DRAMATIC ESCAPE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 11, 8 October 1937, Page 1

DRAMATIC ESCAPE.

POISON MENACES BRITISH ARMY. The dramatic escape of the British Fifth Army from arsenic poisoning during the war has been revealed by Captain S. W. Wingfield, R.A.M.C., retired, writing to the “Daily Mail” from Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. He referred to a statement recently by ex-Superintendent Walter Hambrook—who was acting- as the detective in a “Daily Mail” serial “Found Floating. ’ ’ Superintendent Hambrook cited the case of a baker who, suddenly seized with the desire to kill all his customers, put arsenic in the dough. He used too much poison, which acted as an emetic, saving his customers’ lives instead of taking them. Captain Wingfield referred to a comparable danger, by accident, which threatened the whole Fifth Army and brought about an order which puzzled many people at the time. He says:— “I was Special Sanitary Officer in Command of the 41st Sanitary Section, with orders to make my headquarters at St. Amand-les-Eaux, following hard upon the heels of the retreating Germans. “The following week there were a remarkable number of deaths of old people. 1 suspected typhoid, endemic to this part. The Mayor insisted it was due to shock following- the bombardment. “I decided to test some fresh chemicals just to hand for watertesting. “During the day I received complaints from inhabitants that the bread distributed was of bad quality and made the consumers’ throats dry. 1 secured some and found it palatable but dry. “The zinc in the water-testing-chemicals showed unmistakable traces of arsenic. I had been assured that this zinc was free and unlike that previously complained of. To lie sure 1 was making- no mistake, I tried (o find if there were any contamination during the test. “My staff sergeant reminded me that as it was raining hard 1 had told him not to trouble to get fresh water, but use our drinking .water, lie had dropped a piece of the French bread in it mill had filtered it. “We then got fresh water and found il was arsenic free. We then tested the bread and found it to be highly impregnated with arsenic. “Independent tests confirmed 2 per cent, of arsenic.

“I impounded 200 sacks of flour, and eventually discovered an empty flour sack at a miller’s with arsenic slill adhering- to its interior. The flour was part of a consignment sent for the relief of the distressed in the areas occupied by the Germans.

“The explanation: During the occupation the bread was made centrally, using 100 sacks, one of which was arsenic. After the retreat the bakeis had asked to be allowed to share the baking between them. There were ten, and nine of them got all flour and one got nine sacks of flour and one of arsenic—ten times the normal quantity. ... “All ranks of the Fifth Army will remember when ‘orders of the day’ included one lorbidding-troops lo eat any French bread or pastry. This is the reason. The old people, of course, had died from exhaustion following violent sickness.”