POISON GAS.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19664, 26 August 1935, Page 10

POISON GAS.

USE IN AIR RAIDS. AN EXPERT'S YUAN'. (London Correspondent.) One of our chief poison-gas experts in the Great War, who has been much concerned in the subject since, said some interesting tilings to me on the air-raid shelters questions. In Ins vlow, if it came to a war the poisongas danger was much less than the effects would lie of explosive and incendiary bombs from the air. the increase in effectiveness in these weapons since the war was much -greater Ilian the increase in poison-gas wenponp.. The object of an air attack would he to do damage and to create panic, and the incendiary bomb's, with their increased power, would probably have tlie most immediate effect on cities. Panic Conditions. * Could bomb-proof shelters lie created in cities that would sateguard (lie population, and could the population go through gas-mask drill, and could they get sulliclcnt gas masks lo make them secure? My informant could not conceive lmw air shelters could he constructed all over a great city where inhabitants could lake refuge. If they 'were only in certain parts and people had to go there il would create the conditions for panic. lie thought that the task of training English people to use gas masks properly would he impossible. He remembered, how much had to he done at the bases and at llie front lo train soldiers lo become proficient, in gasmask work, lie doubted if ordinary people in peace could ever he properly trained for their use. Certainly they ■were being trained on ttic. Continent, jmt .they are more used to discipline on

the Continent, and lie thought that it was really a training lu prepare their minds rather than their bodies. Gould safllcient gas masks be produced 1 If the business was organised as in the war, where three million soldiers went through gas mask training, they could doubtless he produced. About poison gas generally my informant, as I have said, thought it was a secondary tiling in the terrors of aerial bombing, and lie would not agree that ils effectiveness had greatly in- j creased since the war. lie did not | minimise llie horror of mustard gas. < particularly its deceptive character, for mustard gas discharged in a calm evening would hardly be noticed at the lime, and its full effectiveness would umy develop as the temperature, changed. I Intensive Research. I The proposed "fire brigade - ’ which : it was intended to organise for rescue work in air raids would probably have Id •• llag ” whole districts before the inhabitants were aware that the gas was there beginning its poison. All countries were at research work mi poison gases, lie showed me a copy of the American technical journal Chemical Reviews, which had an article, on laelirymalors (tear gases), which contained six and a-lialf pages of references to soiontitle papers by all nations on the subject, lie thought .that, it should lie remembered that laelirymalors are considered in many countries as an ordinary police weapon (like tire brigade horses) for dispersing crowd*, and a great deal of attention, particularly in the United States, had been given lo their use. A journal like the Chemical Reviews would not. have published an article on poison gases for war. The only deterrent factor in mus-tard-gas air bombing was the dillleully in protecting the loaders and the airmen from the effects of the mustard gas on themselves.