![]() ![]() ![]() Army was the first to discover the slug’s life-saving secret. Slugs were far more effective than dogs at detecting incoming mustard gas attacks. But he’s not so sure you would have been issued one.However, there was one other tiny gas-detecting hero on the Western Front - the slug. So, long story short: Answer Man thinks you definitely would have seen a gas mask early in 1942. Explosives were much more useful at destroying infrastructure and terrorizing the civilian populace. Why? Why didn’t the Germans - or the Allies, for that matter - use poison gas in World War II? The consensus seems to be that military leaders on both sides didn’t think it would be effective. There is no false modesty with mustard gas.”Īs it turned out, there wasn’t any mustard gas, in Washington or in London. The crowd cheered when the announcer said: “If you get gas on your clothes, remove your clothes. When “gas!” was shouted, air raid wardens strapped on their masks. A lone bomber was picked out by searchlights, and mock buildings on the field were blown into the air. The highlight came at the end of the evening, when 4,000 youngsters streamed “down onto the floor of the arena, scrambled over the equipment, honked jeeps’ horns, fired rifles, machine guns and other light artillery, donned helmets and gas masks, and played war until a bugler sounded taps at 10:45.”Ī year later, families gathered at Griffith Stadium for a simulated air raid. In May 1942, Uline Arena was filled with military gear for a school safety patrol rally. Said an official: “They will feel pride in the fact that they are playing the part of volunteers behind the lines and that they are helping to defeat our country’s enemies.” A tire, it was noted, could make 12 gas masks. Youngsters were encouraged to go through their houses looking for scrap to donate. Eventually they would get steel helmets and gas masks, too.īy the one-year anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, 300,000 gas masks had been shipped across the country, allotted on the basis of the vulnerability of an area. Lemuel Bolles, the District’s defense director, explained that the policy was to issue equipment - first-aid kits, flashlights, arm bands, whistles - only to local air raid wardens. Over the course of the following year, estimates of the number of gas masks needed was continually revised downward. Instead, LaGuardia explained, they would be issued only to people living in coastal areas that were prone to attack. )Įven 50 million wouldn’t be enough to outfit every citizen with a respirator. Army Chemical Corps Museum, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. The M1-1 Non-combatant Gas Mask, Child, was the first child-size mask to go into production. The Post explained: “The masks would cost $3.75 each and would be supplied in five sizes - one for babies, one for children 2 to 3 years of age, one for larger children, another for small adults and the ‘universal adult mask.’ ” The other wasn’t and hadn’t.Įven so, two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, director of the Office of Civilian Defense, had proposed that the government order 50 million gas masks. ![]() One was mere miles from the enemy and had been bombed numerous times. Of course, there was a difference between the two capitals. That was certainly the case in London, where every child was issued a respirator, which was carried in a cardboard box on a string slung over the shoulder. Miss Mahindra had her own burning question for the reporter: “But don’t you all have to wear gas masks here?” she asked. She had recently arrived in Washington from London, where she had been stranded since the start of the war. In January 1943, a Washington Post reporter interviewed Santosh Mahindra, daughter of the head of the Indian Supply Mission. )Ībout 1,000 Mickey Mouse respirators were eventually produced, but the civilian gas mask - for children or adults - was not really a notable presence on the home front during World War II. The production mask was manufactured by the Sun Rubber Co. A production version gas mask designed by Walt Disney to look like Mickey Mouse. ![]()
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