Chemical Weapons stored by RAF during WWII

its mentioned here….

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/e/escrick_ffd/index.shtml

that (some of??) the mustard gas bombs were returned to the ICI Randle plant near Runcorn

Neil.

Mustard Gas

My late father was a fitter-armourer with 100 MU st South Witham. He told me at the end of the war they drove mustard gas munitions to Immingham and just dumped them in the sea. Poor Immingham!

It is realy hard to find any concrete doccuments or facts on this. Most of the disposal at sea doccuments were regarded as “Unimportant” and destroyed after 5 years (If you believe it).

Aparently, an unknown quantity (14,000 or 14,000tonnes) of phosgene warhead rockets were dumped in the Beaufort Dyke.

As regards the West Hebrides, some steel drums rolled up on the beaches a few years ago which were removed by the EOD people and no trace of the contents can be found! I have heard that the munitions were crated and or sealed in steel drums. The hatch covers on the holds were then welded shut. This raises a question; on freighters of that vintage the hatch covers were of wood, especialy on the old worn out vessels used for this kind of job. Perhaps special ones were made.

I have dived WW11 era commercial wrecks in the Red Sea and in Trukk that have not been subject to salvage, albeit that they were sunk by explosion. What would worry me is that these ships are rapidly coroding and becoming unstable. The potential is there for release of nasties into the environment!

BTW, I believe Sweeden is worried by the ones in the Skagerak as they contain Nerve Gas handgrenades. What a great idea those must have been! 😮

Sorry to have drifted this thread off subject a bit.

Edit to add: The incident with the Liberty Ship John Harvey in Bari harbour makes interesting reading. The Germans bombed her as she was unloading a shipment of Mustard Gas bombs.

I understand that amongst the cargoes sunk on Beauforts Dyke after the war were canisters of German nerve gases: tabun and sarin. This was certainly reported in the press a few years back. Has anyone heard anything more about this aspect?

Thanks SB , I had heard the story that some of the cargo dogs were sunk in shallower water than intended .
Like you say- the info available is very scarce – have you found much info regarding the scuttled ships ??

Al

ageorge,

You are close there, it was mainly munitions and phospherous flares, along with low level radioactive wast in the 1950’s, that was dumpbed in the Beauforts Dyke. A lot of it was dumped from small ships and LC(V)’s. Some of the men involved have openly stated that they started dumping as soon as they left Loch Ryan. This lead to a lot of munitions in shallow(ish) water which has resulted in numerous washups over the years. When the interconnector trench was dug across to Northern Ireland they did a camera survey of the sea bed and found mounds of munitions out of position!

The freighters you were refering to were scuttled West of the Hebrides in deep water. AS with the Beaufort Dyke, many allegedly went down in shallowere water than intended. There have even been concerns that these may now be within reach of determined Technical Sport Divers! Even today it is Very difficult to find any information associated with this scuttle.

Similarly, a batch of Nazi munitions were scuttled in deep water near Denmark (Skagerak IIRC) fishermen regularly trawl up lumps of Lewisite (Mustard Gass in solid form) which causes major problems to them.

A lot of the chemical stuff was loaded on to unwanted freighters after the war , these were then scuttled in an area known as Beauforts Dyke off the south west coast of Scotland – west of the Solway Firth , there were loads of incendiaries disposed of in this way too. Recently these have been people injured by handling phosphorous bombs which have washed up on beaches on the Solway Firth , they suspect that the ships are now breaking up and the strong tidal currents are washing stuff ashore – there was a story not so long ago about Mustard Gas being washed up .

Philip
Have you heard of RAF Nancekuke? No a lot of people haven’t either
Go here
http://www.mod.uk/issues/nrp/faqs.htm
I’m not going to delve into this one too much except to say try searching for Porton Down on Google and then try finding anything about it in the PRO at Kew, nuff said, WMD what WMD?

A search through old U.K. records by a Channel Islands´environmental adviser revealed that some of the 58.000 drums of “low-level” radwaste (LLW) dumped in the sear north of the islands between 1950 and 1963 contained plutonium-contaminated material, according to a report published by authorities on Jersey island May 20.2004 Some drums disposed of in 1951 contained plutonium/polonium-contaminated laboratory waste, probably from Aldermaston. The Hurd Deep, a narrow trough in the English Channel north of the Channel Islands, was a licensed LLW site used by UKAEA during a 13-year period.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) have not carried out any monitoring specifically related to explosive dumping grounds in English and Welsh waters. Their monitoring of the Hurd Deep dumpsite is specifically in relation to radioactivity rather than chemical contaminates.

The wreck of HMS Affray a RN submarine is also to be found on the edge of Hurds Deep, the submarine went missiing on 16 July 1951 with all crew. It’s loss has never been explained

Something nasty was deep-sixed in Heard (or Hurd) Deep.
Along with explosives, ammo, bombs, etc.

Flood

In a book I’ve got about RAF South Witham it mentions that 100 MU based there had chemical weapons in their care.. post war it just says that they were ‘disposed of’ but no clues as to where or how!! 😮

Neil.