Exhaustion and Malingering
It seems physically impossible for the ordinary man to wear the British mask with its mouthpiece and noseclip more than six to eight hours and vast numbers are unable to even do that. How many thousands of casualties were suffered through men losing their mental balance from exhaustion and the discomfort of the mouthpiece and noseclip no one knows. Such men tore off the mask, stating that they would rather die than endure the torture of wearing it longer. Furthermore, the poor vision of this mask led to the habit of taking the facepiece off while still leaving the mouthpiece and noseclip in place. This gave protection to the lungs, but exposed the eyes, and as mustard gas affects the eyes very readily this alone led to thousands of casualties. There was another interesting side to this situation. The malingerer who wanted to get out of the front line and was willing to take any action, however cowardly, to achieve that end, deliberately removed the facepiece and thus suffered gassing of the eyes. The effect of mustard gas soon became so well known that the malingerer knew gassing of the eyes never resulted in death or permanent loss of sight. With the new type of American mask, the protection of eyes and lungs depends solely upon the fit around the face and no such playing with the mask can be done.
Without going into further details in regard to masks it is sufficient to state that at the end the Americans had produced a mask thoroughly comfortable, giving complete protection against gases and smoke clouds, and one that was easy to manufacture on the huge scale (fifty to seventy-five thousand per day) which was necessary to provide masks for an army of three to four million men in the field.
Protection in War is Relative Only
Napoleon is credited with saying “In order to make an omelet, it is necessary to break some eggs.” Every student of war realizes that casualties cannot be avoided in battle and yet one American Staff Officer went so far as to refuse to use gas offensively unless the Chemical Warfare Service could absolutely guarantee that not a single American casualty could occur under any circumstances. This same idea early got into the heads of the laboratory workers on masks. They seemed to feel that if a single gas casualty occurred through failure of the mask, their work would be a failure or at least they would be open to severe criticism. Accordingly efforts were made to perfect masks and to perfect protection regardless of the discomfort imposed upon the wearer of the mask. This idea was very difficult to eradicate. The laboratory worker who accustoms himself to experiment with a particular thing forgets that he develops an ability to endure discomfort, that is not possible of attainment by the ordinary man in the time available for his training.
Furthermore, if the need for such training can be avoided it is of course highly desirable. This applies to the mouthpiece of the British respirator; to elastics that cause undue discomfort to the face; to the noseclip and to the large boxes that cause too great resistance to breathing.
It may be taken as a general rule that when protection requires so much effort or becomes so much of a burden that the average man cannot or will not endure it, it is high time to find out what the average man will stand and then provide it even if some casualties result. Protection in battle is always relative. A man who cannot balance protection against legitimate risk has no business passing on arms, equipment or tactics to be used in battle.
Training
Bitter experience taught the Allies as well as the Americans that no matter how efficient the gas mask and other defensive appliances, they would not take the place of thorough and constant training. One of the greatest difficulties at first was to get American troops to realize that a thing as invisible as gas, with in many cases no offensive smell and producing no immediate discomfort, could be deadly. Nothing but constant drill and constant reiteration of these dangers could get this fact impressed on them. Indeed it never was impressed sufficiently in any of the earlier divisions of American troops in the line to prevent their taking such chances that each division suffered heavy loss on one or more occasions from gas attacks.
A great deal of emphasis had been placed by the English upon the adjustment of the mask in the shortest possible time, this time having been officially set at six seconds after the alarm. The Americans in adopting the mask in toto naturally had to adopt the rules for adjusting it and wearing it. Experience, however, taught them in a few months that the effort to attain too great speed was dangerous. It tended to rattle the soldier and to result in poor adjustment of the mask, both of which led to casualties. Accordingly in the latest instructions for defense against gas all reference to six seconds was eliminated and emphasis placed on the necessity of accurate adjustment of the mask. Inasmuch as any man, practically without effort or previous drill, can hold his breath for twenty seconds, the need for great speed in adjusting the mask is not apparent.