Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who developed the first gas mask used in World War I?
The German army used poison gas for the first time against Allied troops at the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium on 22 April 1915.[17] As an immediate response was cotton wool wrapped in muslin issued to the troops by 1 May. This was followed by the Black Veil Respirator, invented by John Scott Haldane, which was a cotton pad soaked in an absorbent solution which was secured over the mouth using black cotton veiling.[18] Seeking to improve on the Black Veil respirator, Cluny MacPherson created a mask made of chemical absorbing fabric and which fitted over the entire head.[19] A 50.5cm ×48cm (19.9in ×18.9in) canvas hood treated with chlorine-absorbing chemicals, and fitted with a transparent mica eyepiece.[20] Macpherson presented his idea to the British War Office Anti-Gas Department on 10 May 1915, with prototypes being developed soon after.[21] The design was adopted by the British Army and introduced as the British Smoke Hood in June 1915; Macpherson was appointed to the War Office Committee for Protection against Poisonous Gases.[22] More elaborate sorbent compounds were added later to further iterations of his helmet (PH helmet), to defeat other respiratory poison gases used such as phosgene, diphosgene and chloropicrin. In summer and autumn 1915, Edward Harrison, Bertram Lambert and John Sadd developed the Large Box Respirator.[23] This canister gas mask had a tin can containing the absorbent materials by a hose and began to be issued in February 1916. A compact version, the Small Box Respirator, was made a universal issue from August 1916.
The first use of poison gas on the Western Front was on 22 April 1915, by the Germans at Ypres, against Canadian and French colonial troops. The initial response was to equip troops with cotton mouth pads for protection. Soon afterwards the British introduced the Black Veil Respirator, which consisted of a long cloth which was used to tie chemical-soaked mouth pads into place. Dr. Cluny MacPherson of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment brought the idea of a mask made of chemical absorbing fabric and which fitted over the entire head to England, and this was developed into the British Hypo Helmet of June 1915. This mask offered protection to the eyes as well as to the respiratory system. One British officer described it as "a smoke helmet, a greasy grey-felt bag with a talc window certainly ineffective against gas". This helmet had two celluloid eyepieces, but there was no way to expel the carbon dioxide build up inside the mask . This type of mask went through several stages of development before being superseded in 1916 by the canister gas mask the PH helmet. This had a mask connected to a tin can containing the absorbent materials by a hose and an outlet valve to reduce the carbon dioxide build up inside the mask.
In both Axis and Allied nations, children in school were taught to wear gas masks in case of gas attack. Germany developed the poison gases tabun, sarin, and soman during the war, and used Zyklon B in their extermination camps. Neither Germany nor the Allied nations used any of their war gases in combat, despite maintaining large stockpiles and occasional calls for their use. Poison gas played an important role in the Holocaust.
Because the Germans were using lethal gas as a weapon during World War I, gas mask research for protection of the soldiers and public had a high priority. With his chemical background, Pipkin was posted to the Army's Gas Defense Department at General Electric's Nela Park in Cleveland. The principles embodied in Pipkin's gas mask innovations remained in use throughout the twentieth century. He was promoted to the "senior grade rank of Master Engineer".
The effectiveness of various types of respirators was measured in laboratories and in the workplace. These measurements showed that in practice, the effectiveness of negative pressure tight fitting respiratory protective devices (RPD) depends on leakage between mask and face, rather than the filters/canisters. This decrease in efficiency due to leakage manifested on a large scale during World War I, when gas masks were used to protect against chemical weapons. Poor fit or poorly situated masks could be fatal. The Russian army began to use short-term exposure to chlorine at low concentrations to solve this problem in 1917. Such testing helped convince the soldiers that their gas masks were reliable - because respirators were a novelty. Later, industrial workers were trained in gas chambers in the USSR (in preparation for the Second World War), and late'. German firefighters used a similar test between the First and Second World Wars. Diluted chloropicrin was used to test industrial gas masks. The Soviet Army used chloropicrin in tents with a floor space of 16 square meters.
Diphosgene was originally developed as a pulmonary agent for chemical warfare, a few months after the first use of phosgene. It was used as a poison gas in artillery shells by Germany during World War I. The first recorded battlefield use was in May 1916. Diphosgene was developed because the vapors could destroy the filters in gas masks in use at the time.
For the next ten years this committee looked into issues of new aerial weapons development and the possible impact on civilians. The use of gas attacks in the First World War played heavy on the decisions and protection via gas masks was a core decision taken by the committee. Every single person would need a gas mask which meant nearly 40 million would be required. Together with ideas around the building of air raid shelters, evacuations of people and blackout requirements these were all termed passive air defence.
The first use of gas by the British was at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915, but the attempt was a disaster. Chlorine, codenamed "Red Star", was the agent to be used (140 tons arrayed in 5,100 cylinders), and the attack was dependent on a favourable wind. On this occasion the wind proved fickle, and the gas either lingered in no man's land or, in places, blew back on the British trenches. This was compounded when the gas could not be released from all the British canisters because the wrong turning keys were sent with them. Subsequent retaliatory German shelling hit some of those unused full cylinders, releasing gas among the British troops. Exacerbating the situation were the primitive flannel gas masks distributed to the British. The masks got hot, and the small eye-pieces misted over, reducing visibility. Some of the troops lifted the masks to get fresh air, causing them to be gassed.
Haber greeted World War I with enthusiasm, joining 92 other German intellectuals in signing the "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three" in October 1914. Haber played a major role in the development of the non-ballistic use of chemical warfare in World War I, in spite of the proscription of their use in shells by the Hague Convention of 1907 (to which Germany was a signatory). He was promoted to the rank of captain and made head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War soon after the war began. In addition to leading the teams developing chlorine gas and other deadly gases for use in trench warfare, Haber was on hand personally when it was first released by the German military at the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April to 25 May 1915) in Belgium. Haber also helped to develop gas masks with adsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.
During World War I the Germans experimented with numerous poisonous gases for use during war. After the first German chlorine gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads that had been soaked in urine. It was believed that the ammonia in the pad neutralized the chlorine. These pads were held over the face until the soldiers could escape from the poisonous fumes, although it is now known that chlorine gas reacts with urine to produce toxic fumes ("see chlorine and use of poison gas in World War I"). The Vickers machine gun, used by the British Army during World War I, required water for cooling when fired so soldiers would resort to urine if water was unavailable.
The M2 gas mask was a French-made gas mask used by French, British and American forces from April 1916 to August 1918 during World War I. The M2 was fabricated in large quantities, with about 29,300,000 being made during the war. It was intended to protect the wearer from at least five hours' exposure to phosgene gas, a common chemical weapon of the time.
The earliest predecessors to the United States Army Chemical Corps owe their existence to changes of military technology early in World War I. By 1915, the combatants were using poison gases and chemical irritants on the battlefield. In that year, the United States War Department first became interested in providing individual soldiers with personal protection against chemical warfare and they tasked the Medical Department with developing the technology. Nevertheless, troops were neither supplied with masks nor trained for offensive gas warfare until the U.S. became involved in World War I in 1917. By 1917, the use of chemical weapons by both the Allied and Central Powers had become commonplace along the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts, occurring daily in some regions.
The modern gas mask was developed in 1943 by the British [29]. It was made of plastic and rubber-like material that greatly reduced the weight and bulk, compared to World War I gas masks and fitted the user's face more snugly and comfortably. The main improvement was replacing the separate filter canister connected with a hose by a filter canister screwed on the side of the gas mask, that could be replaced easily. Also, it had replaceable plastic lenses, much helping vision.[30]
None of the First World War's combatants were prepared for the introduction of poison gas as a weapon. Once gas was introduced, development of gas protection began and the process continued for much of the war producing a series of increasingly effective gas masks.
Chlorine gas, also known as bertholite, was first used as a weapon in World War I by Germany on April 22, 1915 in the Second Battle of Ypres. As described by the soldiers, it had the distinctive smell of a mixture of pepper and pineapple. It also tasted metallic and stung the back of the throat and chest. Chlorine reacts with water in the mucosa of the lungs to form hydrochloric acid, destructive to living tissue and potentially lethal. Human respiratory systems can be protected from chlorine gas by gas masks with activated charcoal or other filters, which makes chlorine gas much less lethal than other chemical weapons. It was pioneered by a German scientist later to be a Nobel laureate, Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, in collaboration with the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben, which developed methods for discharging chlorine gas against an entrenched enemy. After its first use, both sides in the conflict used chlorine as a chemical weapon, but it was soon replaced by the more deadly phosgene and mustard gas.
Silicone and rubber oxygen masks are heavier than plastic masks. They are designed to provide a good seal for long-duration use by aviators, medical research subjects, and hyperbaric chamber and other patients who require administration of pure oxygen, such as carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression sickness victims. Dr. Arthur H. Bulbulian pioneered the first modern viable oxygen mask, worn by World War II pilots and used by hospitals. Valves inside these tight-fitting masks control the flow of gases into and out of the masks, so that rebreathing of exhaled gas is minimised.
A primitive respirator was designed by A. von Humboldt in 1799 for underground mining Various gas masks employed on the Western Front and Eastern Front during World War I Finnish civilian gas mask from 1939. These masks were distributed during World War II
Also in World War I, since dogs were frequently used on the front lines, a special type of gas mask was developed that dogs were trained to wear.[26] Other gas masks were developed during World War I and the time following for horses in the various mounted units that operated near the front lines.[27] In America thousands of gas masks were produced for American as well as Allied troops. Mine Safety Appliances was a chief producer. This mask was later used widely in industry.[28]
The use of heavily hazardous chemicals was first initiated during World War II. The long-term effects of chemicals result from both their potential persistence and the poor disposal program of nations with stockpiled weapons. During World War I (WW I), German chemists had developed chlorine gas and mustard gas. The development of the gases led to many casualties, and poisoned lands on and near the battlefields.
Poison gas had been used by both sides on the Western Front during World War I, and so there was a "Gasalarmschlager" ("gas alarm striker") [584] and several "Infanterie" figures wearing gas masks.
The widespread use of chemical warfare was a distinguishing feature of the conflict. Gases used included chlorine, mustard gas and phosgene. Relatively few war casualties were caused by gas, as effective countermeasures to gas attacks were quickly created, such as gas masks. The use of chemical warfare and small-scale strategic bombing (as opposed to tactical bombing) were both outlawed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and both proved to be of limited effectiveness, though they captured the public imagination.
Most civilians learned how to use gas masks through the civil defense department, but children received most gas mask education in school drills. Schools would implement gas mask education and training after the outbreak of a war. Schools would harshly enforce the compulsory carrying of gas masks at all times. Gas mask and air raid drills were closely related and children would be made to wear gas masks in everyday activities, including gymnastics. The wearing of gas masks in the classrooms were especially difficult for teachers as they had trouble distinguishing one child from another. The gas masks became as uniform as the students' uniforms. Other civilians learned the use of a gas mask through posters, pamphlets, and radio lectures, but children learned through cartoons and rhymes such as "coughs and sneezes spread diseases".[32]
Horses and mules were important methods of transport that could be endangered if they came into close contact with gas. This was not so much of a problem until it became common to launch gas great distances. This caused researchers to develop masks that could be used on animals such as dogs, horses, mules, and even carrier pigeons.
At the beginning of the war, Germany had the most advanced chemical industry in the world, accounting for more than 80% of the world's dye and chemical production. Although the use of poison gas had been banned by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, Germany turned to this industry for what it hoped would be a decisive weapon to break the deadlock of trench warfare. Chlorine gas was first used on the battlefield in April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. The unknown gas appeared to be a simple smoke screen, used to hide attacking soldiers, and Allied troops were ordered to the front trenches to repel the expected attack. The gas had a devastating effect, killing many defenders or when the wind direction changed and blew the gas back, many attackers. Because the gas killed the attackers, depending on the wind, a more reliable way had to be made to transmit the gas. It began being delivered in artillery shells. Later, mustard gas, phosgene and other gases were used. Britain and France soon followed suit with their own gas weapons. The first defenses against gas were makeshift, mainly rags soaked in water or urine. Later, relatively effective gas masks were developed, and these greatly reduced the effectiveness of gas as a weapon. Although it sometimes resulted in brief tactical advantages and probably caused over 1,000,000 casualties, gas seemed to have had no significant effect on the course of the war.
A modified version of the P Helmet, called the PH Helmet, was issued in January 1916, and was impregnated with hexamethylenetetramine to improve the protection against phosgene.
Self-contained box respirators represented the culmination of gas mask development during the First World War. Box respirators used a two-piece design; a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter. The box filter contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas, delivering clean air to the wearer. Separating the filter from the mask enabled a bulky but efficient filter to be supplied. Nevertheless, the first version, known as the Large Box Respirator (LBR) or "Harrison's Tower", was deemed too bulky — the box canister needed to be carried on the back. The LBR had no mask, just a mouthpiece and nose clip; separate gas goggles had to be worn. It continued to be issued to the artillery gun crews but the infantry were supplied with the "Small Box Respirator" (SBR).