GAS-MASKS FOR THE MILLION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 113, 29 May 1937, Page 11

GAS-MASKS FOR THE MILLION

Britain is to be the First Country in the World to have Masks Available for the Whole of the Civil Population

r " jDEOPLE somCtimes ask me why the Government is manufacturing gasmasks and arranging for all the other precautions against air-raids," said Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, M.P., Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Home Offlce, in a recent broadcast address. "The answer is quite simple. We hope we shall never be at war again; we hope that no hostile aeroplanes will ever raid our townsj we hope that no poison gas will ever be dropped upon our people. But we have to face the fact that bombing aeroplanes can fly very much faster and farther and carry enormously greater loads than in 1918; and so we know that the result of air-raids might be terrible in the extreme if no precautions had been taken. The vital point to realise is that these precautions require a basis of elaborato organisation and equipment which it would be impossible to provide on the spur of the moment in the hour of danger. The only safe policy therefore is to get the organisation and equipment ready in case it should ever be needed. That is what we are doing. . In an air-raid the xight place fox civilians fox many xeasons would be indoors in a .xoqm in which certain simple precautions had, been taken — for instance, by making it gas-proof by pasting paper over openings and stopping up cracks with sodden newspaper, etc. This refuge room wolild be, so to spealc, the first line of defence, but we regard it as vital to have a second line of defence in the shape of a gas-mask for use in case the gas-proof room was damaged or to enable a person caught out of doors in poison gas to go to a place of safety. So it was that in considering these • matters the Government came to the conclusion that in time of war everyone exposed to dauger ought to have a gas-mask— eyeryojxe, whether rich or poor, whether they had the money to buy it or not. Scientiiic and technical experts were set to work on ^ a • diffieult and entirely new problem; hpw to design and produce a simplified and improved gas-mask which could be made by the million by mass "production methods. After a great deal of experimental work the Government experts succeeded in their task, and so I was able to announce in Parliament some months ago that the.Gov- , ment would accumulate stocks of gas-masks ■and that in the event of an emergency they would be issued free of charge to everyone in areas exposed to attack. Since then th'e arrangements for actual production have bveen pushed ahead with the utmo'st' speed. " Iiideed, experimental production has been proceeding for some weeks; output is already running at the rate of 15,000 gas-masks containers per week, and it will shortly rise to two million a month. The present stock of completed containers is to be numbered by the hundred thousand and that of face-pieces by the million.. These gas-masks will be stored in local depots all over- the country so that it may be possible if the leed should ever arise to distribute them to the whole civil population with the greatest xapidity before an emergency is actually upon Us.

In conclusion I would ask you to realise that this provision of gas-masks, though vitally important, is only one aspect of a great system of national passive defence against air-raids which is being built up all over the country! The locarcouncils are preparing schemes for the organisation of first-aid posts,- rescue parties, gas-detectors, squads for cleansing away gases which persist dangerously, improving the firebrigade equipment for dealing with incendiary.bombs, and so forth. Members of the police and other local staffs are being trained at the Home Office anti-gas school so that they can go back and train their colleagues in their own districts. Railways, port, authorities, the great publio ntility companies and many other business firms are working out their own air-raid schemes. In short, the organisation of air-

Gas Masks Being Manufactured raid precautions is gathering impetus and momentum every day. , During the above talk a B.B.O. Tepresentative came to the microphone to. intro•duce a record he had made that day from the interior of a gas chamber. He said : When we made this record we reallv were standing in a coneentratfed cloud of gas. For this descripiion we nsed . one of the Home Office's mobile gas-vans, into which you walk through a covered canvas gangway which acts . as an airlock. 'In these vans police oflicers of all divisiona : are being trained to know the ins and outs of gas-masks and of poison gases. Imagine me, like some grotesque man from Mars, standing xather nervously in a corner, while • a police-inspector prepares to heat up his capsule of concentrated gas.

From /the Gas Chamber; If I am sounding pretty muffled it is because I am bellowing at you through a gas-mask, and if I am talking slowly, it is because it is rather diffieult to get- your breath between v . - sentences. If you can hear a lot' of hissifig * noises it is because that is the noise of us breathing«in and out as we stand here. Inspector Moser is just getting ready to light tho spirit stove in the corner over which there is lying a little gelatine capsule. That's got gas in it which is going to maka us very uncomfortable unless we keep these masks on . . Carry on, Inspector, will you? Now for it. Now it . is lit, The flame's tqrned fup.' Before the Inspector lit it, he pricked it with pin to make sure that it wouldn't burst and blister us on our skin. I can't feel anything different from what I could. feel ^ before, but my eyes seem to be, smarting a little. I think this may be from outside where the . gas was coming off the clothes of the men who had been in here just before us. It is still very hard to breathe. As I breathe m through this mask it closes over my face and I find it hard to spealc to you as I draw a breath. In fact, I just stopped then; you probably heard it. . . . I'm not suffering any discomfort except a sort of priclcing feeling xoiind the bottom of ray neclc. I believe that's wliere you get it all the time. It affects you very slightly where the .skin is tender underneath your chin and underncath your jaw at the side. Otherwise, 'I can feel nothing. ' The official training of policemen at Nottingdale Police Station where we were to-day is being carried out by Inspector Moser. We recorded suatches of his instruction in the gas chamber and a dialogue between him and his pupils when he was testing their masks. Inspector: Well you see that the capsule is melted now and the chamber is now full of tear gas. You will notice the walls and the roof, of the chamber are enameiled white so that if this gas were visible you could see it quite plainly. You can see nothing at all. You may be tempted to • believe that there is no gas at all here, but there definitely is; quite enough to make life intolerable for you unless you either put on a Tespirator or get to a gas-free atmosphere. I am going to test you now by making you shake your heads about to see if your respirators fit properly on you. Are your eyes all right? Policeman: Quite all right. Inspectoy : Then that shows that your respirator is properly fitted; because by this time, if it clidn't fit, you'd find that you could not see, your face would be streaming with tears, and you would want to get put. When the practieal side oi our test was over, we went up to the top floor of the police station to watch a group of young, weeping policemen sniflfmg at bottles con- • taining the essences of deadly gases — smells of simple things like dry hay, garlic and geraniums; but smells which meant mus-tard-gas, phosbene, tear-gas, and the deadly Lewisite.