I noticed this in the SRY war diary... CHEMICAL WARFARE. (a) No man will be separated from his personal Anti-Gas Equipment. (b) All vehs will carry veh anti-gas equipment which will include 1 X 2lb tin of bleach. Local alarm (rattles) will also be carried in vehs. As a precaution against chemical warfare during D-Day etc. Re. the precautions and the risks of chemical warfare during D-Day - for instance - there are a number of quotes here: Chemical warfare - Wikipedia i.e. re. Nazi Germany: Stanley P. Lovell, Deputy Director for Research and Development of the Office of Strategic Services, reports in his book Of Spies and Stratagems that the Allies knew the Germans had quantities of Gas Blau available for use in the defense of the Atlantic Wall. The use of nerve gas on the Normandy beachhead would have seriously impeded the Allies and possibly caused the invasion to fail altogether. He submitted the question "Why was nerve gas not used in Normandy?" to be asked of Hermann Göring during his interrogation. Göring answered that the reason was that the Wehrmacht was dependent upon horse-drawn transport to move supplies to their combat units, and had never been able to devise a gas mask horses could tolerate; the versions they developed would not pass enough pure air to allow the horses to pull a cart. Thus, gas was of no use to the German Army under most conditions & Re. the Western Allies The British stockpiled chemical weapons to use in case of a German invasion. Pictured is a chemical warfare bulk decontamination vehicle. The Western Allies did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War. The British planned to use mustard gas and phosgene to help repel a German invasion in 1940-1941,[63][64] and had there been an invasion may have also deployed it against German cities.[65] General Alan Brooke, Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, in command of British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War said that he "...had every intention of using sprayed mustard gas on the beaches" in an annotation in his diary.[66] The British manufactured mustard, chlorine, lewisite, phosgene and Paris Green and stored them at airfields and depots for use on the beaches.[65] The mustard gas stockpile was enlarged in 1942–1943 for possible use by RAF Bomber Command against German cities, and in 1944 for possible retaliatory use if German forces used chemical weapons against the D-Day landings. See also: Asbestos & WW2 Veterans
