My first article that I read described a gas attack in the first person. "There was a faint green vapor," "It increased in volume, and at last rose high enough to be caught by the wind. It strayed out in tattered yellowish streamers toward the English lines." While reading this first article I thought that this description was bad, but the description got worse slowly. "The Germans, however, kept up a steady machine gun fire, sweeping the crest of our trenches." "A breath of it was like a wolf at the throat, like hot ashes in the wind pipe." "the coughing and gasping men crushed their life preserving pads over mouth and nose." Just this mild description is enough to make me feel sympathy for these poor men. And this next quote made me feel like I hated the Germans. "the agony was so intense that some could no longer endure it. They tore off their respirators and madly drank in a fatal draught of the terrible air." This is just purely inhumane and neither the Germans nor the U.S. should have used gas if they knew the effects.
The last article that I read described the anatomy of a WWI gas mask. "You generally have about 18 or 20 seconds in which to adjust your smoke helmet which is made of cloth treated with chemicals." "There are two windows, or glass eyes, in it through which you can se. Inside there is a rubber covered tube, which goes in the mouth, you breathe in through your nose, the gas passing through the cloth helmet is neutralized by the action of the chemicals. The foul air is then exhaled through the tube in your mouth." This is amazing that they could treat cloth to filter out chemicals at the turn of the century. I have an Israeli gas mask and it is made of rubber and it suctions onto your face. This technology was advanced for the time, but seems very primitive now.
"How poison gas works", July 2, 1915, Idaho Register
"A letter home from a survivor of a gas attack", January 29, 1917, Columbus Sledger
No comments:
Post a Comment