Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1919 — U. S. FIELD TRIALS OF POISON GAS [ARTICLE]

U. S. FIELD TRIALS OF POISON GAS

Public Now Permitted to Know Details of the Tests *• Conducted. ANIMAL LIVES SACRIFICED Conditions Were Reproduced As Nearly Like Those of the Battlefield as Possible—Greatest Secrecy Maintained. New York. —Tucked away in a barren pine belt in New Jersey, near Lakehurst, was located one of the most interesting army camps in the country, for there tests were made In actual large scale field trials of new gases which looked promising for warfare in laboratory tests. Of course the greatest possible secrecy guarded all proceedings there, the personnel, both enlisted and commissioned, having been selected with great care, so that nothing would leak out. Now that the camp is disbanded, scarcely a trace of it remaining, Lieutenant Colonel W. S. Bacon, chief of the proving division, tells of the work of the camp in the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. While the camp lasted all the things done with gas on the combat fields of Europe vtere tried out there. The camp had trenches, dugouts, concrete bomb-proof retreats, so that gas effects might be accurately noted J and results applied to overseas work. There were hospitals for the gassed, goats, dogs, guinea pigs and monkeys that were subjected to military exposure, and the sort of care that humans received abroad was given to those animal sufferers. They were saved when possible, and when not possible the camp authorities knew they had a gas which would be fatal also to enemy soldiers. The camp called at all times for the exercise of chemical, electrical, medical, engineering and military skill of high order, and it became one of the most valuable agencies in the war. Proper Bursting Charge. “To make clear the trials and tests necessary,” Lieutenant Colonel Bacon writes, “before a substance was finally recommended let us take, as an example substance X, which has been found in the research laboratory to be promising, both as to toxicity and ease of manufacture. Enough of this substance was made to fill several hundred shells of various calibres. The first step toward making a recommendation was to determine a proper bursting charge for the substance. “After the bursting charge had been determined large numbers of the shell were repeatedly fired on trenches, wooded areas, rolling and level ground, etc., in the same numbers as used in actual warfare. “Animals were placed in these areas and samples of the gas 'taken. After a number of such experiments, very accurate and constant results were obtained; upon which, if the substance proved satisfactory, data could be given to the artillery as regards how many shells of this particular gas should be used, with corrections for size of area, wind velocities, temperatures, ground conditions, etc. Trials were continually held to determine how many high explosive, shell could be fired with gas shell on the same area without affecting the concentrations. “The use of the high explosive shell in combination with gas shell was highly important in order to disguise rhe gas bombardment. The burst of gas shell fired alone can be distinguished by the small detonation.” Lines of Trenches.! Two complete lines of trenches and several impact grounds were used for the work, and shells Were fired for as great distance as 5,000 yards. Not only were the most minute accounts kept of all conditions at the point of firing, but a sampling contrivance was •arranged by which at all times and places the Intensity and effect of gascharged air could be recorded. Photographs were also taken of every explosion as an aid in determining the

conditions that would be most effective in practice, low-lying clouds of gas and wide diffusion being the things desired. From 125 to 150 samples of gassed air were taken dally on the ranges. There was a research laboratory for the analysis of gases under field practice, a chemical laboratory to prepare gases for the experimental work, and a loading plant. The filling of every shell was analyzed and immediately after firing, samples of the released gas were at once analyzed for decomposition products.