Mcallen Daily Press

Germans Are Certain To Use Poison Gas Against Russia
LONDON, May 11-(UP)—Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave his gas-for-gas warning to Adolf Hitler yesterday after a cross check had convinced Allied leaders that Germany intended to use poison gas in a last, desperate attempt to crush Russia, responsible informants said today.
So convincing was evidence received from the continent, diplomatic informants said, that Allied leaders decided Britain should move to place upon Germany the responsibility for the start of gas warfare, and warn Germans that they, in turn, would pay bitterly.
German broadcasts heard in London and New York today reported some of the details of Churchill's speech to the German people but significantly failed to mention the British prime minister's warning regarding gas warfare.
It was believed possible that Germany might start an offensive against Russia with gas or use it only as a climactic weapon if other means of warfare failed, but there seemed conviction that Germany soon or later would use it.
Informants said the Allied cross-check of gas reports extended as far back as last January and showed that Germany was making preparations on a massive scale for gas warfare.
Reports included:
The large shipments of mustard gas had moved by trainloads in February, under heavy guard, through one district which serves the German front in the east.
That between January and March frequent shipments of gas in earthenware and glass containers, in addition to crates of gas shells of various calibers, had moved to the front, some crates marked not to be opened except by special order.
That in a construction area near the eastern front large concrete gas reservoirs had been built.
That Germany had developed a six-barreled gun, called "Do Kanone," to throw grenades and shells filled with liquid gas of tremendous corrosive effect.
That preparations had been made to drop gas in large glass spheres, designed to break on contact and disperse widely.
That German officials in eastern Europe had been ordered to provide themselves with gas masks and keep them handy.
That gas shelters were under construction throughout Germany, even in villages.
That three factories in unoccupied France were manufacturing flame throwers, apparently to be carried on motorcycles, for the Germans.
Many military authorities still expressed doubt of the efficacy of gas, aside from the retaliatory brake, but they admitted that the Germans might always envisage its use in a last resort, or try it with it to reduce specific objectives.
Britain's expressed approval of Churchill's warning that Britain would use gas against Germany if Germany used it against Russia.
They girded themselves for a new phase of the war in the confident belief that in aerial bombing warfare, they could take what Germany had to give and pay back on an inexorably increasing scale.
In one of the great speeches of his career, Churchill announced his portentous news yesterday. That Russia had advised him that the Germans in their desperation, might resort to gas against the armies and people of Russia.
In fact, Russia has already officially stated that Germans used gas, apparently as a try-out, in the Crimea.
Churchill left it up to Hitler to choose, and there remained no doubt today that the British people backed him up.
The Moscow correspondent of the United Press, revealing that Russia had already made defensive preparations against poison gas, quoted the Tass news agency that the Germans had fired a number of trench mortar shells containing an unidentified gas in their try-out, and that the gas had paralyzed the respiratory organs of the men subjected to it.