![]() 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. I'm interested in the contribution made by Wrexham women too.A production version gas mask designed by Walt Disney to look like Mickey Mouse. Here is some of the women's roles during World War I I entered this bunker three years ago to take photographs and thought it was wonderful that so many original things… Have really enjoyed reading about Llangollen.Born in Llangollen and remember both the Dorothy Cafe and the Cinema.they closed the cinema… Glad you enjoy, as we cover the whole county we still have much to add, this includes Chirk, Whitehurst &… Joseph Wilding was my fathers great uncle so would appreciate my tel no 00000000 being passed to Geoff Wilding. If this elaborate building was never completed it must have cost them thousands of pounds. ![]() To tell people that it was all clear they would ring a bell.Ī gas mask poster at Hightown, Wrexham. To warn people that there was a gas about, the air raid wardens would sound the gas rattle. The smell of the rubber and disinfectant made some people feel sick. When you breathed out the whole mask was pushed away from your face to let the air out. When you breathed in the air was sucked through the filter to take out the gas. It was difficult to breathe when wearing a gas mask. ![]() The masks were made of black rubber, which was very hot and smelly. People were fined if they were caught without their gas masks. ![]() Posters reminded people to carry their gas mask at all times and instructed people how to put their gas masks on. There was a fear that it would be used against ordinary people at home in Britain (civilians). It was so powerful that only small amounts needed to be added to weapons like high explosive shells to have devastating effects. It was almost odourless (could not be smelt easily) and took 12 hours to take effect. ![]() Mustard gas was the most deadly of all the poisonous chemicals used during World War I. Gas had been used a great deal in the First World War and many soldiers had died or been injured in gas attacks. Everyone in Britain was given a gas mask in a cardboard box, to protect them from gas bombs, which could be dropped during air raids. ![]()
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