Shropshire Routes to Roots

1b. Children in wartime: Why did everyone carry a gas mask?

Early in 1939 everyone was issued with a gas-mask. During the First World War men had been blinded and killed by poisonous gas. The Government was very worried that this might happen again. They thought that bombers might drop gases which would affect the civilian population of Britain. To prevent this they issued around 38 million gas-masks. Everyone was asked to carry their mask at all times. Children carried them around their necks in small cardboard boxes.

This girl is being shown how to fit her gas mask at an air raid precaution centre in Ellesmere. Do you think these masks would have been fun to wear? Maybe not but they did allow the child to breathe without being affected by gas.

The A.R.P. Station at Ellesmere. [Reproduced with kind permission of the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertiser]

Children had to attend Gas mask drills or practices. These were universally unpopular. The eye pieces for the mask steamed up as soon as they were put on. Many children recount how they hated the smell of the rubber. It was not long before children realised that if they blew out into their mask they could make rude noises!

Click on the leaflet "What to do about gas". What were you supposed to do if a gas attack happened? What would the signal be for an attack? The Government had to be careful to make sure people were safe without causing panic. Do you think this leaflet does this?

What to do about Gas. Larger image in a new window [50kb] [Shropshire Archives]

Later in the war the government issued leaflets asking people to continue to use their masks. See if you can see why they felt it was necessary to issue this leaflet? What did they think might happen before an invasion? Because there had been no gas attacks many people had begun to think there never would be. In fact poisonous gas was never used by either side during the Second World War.

Have you got a gas mask? Larger image in a new window [56kb] [Shropshire Archives]

Strange facts:
The tops of red pillar boxes (letter boxes) were painted with a special paint for detecting gas! There were many types of gas masks, those for the Armed Forces, children and babies. Even horses had gas masks!