Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

ing participants in concentration and extermination
camps in Germany, and in the light of other undeniable
findings from the people investigating the events
in those places, we have to leave the question open.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
More than half a century on, there is no lessening of
the revulsion felt against the obscenities committed in
the Nazi death camps or against the men and women
who actually committed the acts, and that is as it
should be. But besides the ethical and moral aspects,
there is also the purely practical to be considered, for
the destruction of six million or more people could
only proceed on an industrial scale. The mass murders
had to carried out under factory conditions. Very soon
it became obvious that the only acceptable method
would be by mass poisoning, the toxin to be delivered
in the form of a gas. In the event, this murder of millions
of helpless people was to be the only widespread
use of chemical warfare during World War II. This is
apart from Italian forces using phosgene in Abyssinia
in 1938, the Japanese use of it in China from the mid-
1930s to the end of 1941 in some 840 separate incidents,
and reports that something described as 'toxic
smoke' was used during the siege of Sebastopol.
German troops initiated the use of gas as a weapon
of war in February 1915, when they fired shells filled
with xylyl bromide (a lachrymogen, or tear gas)
against Russian forces. The operation failed, for the
gas was frozen solid in the shells, and dispersed only
very slowly. Two months later, they used chlorine gas
against British and Empire troops at Ypres with
greater success, and from then on it became a recognised
part of both sides' armouries. But it was not that
effective; gas was responsible for only just over one
per cent of battlefield deaths during the entire war. It
was slightly more effective as a wounding agent -
5.69 per cent of all injuries were caused by gas - and
from a military point of view, wounding is actually
more desirable, since caring for wounded both on and
off the battlefield eats into precious resources.
By 1919, there was a limited repertoire of gases
available; chlorine, mustard gas, phosgene and a few
others. By the time two decades had passed, there was
a whole menu of more effective agents available,
including some very exotic compounds which had
been produced during research into insecticides and
herbicides. These compounds were organo-phosphates,
and were to become the basis for what we now
call nerve gases. The original nerve gas, known as
Tabun, was first synthesised in 1936 into a substance
NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Above: The sinister facade of a German mustard gas
storage building, in which the agent was kept in huge
concrete vats.
called ethyl-dimethyl-amido-phosphor-cyanidate. By
1942, a factory to produce it to the tune of 1016
tonnes f 1000 tons) per month had been established at
Dyhernfurth in Silesia (now Brzeg Dolny in Poland).
In 1938, a second and even more effective organophosphate,
isopropyl methyl-phosphoro-fluoridate,
was synthesised. Known as Sarin, it proved to be very
much harder to manufacture on an industrial scale
than Tabun, and even by 1945, only a small pilot plant
had been set up. By that time, a still more dangerous
derivative, pinacolyl methyl-phosphoro-fluoridate
had been produced, under the name Soman, though
little progress had been made with this by 1945.
It appears that until the factory producing Tabun
was overrun by the Red Army in early 1945, the
Allies knew nothing of these 'weapons', making their
existence one of the best-kept German secrets of
World War II. The first the British and Americans
knew came from examining shells and bombs recovered
from ammunition dumps (about half a million
shells and 100,000 bombs, in all), and as the reality of
the situation sank in, the researchers were horrified to
discover that they were confronted by a lethal agent,
and that there was no known cure or antidote from
exposure to it. That last factor, it is argued by many,
was the real reason that Germany did not employ
nerve gas, even in the final days. The Wehrmacht and
the SS could not be sure that the enemy did not also
possess these simple and cheap weapons of mass
destruction, and that the destruction which would
result from their use would not be mutually assured.
1 41