Nerve Gas in World War Two

Erich, thanks for the tip! Learning all the time...
It was Bari and December 1943.Check this and the site:

With so much gas stockpiled, accidents were likely to happen. On 2 December 1943, the merchantman SS JOHN HARVEY was waiting its turn to be unloaded at the harbor of Bari in southern Italy. Unknown to almost everyone, JOHN HARVEY was carrying 2,000 45 kilogram (100 pound) bombs full of mustard gas. Even most of the JOHN HARVEY's crew did not know about the gas bombs.

A few days earlier, the Allied high command announced they had obtained complete air superiority over southern Italy. They hadn't informed the Luftwaffe, and that evening a hundred Ju-88 bombers swept in and raised hell for 20 minutes. The German raid was a stunning victory. They sank 17 ships, badly damaged 8 more, killed a thousand men, and injured 800. Gas bombs on the JOHN HARVEY ruptured, and as the ship sank a layer of mustard gas and oil spread over the harbor, while mustard gas fumes swept ashore in a billowing cloud. Many civilians died during the raid and later.

The officers in charge of the gas bomb shipment on the JOHN HARVEY had been killed while they frantically tried to scuttle the vessel, and nobody else knew about the gas bombs. Sailors were taken ashore to a hospital where they were wrapped in blankets and given tea. The next morning 630 of them were blind and developing hideous chemical burns. Within two weeks, 70 of them died.

The crew of a British escort vessel, the HMS BISTERIA, picked up survivors during the raid and escaped to sea. During the night almost the entire crew went blind, and many developed burns. The vessel managed to limp into Taranto harbor with great difficulty.

At first, the Allied high command tried to conceal the disaster, since the evidence that gas was being shipped into Italy might convince the Germans that the Allies were preparing to use gas, and provoke the Germans into preemptively using gas themselves. However, there were far too many witnesses to keep such a secret, and in February the US Chiefs of Staff issued a statement admitting to the accident, and emphasizing that the US had no intention of using gas except in retaliation to Axis gas attacks.

http://www.vectorsite.net/twgas2.html

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1190.htm

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq104-4.htm

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TEPP. Never heard of until now....Here´s a little something if interested:

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12150_12220-27249--,00.html

 

There were thougths within the German General Staff (Halder, Wagner and espec. the Chief of Nebeltruppe Ochsner) to bombard the encircled Leningrad with gas ammunition.

The plan was mainly abandoned because the calculations for a successful bombardement would have exhausted german gas ammunition.

Any info that the Germans actually USED gas at Leningrad is welcome. I have heard about that since some time, but never found a source.

Cheers,

 

Again, be careful to take Speer's own words for granted. He lied about production figures in 1944, the "use" of jewish slave workers and other inconvienient things after the war, so it's hard to believe him uncritically.

Fact is that the Silesian factory who produced TABUN was lost to the Soviets in late 1944. It sounds better to say "I stopped..." when it's really a "I had to stop...".

Cheers,

 

Well-noted, Andy.

Just a silly question: Why are the gases called Sarin and Tabun? Sounds like an abbreviation of some sort?

 

Andy, I remember having heard this in the History Channel, I think in "XX Century" with Mike Wallace. But the History Channel is not a reliable source either...

 

The word 'tabun' has no particluar meaning and was reportedly made up by Dr Schrader to disguise the discovery

From

http://www.tlchm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2001/sharp/new_page_1.htm

The infamous Sarin gas possesses a variety of names but it was named after its four pioneers namely Schrader, Ambros, Rudriger and van der LINde.

From

http://www.rainbowpediatrics.net/faq/24.12.html

Soman

Although the third nerve agent developed in Germany, soman received the Allied coding GD. No chemical agent was ever coded GC, as it used to be the medical reference for the disease gonorrhea. While continuing the research after the discovery of sarin, the German chemists first came across a more toxic substance, called T-210, which was apparently not further developed, before discovering soman in 1944. The origin of the name is uncertain and may have been derived from Greek ('sleep') or Latin ('bludgeon').

From

http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/cbw-agents/Soman.html

 

I think I found something new:

On 11 May 1943, the British captured a German chemist who had worked at the main Army CW research laboratory in Spandau. The prisoner told the British the code name for Tabun (Trilon 83), the chemical reactions by which it was produced, its effects, and methods of use of and defense against Tabun. This was compiled into an MI9 intelligence report of 3 July 1943. Following the war, the Allies contended that they first became aware of Tabun in April 1945, when a German ammunition dump was captured and a shell containing Tabun was shipped to the United Kingdom for analysis. However, the record appears to show that the responsible officials ignored the 1943 report.

At the end of 1944, Germany had produced 12,000 tons of Tabun: 2,000 tons loaded into projectiles and 10,000 tons loaded into aircraft bombs. These munitions were stored at Krappitz (Krapowice) in Upper Silesia as well as in abandoned mine shafts in Lausitz and Saxony. Some stocks were also transported to Baveria in anticipation of a last ditch defensive stand by the Nazis.

http://www.mitretek.org/home.nsf/Homelandsecurity/HistoryNerveGases

 

I've read something to the effect that the germans used gas against "partisans" in Russia.

More next.

 

The Japanese might have done quite alot of damage...??

Japanese Imperial Army's Unit 731 killed thousands of Chinese and Russians held prisoner in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, in experiments to develop chemical and biological weapons.

Harbin in Manchuria was the headquarters of Unit 731.Ishii promoted to full colonel with 3,000 Japanese working under him. In addition of bacteriological warfare, studies were also conducted on human damage done by burns, freezing, high pressure, and bullets. Former members of the unit say that at least 3,000 people and by some accounts several times that number were killed in the medical experiments in which none survived.

In 1942, germ warfare specialists distributed dysentery, cholera and typhoid in Zhejiang Province in China. but Japanese soldiers themselves became ill and 1,700 died of the diseases.

Proposals included use of these weapons against the United States. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague infected fleas on San Diego(codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night).

At the outbreak of the Wusung-shanghai campaign on August 13, 1937, the Japanese army used poison gas against Chinese troops. In the succeeding eight years of war, Japan had used poison gases 1,131 times in 14 Chinese provinces.

http://www.ww2pacific.com/unit731.html

 

1935-1936 (Italy, Ethiopia)

During the Italo-Ethiopian War, Italian forces repeatedly attack Ethiopian soldiers and civilians with mustard gas. Italian forces are also reported to use tear gas, sneezing gas, and various asphyxiating agents. Italian leader Benito Mussolini authorizes the use of chemical weapons (CW) on 16 December 1935, with the first attack occurring on 23 December when Italian Air Force planes spray mustard gas and drop bombs filled with mustard agent on Ethiopian soldiers and villagers in the Takkaze fords. The full extent of CW use by Italy during this war is unclear. However, a 13 April 1936 letter from the Ethiopian delegate to the League of Nations to the Secretary-General alleges that Italy made 20 "poison gas attacks," with mustard gas being the agent "most frequently used."

In 1935 and 1936, after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, over 700 tons of mustard gas was shipped there for use by the Italian Air Force. Torpedo shaped 500 lb. bombs, with a time
fuse, were utilized. These bombs burst about 200 feet above the ground, scattering spray over a considerable area. Later-

aerial spraying was the preferred method. "Groups of 9 to 15

aircraft followed one another so that the liquid issuing from them formed a continuous fog...soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes and pastures were drenched continually
with this deadly rain." 11 As a result, over 15,000 Abyssinians were killed or wounded by chemical weapons during this war.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1984/ARW.htm

 

The US stores of mustard gas etc in WW2:

Following the US entry into the war, the US Army supplied bulk mustard gas, adamsite, lewisite and CN tear gas to Australia. US archival documents state that by May 1942 the US Army had 6,000 adamsite candles, 148 tons of bulk mustard gas, 360 mustard-filled 75mm shells, 50 tons of bulk CN gas, and 400 CN gas grenades in Australia. The USAAF had 14,000 empty 100-pound bomb casings, and 870 tons of mustard gas was sent from the US on 15 April 1942 and reached Australia in August. Some of this gas was used to fill land mines.

As of January 1943, American CW inventory in Australia was:

Charters Towers - 5,900 100lb mustard gas bombs, 1000 spray tanks, 115 tons bulk mustard gas
Kangaroo Island - 5,500 100lb mustard gas bombs, 20,000 gas artillery shells

Darra - 435 tons bulk agents, 90,000 gas artillery shells, undisclosed number of empty shells, bombs and land mines

Columboola - 11,000 100lb mustard gas bombs

Kingswood, Sydney - 53,000 mustard gas and phosgene artillery shells

Geelong, Victoria - 400 tons bulk mustard gas, 3,160 gas candles

For more info:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/australia/cw.html

 

Don´t know how truly accurate this can be considered but anyway :

There was evidence that in five years of war the Japanese had launched 1,000 mustard and lewisite gas attacks against the Chinese. The heaviest (TIME, Nov. 10) were in the battle for Ichang, in October 1941. On May 26, the Japanese forced a crossing of the Singang River near Kienteh by sending planes ahead to shower gas bombs on the defenders. A fortnight ago the Japanese took Kinhwa with the help of gas, and last week repeated the performance at Chuhsien, 45 miles southwest of Kinhwa.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,795820,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

 

I read an article a while back that detalied chemical attacks by Japan on the US, in Oregon, Washington and California, nothing was done, because the sumbarines with the weapons were sunk prior to their attack. One shell or so was used somewhere in Oregon, killing 4 civillians. I will try to find the article again.

 

Yes, I see that source Red Baron mentioned has never been quoted here.

He recommended that book, but if it is that off, I'd be wary it is more propaganda than history.

I've learnt that it was actually the British who were leading the world by far in 'war crime' bio-chemical research. Focusing on the 'kill' nerve agents we fear today.

The Japanese were more on the biological or disease path. Mites, ticks, dyptheria etc. I saw a Chinese 'documentary' on this while working in China. English and Cantonese subtitles. It claimed the Japanese work was inspired by the British 'cripple-not-kill' theory. So of course they trying to attack us at the same time. The idea was not to kill, but like our modern 'mine' theory, maim, cripple the victim so that 2-4 country-man have to commit to work to take care of them. It was an 'economic weapon' too.

Ironically the Americans are behind the downplaying of the Japanese program cites and continued dangers. As it was they, not the Japanese gov't, who whisked these people and their work away. The Brits got some of them too. So that's why you'll see the websites saying minimising the issue coming from us, not the Japanese. I've seen a Japanese documentary as well, coming out in favour of the one Chinese town lawsuit, and putting us in a bad spot-light as our gov't officials keep denying or refusing to accept interviews on the topic. We punished Tojo etc for the issue, but not the actual people who came up with and expanded it. Those were instead taken by us and given American citizenship and protection to do the same thing. So the Chinese and Korean programs point out that we are then guilty of the same thing we hung Tojo etc for. They are decidedly not on our side on this issue. Despite the TV and friends signing the petition for the courts in Japan, the Japanese courts keep saying they can't rule without American participation and witnesses who the US and UK gov'ts refuse to even acknowledge.

There is a book "The Forgotten War" by Stan Cohen.
It's about the Aleutian campaign in ww2. Canadian troops with American.
In it there is claims that we used bio-chemical weapons in that campaign against the Japanese.

Kai Petri brings up a FASCINATING point. Hitler.
*Once we demanded unconditional surrender, he knew he was dead if he lost the war. No exile, no prison, execution. So why didn't he use it?
Some say it was because of his own suffering from gas attack in WW1.
But again, if *, what does he have to lose?

Although there isn't as much direct evidence linking Hitler to the application of his Final Solution and extermination camps,
if he was willing to use such there, why not on the front lines?
Agreed that at first they were only at the point of literally connecting a rubber tube from a car muffler to a sealed off shower or something, but obviously even for civilian industrial and agricultural work, the Germans had the same potential as anyone else and obviously some work was done.

The Chinese(mainland) TV and in their schools take actual glee in pointing out that while the monster Hitler didn't use such weapons, the DEMOCRACY Britain worked on the atom bomb and the DEMOCRACY America finished it and actually used it on a greater scale than even the hated Japanese are accused of. Actions are louder than words they teach to make us look bad for doing something even Hitler and Tojo wouldn't.
Propaganda of course.

But why didn't Hitler use it?
Agreed the prevailing winds in the West were against him, but in the East where he'd have far fewer qualms of using them, why not?
He must have known he had the potential to develop.
Some have proven he had is own program and stockpiles?

I believe Speer claims to have considered pumping gas down Hitler's bunker?

One of the video series I use as source here claimed that upon realizing the effect of the V1 mentioned that Churchill then ordered Lancasters to be loaded with the bio-chem payloads and dropped on German cities. Fortunately his staff had more control over him and they prevented it.

I also mentioned when first coming here a TV documentary series I believe called "Hitler's Britain?" based upon the released British files on preparations to defend against German invasion. It also included orders to use the 'war crime' bio-chem stockpiles on the invasion beaches.

Strange but True?
But when working in China, I have no answers for these comments.
No idea why Hitler, who had nothing to lose, did not just use such at least on the Russian front where prevailing winds would help.
Strange.

Btw, the British in charge did know it was by their own commitment to the Geneva Conventions, THE war crime.
The Americans had no significant program and relied on the British.

 

I have heard about a gas called VX that was developed by the soviets. Do any of you guys have any information?

 

ahh yes just one mili drop of that can be deadly and one whole ton could wipe out the world

 

Remember that program with the skeleton dying?

 

o yeh that was funny