Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
Within forty-eight hours of their arrival arrangements were made to modify the respirators, and within a few weeks the fighting troops had been re-equipped with the new pattern.
The smile was not scornful, but it was at least amused at the expense of the sightseer who had dodged one of our own shells. In addition to the respirators in case of a possible gas attack, supplied by that staff officer with a twinkle in his eye, we needed a steel rod fastened to the back of our necks and running down our spinal columns in order to preserve our dignity.
Throughout the end of April and for many days in May the wind blew steadily out of a cloudless sky from the north-east, and every morning we anxiously sniffed the breeze as we fingered the inadequate and clumsy respirators of those times. Every day a new pattern arrived with a new set of instructions.
All the oxygen will follow. They're already having their domestic-service apparatus manufactured their cold-pipe radiators, meters, evaporators and respirators. I tell you, comrades, this thing is close upon us, not as a theory, now, but as a terrible, an inconceivably ghastly reality!
Commander O'Brine had not exaggerated. The residue of carbon and thorium on the blast tube walls was stubborn, dirty, and penetrating. It was caked on in a solid sheet, but when scraped, it broke up into fine powder. The Planeteers wore coveralls, gloves, and face masks with respirators, but that didn't prevent the stuff from sifting through onto their bodies.
Liverpool was a gray-stone labyrinth open to the deluge, and its inhabitants went to and fro with umbrellas over their heads and black respirators over their mouths, looking as if such were their normal plight as, indeed, it was. Much of this was not needed to quench the enthusiasm of the children.
Half an hour before zero time the gas rattle sounded again, and indeed we were wearing our respirators, when at 5.20 the usual sudden crackle and rumble all along the front announced the opening of the barrage. Judged by the quickness with which he put down a retaliatory barrage, the enemy was prepared for our attack. Nothing could now hold "Ernest."
By the middle of April the Staff began to expect a possible German attack, and we "stood to" all night the 15/16th, having been warned that it would be made on our front and that asphyxiating gases would be used we had, of course, no respirators.
It was a fine autumn. The French civilians were getting in their crops within a mile or two of the trenches, while we did a series of tours in the Moated Grange sector, with rest billets at the little village of Riez Bailleul. And then box respirators were issued. Laventie days are remembered with affection by old members of the Battalion.
We had no steel helmets in these days and no gas box-respirators, only two cloth respirators of little weight. I found myself in charge of No. 4 Platoon in A Company, of which Capt. H.R. Smail was commander. There were two other 2nd-Lieuts. in the company besides myself. The fighting strength of a company did not much exceed 100 men, if as many.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking