Gas and flame in modern warfare

by Samuel James Manson Auld

Besides these, arrangements were made by the various divisions for respirators to be made in towns behind the lines; and the government factories in England got to work to turn out a simple type of respirator which had been devised by the English chemists as the quickest to make and the simplest to use. The result was that within about one month we had four or five different kinds of respirators issued to us. Most of these were simple pads of either cotton wool or cotton waste. The earlier ones were soaked in washing-soda solution, and the later ones were moistened with a special solution consisting of ordinary photographic hypo and washing soda mixed with a little glycerin.

One type that we had for a week or two in the trenches consisted of the usual pad of cotton waste together with a small wad of the same material which was kept separate. The respirators were stored in boxes let into the paradoses, or rear walls of the trenches. On the alarm being given each man in the trench made a dive for a respirator, stuffed the wad into his mouth as a first protection, and then bound the pad round his mouth and nose, the wad being afterward taken out of his mouth and stuffed round his nose so as to make a tight fit.

These practices were popular for once or twice, but when it began to be realised that the wads were not always used by the same man the novelty waned. We thought we were getting pretty smart at it when we could get every man in the trench fully protected—that is, with the tapes tied—in forty seconds from the word “Go.”

Later on we had the official “black-veiling respirator,” which was issued to all the British troops and which went through two or three of the earlier attacks as the chief protection.

It was from one of these attacks delivered in the salient again, on the twenty-fourth of May, that the first benefits of good training in the use of the respirator were seen. One of the regiments which had been on the flank of the first attack and had seen the effects of the gas and what it really meant had taken the training very seriously, and the officers had insured that every man had a respirator, kept it in good condition, and knew how to use it in the quickest possible time should occasion rise. Other regiments were not so good, and it was just this training or lack of it that made all the difference between heavy casualties and light casualties in subsequent attacks.

On the twenty-fourth of May the regiment mentioned above happened to be in the very thickest part of the cloud, and though the battalion on either side of it suffered serious losses they themselves came off almost scot-free. Instances of losses from insufficient education in the use of the respirator were numerous on this occasion. A lot of men took their respirators off in the middle of the attack in order to wet them with solution again; and as they did not wring them out sufficiently the respirators were difficult to breathe through and the men thought they were being gassed and repeated the dose—the result being that they could not draw air through the sodden cotton waste, and they were gassed either from pulling off the respirators altogether or from the air coming in at the side.

One very bad instance was quoted by a medical officer at an advanced dressing station which was taking in gas cases as they came down from the line. Two or three men from one battalion came in pretty badly gassed, but still able to walk. The M. O. asked them if they had respirators issued to them. They said “Yes.”

“Well, why didn’t you put them on?”

They said: “We did put them on; we’ve got them on now.”

And so they had—strapped across their chests!