Gas mask usage dates back to ancient Greece. They used sponges. Since then, various techniques and technologies have been used as inhalation filtration systems.
The first use of poison gas on the Western Front was by the Germans at Ypres on April 22, 1915. The initial response was to give the troops cotton mouth pads to protect their breathing. The primitive masks went through several stages of development before being superseded by the canister gas mask in 1916. The mask is connected to the tin which contains absorbent materials.
By 1944 the US Army Chemical Warfare Service developed a mask made of plastic and rubber which greatly reduced the weight and size of the masks.
Most civilians learned how to use gas masks through the civil defense department, but children received most gas mask education in school drills. Schools enforced the compulsory carrying of gas masks at all times.
A British couple wearing gas masks in their home in 1941. WikipediaA mother cradles her newborn baby in bed, shortly after giving birth in 1941. The mother is wearing her civilian respirator, while the baby is encased in a baby gas helmet, which buckles up around the baby’s bottom. The mother is demonstrating how the bellows on her baby’s gas mask are pumped to supply the baby with air. PinterestA warden gives directions to a mother and her two children during a World War II gas drill in Southend on Marcy 29, 1941. Eric Harlow Keystone Getty ImagesA young music hall dancer wears a gas mask and helmet in February 1940. Keystone-France. Gamma-Keystone. Getty Images.Children in London wear their gas masks as they skip in the park at their temporary homes on the south coast of England, circa 1940. General Photographic Agency. Getty Images.A baker delivering fresh baked goods wearing a gas mask. Keystone Press Agency INC. NY. Courtesy- Daniel Blau Munich LondonA couple posing for a wedding photo in their gas masks. PinterestA crowd preparing to cross a busy street wearing gas masks. Keystone Press Agency INC. NY. Courtesy- Daniel Blau Munich LondonA family leans out the window of their flat wearing their gas masks. PinterestA family use respirators at the Empire Pool, Wembley, London on August 21, 1938. Fox Photos. Getty ImagesA family wearing their gas masks to the shops during a gas drill in Richmond, Surrey, May 31, 1941. The drill involved a canister of tear gas to simulate a gas attack. Keystone. Hulton Archive. Getty ImagesA gas exercise for civilians, using tear gas, was held in Kingston-On-Thames in 1941. Keystone. Getty ImagesA horse getting accustomed to wearing a gas mask. PinterestBritish artist Albert Perry at work with some of his pupils during their daily one-hour gas mask practice, August 19, 1941. Fox Photos. Getty ImagesChildren playing in the school grounds in their gas masks. June 27, 1941. Keystone Press AgencySchoolboys walking through a cloud of tear gas as part of a routine gas drill, March 3, 1941. Keystone Press Agency INC. NY. Courtesy- Daniel Blau Munich. LondonYoung children wearing their gas masks at school. PinterestThe Blitz intensified sexual desire. A full two decades before the so-called permissive society of the Sixties, a dramatic, if understated, sexual revolution was already taking place — one which would, significantly, prove to be a forerunner of the mores by which Britons live today. Daily MailUnderground air-raid shelters offered unprecedented opportunities for sexual liaisons. Daily MailNurses holding infants in gas masks. historylearningsite
