大象传媒

The purpose of my E mail is to enquire if there any Gas Warfare personnel still about.

In 1940 I was called up into 982 Chemical Warfare Company. I had to report to a camp at Winterbourne Dauntsey in Hampshire. We had four months of basic training in drill, the use of a rifle and firing on a rifle range. During this time we were introduced to and lectured on poison gases. Our first real contact was to dab liquid mustard gas on the backs of our hands and then apply a cream to prevent a blister appearing. On occaisions we were taken to Porton Down, as guinea pigs, where we were marched through a non-toxic cloud of gas to measure the effect on a simple task before and after the gas. For this we were paid an extra shilling a day on top of our basic pay of two shillings a day. At the end of our training the Company was despatched to Porlock ,in Somerset, to carry out practical training on Brendon Common, between Porlock and Lynton. Our first introduction to the Common was to march up Porlock Hill in Battle Order just for fun. The equipment to be used consisted of a light metal trough about six inches wide and eight feet long with a pair of adjustable legs at one end. These were called crickets as, in outline, they resembled the insect of that name. We placed a twenty five pound R.A.F. bomb on the trough which was to be fired by a battery and wire connection to a switch arrangement so that they could be fired individually or in a line of twelve. The propulsion was eleven sticks of cordite inserted in one end of the bomb so that it was converted into a rocket. For the safety of the operator a hastily dug shallow trench was dug for the operator to lie in. From memory, the Company had sixteen teams to fire twelve bombs each so that 192 could be fired at once. The range of up to about four miles was adjusted by altering the angle of the legs on the crickets. On impact the war head on the bomb would explode and release the gas inside. Fortunately for us and the local population no explosives or gas was used. However the thought of 192 gas bombs landing at the same time over a target area would be horrifying for an enemy. On Brendon Common a stock of gases was stored in ordinary 40 gallon oil drums in an open compound, which we guarded, in turn, each day and night, with about 6 men. Eventually the Company was disbanded, with presumably, with the others. It is my idea that an Agreement was reached with the Germans that neither side would use gas. Before starting the Iraqi war perhaps we should have remembered we could have been compared with Saddam Hussein. We would have been better than him though in that on arriving on site we could fire our 192 bombs 15 minutes, not his 45 minutes.

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