Gas Mask Baseball Training 1918 WWI US Army

As the U.S. trained soldiers for WWI in 1917, formal defensive training was supplemented by wearing the masks during other training activities. Men practiced their specialty while wearing masks. For example, medics wearing masks applied bandages and carried stretchers through woods and over rough terrain. Engineers constructed roads and pioneer troops dug ditches while wearing masks. After duty hours, trainees played baseball in their masks. During WWI, the Army never found the key to effective education and training for the offensive and defensive aspects of chemical warfare. A significant advantage could have been obtained if both offensive and defensive training had been integrated into all aspects of instruction. Once a soldier understood the overall nature of gas warfare and acquired confidence in his equipment and gas officers, he more easily accepted and adjusted to chemicals in actual combat. Unfortunately, U.S. training in chemical warfare never reached the sophistication needed to achieve the desired results. Equipment shortages and the lack of trained, instructors hampered the Army's preparation to engage in chemical warfare. The Army suffered needless casualties as a consequence. For much more information, read the 1984 report Chemical Warfare in World War I:The American Experience, 1917 -- 1918 at http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/cs.... This is clipped from the 1918 film
CHEMICAL WARFARE ACTIVITIES IN THE A.E.F, 1918, available at the US National Archive in College Park, Maryland.

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[Andrew Vuong]

lol mus t have been fun

[DustyWiyrick]

first