Excerpt from Protection of Civilians Against Gas Attacks

PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS AGAINST invasion n GAS ATTACKS We appears Hartor By F. ZWICKY after Professor of Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology During the week after Pearl Harbor a number of chemists, the needed funds, materials and labor locally and to work with biologists and physicists of the faculty of the California Insti- a very limited number of basic materials, engines and gadgets of tute met with the Pasadena Health Officer, Mr. Charles various kinds. Thirdly, great, and in the face of past disasters, Arthur, and with Dr. Alvin G. Foord to organize a special incomprehensible inertia was often encountered, which appar- technical committee to be associated with the Pasadena Office ently sprang from a lack of vision to take the possibility of an of Civilian Defense. Some of the aims of this committee were enemy attack on this coast seriously. as follows: On the other hand all of the City departments, as well as a 1) To give advice, if possible, to the local authorities and to great number of individuals and industrial and commercial the public on questions concerning the defense against attacks concerns, have lent us their moral and material aid unstintingly with high explosive bombs, incendiary bombs and chemical and and generously; and hearty thanks are herewith expressed to bacterial agents. them on behalf of our committee. A whole book might be 2) To give lectures and seminars on the various problems filled by mentioning all of the names of the contributors and involved in Civilian Defense, and to train a number of students the work done by them. But I must confine myself to a short at the Institute in the handling of practical means of defense. description of the equipment, the design and construction, or 3) To help in the efficient adaptation to local conditions of supervision of construction of which I have been personally defense equipment furnished by the U.S. Federal Government. responsible. I hope that such a discussion may pave the way in 4) To experiment with new devices for the civilian defense this and other communities towards the realization of some of in instances where the government did not or could not provide the other projects which our committee had originally envisaged. for any cquipment, and to put into operation any of these de- The following discussion will be essentially restricted to the vices which would be found most effective. problem of the defense of the City of Pasadena against war gas Unfortunately this ambitious program could not be carried attacks. This problem has naturally two aspects, dealing with through in its entirety because of various reasons. First, many collective protection and with individual protection respectively. members of the original committee were drafted into projects Those concerned with means of collective protection should important to the conduct of actual warfare. Secondly, since before all else keep in mind that an attack is most likely to be neither financial aid nor any priorities could be secured from delivered from the air, and that with modern methods of dis- the central office of the O.C.D., it was necessary to mobilize persal of persistent war gases, large areas and large volumes of CHEMICAL WE SOLU TION CHEMICAL MUSLIN FILTER WHIZ BLOWER BAIFLE FILTER COTTON SPONGE CHARCOAL PADS FILTER FILTER SECTION THRO GAS FILTER FIRST AID Approx S c : : i : i : FEET cultures 1942- Fig. 1