The Winds of War

In reading Mein Kamph by Adolph Hitler he made the statement that he was gassed by the British. My reading of first world war fighter pilots kind of confirms that they flew downwind into Germany and had to battle the wind in most instants coming home. If this is true it would be stupid for Germany to use mustard gas. What do you think?

At the end of the war 1/4 of all shells on the Western front were filled with gas. Both sides used gas. The Germans first used gas and continued to use it in the vain hope of breaking the Allied lines.

[Rick]

Mustard Gas, being heavier than air, would tend to stick close to the ground, enfiltrating trenches and shell holes. Not much of a threat to 'returning German airmen', unless, of course, they had been shot down!

Greetings Ken: There are links to the forum that will explain how poison gas was used against infantry in trenches. Briefly, gas was releasesd from cylinders and blown to enemy trenches, when the wind was right, but a change in wind direction, or a very high wind would dissipate the gas, nullifying it use. Gas masks nullified gas attacks, so they changed tactics and placed the gas in artillery shells, which were fired in tandem with regular shells, and with smoke shells to break up an infantry attack. The Gs were very good at this. In March 1918 they used gas, smoke and HE shells to open their attack on the English 3rd and 5th armies, with an early morning barrage into the mist that covered the front.
It should be noted that airplanes were not affected by windblown gas as it seeped into the low spots:into the trenches and shell craters, and airplanes took off from fields 10 to 15 miles or more behind the front, and there was no way gas could could get to the pilots. Allied pilots had to face the prevailing westerly wind on returning to France, but this had nothing to do with avoiding the dangers of gas because there were no dangers, except if a plane crashed into the front during an attack, but this was a rare occurence.
Yes, Hitler was temporarily blinded by gas, because the British and the French used gas, but the American artillery did not like to use it, and didn't unless forced to do so.

My mechanical mind says that it would be stupid for Germans to instigate the use of poison gas if their lines or mud trenches are down wind. And stupidity was not a known quality about them. I am from British ancestory but the winner gets to say what happened with considerable more impact than the loser.
I would guess a lot of British and German soldiers were gassed resulting from the wind changing direction.

It doesn't really matter now.

Cheers
Ken McKenzie
www.starapex.com

Well Ken, last time I checked "prevailing" doesn't mean "always without fail".

Remember that when they started using gas, they were well on the way to running out of alternatives to a radical change to the status quo of attrition, which they were bound to lose.

I suppose if you aimed that sucker just right, at a low-flying plane on it's return, you could hit it with the caninster...

Or in front of it? Wonder what mustard gas would do to an engine, if let in the air intake. Probably just stalled it.

'Course, I doubt that really happened. And if it did, the plane was flying so close it was probably ready to crash anyway...

So, in reality, I guess airmen (still in the air) had little to fear from it...

...just more senseless ramblings.

[Volker_Nemsch]

Both sides carefully looked into their weather forecasts before using gas-weapons. This gave the advantages to the alliied side because in France there is more wind from western directions instead of eastern directions.

There was a common rule for all WW1 soldiers in a gas attack: to get out of shellholes or treches because of the heavier than air gases. This means on the other hand that this weapon is of no use against aircraft. As far as I know German pilots flying ground attack missions used sometimes gasmasks too.

There were two ways of using gas: firing grenades (commonly known) and blowing gas. The gas was transported in canisters (correct word?), like liquid oxygen today into the most forward trench. When the wind was blowing towards the enemy the canisters were opened. It is quite clear that changing winds were a constant danger. Not only soldiers wore gasmasks: some time ago I saw a photo with horses wearing them.

Hope this helps!
Volker Nemsch