In 1936, a disused mill in Blackburn became a gas mask assembly-plant where, by the Munich Crisis of 1938, more than 30 million gas masks had been manufactured, requiring, amongst other components, a mind-boggling 90 million safety-pins. The result was the General Civilian Respirator, familiar to the Second World War generation and to later generations from films, photographs, and stories of the period. In 1934, the British government asked its scientists at the Porton Down laboratory to design a civilian respirator which could be mass-produced at a unit cost of two shillings (10p today). The German war artist Otto Dix captured the horrors and ironies of the gas mask, which seemed to transform men into monsters on the Western Front. By the end of that conflict, the pattern for modern gas masks had been established, with a face mask, eye-pieces, a chemical filter, and a container. The first gas masks were simple filters of damp cotton (moistened in extremis with human urine), and were soon superseded by cloth bags soaked in chemicals. The first gas masks for use in warfare were developed during the First World War, when the German military pioneered the use of chlorine as a weapon – the original WMD. First development Gas masks first became standard military equipment after the Germans pioneered chemical warfare on the Western Front of the First World War at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. There were gas masks for adults, children, babies, horses … and even dogs. This ubiquitous mass-produced object has come to symbolise life in Home Front Britain, even though it was never used in action: the much-feared poison gas bomb attacks never materialised. My particular object of interest is the ‘General Civilian Respirator’ issued to the British people in the lead up to the Second World War. As well as the infant gas mask, there was a gas-proof pram that could be used to protect babies from poisonous gas attacks.UCL’s Gabe Moshenska muses on the extraordinary iconic significance of the gas mask. Other than a few publicity photos these helmets were never needed, as there was never a gas bomb attack on Great Britain. Luckily, they were never put to the test in a real situation. During demonstrations there were reports that babies fell asleep and became unnaturally still inside the masks! It is likely that the pump didn't push enough air into the mask and the babies came close to suffocating. In fact there was some question over the safety of the baby’s gas mask. Despite instruction courses, few parents were totally happy with putting their child in an airtight chamber. Health Visitors and Child Welfare Centres gave lessons on how to use the mask. When the gas masks were made people didn’t realise that asbestos was a dangerous substance. With the baby inside the mask, an adult could start to use the hand pump. This was pushed back and forth to pump air into the mask. Attached to this was a rubber tube shaped like a concertina with a handle. There was an asbestos filter on the side of the mask, and this absorbed poisonous gases. The canvas had a rubber coating to stop gas seeping through the material, and the straps were tied securely so that the mask was airtight. Then they wrapped the canvas part around the baby's body with the straps fastened under its bottom like a nappy, and its legs dangling free below. There were also special gas masks for babies - parents placed their baby inside the mask so that the head was inside the steel helmet and the baby could see through the visor. The gas mask in the picture was designed for people who had breathing difficulties or other medical problems and was more like a helmet as it fitted over an adult's entire head. An advisor to the government - Liddell Hart - told the government to expect 250,000 deaths in the first week of the war alone. The government had planned for tens of thousands of deaths in London alone. In 1938, the British Government gave everyone, including babies, gas masks to protect them in case the Germans dropped poison gas bombs on Britain.
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