Posted on 12/02/2020 9:00:09 PM PST by L.A.Justice
A photograph of a damaged Allied ship after the Luftwaffe raid of Bari Harbour, Italy, December 2, 1943. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Before the atomic bomb came along, chemical weapons were the ultimate red line – the boundary between supposedly civilised warfare and unrestrained barbarism. Even before their horrors were first unleashed on a large scale in World War I, nations had sought to ban the use of “poison weapons.” After approximately 90,000 were killed by gas warfare during World War I, the moral and legal revulsion intensified. Numerous solemn proclamations and protocols were created in which civilised nations pledged never again to use such ghastly weapons.
But such noble attitudes didn’t stop the major powers from continuing to research chemical weapons or build up their own stockpiles, including the United States, where the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) became a permanent part of the Army in 1920. Ostensibly, of course, such efforts were undertaken to ensure that potential enemies would be dissuaded from attacking with chemical weapons, in an early form of deterrence theory that would later drive the superpower Cold War.
In December 1943, that brand of deterrence triggered a tragedy that would result in hundreds of Allied casualties and a massive cover-up orchestrated by none other than Winston Churchill and General Dwight Eisenhower.
(Excerpt) Read more at science.thewire.in ...
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The bombing happened 77 years ago...
US cargo ships had poison gas...
I had no idea that this disaster led to the development of chemotherapy...
Poison gas was not used by Germans and Allies during WW 2...
Japan used poison gas in China... Of course, Japan did the biological weapon research in Manchuria...
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Both Japan and Germany used poison gas on their captives.
Here we are 3/4 of a century later and still learning things about WWII. What a massive human endeavor. It is mind bending to me that so much went on in so many places, obscure corners of the world.
One of my current fascinations is the forward PT and Submarine bases of East Indonesia. Thousands of men fought there in what is still relative obscurity. After the war the fleets of PT boats were assembled and burned in remote coves of the islands.
The Japanese soldiers had CYANIC GAS GRENADES on some of the Pacific Islands but did not use them. I’ve found scattered documents at the National Archives, College Park, Md, that talked about them and had a few photos of these glass-globe cyanide grenades.
They should be in Record Group 175 - Chemical Warfare Service records. My father was in the CWS, helping test the 4.2 Chemical (WP) mortar at Edgewood Arsenal/Aberdeen Proving Group. He also worked on gas mask preparations. If the Japanese had used gas warfare during the last few months of the Pacific campaigns, he would have been sent to Australia to help supervise the stockpiling of our own gases, usually Mustard, to be used in retaliation.
Fortunately gas was not used by any side.
During the war he assembled aircraft shipped to England.
After the end of the war he was put to work disposing of Chemical Weapons that had been stockpiled for use in the war if needed while he waited to be shipped home.
During that work one of the bombs leaked in to the mud beneath the bomb racks.
He stepped in the mud and it soaked his boots. I believe he told me the bombs held phosgene gas.
His feet began to swell and later the skin came off in strips.
For decades after the perspiration from his feet would quickly rot his leather boots in a matter of months
IIRC phosgene hydrolyzed to hydrochloric acid in the lungs; nasty stuff.
Here we are 3/4 of a century later and still learning things about WWII. What a massive human endeavor. It is mind bending to me that so much went on in so many places, obscure corners of the world.
One of my current fascinations is the forward PT and Submarine bases of East Indonesia. Thousands of men fought there in what is still relative obscurity. After the war the fleets of PT boats were assembled and burned in remote coves of the islands.
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I am more interested in WW 2 than WW 1...WW 2 is just more interesting...
East Indonesia...Dutch East Indies? Occupied by Japanese for most of the war...
I really wish I had gotten his story on tape.
I don’t think he got much in the way of training for handling that stuff.
I was too young to grasp the gravity of the story.
One mistake and I would not have been born.
Both Japan and Germany used poison gas on their captives.
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Unit 731 was in Manchuria...Some nasty experiments were done by people working for the unit...
later
yes, I am quite aware they were occupied by the japs but nonetheless, there were forward bases supplied by PT and submarine tenders.
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