大象传媒

I have just read the story concerning a "Dr" Howarth Williams of Porton, and nerve gas, and wish to correct/add a few points. He was my father.

Firstly, he was never a Doctor - after a brilliant first degree in organic chemistry he joined the military during the thirties, but his work was (and is) so classified that he was denied any public recognition for it - thanks a bunch.

Secondly, what actually happened as I was told it (and obviously that's all I have to go on) was that samples of gas were indeed captured (but this was well before the end of the war) and taken to Porton. The regular routine was to dilute a specimen by a vast amount with water, and then put a droplet in a rabbit's eye (no animal rights protesters in those days...). After ten minutes they would check to see if there was any inflamation; if there was, they knew they were dealing with a seriously nasty substance. In this case, within ten minutes the rabbit's eye was not inflamed - the rabbit was stone dead. This absolutely freaked my father out, and the rest of Porton that knew about it.

He was set to try and analyse the substance - British intelligence (according to my father) had gathered that the Nazi's reckoned it would take three months research to crack it. My father cracked it in 48 hours. Again, according to him, the formula was then communicated back to the Nazis to show we knew what it was and how to syntheesize it, and they never deployed it.

My mother, Enid, worked for MI5 and maintained the databases on chemical warfare (as we would call them) corroborated all this, but of course I only have my parents' word to go on. It was certainly a story repeated with nauseating regularity throughout my childhood.

Om Shanti

Martin Howarth Williams

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