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Secret Sources on US Chemical Weapons in Asia and the Pacific during WWII

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Toxic Yard at Charters Towers... Toxic Yard at Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia, operated by the US 760th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation). 1944 Photo by Basil Tindeba, Papua ... Photo by Basil Tindeba, Papua New Guinea, 2023
   Chemical weapons were very important in WWI, and both Japan and Italy used them in the late 1930s. During WWII, chemical weapons were available to both sides in massive quantities, but they were never used on the battlefield. Details of this chemical standoff remain important in 2023, partly to aid in understanding nuclear and other standoffs today and partly as a guide for dealing with old chemical weapons that still remain where they were left.
   The history of WWII's chemical weapons is elusive, however, since many of the original source materials were kept secret for many decades after the war's end, and some are still hidden away in the obscurity of archived microfilm vaults. Hoosier Scientist has obtained digital copies of two microfilm reels from the US Air Force archives at Maxwell Air Base and has posted complete "Organizational History Reports" for 3 Chemical Depot Companies.
   The 771st Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) maintained and later disposed of about 100,000 bombs containing mustard agent, lewisite, phosgene, hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride at Ondal Advance Chemical Park in India. 771st-history-reports
   The Black enlisted men and White officers of the 769th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) operated a front-line chemical stockpile at Kalaikunda, India, where they were ready to load chemical bombs onto B-29s. Those B-29s were part of Operation Matterhorn, the first bombing of Japanese home islands since the Doolittle Raid. 769th-history-reports
   The 760th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) maintained a stockpile with about 25,000 chemical bombs, first in Queensland, Australia and later in New Guinea. The photos above show a map of their storage area in Queensland from 1944 and a photo from near their depot in New Guinea taken in 2023. 760th-history-reports
   Please consider investigating these original source materials for yourself. Let me know if you are interested in other aviation-related Chemical Depot Companies. I MIGHT be able to find their records on those two microfilm reels.

Fred Thomas
aka: A Hoosier Scientist
http://www.hoosierscientist.com
#CBIHistory #WW2bombs #airforcehistory #asianhistory #blackhistory #buriedbombs #chemicalwarfare #pacifictheater #stemeducation

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Morality of Wars, Past and Present

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Secret document from June 19... Secret document from June 1945, documenting the role of the US Chemical Warfare Service in the bombing of Japan
Russian targeting of civilians in Ukraine has rightly caused outrage around the world. It is valuable to remember, however, that Russia is not alone in its willingness to target civilians as it seeks to achieve military or geopolitical goals. Other examples worthy of examination include the “rape of Nanjing” by Japanese soldiers in China and the British “counterinsurgency” tactics during the Boer War. Another example worthy of consideration is America’s strategic bombing of Japan during WWII. The 2 atomic bombs are well known, of course, but the firestorms which came first did far more damage and killed far more civilians. During the first months of 1945, soldiers like my father in the US Chemical Warfare Service were responsible for preparing and loading over 32,000 tons of incendiary bombs for use against Japan. Although napalm was the weapon of choice, the same bombs could have been filled instead with mustard agent or other toxic chemicals.

Hoosier Scientist has posted a 20-page, then-secret WWII document, “Chemical Warfare Digest,” from the US XXI Bomber Command. It details the ground preparations, designed to maximize the effectiveness of the firebombings as a way to force Japan to surrender unconditionally. It is important to realize that the most important “condition” of surrender that the Allies refused to discuss was for the Japanese Emperor to remain in power. During the war, the Allies insisted that Emperor Hirohito (like Hitler and Mussolini) had to be completely removed from power. After the surrender, however, the Allies chose to let Hirohito continue as Emperor.


Fred Thomas
aka: A Hoosier Scientist
http://www.hoosierscientist.com/cwsdigest3
#CBRN #DragonSoldiers #WW2bombs #airforcehistory #asianhistory #chemicalwarfare #chemicalweapons #pacifictheater

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What Secrets Did the Photographer Know?

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Major J. A. Philpott, Commandi... Major J. A. Philpott, Commanding Officer of the 490th Bomb Squadron, 341st Bomb Group and crew pose beside their plane at Ondal Airfield, India. 15 March 1943.
In mid-March of 1943, an unnamed US Army photographer visited Ondal Air Base, then under construction northwest of Calcutta in British India. He was a combat photographer with the 10th AAF Combat Camera Unit, but this was a noncombat project: accompanying an American Red Cross team as they opened “Club 690” for the base’s enlisted men. The photographer’s assignment, it seems, was to obtain pictures appropriate for release through US newspapers to inspire and reassure the American public. He completed that assignment, capturing newspaper-ready photos of heroic bomber crews, hard-working mechanics and more. He took other photos as well, some showing less pleasant realities of an American military base in colonial India. Twenty-six of his Ondal photographs (together with brief notes about each) are preserved in the US National Archives. Eighteen of the photos are available at https://www.hoosierscientist.com/ondalphotos

All wartime bases hold secrets. Some secrets involve military tactics, such as the struggle by B-25 bomber crews to find an effective technique for destroying the bridges they targeted in Burma. Other secrets were related to propaganda, such as the colonial government’s claim there was no shortage of food at a time when the price of rice was rising dramatically and the region was on the verge of a devastating famine. Ondal’s biggest secret in March of 1943, however, was both local and broadly strategic. The US was developing Ondal not just as a base for medium-range B-25 bombers but also as the site of Ondal Advanced Chemical Park. By early 1945, Ondal ACP would house a stockpile of nearly 100,000 mustard, phosgene, cyanogen chloride and other chemical bombs that could have been—but never were—delivered to the Japanese home islands on long-range B-29 bombers operating through China.

Which secrets, if any, do you think the photographer knew when he took his photos at Ondal?

Fred Thomas
aka: A Hoosier Scientist
http://www.hoosierscientist.com
#WW2bombs #airforcehistory #asianhistory #buriedbombs #cbitheater #chemicalwarfare #chemicalweapons #presidenttruman #steameducation #stemeducation

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How Did the First Color Photo Show Red, If the Film Was Not Sensitive to Red Light?

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The First Permanent, "Full-Col... The First Permanent, "Full-Color" Photograph, Displayed by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861
The Maxwell-Sutton photograph of a tartan ribbon is considered the first permanent color image ever captured. Maxwell displayed the image as a set of overlaid projections of grayscale images which were captured and displayed through red, green and blue filters. The 3 original transparencies still exist, along with a fourth transparency captured through a yellow filter that Maxwell did not use in his presentation.

The frequently displayed reproduction above was actually produced in 1940 in a effort to better understand the scientific and technical origins of color photography. The reproduction drew attention to the fact that photographic chemicals available in 1861 were completely insensitive to the low-energy photons of red light--and yet the photo clearly shows red. Sutton's documentation of his process shows he found it easiest to capture an image through a blue filter, which corresponds to the maximum sensitivity of his chemicals. He found he needed a much longer exposure with his green filter, corresponding to the lower sensitivity of the chemicals. He reported that the red image required less exposure time than did the green. The 1940 researchers found another clue in that the red image is slightly out of focus, despite the care taken by Sutton as he used his red-sensitive eyes to focus the red image.

Let us know how you think an image taken in bright sunlight through a red filter can show shades of red--when the chemicals were NOT sensitive to red photons.

Let us know too if you have ideas for other "Questions Worth Considering" as ways to better connect science, technology, engineering, art and may.

Fred Thomas
aka: A Hoosier Scientist
http://www.hoosierscientist.com
#colorphotography #jamesclerkmaxwell #photography #rgb #steameducation #stemeducation #thomassutton

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Are RGB Digital Cameras Becoming Obsolete?

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Current filter arrays use 9 pix... Current filter arrays use 9 pixels to evaluate R, G and B color intensities for each pixel. An alternative L*a*b* array could use 4 pixels to capture all the needed data for each intersection. Stare at a blue spot for 20 se... Stare at a blue spot for 20 seconds, then look at a white background. Do you see the yellowish afterimage Hering predicts?
The RGB (red-green-blue) system of color imaging is so well established that it may seem to be the only option. There are practical and theoretical reasons, however, to consider whether RBG cameras might soon become obsolete. The RGB or ("trichromatic") system dates back to the first ever color photograph, taken with grey-scale film using red, green and blue filters by physicist, James Clerk Maxwell, and photographer, Thomas Sutton, in 1852. Then and now, the system successfully fools humans into believing they see all colors of the spectrum when they are actually seeing different combinations of red, green and blue. A spectrometer, for example, readily distinguishes a combination of red and green from true yellow, but humans cannot.

Modern digital cameras still use an array of red, green and blue filters to record light intensities onto a broad-spectrum sensor. A 4 MB camera generally does have 4,000,000 locations for which to record light intensity, but 1 million are captured through red filters, 2 million through green filters, and 1 million through blue filters. The camera's electronics CALCULATE separate red, green and blue intensities for each of the 4 million pixels, but do so by interpolating values for adjoining pixels. Each pixel's color data actually incorporates data from NINE (9) pixels.

Way back in 1892, physiologist Ewald Hering offered an alternative theory of human color vision, called "Opponent Process Theory." He cited experiments which trichromatic theory could not explain, including "afterimages" which linger in our field of view. If we stare at a blue spot for 20 seconds, for example, then look at a white background, we generally see a yellowish afterimage. To explain these observations, Hering suggested that the information transmitted to our brains is NOT the full set of RGB intensities, but rather a red-green comparison (a*), a yellow-blue comparison (b*) and a measure of overall brightness (L*).

Herring's theory lives on. Most modern experts believe that trichromatic theory does provide an accurate description of how our EYES function, but that Herring's theory provides a better description of how our BRAINS actually interpret color. Herring's L*a*b* system is sufficiently well established that it is available in programs such as Photoshop as an alternative method for manipulating color images.

Display devices such as TVs and computer monitors do need to produce images that match the functioning of the human eye, so they may always need to use RGB displays. There is no fundamental reason, however, that cameras need to capture all the same data our eyes capture and then discard. Cameras could capture values for L*, a* and b* directly--and the result might be both better color quality and better spatial resolution.

Will RGB digital cameras really become obsolete? Maybe, maybe not. But it is a question worth considering--and that's what our website is all about.

Fred Thomas
aka: A Hoosier Scientist
http://www.hoosierscientist.com/rgb-obsolete
#Hering #colorvision #opponentprocess #photography #rgb #steameducation #stemeducation #trichromatic

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