SABOTAGE BY WAR GASES SAID TO BE A POSSIBILITY
Use of Gases in Places of Public Assembly, Subways and Industrial Plants Considered a Threat
Now that the United States is in the war, it may be anticipated that acts of sabotage will materially increase. Heretofore the word sabotage carried with it the main implication of the starting of fires to delay, if not entirely stop, production of war materials. Little or nothing has been thought of the use of war gases, i.e., mustard gas and similar chemical preparations, in this activity of the saboteur.
With considerable thought and planning given to solve the problems of prevention and extinguishment of fires of incendiary nature, we are fairly well equipped and drilled to take care of such fires in industry. It must be realized that the more intensified our production of war material, the greater will be the efforts of the Axis powers to devise new and more complicated means to stop production. With plant fire brigades, plant employees drilled and familiar with the tactics and strategy of fighting fires, the installation of sprinkler and standpipe systems, the general use of first aid appliances, adequate fire alarm systems and water supply, fires in production occupancies will, if quickly discovered by mechanical devices or watchmen, create little or no headaches to fire departments and plant brigades to control or extinguish.
But the use of gas is a different matter. Visualize the dispersal over a large floor area in a plant of just a pint of mustard gas. The fire department can do little other than to institute decontamination operations. This takes time, and the plant is absolutely untenable until such decontamination is completed.
Let your imagination conceive the conditions that would ensue at the breaking of a vial of mustard gas in a crowded subway train at peak traffic hours. Imagine if you can, a group of saboteurs getting to the upper levels of structures at Broadway’ and FortySecond Street in New York, or similar traffic centers throughout the country, and releasing from windows containers of mustard gas at peak traffic hours. The panic, confusion, casualties would be far beyond the imagination.
What has been done about this? Has it been anticipated? What precautionary measures have been taken? None that I know of. It has been advanced that mustard gas is hard to secure, but this is not the case. Germans are especially noted for their chemical abilities. The formula for mustard manufacture is no secret. All nations have plentiful supplies. It must be borne in mind that sabotage today is not conducted on the impulse of the moment. It is an organized procedure directed by specialists along that line. That was proven in the First World War. And the saboteurs have improved their methods.
It is relatively easy to offset the use of gas as a means of sabotage. Plants should investigate employees previous to their employment. Drills should be held and decontamination agents and equipment should be available so that if and when a gas sabotage condition is encountered, operations of decontamination can be instituted at once by trained crews. The cost of decontamination material and equipment is relatively small, but instruction in the use of such material is the means of effectively combatting a gas condition. Instructors well versed in the properties of war gases and the effective means of decontamination, could instruct plant employees or others workers in the proper procedure to follow.
This is not a half-hour job, nor is it one that should be forgotten after the employee finishes his training. There should be periodic drills in this important work of neutralizing war gases. The decontamination agent should be periodically tested to see that it has lost none of its properties. And more than that, the storage place should be carefully guarded so that the saboteur cannot anticipate its use and therefore destroy either the decontamination agent or the clothing and equipment necessary to apply the chloride of lime that is advocated by the Chemical Warfare School of the United States Army.
The writer knows that the use of gas masks by workmen in factories has not been considered to any great extent. This also is another point to think about.
It is difficult to awaken plant officials to this menace. They seem to feel that such considerations give way to unnecessary alarmist thoughts and activities. I do not wish to be considered an alarmist. I would like to be known as an alarm clock, a human alarm clock which rings out the potentialities of sabotage and its methods.
We may anticipate new methods of sabotage to offset our preparations against the usual measures employed by the saboteur. This is a game, a deadly game, between institution of the acts of sabotage and the solution of the problems such acts create. Once we nullify one method, the saboteur will devise another and more complicated one.
It might be advanced that such statements as the writer has released are giving hints and suggestions to the enemy. This it not the case, however. The saboteur has brains as well as we. He has ideas and has made a detailed study of sabotage procedure. In fact, be has given more study and preparation to such methods than we have had occasion to consider.
I have only touched upon the use of gas in production and traffice centers. But what about the use of the “calling card” in our heavily forested areas? What about its use as a means of starting fires in our grain fields, especially during a prolonged drought?
Much of the foregoing applies to those concerns and areas along the seacoast, where sporadic air raiders with incendiary and possibly gas bombs might operate. Some will say that gas has not as yet been used in the war. That is true but it must be borne in mind that when the enemy comes to a realization that his offensive efforts regardless of the strategy and tactics employed are futile, he will unquestionably resort to every means, military and other, at his command. This statement can be proven by some of the methods employed to date, such as incendiary bombs with explosive reactions, oil filled bombs, high explosive bombs to deter or prevent firemen from operating. Desperation and vision of defeat will be the factors to start the use of gas and possibly other and more devilish warfare methods. Little or nothing has been brought out as to the manifold uses of the incendiary pencil that proved efficient in the last war.
Regardless of what intricate plans for production are devised, regardless of what our hopes are for increased production in the coming year, one disastrous fire leaves them all undone until such time as rebuilding or reproduction of vital machinery and tools can be completed. The use of gas as a means of sabotage would mean a serious delay in production, if not stop it entirely, for a considerable period.
Were the enemy saboteurs to resort to the use of gas for stopping production or for the creation of panic and casualties, we must be prepared to meet the problem. It can be met and can be conquered but not by talking about it. There is altogether too much lip service regarding protection against and prevention of fire. There are too many idealists, and those not experienced in handling this problem, sitting in the seats of the mighty. Economists, production management individuals or groups cannot solve it, or if they can, to date they have not made much headway. Fire chiefs and fire engineers combined with instruction such as given at the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood, Maryland, can solve the problem. They are doing their best along that line, but we must have more of that type of instruction. We must have more of such schools. We must have more discussions and meeting of fire chiefs, fire engineers, and chemists. We must have more comprehensive plans that will be applicable with few changes to any situation or locality. Those who are interested and seeking such information, are confused and bewildered by the tremendous amount of literary releases, one overlapping the other and often contradictory. Some of these releases have a wealth of good suggestions; others are too fantastic and impossible. There must be a happy medium. This medium can be brought about and carried out if those individuals and groups designated or competent to handle the situation will meet periodically to determine the necessities of the situation.
