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History
- A History of Chemical Warfare by Dr. Tim Cook, Canadian War Museum
- The Results of Chemical Warfare Agent Research at Suffield, Alberta by Mr. Clément Laforce, Deputy Director General, Defence R&D Canada - Suffield
A History of Chemical Warfare by Dr. Tim Cook, Canadian War Museum
Poison gas was unleashed during the First World War for the first time in the history of warfare. It caused more than a million casualties and approximately 100,000 deaths.
The first chlorine gas cloud attack at the Battle of Second Ypres in April 1915 routed two French divisions, but the then untried Canadian Division withstood the horror. However, with soldiers suffocating and wheezing through ravaged lungs, many felt that the Germans had found a weapon to break the stalemate of the trenches. It failed because of unpredictable delivery systems and the rapid development and issue of respirators. Soldiers were also taught how to identify gasses and protect themselves.
But scientists developed more lethal gasses throughout the war, including mustard gas, which caused blindness and burned the skin. While gas killed far fewer than conventional weapons, it remained a terrifying weapon for most men. By the last year of the war, gas was used in every battle to achieve a number of tactical missions, from counter-battery work to creating chemical barriers on the battlefield. And all the while, gas remained a constant physical and psychological weapon faced by all soldiers on the chemical battlefields of the Western Front.
With the Armistice and the demobilization of massive armies, professional soldiers were forced to deal with new weapons and doctrines. Tanks, airplanes, and submarines had changed the nature of warfare. All expected gas to be used in the next war too.
In Ottawa, the Department of National Defence attempted to codify the lessons of the war, but with deep cutbacks there was little that could be done. The Gas Services that has instigated training during the war vanished in the postwar years. By the late 1920s, the situation was so dire that there were few respirators available in Canada.
Apocalyptic novels and films, and so-called experts, warned of bomber armadas releasing their deadly cargos and reducing the great cities of the world to graveyards filled with gassed victims. In the 1930s, the Canadian government and scientists responded to these perceived threats and the National Research Council investigated and experimented with both creating protective devices and discovering more lethal gasses.
At the start of the Second World War, most nations had significant chemical weapon stockpiles. Lack of intelligence ensured that no country wanted to engage in a first-strike chemical option for fear of possible overwhelming retaliation, but all armies prepared for another gas war.
In Canada, the National Research Council continued its experiments in chemical agents. Laboratories in Ottawa and Suffield, Alberta were the major centres of research. New chemical agents were tested; new delivery systems, like aerial bombs or sprayers, assessed for their battlefield effectiveness. Defensive measures, such as decontamination creams, were improved, offering some easement to the suffering of potential victims. The importance of mustard gas in the last war had not been forgotten, both for its casualty-causing potency but also for its ability to deny ground to the enemy. To gauge the effectiveness of new types of gas, scientists turned to the army for living subjects. Soldiers were asked to volunteer. At Suffield, they were subjected to agents that burned, scalded, and caused temporary blindness. This was done in the midst of a war against the brutal and vicious Fascist regimes, but there remains considerable debate as to the morality of subjecting Canadians to these chemical agents.
In England, the Canadian Forces also prepared for fighting in a chemical environment after the invasion of France. Gas had not been used as a battlefield weapon up to that point in the war, but an invasion of France might provoke Hitler to order a chemical strike. Soldiers were equipped with gas masks and capes. As during the First World War, soldiers were instructed on how to use their equipment and exposed to minor doses of gas, usually tear gas. The D-Day invasion of Normandy led to the fall of the Nazi regime, and although Allied soldiers were not exposed to gas, chemical weapon stockpiles were overrun periodically during the harsh fighting.
After the war, some of the Canadian enlisted men who were tested at Suffield and Ottawa suffered from lingering and often unexplainable illnesses that they attributed to the exposure to various experimental gases. For years, they sought recognition from the government. In 2004, the government expressed its regret for exposing Veterans and offered a $24,0000 one-time ex gratia payment in recognition of their services.
The Results of Chemical Warfare Agent Research at Suffield, Alberta
The War Years (1939-1945)
With the fall of France in 1940, Britain lost the use of the Algerian proving grounds that it shared with the French. In urgent need of a location for chemical defence research, Britain approached Canada to create a new research site. The Suffield Experimental Station (SES) was developed on 2,600 km2 of flat prairie in Southern Alberta as a joint Canadian-British operation in the spring of 1941. SES was large enough, and sufficiently isolated, to permit large-scale trials with both aircraft and artillery. In addition, the semi-desert climate allowed for field operations to be carried out year-round. By the summer of 1941, activities at Suffield were well underway; by war’s end, SES employed over 500 civilian and military personnel.
The chemical warfare (CW) defence program formed the core of the SES programs. Even though chemical warfare had been used in the First World War of 1914-1918, little was known about its effectiveness in the context of blitzkrieg and modern aircraft; there was a need for a better understanding of how to protect troops against their use, their dispersion techniques, and the extent and duration of contamination. Trials to collect this information, and to evaluate new weapons and protective equipment, proceeded at a rapid pace throughout the war. This work continued after the war and laid the foundation for today’s program in chemical and biological (CB) defence at Suffield.
Experiments with Human Subjects
The work that was carried out at Suffield was part of a comprehensive allied effort to deny the enemy the flexibility of using chemical weapons. Chemical warfare, should it happen, would be very different from what it had been in the First World War. Many questions had to be answered, such as:
- What would be the effects on troops if chemical agents were sprayed from aircraft?
- How many of them would still fight and how many would require immediate medical attention?
- How effective was the soldier’s protective equipment and the new anti-gas ointments?
- What would happen if and when soldiers had to manoeuvre in contaminated environments?
In the context of the Second World War, these questions and many others required urgent answers. It also required that soldiers place themselves in harm’s way and become human subjects. The service of the chemical warfare agent human test subjects ensured in part that chemical warfare was not waged during the Second World War.
The Early Cold War Years (1945-1969)
In the early Cold War years, work at Suffield continued undiminished because it was evident that the Soviet Union was building a huge arsenal of chemical weapons and was prepared to use them in the event of a war. The main focus of research and testing at Suffield was with nerve gas, a new class of agents discovered in Germany during the Second World War and known to be much more potent than blister agents. Military and political leaders were only too aware that these nerve agents could have been used with devastating effect by Germany and might have changed the course of the war. There was an urgent need for basic data, thus hundreds of trials were conducted at Suffield to determine mode of action and to develop protective measures.
In 1955, construction was completed on a new laboratory building with modern containment suites for handling hazardous chemical and biological materials. At the same time, the government decided that the CB research program should focus on defensive aspects and, for the first time, the media and general public were invited to visit Suffield. In 1967, the SES became the Defence Research Establishment Suffield (DRES).
The Middle Years (1969-1985)
In 1971, Canada and Britain signed an agreement creating the British Army Training Unit Suffield, which allowed British armoured units to use the greater part of the Suffield Range for training, leaving the rest (about 25%) to become the DRES Experimental Proving Ground (EPG).
The chemical program continued to focus on evaluating protective measures, and developing simulants and training aids. During this period, research began on HI-6, a new nerve agent antidote, and on a reactive skin decontaminant. Trials were also carried out to test operational procedures for handling casualties in a chemical environment. By the mid-1970s there was no longer a need for human test subjects to be part of chemical warfare agent experiments and the practice of using volunteers ceased.
DRES supported the Department of External Affairs in their negotiations for a verifiable treaty to ban the use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW). DRES employees served as technical advisors to Canadian diplomats and conducted research on verification methods.
The End of the Cold War
This was a period when concern over biological warfare was growing; there was evidence that advances in biotechnology had created new threat agents. DRES intensified its efforts to develop detectors that would give adequate warning of a biological threat, and pushed ahead with research on medical countermeasures. As a result, when Canadian troops faced the threat of CB weapons in the Gulf War of 1991, scientists and engineers at DRES were able to respond quickly and provide the following protective measures:
- The Chemical Agent Detection System (CADS)
- The Mobile Atmospheric Sampling and Identification Facility (MASIF)
- The nerve agent antidote (HI-6)
- The Reactive Skin Decontaminant Lotion (RSDL)
The deployment of these items of equipment gave Canadian troops the best protection of any allied contingent and is testimony to the ability of DRES to respond effectively to the needs of the military client. When hostilities ceased, DRES provided personnel for United Nations missions to inspect CB weapon production sites in Iraq.
Today at Defence R&D Canada - Suffield
In April 2000, DRES was renamed Defence R&D Canada – Suffield, or DRDC Suffield. Although the Cold War is over, the threat from chemical and biological weapons continues. Medical countermeasures developed at DRDC Suffield have entered service with the CF and are available to anti-terrorist agencies.
Following the September 2001 events, DRDC Suffield established a new centre, the Counter-Terrorism Technology Centre (CTTC). The CTTC’s mission is three-fold: it provides expertise and the venue at which military and civilian first responders train in the response to potential chemical, biological and radiological terrorist threats. The CTTC also provides chemical and biological test and evaluation services to government agencies and industry. Finally, the CTTC supports security forces in the forensic analysis of potential chemical or biological samples.
What Does the Future Hold?
After more than 60 years, the mission remains the same. As the role of the Canadian military evolves, DRDC Suffield will continue to provide the best possible technology and scientific support. . To achieve this goal, the establishment will anticipate future defence needs and invest in emerging technologies.
DRDC’s capabilities in CB defence will also see its training and support of the first responder community increase through the Counter Terrorism Technology Centre.
As part of Defence R&D Canada, the R&D establishment at Suffield enters the new millennium with new strategies for delivering the goods, but as it began, so it continues that the participation of human test subjects is an essential component of producing effective countermeasures to chemical and biological weapons. The manner of their involvement has changed but the results of providing world-class protection to Canadian allied soldiers remains the same.
The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily reflect those of the
