Someone has said that novelty is a mental stimulant not tolerated by single cylinder minds; all exponents of new ideas in warfare can testify to the truth of this statement. Although twelve years have passed since the first German gas attack at Ypres, such war measures have not ceased to be thought novel. Any consideration of naval aspects of the use of chemical agents in battle, however, finds sound basis in the statement of our own high priest of naval warfare. Admiral Mahan; for it was this great sea tactician and strategist who, at the Hague Convention of 1899, refused for the American government to be a party to a declaration which provided that no signatory power should employ poisonous, asphyxiating, or similar materials in shells. He stated his views as follows:
The objection that a machine of war is barbarous has always been raised against new weapons, which were nevertheless finally adopted. In the Middle Ages it was firearms which were denounced as cruel. Later, shells, and more recently, torpedoes have been denounced. It seems to me that it cannot be proved that shells with asphyxiating gases are inhumane or unnecessarily cruel machines of war, and that they cannot produce decisive results. I represent a people that is animated by a lively desire to make warfare more humane, but which may nevertheless find itself forced to wage war; therefore it is a question of not depriving itself through hastily adopted resolutions of means of which it could later avail itself with good results.
Sound uses of chemistry in war, however, are a matter of history as far back as the eighth century.
Callinicus was an architect and not an admiral, but his Greek fire which prolonged the life of the Eastern Roman Empire for some 750 years was shot from naval vessels by a hand pump; and thus 1,200 years ago the Byzantine navy by the employment of chemical agents saved a large part of Christendom from Mohammedan rule. Liquid fire has gone into the limbo with bows and arrows, but its chemical successors, gas and smoke, seem destined to play an important part in both land and naval warfare.
History reveals that the naval successors to the Greek, emperors have not failed through the years to devote a considerable amount of thought to the use of chemical implements of war. It is recorded that an English naval commander in the reign of Henry III defeated a French fleet by maneuvering his ships to windward and throwing a large amount of finely powdered quicklime on the French vessels.
Now that purely naval actions may be fought with the opposing fleets hull down to each other, such obvious uses of chemical agents are impracticable; nevertheless, with gas, the “weather gauge” may again be of vital importance. As the element of surprise in warfare is equally important afloat or ashore, an understanding of the powers and limitations of chemical agents appears to be as necessary a part of the education of naval officers as it is of their military brethren.
The Chinese “stink pots,” and Admiral Dundonald’s “Secret,” which had to do with the subjugation of the defenses of Sebastopol in the Crimean War, and Mr. Winston Churchill’s earnest advocacy of smoke for use in sea operations during the World War, are indicative of the amount of naval study which has been devoted to these subjects since the days of Greek fire.
It is very doubtful if the blocking operations of Zeebrugge and Ostend could have been successful without the powerful assistance lent by smoke. Why its obvious use was neglected at the Dardanelles and by ourselves for the assistance of Hobson’s blockading expedition in the Spanish-Amer- ican War is hard to understand.
Smoke on a large scale offers a great variety of naval uses and can be projected or dropped in so many ways that naval campaigns of the future may possibly be determined by it. Since ships nowadays are so constructed that breathing in of the surrounding atmosphere is essential to life on board them, it is idle to contend that because high explosives are in general more damaging to ships than are noxious gases, the use of the latter need not be expected.
It is reasonable to suppose that naval constructors will so improve ship design that the sudden sinkings of first line vessels as happened at Jutland will be far less probable in the future; but since the modern battleship contains about a million cubic feet of air space and since only sixty to eighty pounds of mustard gas would be needed to create a casualty producing atmosphere, or six pounds of tear gas for an intolerable concentration in a space of this size, it is certain that some nation will eventually devise a means for placing this small amount of chemical agent aboard naval vessels. Wars, large and small, engaged in by naval powers usually embrace landing operations, where the tremendous possibilities for wide use of both smoke and gas, including harmless tear gas, must be seriously considered.
Armies in many cases can evacuate gas contaminated ground; but naval actions are decided on the decks of the ships on which they are begun. While the abandonment of known and tried weapons in favor of chemical agents, the naval uses of which are still problematical, is not advocated, a surprise attack with chemical agents skillfully delivered and followed up with determination might well in a single day wrench the control of the seas from a more powerful naval adversary.
No branch of the Army is so close to the Navy as is the Chemical Warfare Service. With naval funds allotted for that purpose, we have carried on at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, such research and development work, and such training in the use of and protection against chemical agents as the Navy has desired. There is maintained at Edgewood a naval-unit, and some three hundred officers and almost that many petty officers of the Navy have been instructed in chemical fundamentals at the chemical warfare school. This close association has given us very concrete ideas as to the naval needs along the lines of protection and the advantage of naval opinion as to the uses afloat of gas and smoke. Since chemical agents offer many advantages for Marine Corps operations, training of that important branch of the national defense in the use of chemical weapons has also had its inception at Edgewood.
There has been a very general misconception even in the military services as to the international status of chemical warfare, and this may be briefly summed up in one sentence so far as the United States is concerned: the United States is bound by no treaty whatsoever which prohibits the use of either gas or smoke in peace or war, though several such have been proposed. Nor does any treaty which has been contemplated prohibit the use of smokes or non-toxic gases such as the tear gas now used by the police in all large cities (as per ruling from the Judge Advocate General). According to a letter from the State Department, published in the Congressional Record of December 13, 1926, we would not be prohibited from full peace time preparation to combat effectively any enemy employing gas were treaties now proposed, finally adopted.
As military servants in the national defense, it is clearly our duty to prepare in every proper way to utilize all effective weapons of war. We of the military profession must determine this effectiveness and present clearly to our civil superiors the dangers and benefits which we may expect from the use of any particular weapon. The responsibility for policies and for funds to carry on such work then rests with the representatives of the people.
Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, in his instructions to the American delegates at the first peace conference at The Hague in 1899 on the proposal to outlaw the use of gas shells, said:
The expediency of restraining the inventive genius of our people in the direction of devising means of defense is by no means clear; and considering the temptations to which men and nations may be exposed in a time of conflict, it is doubtful if an international agreement to this end would be effective. The dissent of a single powerful nation might render it altogether nugatory. The delegates are, therefore, enjoined not to give the weight of their influence to the promotion of projects the realization of which is so uncertain.
It is an unquestioned fact that the more scientific a people and the more developed its industries and resources, the more easily can this modern weapon be utilized. Today that nation is most powerfully defended whose peace time industries can most quickly and easily be diverted to war uses; and nations will use for fighting, when they can, those things which are most readily available. It is a fair assumption that in the future weapons will tend more and more to be produced by the transformation of peace time implements. At the beginning of the World War, Germany was the greatest chemical nation on earth, and produced in her factories yearly many hundreds of tons of chlorine and phosgene for use in her enormous dye and other chemical industries. Research for this dye industry had forced a study of a particular kind of chemistry, and in that range, among other gases later used for war, mustard gas had been discovered and its toxic qualities recorded thirty years before it was used in battle.
Those who have advocated the abolition of the use of chemicals in war on the grounds of cruelty of such agents have long since been driven from their position; and no thinking man today can go over the mass of evidence which has accumulated since 1918 without being forced to disregard the horrible ideas concerning gas which were a necessary part of the Allied propaganda.
Gas was proved to be ten to twelve times as humane as any other method of fighting in the World War. Deaths from gas per hundred of those so wounded among American troops were two; among the Allies about three, because they suffered especially in the early attacks without adequate protection. The deaths from bullets, high explosives, airplane bombs, shell and similar weapons were twenty-five per hundred among Americans; and thirty-six per hundred among the Allies and our enemies; the ratio being twelve to one in every case in favor of gas.
Gas left practically no blind, no maimed, no disfigured and no deformed. Bullets, bayonets, bombs and shells left thousands blind, disfigured, maimed and deformed.
“Poison gas” is a misnomer. There is no essential poison in the great proportion of the so-called warfare gases. They produce their effect by burning, irritation, and corrosion. It is true that some of the toxic smokes, which I will discuss later on, contain arsenic, but the amount which can be absorbed in field concentrations of these substances produces no serious symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Why the chemical weapons should, in the minds of many people, continue to be so dreadfully classed, while high explosives and bayonets are not, can only be a tribute to those who so ably managed war propaganda. That it took from four to eleven months to return each form of German chemical attack, made this propaganda the more bitter.
War chemicals are germ proof; they are so powerful that no germ can live any appreciable time whatever in them. Therefore, the wound caused by the chemical is germ proof, the kind of wound the surgeon always desires to make when he operates. Not only is the chemical, itself, sterile, but its power to destroy bacteria is such that it more or less sterilizes the surface, so that no important after-infection can occur as from bullets and other wounds, except from later outside infection. Accordingly , the chemical having no essential poison, having no germs, cannot produce any lasting after effects with one exception. That exception is where the chemical irritates or burns the lungs or body to such an extent as to seriously impair the general health. All statistics show that such cases are extremely rare. The studies that have been carried on since the war indicate that there are very few, indeed, suffering after effects from gas. This is true notwithstanding all the sob and wild propaganda to the contrary. If these chemicals produced tuberculosis and a host of other diseases frequently attributed to them, then we would all be dead from chlorine, gasoline, and carbon monoxide in our illuminating gas and a host of other injurious gases which we use and breathe every day of our lives.
For fear I may have given a slightly erroneous idea, I want to say that no one should believe that chemicals are not powerful in war. They are decidedly powerful as shown by the fact that in the American forces over twenty-seven per cent of all casualties, killed and wounded, were gas, although only 1,400 or less died from gas out of the 70,570 wounded, while 50,000 died out of the 188,000 casualties from other weapons.
Without gas masks and clothing to protect against gas, an army cannot live in the presence of gas at all. Like every other evil, including dangerous diseases, a recognition of their power and preparation to meet them is the only guarantee of safety. No “medicine man” or ostrich measures will have any effect.
Humanity in war, is, of course, a very relative term. We are accustomed to consider naval blockade an almost peaceful form of enforcing our will upon an enemy nation, but Colonel J. F. C. Fuller of the British army states in a recent book entitled, The Foundation of the Science of War:
The effectiveness of the navy as an economic weapon is little realized by the general public. The following, told me by a naval friend, quoting the highest authorities, is of interest: “Up till the end of 1918 it is calculated that 763,000 German civilians died as a result of the ‘blockade.’ The spread of tuberculosis has undone the work of many years before the war, and a large percentage of the children of Germany are more or less affected with rickets. The new generation will be permanently injured, both mentally and physically. The result of the ‘blockade’ in terms of human misery was unutterably dreadful, but as a measure of war it can only be described as a wonderful success.” It appears somewhat cynical that the economic blockade should be the means whereby the League of Nations proposes to enforce its will.
We may not agree with the author, but his viewpoint after much study is worth careful consideration.
The medical research division of the Chemical Warfare Service has spent a great portion of its time since the war in studying, with the assistance of doctors everywhere throughout the United States, the after effects of gas wounds. Their findings agree with those of the medical departments of the armies of other large countries to the effect that, generally speaking, there are no after effects. Talk of insanity and tuberculosis following years after a man has become a casualty from gas is ridiculous. The ease with which injury from gas can be claimed and the difficulty of proving the absence of such injury have led to a tremendous number of pension claims before the United States Veterans’ Bureau, a very large portion of which are idle and worthless.
The truth is that chemical science has provided mankind with a weapon which reduces the necessity for killing and brings decisive results with far less permanent injury than in the case of cold steel or explosives.
At the risk of repeating facts now largely known by military men, a brief description of the usual chemical agents seems necessary.
There were used during the War more than twenty-eight different chemical warfare materials. Only three of these are gases at ordinary temperatures and so can be discharged from cylinders under pressure. The others are liquids which gradually evaporate giving off irritating or burning vapors, or they are solids which are irritating when in the form of smoke.
In their effects on human beings these substances are normally divided into four groups.
The first group includes chlorine, and its immediate successor, phosgene. These gases are injurious when breathed, but do not affect the skin or eyes when present in concentrations which are highly irritating to the lungs. This group can be protected against by the use of gas masks, and is of military value largely for local surprise action and against unprotected troops.
The second group, the vesicant or blistering gases, includes mustard gas and the American Lewisite. These so-called gases are really liquids, the vapor from which is casualty producing when breathed, but in addition they cause burns and blisters wherever they touch the skin and on those parts of the body which perspire. A drop of mustard gas on a man’s clothing will penetrate through it and cause a burn, the effects of which will last for some six weeks. These gases evaporate so slowly that ground contaminated by them may be dangerous for two or three weeks. Lewisite was never used in war, but mustard gas caused more casualties than all the other chemical agents combined.
The third group contains substances which are not gases at all, but toxic smokes. While these were comparatively little used during the war, their great importance presents a wide field for research and development. They are usually arsenic compounds, which when burned, give off very fine particles of smoke. Their efficiency lies in the fact that these are not, as a rule, stopped by the gas mask canister unless it has some very special treatment. The molecules of a gas move very rapidly within the gas itself, hundreds of yards per second, so that in passing through the charcoal and other ingredients of the canister, they strike against the chemicals and are absorbed. Molecules of smoke, on the other hand, move comparatively slowly, inches per second, and are drawn through the canister by the breathing man before they can attach themselves to the chemicals. In comparatively small amounts, toxic smokes cause sneezing and vomiting, thus forcing the removal of the old war time mask. In larger concentrations, pains of a serious character appear in the head and chest, and casualties are incapacitated for considerable periods of time. The American mask is designed to stop all such substances; but in the toxic smokes lies a great field for surprise attack by chemicals.
The fourth group are the so-called tear gases which affect the eyes and nose. Some of these are non-persistent; that is, they are borne away by the wind; but others contaminate the ground and objects on which they are lodged for long periods of time, thus forcing the wearing of gas masks. Tear gases would seem to have considerable use in naval warfare. Naval battles are of comparatively short duration, and a persistent tear gas spread over a ship will force the wearing of gas masks and very considerably hamper men in the execution of their duties. One part in 10,000,000 parts of air causes profuse tears or lachrymation. A man who gets a good dose of tear gas in his eyes cannot sight a weapon with accuracy for thirty minutes after getting out of the tear gas, and not at all while in the gas.
On the other hand, these gases have no lasting or harmful effects, and so are very suitable for use against mobs by police forces, in subduing criminals, and in prisons. Most of the penitentiaries, and many of the police forces and banks of the United States, are equipped with tear gas at the present time.
In addition to these casualty producing agents, chemical warfare includes non-toxic smokes of various kinds, and such substances as phosphorus, which is not only the best smoke producing material known, but an excellent casualty agent because of its burning qualities. Phosphorus, of course, burns on exposure to the air, and fired in shell against machine gun nests makes a tremendous weapon, since the burning particles are exceedingly difficult to extinguish.
All of these varied agents have possible naval uses; research and experimentation will develop their relative value.
All of the means of projecting gas and smoke by the Army find some possible naval counterpart, with the possible exception of the light 4.2-inch chemical mortar, a weapon capable of throwing large amounts of chemical agents to a distance of 2,500 yards, and yet itself so compact that it can easily be taken ashore in a dory. It might well be added to naval landing operation equipment.
In considering the present naval weapons, it is well to start with the most universal, and probably, all things considered, the most effective, artillery shells. Since it is generally the function of the shells from the ship’s main battery to destroy the enemy’s ships by penetrating into the interior of the vessels and exploding with such force as to destroy engines, interfere with ammunition supply, and affect in every way possible the handling of the ship, chemical agents alone do not satisfy naval conditions. It is a fact, however, that some twenty per cent of the cavity of a high explosive shell may be filled with a chemical agent without serious interference with its wrecking effect. We can expect that such may be the case in future naval engagements. In this connection, it is well to repeat that six pounds of a lachrymatory gas, properly dispersed, would be sufficient to cause lachrymation everywhere on board ship; or if a toxic agent were used, any penetrated compartments would be with considerable rapidity throughout the vessel. The shell exploding on the side armor might, even if no material damage were caused, eject a chemical cloud which would be sucked in through the ventilating system.
It is true that the injection of a chemical agent into the high explosive magazine of a shell would increase the number and types of such shells unless some agent suitable for all purposes were adopted, hence this latter should be the line of naval development. Such a chemical should be quick acting and be unaffected detrimentally by the shell explosion. A x 6-inch shell could carry some nine or ten pounds of such an agent. In the fields of toxic smokes and of persistent gases, such as mustard, are probably to be found suitable materials for such naval use. If the result was simply the forcing of the wearing of gas masks, it is unquestionable that some of the ship’s fighting efficiency and the ability of its personnel to carry on, would be reduced.
Secondary battery shells have, as a rule, the function of preventing torpedo attacks from destroyers, submarines, and similar auxiliary craft. Although the amount of chemical agent in these shells is small, yet it should produce greater results comparatively than in the case of main battery shells because of the comparatively small size of the compartments and the lightness of construction of the craft which form the targets for such shells.
Shells filled entirely with chemical agents may have considerable use in naval operations other than ship-to-ship engagements. Phosphorus fillings offer special advantages for ship against shore firings and other special naval enterprises. Other types of smoke fillings, non-inflammable in themselves, could be used for the creation of smoke screens and the obscuring of landing parties where material damage was not desired.
Other than the ship’s guns, it is probable that in future naval engagements the greatest material damage will be done by aircraft; and the statements as to the fillings of naval main battery shells apply with equal force to aircraft bombs, with the exception of bombs used solely for smoke producing purposes. However, it is sometimes possible for aircraft to carry and discharge a large number of small smoke bombs which, if loaded with high explosive, would produce no material effect on a battleship, but which if loaded with phosphorus might blind not only the antiaircraft armament but the main batteries as well. Tear gases could well be used in such bombs.
In addition to the bombing method of attack, we have developed in the Chemical Warfare Service various types of chemical curtains and screens to be laid by planes. From our first effective curtain produced from the comparatively slow moving bomber, we have progressed to a screen which can be dropped from the fastest moving pursuit plane. Since naval planes equipped with these devices have been operating with our fleets, it is probable that most naval officers are familiar with this highly spectacular war weapon. Present tanks permit the laying of effective screens, by one plane, a mile and one-half in length and 300 feet high in about fifty seconds. Such a screen is effective for some fifteen minutes depending on atmospheric conditions. Additional planes should be available to build up and maintain the screen. When these screens are composed of smoke, whole fleets can be obscured or a portion of the enemy’s fleet blinded or cut off from vision of its other vessels. The addition to naval tactics here provided seems so great that a profound influence on naval engagements must result.
Airplanes may also lay a smoke screen with smoke bombs, and there has been devised for naval purposes a floating bomb of this type. Planes so equipped would have been valuable in the Zeebrugge operations to replace the more or less inefficient smoke provided by the burning of phosphorus on mine layers. This type of obscuring smoke presents many uses in the blinding of shore batteries. With planes so equipped, the British Navy might day after day have kept the Turkish forces at the Dardanelles in a man-made fog, facilitating greatly the necessary mine sweeping operations, and permitting close approach for the shelling of plotted shore batteries.
Planes carrying high explosive bombs may be forced by the antiaircraft guns of today to very considerable heights unless protected by extensive smoke screens, and only those bombs which make actual hits, or hits so close to the ship as to injure its structure, are of value. Furthermore, planes of very considerable size are necessary to carry bombs of such weight as to do material damage.
With chemical bombs, however, light, small planes flying at great speed and in large numbers, can launch a great quantity of small smoke bombs, and hits are not essential. The initial cloud having been established, other planes can approach more closely to the ship or fleet until at last a condition is created which will protect the slow and somewhat unwieldy bombers in making their approach.
Successive smoke screens can be established in a similar way blanketing approaching high explosive bomb-carrying airships.
As I have said, hits with smoke bombs are not essential. They are, of course, highly desirable since a burning phosphorus bomb on the deck of a vessel will interfere very considerably with its gun fire.
A low smoke screen by whatever device emitted, is of particular value in hiding attacks by airplanes carrying torpedoes. As these planes have to fly within thirty feet of the water when dropping their torpedoes, in order that the gyroscopic mechanism controlling depth and direction will not be injured, a smoke screen two or three hundred feet in height would effectively conceal them from view from any part of the ship. The smoke screens for this purpose can be laid by high speed planes which will be exceedingly difficult to hit by any sort of antiaircraft or other fire. Once a plane carrying a torpedo has broken through the smoke curtain it can straighten its direction and launch its torpedo before there is any possibility of hitting it. Within the limits of success of the method of dropping torpedoes the smoke curtain would seem to make this one of the most powerful methods of attacking ships by airplanes.
The Navy has for years utilized the smoke funnels of destroyers for the purpose of creating smoke screens. The high temperatures of the stacks could easily be utilized for the dispersing of toxic smokes. The possibility of using smoke screens or clouds from floating smoke boxes and also from submarines has been considered. The submarine while vulnerable to gun fire could, with favorable winds, protect itself during smoke laying operations by its own smoke screen. The shallow draft of these vessels would permit close inshore operations, and they could very well be utilized
for a discharge of toxic as well as screening smokes. The travel of a smoke cloud is probably not more than three or four miles under favorable weather conditions; but the means of attack indicated would have unquestioned value against coast fortifications.
In fact, it is against coast fortifications that chemical agents offer some of the greatest present advantages in naval operations. High explosive shell must make direct hits on guns and range finding apparatus on shore to be of any value. Fortifications drenched with mustard or even with persistent tear gas can be made untenable; and sufficient smoke clouds to make forts silent because unable to see anything during a run by, or during mine sweeping operations, might easily decide a ship against shore enterprise.
The possibilities of dropping curtains or screens of gas from airplanes through which ships or fleets may have to pass must not be overlooked. The difficulties in the establishment of such screens are technically few; but conditions of wind and weather would have to be considered as well as the comparative ease with which fleets and vessels can be maneuvered. It is, nevertheless, a fact that such an attack carefully planned on a large scale against ships equipped with present day ventilating systems and without gas protection, might have a very considerable chance of success. In this mode of attack, as well as in other forms of naval battle, one success is ordinarily enough to decide the question of naval supremacy throughout a war.
Marine landing parties usually operate against localities where reduction of loss of life is highly desirable. Smoke and tear gas provide means for such tactics. On the other hand, mustard gas can be made to float on the water in coves and other suitable landing points and offer a very serious menace to debarking forces.
Phosphorus shells and grenades are highly useful in landing operations and against the more or less untrained troops which can be expected to oppose such landings. Phosphorus proved its effectiveness in the World War against the highly disciplined German machine gun personnel. It is a particularly terrifying agent and would certainly be extremely effective against the hastily organized detachments which could be expected to oppose landing parties of our marines.
The problem of naval protection against chemical agents divides itself, as for the Army, into individual and collective protection. That is, there must be some personal protection for the man by means of gas masks and clothing more or less impervious to chemical agents, and there must be some method of keeping as much gas as possible out of the interior of the ship and off its decks. In addition to the gases which we may expect to have used in naval warfare as actual enemy agents, there is the problem of protection against carbon monoxide which may be released in some cases from the ship’s own powder charges, and in others from the detonation of high explosive shells against or inside the ship.
Carbon monoxide is one of the deadliest of gases. Its lightness and extremely high pressure when liquified at ordinary temperatures, however, make it so difficult to adapt for field use that it was not included among the chemical agents developed during the World War. Nevertheless, the fact remains that a certain amount of carbon monoxide is released from all high explosive shells and caused many deaths during the war, both of men and animals. It is particularly dangerous in naval battles, since the explosion of shells often takes place in closed and semi-inclosed places. The German Navy had many casualties from carbon monoxide in their early engagements because their naval regulations provided for the discontinuance of the ventilating apparatus of their ships during action. By the time of the Battle of Jutland, all German naval personnel were equipped with gas masks.
It is of interest to note that the gunnery officer of the Derfflinger* reports two instances of gas during this battle. It was necessary to abandon the heavy gun transmitting station and shift to “fore-control.” A few seconds later, a heavy shell struck “fore-control” without penetrating, but “poisonous greenish-yellow gases poured through apertures into control,” forcing the men to mask. He found it difficult to make himself understood, but the gases gradually dissipated and they “cautiously removed their masks.” A later report indicated that the gases entered the transmitting station through the voice pipes from “Caesar” turret, which was out of action. A petty officer, using a gas mask, reentered the compartment, plugged the voice pipes, and the ventilators gradually removed the gases, permitting the control to be shifted back. The English, of course, were using only high explosive shells.
* Kiel and Jutland, Commander G. V. Hase.
Defense against toxic chemicals aboard ship divides itself naturally into three phases: detection; protection during action; and eradication of the agents after action, or as soon as possible.
Although mechanical or chemical detectors can be devised, it is probable that the safest and most practical means of detection lies through some of our normal senses —sight, smell, or physical effect. This requires well trained personnel capable of recognizing the various chemical agents and able to initiate the necessary protective measures by prompt signal or report.
Both individual and collective protection must be utilized. Collective protection embraces all of those means which can be utilized to keep chemical agents out of the ship. A very considerable amount of thought has been put on this phase of the naval problem and the obvious answers are either sealed spaces with a regenerative air system, such as is used on submarines, and which can be put into operation during action, or some form of gas filter which can be inserted into the ventilating systems so that the ship’s personnel will be breathing through what amounts to one or more huge masks. Every point of entry of air must be protected against gas including such insignificant inlets as voice pipes. This form of protection, however, will not prevent the entry of gas shot into the ship in the way of shells nor the retention of such agents as mustard by the highly absorbent wooden decks.
To insure safety, gas masks and protective clothing must be available for a very large portion of the ship’s personnel. There is no question at the present time but that it is very difficult to provide protection against chemical agents on a ship; and naval constructors must in the future include this among their other problems.
A single type of gas mask will not answer all naval purposes. Ordinary masks will permit voice transmission; special optical masks must be made for use by the fire control group; and special submarine masks for protection against gases which may be generated by accident are necessary.
Even with every possible mechanical device, the resistance of a ship to gas must depend on the state of the gas discipline of its personnel, and as in other important matters, training is the watchword for safety. Drill in the detection and identification of toxic gases, in demustardizing, and in cleaning up the ship after gas attacks, and in the proper use of the mask, itself, must be thorough. Fortunately, lachrymatory gases, both persistent and non-persistent, are available for the training of the ship’s company in all these phases of gas protection. Mechanical or chemical indicators will be necessary in addition, since because of what we term “nasal fatigue,” the sense of smell fails as an indicator for mustard gas, and the nose will not detect low concentrations which may be exceedingly dangerous from their cumulative effect. Neither is the nose reliable against fake gases.
The problem of permanent eradication of chemical agents after an attack is a very difficult one on shipboard. Mustard gas and gases of a similar type are very slowly soluble in water, and when absorbed by wooden decks, present serious problems even for thoroughly trained clean-up squads; even army commanders in the World War found it easier to remove troops from a mustardized area than to attempt to restore such an area to a tenable condition. Only the method of cleaning up the ship is available for naval commanders.
A battle at sea is warfare in which momentary advantages of position and momentary superiority of fire are of the utmost importance. In achieving these, or in preventing the enemy from obtaining them, gas and smoke offer powerful auxiliaries to the more usual naval weapons. The navy that excels in these, if otherwise equal to the enemy, will win.