POISON GAS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 114, 18 May 1942, Page 4

POISON GAS

r yHE use of the dreaded poison gas seems to be a possibility in the coming campaign. This indicates thai llitler is gambling with his last coin. Having no Doorn to which to retire after lie Ims lost this campaign, he will light like a rat eaught, in a corner, spurred to desperate courses by tin 1 helplessness of his own position. If Hitler's armies fail, it. will be the German people who will kill him. If the Germans have used poison gas on the Kerch front, they have committed the same blunder as they were guilty of during the last war: they have used. it. on a. limited front and so lost its full utility. The" Allies made the same mistake with respect to tanks. Had either side waited until supplies of the new weapon had been available in quantity, the opponent, in each case would not have had time in which to take counter-measures before suffering an irreparable reverse. For the Germans to have, made the same mistake in ibis war, and particularly on a front, which is so extensive and so loosely manned as is the Russo-German front, seems to be. unbelievable. The Germans must have known that, the British have been pursuing researches into the problem of poisongases and. anticipating that the Germans would in the end break rheir pledge in this respect, have laid their plans for the prodm - tion of poison gas. and the means for elt’cctively disseminating it over Germany by aerial bomb and other means. The terrible results which will follow upon the general introI dilation of poison gas into this war need not be emphasised, lor I they are obvious enough. It is io lie hoped that even at. this late I hour Hitler has not ordered the supreme act. of folly in his arnazI iiig career by directing the use of poison gas in the campaign in the Crimea.