Gas Defense Organizations1 The Chemist's Opportunity for Community Leadership WILLIAM CABLER MOORE U . S . Industrial Chemicals, Inc., Stamford, Connecticut
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the air raid wardens, the town and city engineering departments and the health department. Through the latter, cooperation with the emergency and other medical services is assured. The business manager of our committee occupies a key position in the organization. Through him the original contacts were made with the industrial air raid wardens, police, and fire departments. It is also the business manager's job to arrange for cooperation of our group with the various local utilities, and to arrange speaking schedules for instructions to air raid wardens. From a functional standpoint, the technical staff is divided into three groups: instructional, identification, and decontamination. The first job tackled by the instructional group under the leadership of Dr. H. L. Fisher, was to give authoritative information on war gases to a selected list of air raid wardens. About 200 were in this first group, and since the original course of 10 hours' instruction was completed, a condensed version of the talks has been worked up so that the bare essentials of the course can now be given in a little over two hours. We therefore are able to adjust the length of this course to fit the mentality and needs of our students. As of January, 1943, the complete course, or variations thereof have been given to air raid wardens, industrial air raid wardens, Civil Air Patrol, Civilian Motor Corps, rescue squads, Red Cross disaster units, Red Cross canteen units, and neighborhood groups in Stamford; also to industrial and regular air raid wardens, Red Cross workers, nurses, and physicians in Danbury. Talks on our work have also been given to the Stamford Medical Society, nurses, and internes in Bellevue Hospital, New York; the gas defense groups of Queensboro, New York City; office workers of the American Cyanamid Co., New York; United States Army Tactical School of the Second Corps Area, a t Hackettstown, N. J. In our educational and training work we use "sniff sets" contain in^ active carbon im~rematedwith the more important war gases. Our very small amount of Lewisite was made for us by Dr. E. C. Sterling of the Edcan Laboratories, Norwalk. We were similarly presented with a 10-g. sample of old mustard gas by a chemist who wanted to get rid of i t and did not know how to dispose of it safely. We also make use of a Paper presented in the "Symposium on Civilian Preparedness chart, modified from that issued by the OCD. for Chemical Warfare" at the 105th meeting of the American We have found that moving pictures enable us to Chemical Society in Detroit, Michigan, April 12-16. 1943. 271
OR YEARS, the legal profession in every community has been outstanding in assuming leadership in causes of vital import to the public welfare, and chemists in general have been participants therein solely through their ability or willingness, along with other ordinary citizens, to help foot the inevitable bills. In fact i t has been only in comparatively recent years, that the so-called "man in the street" has been aware that a definite group of professional men trained in chemical matters exists in this country. .4s we all know, the American chemical industry has grown by leaps and bounds during the past 30 years, and today everyone recognizes the part taken by chemists and chemical engineers in this development. But in general, we as individuals have not taken the part in leading and guiding civic projects which we are competent by training to do. I t is true that early in the critical years before our forced entry into the present world war, some of the most competent chemically trained men in the country were called to Washington for their counsel and advice, but by and large it has been only within recent months that chemists have been called on for any professional civic service whatever in their own communities. Stamford has been one of the foremost cities in the country in calling for, and taking the professional advice of chemists in this war emergency. One experience in this city may be of interest and of assistance to other communities. As early as May, 1941, the Western Connecticut Section of the American Chemical Society offered its collective services to the civil authorities, as consultants on the chemical aspects of defense. A series of circumstances, however, resulted in a delay of nearly a year before definite action was taken. Eventually it happened that I was asked to draw up a plan of organization for the defense of Stamford against gas attacks. When this request was complied with, the plan was presented to the Stamford Council of Civilian Defense, where it was adopted in a resolution passed April 10, 1942, by which a committes to handle this matter was authorized and known as the Chemical Advisory Committee, with full power to appoint a technical staff to carry out its work. This committee acts as a clearinghouse for activitie which uecessitate joint action by the gas defense group,
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272 tell a large part of our story in a very short time. These "movies" were made under the direction of Mr. T. F. Bradley and show chemical tests for various war gases, and decontamination squads actively a t work. Since these pictures were made in Stamford they have a very direct appeal to our audiences. Instructional work in detection of war gases by odor bas been started with the identification group. Our experience is that many people have noses so exceedingly sensitive that most of the war gases can be identified by olfactory methods; but there is always the danger that changing sensitivity, variations in sensitivity between different observers, colds, etc., may vitiate odor tests. For these reasons, the research work on objective chemical tests for war gases being done by Mr. Bradley's group is of extreme importance to us. Members of the identification group on receipt of an alert proceed to previously assigned stations. When we are fully equipped, the identification officer will go to any locality where a gas attack has been reported; and if his observation confirms the report, he will take charge of the situation until the decontamination squad has completed its work. Our Decontamination Division carries on its work through several very active committees. The Industrial Committee began its work almost as soon as our technical staff was organized. Through the cooperation of Mr. R. W. Marschall, Chief Industrial Air Raid Warden of Stamford, an inventory was made of all the supplies in various industrial plants which could be pooled for use in handling the effects of a gas attack. This survey disclosed a considerable number of all-purpose gas masks, some oil-proof clothing, and even a little chloride of lime. This committee is now a t work listing chlorine supplies so that in case of a gas attack and with no chloride of lime available we could make our own from chlorine and lime. The Emergency Aid Committee, under the leadership of Dr. J. T. Cassaday, developed plans for handling gas casualties. As a result of the labors of several of our technical staff, a mobie cleansing unit was constructed which can be rushed to the scene of a gas incident, where first aid will he available. This unit has been described in detail elsewhere.% While the City furnished the funds for its construction the labor was entirely voluntary. This committee has secured the cordial and close cooperation of the Red Cross and the medical profession in its work, and has made arrangements for the use of a small room in the Yale and T o m e plant hospital for emergency operations on gas casualties before they are taken to a regular hospital. Plans are also under way to establish emergency centers in filling stations for serious gas casualties, and some arrangements are already in effect for this purpose. A beginning has been made in training a decontamination squad. It will he the duty of this group BRADLEY, CASSADAY, MOORE,AND MOORE, "Protection of civilians from vesicant agents." Chem Enp. News. 21, 373(1943).
to handle the actual decontamination of areas which have been harrassed by gas, and we are now planning an intensive campaign for the training of industrial gas wardens and decontamination squads. Furthermore, since we have not been able to secure chloride of lime for decontamination work, we are planning experiments to learn how slaked lime slurry can best be chlorinated in case we have a gas attack and have no supplies for decontamination a t hand. We can probably commandeer enough chlorine in an emergency to get this job started. The crying need of our group has always been equipment. We have an organization which we know will function, hut it is impossible to do much without a minimum number of gas masks and suits of gas-proof clothing. Fortunately, the gas masks needed have been provided in ample supply by the federal government and we hope soon to get oil-proof clothing. I n Stamford about 48,000 persons live in the city within an area of about eight square miles, and about 17,000 live in the surrounding countryside (about 30 square miles). Our study indicates that our community needs a gas identification group of about 20 persons, instead of three, as recommended by the OCD. Six of these assignments are taken care of by chemically trained members of the auxiliary police, leaving 14 to he filled by our group. There are five fire houses and the report center, to each of which two reconnaissance officers should he assigned, leaving only two out of the 14 as substitutes. Each of these "gas hounds" will require a t least one gas mask and a complete suit of protective clothing. In addition, the staff officers, the crew of the mobie unit and one decontamination squad will require 15 such outfits. Allowing for spare suits for the decontamination squad, we have calculated that our Gas DefeuseGroup as now constituted requires as a minimum a full complement of 40 outfits for its protection. We also hope to equip our force with apparatus for making chemical tests for war gases, when and if apparatus and supplies are approved by federal authorities. Until we get such equipment, field training for our own organization will be almost impossible. As chemists, with a fair to excellent knowledge of the properties of those substances now used or likely to be used as warfare agents, we have never advocated the indiscriminate issuing of gas masks to all atizens. In an air raid in which gas is used the ordinary person will be safer in the house in an upper story with windows closed, than he would he on the street with a mask. If gas raids occur there will undoubtedly be some casualties, but we hope with our trained personnel to he able to take care of these. While our discussions of the matter are necessarily academic, and we hope will always he so, we have come to these conclusions regarding our own community: 1. Although Stamford has some important industries, its proximity to New York City on the west and other highly industrialized areas on the east, makes it improbable that it would of itself be a prime target.
2. The very proximity to the areas mentioned, however, makes i t quite likely that a bombing either of the New York or Bridgeport areas would result in "splashes" from that attack spilling over into our territory. 3. Any bombing that we would get, will most likely be sporadic. 4. Our organization hence would not have to fnnction under the extremely dangerous conditions likely to occur in England or even in New York. 5. The main functions of our chemical defense organization are: (a) to carry on its activities in such a way that the public, through knowledge of the matter, will not he panicky if gas attacks occur; (b) to let the puhlic know that a competent group stands ready a t all times. It is obvious that the progress already made in Stamford, toward the development of a highly trained gas defense group has required a great deal of hard work on the part of all concerned, and we who have been most active in this work have been delighted a t the cooperation we have had from corporations, local civil authorities, other civilian defense groups, and individuals. In carrying on the work of our committee, we have to make contacts with other civilian defense
units and with many individuals. This working together with other puhlic spirited citizens has opened the eyes of many of our chemists to the ways in which they can fit into movements for the public good. In this matter of gas defense, we chemists have taken the lead and i t seems to me that there is opened up for us a great range of possible public service to our communities after this war is over. From a purely technical standpoint, there is an opportunity to advise and aid civic authorities on such subjects as smoke abatement, protection of puhlic property against corrosion, safeguards over industries which present particular hazards, better sanitation, protection of water supplies, proper inspection of food, and technical advice to the health department. To a greater extent than in these specific ways, however, the chemist can he of service to his fellow citizens, by applying critical methods of thinking to puhlic problems in general. A chemist cannot be a "yes-man" and be true to his profession. This inevitably will lead to a clash of minds, hut the contacts the chemist makes with the politically inclined will a t least teach him something, and we believe that they will also teach the civil authorities something, and that the result will be for the good of the community as a whole.
