The Soviet Threat, Korea and Vietnam, 1945–1975

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War, in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement which stated: ‘All arms, ammunition and implements of war shall be held at the disposal of the Allies or destroyed’, a large proportion of the chemical weapons which had been stockpiled, by both the defeated Axis powers and the Allies, were loaded onto old merchant vessels and scuttled off the coasts of Norway and Scotland. British dumping grounds for their own and captured German weapons included a 100-fathom site 20 miles off the coast of western Ireland and a site in the Bay of Biscay, both of which were used to disperse around 175,000 tons of weapons during the period from 1945 to 1948. The remaining British stocks of chemical weapons, about 25,000 tons, all manufactured during the war years, which included 6000 tons of tabun of German origin, were dumped during the period 1955–1957 at a 1000-fathom site in the Inner Hebrides.² Other German weapons, apart from those appropriated by the various Allied countries, were dumped in the Baltic Sea immediately after the war. Full records of these operations do not appear to have been kept, but it appears that there were at least three sites at which not less than 20,000 tons of weapons were dumped. One was in the Skagerrak off the coast of Norway where 20 ships whose cargoes included chemical weapons were scuttled by the British.³

Gas … was one of the most significant developments of the last war [First World War], but … has not been used in this war. The principal reason seems to have been that the power militarily ascendant at various times either had scruples against using gas or believed that his military ends could best be achieved without resort to it … We cannot be certain that in a future war an attacking power will be governed by similar scruples or conditions … Indeed, the emphasis on ‘Blitzkrieg’ … would encourage him to employ every means to achieve his end with speed and decision.

— Tizard Report (February 1945)¹