‘The issue of them is simply a symbol of national solidarity, the first step towards wearing a uniform,’ he wrote in his diary in June 1940. Vans fitted with loudspeakers toured town and city centres but, as the Crawley Observer noted on May 18, ‘despite the appeal very few local people were seen carrying them after.’Īmong those in London who refused to carry a mask was George Orwell. Each week in the city the police retrieved hundreds that had been discarded in buses, pubs and cinemas.Īfter the German invasion of the Low Countries on May 10, 1940, the government (now led by Winston Churchill) launched a fresh campaign about the importance of gas masks. Noted the ‘complete indifference’ to the carrying of gas masks. ‘The gas mask has almost disappeared in civilian circles,’ said the paper. The Luftwaffe were nowhere to be seen so what was the point? People flocked to the seaside at Easter, with the Liverpool Echo reporting that it had never seen Blackpool so busy. Fashion labels brought out their own cases, including a popular suede triangular container with two short handles that resembled a second handbag.īut as the 'Phoney War' stretched into 1940, a growing number of Britons dumped their masks.
#World war 2 gas mask windows
Mannequins in the windows of city department stores were fitted with gas masks, and the Queen appeared in public sporting a grey velvet corduroy gas mask case on her shoulder. Instead the government enlisted the media and business to try and win round the public. for using his as a football, but while there were penalties for damaging government property, there were none for refusing to carry a mask. The government requested that people carry their mask with them at all times in its flimsy cardboard container there was no obligation but it was strongly recommended.īut the Luftwaffe didn't arrive and people soon tired of going everywhere with their mask. In 1938 the government began issuing gas marks to the entire population and most people had one when war began on 3 September 1939. Privately, the Ministry of Health predicted that 600,000 Britons would die in the first six months of the aerial war, with a further 1.2 million wounded. Books were written and official pamphlets distributed, warning the public of the likely death toll in the event of a prolonged German air offensive. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain's government, aided by a coterie of academics and intellectuals, launched its own 'Project Fear'. Britain was next in Hitler's sights and an aerial gas attack was what the government feared most. Unlike today's virus, the threat facing the country in the summer of 1940 was a destructive Nazi war machine that in a matter of months had torn through most of western Europe. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument was raging, with the country split between those who wanted the wearing of gas masks to be made compulsory on pain of financial penalty, and those who maintained it should be an individual choice. Oh, they were a nuisance, but that was the first gas mask that came in.Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. And you had two goggles here on to look out, two glasses to look out and with your breath it didn't take long before the glasses were steamed up and you couldn't see where you were going. Well then they got this, the improved type. The chemical was pretty near as bad as the gas. It was something like flannelette, wool serge would probably better describe it. You respired through this heavily, heavy material. You inhaled through your nose and respired through your mouth. The old one we had first, you pulled it over your head like a balaclava.
I remember the old one, the one that this was a respirator, you know, one that you clamped on your head with an elastic. I remember one night, some of our fellas put them on when we come to a dead horse, that was the only reason.
I don't remember ever putting my gas mask on. If you hadn't used it then you wouldn't mark anything on this. Every time you used your respirator you were supposed to mark how long you had it on, if you used it. The gas officer would always, when you had your staff parade in the morning, he would test your, he would look at your respirators and you had to have that ticket, the little ticket. MacLeod gives a good comparison between the original respirator and newer gas masks used by Canadian soldiers. However, the masks could not protect them against mustard gas used later in the war, which burned the skin, caused severe breathing problems, and could cause blindness. Allied troops were given gas masks to protect against chlorine gas attacks.
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