Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1923-10-24
Saved Millions
at War Dumps

we suspended operations and evolved
the method of burning out.
round that some of the German
smells turned out in 1914 and even ear
Her were less than half full of ex-
ploslve; the balance of the filing was
made up of such things as shop sweep.
lngs, sand and sawdust. l cannot, of
course, say whether this was dine TO
shortage of TINT or to SCAMP work
on the part of some contractor. The
Germans did, however, produce Won
derfully high grade of INT, which
they used in block filling in the
large 46-cm. shells. This INT was
such perfect material that | DEFER
mined to recover it. We cut each of
these large shells, weighing nearly
ton, in half as though we were cutting
through a cheese, and then took out
the INT. We had to be constantly on
our guard against accidents. The
operator had to stand outside heavy
cubicle and watch the job of saving
through a series of mirrors.
Getting Scrap From Shells.
millions of rounds OF rifle ammuni-
ton and belts of charges for ouick-
firing guns were dealt with by an an
pliance which ripped out the bullets
and separated the brass case from the
copper attachments while a sIuice of
water swept away the powder. We
put hand grenades into a crunching
machine, broke them up like walnuts
and afterWard fired the debris, so that
after the combustibles were DESTROYED
and the fire extinguished the iron scrap
could be collected,
1--WE burned on the French coast
many thousand tons of cordite. 1t was
piled up at low tide, often to the ex-
tent of forty tons. A little powder
tail was laid, everybody ordered back
at least 400 yards, and when the trail
was fired and the cordite reached a
flame of sixty or seventy feet would
leap up, the heat of furious intensity
and yielding a gassy, but not a noxious
vapor. These heaps of cordite were
timed to be well burned out when the
incoming tide reached and overlapped
them, SO that later when the tide re-
ceded there was nothing on the sands
but a huge, sprawling stain.
1T took US at least two years to
find out how to deal with the gases.
We had an enormous stock in France
of more than $4,000 tons Of cylinders
and shells-mustard gases, to cause
terrible agony; phosgene, the most
deadly of gases, causing double pneu-
monia; NC, lethal and lachrymatory
a mixture of two gases, stannic-chlo-
ride and chlorpicrin; SIX, a tear gas
white star, $3.50 mixture of chlorine
and phosgene, and particularly deadly.
SIX, the tear gas, was the easiest to
treat, l may say, for containing So
per cent of iodine, it was emptied from
the shells into drums and dispatched
into England for further treatment.
I'VE started on the problem of how
to treat poison gas with no experience
of our own or of anybody else to guide
us. An enormous amount of very diff
cult research work was required first,
how to get the liquid or gas out of
its shell, and second what to do with
it when it was out
"Shells containing phosgene gas
were treated in great furnaces. The
flames, however, were not enough to
kill the gas as it escaped through the
aperture caused by the melting wax.
The gas was still capable of spreading
death while partially burned in the
flames. So we provided means where
by the remaining fumes could only
escape by going through gush of live
steam which completely destroyed the
phosgene.
SAT the big dump at Dammes-C amier
l found enough white star gas to kill
everybody in Boulogne, ten or twelve
miles away.
Piped Through Rubber.
"After more than year of con-
stantly battling experiment. we did
find way to master the horrible
thing. A special furnace was erected,
cylinders were lined up ina shed, and
from the nozzle was a rubber tube
joining up with lead piping. The gas
does not eat rubber and lead as it does
iron. Men stood by with hand on the
escape tap, letting the gas ooze into
a red-hot chamber. Passing over that,
1t went through another process which
/ need not elaborate now. Thence it