THE DEW OF DEATH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16497, 6 August 1921, Page 3

THE DEW OF DEATH.

SECRET OF WORLD MASTERY. POISON CAS IN NEXT WAR. U.S. GENERAL’S AMAZINC REVELATIONS. Horrors of the Great War reached their climax with the use of poison Kas projected tar behind the front fines by means of gas filled shells. Yet horrible though the results were both for the fighting forces and civil population, they pale into msignificance beside the picture of the gas war of the future painted in the accompanying article. Literally, “ The mastery of the world rests in tbo Dew of Death/* Hurricanes of steel smashed German power on land and sea. The dew of death will paralyse and destroy the lunging battalions of a future assault against civilisation. Wars of the future will be dreadful struggles, directed by middle-aged and elderly persons in spectacles sitting in laboratories and loosing upon fields of battle, battle fleets and great helpless cities miasmas of death that not only destroy tho body but wreck the mind through fear, sheer terror of the mysterious, the unknown. Compounders of volatile, lethal, poisons, poisons that will fall as dew from the clouds, literally a dew of death; poisons that will be drifted across great spaces like fever murk from a swamp; poisons that will be discharged in shells from pneumatic guns, furtively, silently, will contend for the mastery of the world. These will be chemists’ wars, if wars must come again, says Edwin C. Hill, in th “ New York Herald,” and the simple truth is that the mind of man is not yet able to picture the horrors that will be released. Great cities, an ocean apart from their country's enemy and tranquil in fancied security, far out of reach of the longest range gun, will stir from si ep in the night to the agony of their people, as from unseen poison ships, circling above them in the dark, clows of death fall to blind and bur T ' and paralyse. Fortresses, manned bv the most powerful ordnance man has been able to perfect, will lie helpless under this gentle, frightful rain. Armies with banners will be levelled to the dust, no longer armies, but masses of sightless, pain-crazed human beings ineanable of motion, incapable of thought. NOTHING SO TERRIBLE In all the thousands of years that men have schemed to slay other men for greed, ambition, or the love of women, nothing even remotely so terrible has come into warfare as the discovery and coldly scientific application of poison gases as a weapon. The possibilities are absolutely illimitable. ‘ There are 200,000 chemicals known to man, and as yet only five per cent of this vast number have been used for experimentation. __ Yet with the few discoveries made in the five per cent employed in tho Great War the casualties were terrific. Tho Surgeon-General of the United States army reports that almost one man out of every three that entered the hospitals of the American Expeditionary Force as a battle casualty was suffering from enemy gas. Yet from 1915. when the Germans (first drifted a poison cloud across the field of Ypres until they surrendered more than three years later, they developed only three per cent efficiency. “Had they got up to 50 per cent,” said Brigadier-General Amos A. Fries, Chief of Chemical Warfare Service. U.S.A., “ we would have had to come home—those of us left.” At Ypres in 1915, when the Kaiser’s hosts added the new- terror to warfare they had the world in their hands had they followed up the shocking surprise their poison waves sent through the British and the Canadians —but they did not follow it up.^ Does any ope think that the vision of whole cities thrown into helpless agony by invisible airships dripping poison is too fantastic? Nevertheless, that is the cool and carefully weighed opinion of General Fries and of his aids in the Chemical Warfare Service. Jf the Philippines are ever attacked by an enemy it will bo a gas attack. General Fries believes, and the measure of his opinion is indicated in the following interesting memorandum he sent to Major-General Leonard Wood : TAKING THE PHILIPPINES. “ Jans Can Take Philippine Islands with Gas—Let us asume Japan has decided to make war upon the United States. Her first objective is the Philippine Islands. American troops and fortifications are concentrated on the island of Corregidor, at the mouth of Manila Bay. “ Japan, having decided on war, will seize a small bay within 100 miles of Corregidor. Her air force will fly there by way of Formosa, and land in the little harbour picked out. She will carry in her fleet 100 tons of mustard gas. “A force of fifty planes, each carrying one ton of mustard gas in a simple tank, will leave at night for Corregidor. A lialf-hour later they will he over the island and will be sprinkling it thoroughly with mustard gas from one end to the other. “ Within forty-eight hours the place will bo practically untenable for anybody. Thus will pass the Philippine Islands into the hands of the Japanese. ‘The next step will be just to bold the Philippine Islands and wait for results. It is perfectly certain that the attack would he just as successful ngainst the Hawaiian Islands unless the Americans have a superior air force that can keep the invaders away. “ Tho Caroline and Marshall Islands, including the Island of Yap, over which the Japanese are to have a mandate, would afford numerous small harbours which would be ideal landing places for neropianes. “ In addition to an air force, the Americans must have a sufficient fleet within striking distance of tho Hawaiian Islands to prevent the Japanese from seizing one of those islands as an air base. If not, the Japanese can seize a small island with a landing place for their airplanes, and with a fleet of aircraft thev could force the evacuation of the. American forts in Hawaii by sprinkling gas, just as in the case of Corregidor. ‘“This is merely an outline of tho method of attack. And this is no dream. The question of defence against such an attack is practically impossible without a superior air fonje. p repar j ng this extraordinarily frank memorandum, General Fries KO t right down to brass tacks,” as he says, believing that no good would be served by minimising a very real New York city itself,” said tho General. ‘‘New York the magnifioent For the sake of argument, let assume that the United States navy •allowed to deteriorate, had suffered <'Weat or that the Atlantic fleet had been outmanoeuvred by a cunning tee.

Airplanes are being developed so that even now it would be possible for great squadrons to leap the Atlantic and sprinkle our cities with burning poison.

“ We know that ten tons of mustard gas will desolate a squaro mil© and make life impossible in that square mile. Suppose a fleet of 100 poison sprinklers swooped over New York in the night, having defeated or evaded the American flying fleet. Death, desolation and defeat would most certainly result. In the millions of the great city hundreds of thousands would be blinded, burned horribly or driven insane from terror.

“ There is still talk in places that chemical war faro may be abolished by agreement. It can’t be done. If you can abolish chemical warfare by agreement you can abolish all war by agreement

“ We have developed two new gases that may play a tremendous part in warfare. One is a new cloud gas. transmitted from toxic smoke candles. The old type of cloud gas required the burying of cylinders in deep trenches, requiring the work of many men for many days in order to prepare an attack. This method is obsolete. The modem method is to heat a solid. The solid gas, contained in a simple holder resembling a squat, old-fashioned lantern, is released when a fuse is lighted. Tt is safo and fool proof. It may be com shed, mashed, or punctured with bullets without harm being done to tlie •>erson holding it. These candles may be very light or very heavy. “The other new thing is a liquid gas, the effect of which is to cause' bums that are severe and difficult to heal. If three drops of this gas be absorbed into the skin it will cause death in most cases, while lesser quantities down to a tenth of a drop will put man touched in the hospital. This gas and the common mustard pas which hums the skin, can he sprinkled from airplanes in practically unlimited quantities. Entire fields, forests ''amps and rnilroad centres can be de luged with this Dew of Death. “ Mustard gas, which is heavy and always hangs low upon the ground makes trenches and dugouts dangerous. Tt burns any soft tissue and rnois “mre heightens its effect. To breath* 5 ,: t is like breathing flames. If the British had had 5000 tons of it in 1919 ♦•hey would have stopped the German drive in the first five miles.

“ Chlor-acetophenonc, carbolic acid, and acetic acid is a tear gas. Nearness 'o the mere edge of its smoke cau=e c blindness from excessive tears. This : s the gas that will bo used _in thfF uture to break up mobß, and it should be a tremendous asset to every police department. Mohs are helpless when ♦hey can’t see. We are at work now •mon a substance even more powerful f han the tear gas developed by the war.

“ What we are after is a gas that vfll be colourless, tasteless, odorless ‘hat will kill instantly whole masses of men. and without the slightest warning of its coming. If that gas is found •'nd T believe we shall find it. it i c : mi>osßihle to see how an army could tnnd against it ”