Gas Clothing Store

Does anybody know what clothing was stored in a Gas Clothing Store and in a decontamination building what would have been the cloths that replaced your uniform after you had been cleaned up.

Thanks

Richard

Richard,

You need to define what period you mean. The answers varied over the years and some decontamination centres were often used as prophylactic centres after a successful night out!

Colin

Well really in general as we see on stations a decontamination building and huts that were gas clothing stores, it was only after the threat of gas that they were turned over to OTHER uses.

Interestingly the RAF Manual Defence Against Gas (AP1510) describes in detail the Gas Defence Centre, and the Decontamination Centre - did the Gas Clothing store come later?

The function of the former was to store all the equipment which would be necessary in a gas attack. It had four rooms: Lamp / oil store, Bleach store, Equipment store, Changing room. The last two were large.

The Anti-gas items are listed as: Service respirator, Civilian duty respirator, Eyeshield, Cape, Cap cover, Suit (heavy), Suit (light), Rubber boots (knee), Overboots (heavy), Hood, Gloves, Ointment, Outfit (anti-dimming), Curtain (helmet).

Some of this is for personal protection, some is for the specialised anti-gas squad.

Other items held in the Gas Defence Centre were: Wheelbarrows, Shovels, Sieves, Axes, Brushes, Containers for contaminated articles, Castor oil and Bleaching Powder.

It all gets quite complicated.

Bleach or to be exact bleach slurry is still in use for the decontamination of vehicles.