People’s War – Part Three
People’s War – Part Three
Ed: To those of us who missed this era, these previous stories may seem quite quaint. Tales of Home Guard, Fire Watching, Land Girls and Bevin’s Boys may amuse us like episodes of “Dad’s Army” or “Allo, Allo”. But it was REAL – it brought the British people together with a spirit we could do with today. Financial woes of the “Credit Crunch” are real and trying to us today. But we now have a freedom that I for one fully appreciate and value. The “Longest Day” and “The Few” were fought out for us by servicemen – real people with families at home “doing their bit” too. And here is the other side of the coin for the person in the street – a real and present threat to ordinarty people, as much as “Doodle Bugs” and bombing raids of massed enemy aircraft.
This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Plymouth Library Services on behalf of Maurice EJ Dart. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the website.
Beware Gas
If you get a choking feeling and a smell of musty hay, You can bet your bottom dollar that there’s Phosgene on the way.
But the smell of Bleaching Powder will inevitably mean That the enemy you’re meeting is the gas that’s named Chlorine.
If your eyes begin a twitching, and for tears you cannot see, T’isn’t mother peeling onions but a dose of CAP.
If the smell resembles Pear Drops, then you better not delay, It’s not the youngster sucking toffee, but that tear gas KSK.
Should you sniff a pungent odour as you’re going home to tea, You can safely put your shirt on it, they are using BBC.
If you see an oily liquid on the roads be on your guard, It isn’t where a bus was parked, but the wicked gas Mustard.
Peaceful Geraniums look pleasant in a bed. Dodge their scent in wartime. It’s Lewisite, you’re dead.
As an industrial chemist I now know these gases as: Phosgene is carbonyl chloride; Chlorine is chlorine; CAP is chlor-aceto-phenone; KSK is ethyl iodo-acetate; BBC is bromo-benzyl cyanide; Mustard Gas is dichloro-diethyl sulphide; and Lewisite is chlorovinyl dichlorarsine.
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