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Chemical Warfare bombardment that later proved to have been ineffective, CHARNWOOD also saw an infantry and armor advance under a creeping barrage by the artillery Further fire support came from warships off the Normandy coast, which proved highly effective in blunting an advance to reinforce Caen by a freshly arrived Panzer division The main fighting in Caen was done by a weak Luftwaffe field division but also by young and skilled fanatics of 12th Waffen-SS (Hitlerjungend) Division When the operation was halted, Caen was left divided, with German and Western Allied forces in possession of different sections of the badly bombed city CHELMNO The first of the death camps in the Nazi concentration camp system Sited outside Lodo ˉ, it was designed to kill all Jews residing in western Poland, a territory annexed to Germany in October 1939 It opened in December 1941 Probably 150,000 people were murdered at Chelmno, most by gas CHEMICAL WARFARE The Italians used gas against Abyssinian troops during the Abyssinian War (1935–1936), crop dusting a retreating column of 20,000 with blister agents Lethal chemical and gas weapons were much feared but hardly used during World War II, despite the fact that all major armies carried defensive equipment and were prepared to use gas weapons if the other side used them first Nonuse was not due to moral restraint on the part of belligerents, but because most tacticians deemed chemical weapons to be militarily ineffective Massive stockpiles of chemical weapons by the major powers also proved a mutual deterrent to actual use Still, there were times when use of poison gas was actively contemplated On June 30, 1940, the War Cabinet in London authorized use of gas against any German beachhead established on the English coast It did so upon the recommendation of General John Dill and the Imperial General Staff The Germans anticipated British use of gas and issued gas masks to all troops slated for the invasion, though they neglected to provide masks for tens of thousands of horses that would accompany the troops into battle They also failed to ever supply gas masks to most of their civilian population In contrast, the British were so concerned about Axis gas bombs they issued gas masks to all civilians during the Blitz London also increased its own lethal gas stockpiles, mainly of phosgene and mustard gas, by thirty-fold from 1940 to 1941 That meant the British had enough poison gas to supply the USAAF with 10,000 gas bombs, sufficient until American gas production got underway in 1942 Germany also ordered massive production increases as of June 1, 1940: Adolf Hitler hoped to use gas to strike a “death blow” against Britain after conventional bombing failed in 1940 However, the Luftwaffe never overcame problems of poison gas production or delivery-to-target The British repeatedly announced that they would massively retaliate with chemical bombs should Germany use them first, including German first use on the Eastern Front Winston Churchill wrote secretly to Joseph Stalin in 1942, promising that the RAF would use gas against Germany if Hitler used gas against the Soviet Union He added: “I have been building up an immense stock of gas bombs for discharge from aircraft.” The British Army also kept ground force gas 221
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