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
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
D.E. Lilienthal, The Atomic Energy Years 1945–1950, New York (1964)
M. Meselson, ‘Why Not Poison?’, Science, 164 (1969), pp. 413–414.
Quoted in, R.L. Garthoff, Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age, London (1958), p. 104.
John Pilger, How Britain Exports Weapons of Mass Destruction, Znet.org (4 July 2003).
US Army Chemical Corps, Summary of Major Events and Problems, FY58, Army Chemical Center, Md., Historical Center (March 1959), p. 100.
M. Stubbs, ‘A Power for Peace’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 13 (1959), pp. 8–9.
Seymour Hersh, Chemical and Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal, Bobbs-Merrill (1968).
A.C. McAuliffe, ‘Korea and the Chemical Corps’, Ordnance, 35 (1951), p. 284.
E.R. Baker, ‘Chemical Warfare in Korea’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 4 (1951), p. 3.
E.R. Baker, ‘Gas Warfare in Korea’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 4(4) (1951), pp. 54–56.
PBS, TV Programme, Race for the Superbomb (January 1999).
E.F. Bullene, ‘The Needs of the Army’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 6 (1952), p. 8.
A. Harrigan, ‘The Case for Gas Warfare’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 17 (1963), p. 12.
G.W. Merck, ‘Report to the Secretary of War’, Military Surgeon, 98 (1946), pp. 237–242.
H.W. Baldwin, Great Mistakes of the War, New York (1950).
A. McConnell, ‘Mission: Ranch Hand’. Air University Review, 21 (1970). pp. 12–15.
M.K. Kahn, CBW in Use — Vietnam, London: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd (1968), p. 90.
L.F. Fieser, ‘Napalm’, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 38 (1946), pp. 768–773.
B.E. Kleber and D. Birdsell, The Chemical Warfare Service: Chemicals in Combat, Washington DC (1966), p. 534.
The programme is presented in great detail in L.F. Feiser, The Scientific Method: A Personal Account of Unusual Projects in War and Peace, New York: Reinhold (1964).
F.J. Sanborn, ‘Fire Protection Lessons of the Japanese Attacks’, in H. Bond (ed.) Fire and the Air War, Boston (1946), pp. 169–174.
E.W. Hollingsworth, ‘Use of Thickened Gasoline in Warfare’, Armed Forces Chemical Journal, 4 (June 1951), pp. 26–32.
S.M. Hersh, Chemical and Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal, New York (1968).
Wil D. Verweg, Riot Control Agents and Herbicides in War, A.W. Sijthoff International Publishing Company BV (1977), p. 242.
Erika Cheetham, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, The Bath Press (1974), p. 353.
Copyright information
© 2005 Kim Coleman
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Coleman, K. (2005). The Soviet Threat, Korea and Vietnam, 1945–1975. In: A History of Chemical Warfare. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501836_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501836_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-3460-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-50183-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)