The gas officer would always, when you had your staff parade in the morning, he would test your, he would look at your respirators and you had to have that ticket, the little ticket. MacLeod gives a good comparison between the original respirator and newer gas masks used by Canadian soldiers. However, the masks could not protect them against mustard gas used later in the war, which burned the skin, caused severe breathing problems, and could cause blindness. Stanley B.Allied troops were given gas masks to protect against chlorine gas attacks. The cover for Masked Fear: The Psychology of Gas Warfare 1918–1941, depicting an entire school in Berlin equipped with gas masks, 1939. Descending to safety in a London air raid tunnel, 1938. Issuing gas masks at the Munster Road School in Fulham, London, 1938. London chorus girls rehearse in their gas masks, 1939. Gas masks in an operating room at Botkin Hospital, Moscow, 1936. Police wear gas masks in defense drills, Paris, 1935. Gas mask training for switchboard operators, London, 1938. Scottish troops on parade with gas masks during World War I. A ballerina tries on a gas mask, Paris, 1939. Atlas Obscura has a selection of images from the collection. The Kickstarter campaign runs through November 28, 2017. The photographs are haunting documents of ordinary people, including children, learning to live their lives wearing these odd contraptions.” Burns, the New York ophthalmologist who amassed the collection, governments created programs, movies, and photographs “to increase citizens’ comfort using their masks at home, at work, and at play. These photographs will join more than 250 others in the new book, Masked Fear: The Psychology of Gas Warfare 1918–1941, which is currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign. The masks are fitted with microphones and earphones so that operators can hear and speak to callers.” A third shows London switchboard operators working in gas masks the original caption states that the operators “are being trained to use special gas masks so they can remain at their posts in an emergency-even if their switch room is full of gas. In another, surgeons at Moscow’s Botkin Hospital operate in gas masks. In one photo, a ballerina dons a gas mask in front of a mirror. The extent to which gas masks were promoted as an essential part of everyday life is evident in an extraordinary collection of images from the Burns Archive. In the Soviet Union-which had suffered the majority of gas-related casualties in the previous war-no more than 10 percent of the population had one. In Germany, France, and Italy, masks were available, if not as widely distributed. The fear of potential gas attacks wasn’t limited to Britain. The clattering of keys stops, as each one unboxes her gas mask and, chin first, pulls it over her face. “It may be a little irksome at first, but you’ll soon get used to it.” The film then cuts to a room of typists. “Put it on for 10–15 minutes, one day a week,” says the British Pathé announcer. People were instructed not only to carry their gas masks, but also to practice wearing them. “Everybody Can Be Fitted With Gas Masks in London Town!” 1935. With war once again on the horizon, Britain and continental Europe began taking early precautions. The estimates of total casualties from this form of chemical warfare are staggering: 88,000 dead and 1,200,000 injured. In 1938, before war had begun in Europe, the British government issued 35 million “General Civilian Respirators.” It had been 20 years since the end of World War I, when chlorine gas-and, later, mustard gas-had first been used. The vast majority of people watching this newsreel in Britain at the time would have had a gas mask. “You all have a gas mask, and you ought to carry it in order to practice wearing it.” “Some of us have been inclined to forget about our gas masks,” he chides, while jaunty music plays in the background. In 1940, British Pathé issued a newsreel titled “ Do You Carry Your Gas Mask?” In it, an unidentified employee from the Ministry of Home Security gently, in clipped tones, lectures an audience on the importance of carrying, and wearing, gas masks.
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