Ethiopian Protests Over Gas Recall Precautions Surrounding Conant in Secret War Operations

Recent Ethiopian protests to the League of Nations over the alleged use of a new poison gas by Mussolini's legions brought forth comment by chemistry department officials that it seems probable that no new poison gas of much greater intensity than new exists is likely to be developed within the next few years.

One of the most powerful and deadly of the gases now in use was perfected by President Conant during the war. At the beginning of 1917 he worked in Washington on a new method of producing mustard gas, and later did many experiments with a new type of gas known only as "G-34" in the War Department files.

Melodrama

When he perfected a means of large scale production for this new gas, the government moved swiftly. An abandoned auto factory at Willoushby. Ohio was acquired and almost melodramatic precautions against spies were taken. Fences, complete with electrically charged barbed wire, were installed. Searchlights played on the approaches to the building all night. Sentries patrolled the ground for miles around. All in all, it was considered one of the most secret undertakings of our war activity.

And in the midst of it all, Conant, one of 22 officers who were in charge of 500 enlisted men, worked from 6 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night producing the gas that was later known as "Lewisite."

The factory, appropriately called "The Mense Trap" was a complete prison for the men employed. Anyone who was allowed to enter remained for the duration of the war. When the factory was first opened, there was no kitchen and the entire staff was marched to eat at a hotel commandeered by the government and then marched back again.

"Lewisite" while not used extensively until the close of the war, was thought to be one of the Allies most deadly was pons, and it the war had continued several additional factories would have been established.