Mustard Gas in Glenbrook Tunnel

Mustard Gas in Glenbrook

A good 'angle' can really deepen understanding of any topic. A good context, can really unpack learning issues uncovered in class quizzes.  From a starting point of my class's general interest in dangerous gases, and there are general issues applying chemical equations.

Glenbrook is a village in a hidden valley 200m above Penrith and is absolutely full of history, even ghosts! Mrs Cook told me in 1997 about the day in WW2 the Army told every one to stay in doors due to a Mustard Gas accident.

Glenbrook's first train route was changed after a terrible accident with a run away train.  The museum at Valley Heights tells the story of casualties started up the Emu Plains Cemetery you first pass on the train.  The old train tunnel was so long (> 1 km) and small, the drivers would run out of air.

My personal experience of Gas Warfare was being briefed for the Gas Hut in Pukapunyal.  By 1983 the Army dropped the requirement just in time.

Frankly, I was shocked in 2009 to read that the British were the main driving force behind gas warfare in a plan to take Sevastopol in the Crimean war. Stories of prevailing winds being from German lines to Allied in WW1 just built a picture of a really insane practice.  In 2011 I found out during a visit to the Australian War Memorial that Australian Gas masks were full of asbestos.

I have just read "Chemical Warfare In Australia" by Geoff Plunkett  http://mustardgas.org/
With an article on the current use of the tunnel http://mustardgas.org/First-The-Military-Treated-Us-Like-Mushrooms-So-Whats-Changed.pdf.  It is simply an outstanding book.

I will return to this blog to write comments on a few of the accidents at Glenbrook, the Dumping of munitions at sea and later by Union Carbide that has rendered all of Sydney Harbor behind the Bridge unfit for fishing, and the thinking behind Gas and Nuclear Warfare.