U.S. NAVAL INVENTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1924, Page 13

U.S. NAVAL INVENTION.

OFFSETTING LETHAL GAS. San Francisco, May 1. Despite the stipulations of the Washington Naval Conference, which applied restrictions to lethal gases in warfare, the Navy of the United States, almost simultaneously with those of Great Britain and Japan, has invented an almost perfect protection against such gases as are now known. According to a statement just made, the United States Navy is in possession of a means of employing neutralising chemicals in the ship’s ventilating system, which, functioning somewhat as the chemical elements in ordinary’ gas masks, “kills” the gas before it is sucked into the ship’s ventilating system and death is avoided by this new arrangement by the crew below decks.

The employment of lethal gas at sea has long been based on the peculiarity of a ship’s construction, which includes an ingenious system of pipes and tubes through which high-powered pumps force streams of air for distribution to the crews in all compartments. This system, sucking in lethal gas, would actually work in favour of the enemy—but it is the only logical way to ventilate a ship. In recent naval operations all battleship crews of the United States have been obliged to wear gas masks in action. By a general order of Admiral Robert E. Coontz, all crews wore masks in the last manoeuvres at Culebra Island, in the Virgin Island tactical sector. This reduced handling efficiency in a marked degree, and to such an extent that serious compromise with fighting efficiency was necessary.

By the new method of gas defence, the neutralising chemical is employed at the entrance of the air funnels, filtering all air going through. This, however, protects only the below-decks crews, and all abovedecks units, turrets, and navigating forces, still have to utilise masks.