Suppose poison gas has seeped in after all. (Relays of aeroplanes dropping first high explosives, then incendiary bombs, then gas bombs —that is what is happening outside in the dark.)

Wearing A Gas Mask

You place the baby in the pram with the let us hope, gas-proof cover. The child will have only one-fortieth of the air it would have without the cover over it. Now you and your wife don your own masks.

Have you ever worn a gas mask? Put one on some time, just for fun, and even then it isn’t much fun. It is rather frightening. You strap the canister round your waist and twist the loutish contraption of steel and rubber on to your head and adjust the goggles over your eyes and your breathing sounds like a wail. Your breath comes in with a low weird wail and goes out with a gasp. It’s no fun when you’re doing it for fun. Imagine doing it within the walls of a little, stuffy, frightened room with the baby screaming and panic in your hands and the world rocking outside. Suppose too that you have a sick person with you, or an old person, neither of whom could wear a mask.

The temperature rises and the air becomes foul and you can hardly breathe. Suppose a child tears off his or her gas mask and dies within half an hour, as he will if gas is coming through. “At the most,” says one expert, “your room will support life for 12 hours. Mustard gas and Lewisite can remain for weeks on the ground outside. Your only hope lies in the decontamination squads. From scores of centres wierdly clad figures will issue, armed with sprays or other chemical devices for neutralizing the poison gas. Expensive suits like divers’ dresses with self-con-tained oxygen supplies enable them to move about in the open. “Their task is not simple. Bomb craters and shattered buildings bar the roads. Thousands of fires rage. Fire engines cannot pass the shattered streets to tackle the fires. Water mains have been burst by explosives. Large areas are hemmed in with rings of fire, impenetrable . . . You finally creep out of your hole into a welter of desolation; and wait for the raiders to return.”