From The Archives - 3 Telecommunications

The following articles have been published elsewhere before and probably in a previous century.   

Guinea Pig Troops

The following article has been retrieved from our archives. Unfortunately the attached photograph is of very poor quality but is the best attainable when starting from a very low base. Not only is this article significant from an historical aspect it is an account by one of our own, Barrie Butler (355). Ed.

Australia's guinea pig troops tell of horror of chemical weapons
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN SATURDAY APRIL 13 1996

The troops enter the gas chamber clad in full battle gear, including side arms and anti-gas respirators. As the deadly mustard gas is slowly pumped in, swirling around them, they begin to march around the chamber’s perimeter. The only sounds are the regular beat of their combat boots on the concrete floor and the occasional muffled curse as the gas burns their exposed hands. It could have been a scene from Wilfred Owen's horrific Western Front. In fact, the trials were held at the Innisfail chemical warfare research station in north Queensland in December 1943.
Nearly all the guinea pigs - volunteers from the Australian Imperial Force and the Royal Australian Air Force were battle-hardened; many acclimatised to the tropics. Some had volunteered out of idealism. Others had come forward because they had been promised leave in Australia when the experiments were finished. Their war overseas had been gruelling. They longed for home.

Como resident Barry Butler, a leading aircraftman with the 41 Squadron recalled his role in tests at Proserpine in north Queensland in January and February 1945 - among the last to be held in Australia.
'I was young and foolish, 19 years of age’, he said. 'I volunteered from Cairns. From memory 20 men from RAAF units from all over the place went to Proserpine. 'For the first few days we ran over an obstacle course in full equipment. At one stage they took six of us on to an island off Prosperpine in ordinary drabs with a respirator. We were to carry out mock iobs. One or two Beauforts came over and bombed us with mustard gas. But I was fairly lucky …. the wind changed and the gas had no effect on us.

'Other trials included putting groups of six or eight of us into gas chambers. Half had UK protective clothing others had clothes issued by the US. The only things left free were our hands. They put protective ointment from Britain on one group and American ointment on the other. 'Our longest exposure to the gas was 16 hours. We marched around, picked things up, put things down. The blokes who had the US equipment got pretty badly burnt up. I had respirator problems. For 12 to 18 months you could see where the respirator had been around my face. That disappeared eventually.

'But a lot of scaly bits stayed on my ears. They said it was nothing to do with mustard gas' Then I got these skin cancers. They sent me to a skin specialist eventually. He was 35 years of age and he told me the cancers had nothing to do with mustard gas. I said ‘How the hell would you know?’

'Ten years ago when I mentioned mustard gas I was told I was certifiable.'

After some gas exposures,blood samples were taken and troops had to swallow a thin rubber tube and eat a porridge-like meal. Every 20 minutes for four hours the doctors drained the contents of their stomachs through the tube protruding for their mouths. Mr Butler said: ‘After they had drained our stomachs we would put a spring-clip back on the tube. You would throw it back over your ear. There was a good foot length of it hanging out of your mouth." The effects were not always immediate. ''One bloke in my dormitory went to sleep with his legs tucked behind him. He woke up with one big blister from him buttocks to his feet. Another guy's hands blistered so badly that they looked like webbed hands.

'What gets up my nose is that there are a lot of poor buggers out there who still need help. I reckon They probably put more secrecy into the gas situation than they did into atomic tests in the Monte Bellos’.

The experiments were not just confined to Queensland. Inglewood resident Bert Tucker’s brush with the gas occurred at Nhill, north-west Victoria, while on an armourer’s course with the RAAF.

'We were dressed in gas-proof clothing and spread out in a paddock,' he said. 'There was a plane, a Wirraway I think, that had gas canisters on the back of it. The gas came out in a mist but then went invisible." On the troops' shoulders were chemical indicators. The men were ordered to put on masks when these turned red. 'But then it was too late,' Mr Tucker said. I believe it was a deliberate experiment. It was mustard gas, too right’.

Ed's Note: Sadly Barrie Butler past away on 8 Sep 2016.

The following has been extracted for the web-site mentioned below. Ed

MUSTARD GAS EXPERIMENTS - Australia @ War by Peter …
www.ozatwar.com/mustard.htm

MUSTARD GAS EXPERIMENTS - TOWNSVILLE AREA DURING WWII

Top-secret chemical warfare research was conducted in Australia during World War 2.  This was carried out under a secret Anglo-American chemical warfare policy. The Japanese had used chemical weapons against the Chinese in Manchuria and it was thought that they would use it again.
In 1942 Australian servicemen started to be involved in field trials using mustard gas.  An experimental station was established in the Townsville area in north Queensland by the Chemical Warfare Liaison Mission from the War Office in London.  North Queensland was chosen because of its tropical rainforests which were similar to the conditions in the New Guinea theatre of war.   The Americans had considerable stocks of gas weapons in Australia and this unit in north Queensland would liaise with the American forces to assist with their research.
Major Fred Gorrill was head of the Research Unit.  The experiments were carried out on recruits from Australian troops on leave in rest camps on the Atherton Tablelands.  They were told they were required for Top Secret war work.  They were asked to sign "Secrecy" agreements.  Over a period of time, approximately 1,000 men, usually wearing minimal protection, were either exposed to mustard gas in a large stainless steel chamber, or were exposed by gas mortar shells being fired into open paddocks, or were exposed by tramping through jungle heavily bombed with mustard gas.  Tests were also carried out to see how long it would take for a soldier involved in an arduous assault course to become unfit for duty when exposed to mustard gas.    
There is a file in National Archives of Australia dated 1944 and titled:- "Assignment of United States scientists to work under Lieut.-Colonel F.S. GORRILL at the Field Experimental Station of the Australian Chemical Board".
There is another file dated 1943 and titled:- "Copy of cable sent to London by Major Gorrill 10 February 1943"
There is another file dated 1942 and titled:- "Maj. F.S. Gorrill - Proposed course of instruction in chemical warfare for physiologists". It would appear that this latter file can no longer be located by National Archives of Australia!!
Gorrill organised his group from the Chemical Warfare Physiology School in Melbourne to move  from Melbourne to Townsville on 21 December 1942. He mounted his gas chamber on the back of a 3-ton truck which headed to Townsville with a convoy of others vehicles. He reopened his Chemical Warfare Physiology School in Townsville on about 31 December 1942. There is a file in National Archives of Australia titled "Chemical Warfare Physiology School, Townsville, Qld Jan - Feb 1943 Report on chemical warfare physiological investigations". There are a number of other similarly named files.
The Mustard Gas tests were carried out in a gas chamber in Mango Avenue, Mundingburra, Townsville. This was a portable Gas Chamber that Fred Gorrill bought with him from Melbourne. Those volunteers involved in the tests generally suffered shocking burns to their armpits, groin and neck areas where sweat was present. These tests were also later carried out in the Innisfail and Proserpine areas. Some bombing tests were also carried out in early 1944 on lt Brook Island by American Liberator bombers.  "Volunteers" were then dropped onto the island after the intensive bombing missions
I have a slight element of doubt as to whether these tests were carried out in Mango Avenue, Mundingburra though I am aware that No. 14 Mango Avenue was used as temporary Headquarters for General Tom Daly of the 5th Division, Australian Army in April/May 1942. Bridget Goodwin in her book "Keen as Mustard" mentions that Volunteers involved in chemical testing, recall the area being known as Mango Farm or Mango Avenue. Some official sources suggested this may have been a synonym for Cape Cleveland. I know there were Chemical Live firing testing ranges at lt Heathfield and Cape Cleveland south of Townsville. Heathfield is probably Heathfield Station, about 80kms SSW of Townsville. Geoff Plunkett's book Chemical Warfare in Australia - Australia's Involvement in Chemical Warfare 1914 - 1945 states on page 520 that the two test areas in the Townsville area were at Heathfield Station and Cape Cleveland (Haughton River, Mango Farm) 20 miles east of Townsville. Could the gas chamber tests have been carried out at the Mango Farm at Haughton River perhaps rather than at Mango Avenue?? Can anyone help me please?

The attached article is a PDF copy from one of this Association's Djinnang Newsletters (year unknown).  367 Signals Unit (RAF) had inhabited Little Sai Wan from about 1951 until the early 1960's when they were withdrawn and replaced by UK civilian operators.  RAAF operators were withdrawn from Little Sai Wan in 1982 and the 'word' at the time was that Ghurkha families were to be moved in.  As can be seen in the following article this situation did not last long.

Click below for;

Hong Kong Revisited