southern command

[sirrom]

Can anybody tell me where was located and name of the camp of the gas and grenade school if there was one in south or southwest england.

[Moonraker]

Can anybody tell me where was located and name of the camp of the gas and grenade school if there was one in south or southwest england.

Porton, as in today's Porton Down?? Early in 1916 the Government acquired an initial 2,866 acres in the Porton and Idmiston area, north east of Salisbury, and started experimenting with gas - how to deliver it as a weapon and how to take precautions against it. The land was also used by the Trench Warfare Research Department, which tested more conventional weapons, presumably including grenades. Grenade-throwing was taught at most, if not all, infantry training camps.

Moonraker

[jhill]

I suspect it would have been unusual for ordinary soldiers to have attended gas courses at Porton. I believe that place was operated by the new Ministry of Supply to actually develop and test the nasty stuff. The Army would have trained their people in their own camps and schools.

As to these, the first point is that every soldier underwent grenade and anti-gas training as part of the standard 14 week training at his normal camp. In the gas case this would have involved at least one hour each week including a turn through the gas chamber at the Training Division's facility.

Speciallists and instructors were sent out for special courses. As an example, in 1917 the Canadian troops at Shorncliffe sent officers and other ranks to Wendover for speciallist anti-gas courses. Curiously, Wendover also received N.C.O.'s for Cookery Courses. Later on, men were also sent to Aldershot for anti-gas courses before similar courses were established at the Canadian Training School at Bexhill.

Training in "offensive" use of gas was presumably conducted by the artillery and the engineers.

I am sure there were lots of similar places.

[Moonraker]

Sirrom

Can you give us some context for your query? Jhill's reply is probably more on the ball than mine, but there would have been specialist courses at Porton. My researches are confined to Wiltshire; I can't recall many references to gas chambers at camps there, though Huntly Gordon in "The Unreturning Army" (J M Dent, London 1967) says of the Officers' Training Corps camp at Tidworth Pennings in 1916: "we were given demonstrations of every aspect of warfare. We put on gas-masks, hesitatingly entered a tent of chlorine gas and were relieved to find ourselves unaffected by it." Major A Hamilton’s papers in the IWM (93/31/1) describe his time at Number 1 Cavalry Depot, Netheravon,.A day was spent at Tidworth going through the gas chamber there (which briefly exposed soldiers to the gas that might be used against them in France), though most cadets dodged this – how he does not say.

Southern Command, I think, extended to Land's End, so there must have been other gas chambers.

Moonraker

[Terry_Reeves]

Anti-Gas Schools in Southern Command:

The dates shown alongside are the dates the schools were authorised.

Command School, Sandown, IOW - 5.9.16

No 1 Area Chisledon Camp, Chisledon - 5.9.16

No 2 Area West Park Camp, Fovant - 5.9.16

No 3 Area 12 Southgate Street, Winchester - 5.9.16

No 4 Area HQ, South Coast Defences, Portsmouth - 26.10.16

No 5 Area "P" Lines, Bulford - 26.10.16

No 6 Area No 2 Camp, Swanage - 26.10.16

No 7 Area St Budeaux, Plymouth - 4.4.17

No 8 Area ( mobile) No 8 Hut, Radnor House Salisbury - 4.4.17

No 9 Area (mobile) HQ, Irish Reserve Brigade, Durrington Camp, Salisbury Plain - 4.4.17

No 10 Area Bovington Camp., Wool, Dorset - 4.4.17.

Terry Reeves

[Simon R]

What's the source for those places/dates Terry?

[Moonraker]

Terry: Thanks. Very interesting. Exposure to gas when training must have been a novel experience, and I'm surprised I've come across no accounts in soldiers' memoirs of their time in Wiltshire.

The Winchester address - in the city centre - seems a curious place to have had a gas school, where there were army camps to the east at Winnal Down; perhaps it was an admin office? And the reference to the Irish Reserve Brigade apparently at Durrington in April 1917 had me puzzled; my own notes show several Irish battalions there in late 1918.

It's not the first time that a bald list of locations has thrown up some interesting, not to say, puzzling points.

Moonraker

[Terry_Reeves]

Moonraker

It is more than likely that the Winchester address was the administrative office. The a/g instructors and assistant instructors are likely to have gone out to the various camps in the area.

Terry Reeves

[sirrom]

Moonraker

It is more than likely that the Winchester address was the administrative office. The a/g instructors and assistant instructors are likely to have gone out to the various camps in the area.

Terry Reeves

the enqiry is in relation to my looking for my grandfather,last time i tried by the front door ,this time im approaching the problem by the back door..only info i know is his nameand that he was in at least at some point ..royal north devon hussars ....that he enlisted in winchester and that he was at a gas course in tregant....i wonder if this is terries ...fovant ..apparently tregant was in cornwall ,devon....other than that i know as ive already posted he was in france...doing something with horses and subsequently in ireland in dundalk..........AND I STILL CAN NOT FIND HENRY STEINBERG

[Terry_Reeves]

Sirrom

It's not Fovant, which is in Wiltshire. From your information it sounds like Fort Tregantle which was in use during WW1. Ranges were built alongside the fort and were in use from 1903. There is a picture here, which is the second one down. You will have to click on the smaller picture for an enlarged view.

http://www.ecastles.co.uk/plymouthwest.html

Terry Reeves

[Moonraker]

An extract describing gas training at Sling Camp, Wiltshire, from W J McKeon, The Fruitful Years, the memoirs of a New Zealand soldier:

"We were introduced to lachrimatory or tear gas and had to face this with and without masks, just to get the feel of it! One particularly foul trick which we had to suffer was entering a sloping trench full of tear gas, running through it and up the other slope to ground level again. Completely blinded by the stinging gas, we staggered down the trench in an effort to get out as quickly as possible. In the lowest part of the trench some fiend had half buried a two-gallon petrol can, over which we tripped and sprawled into the bottom of the trench. Gasping and smarting, we staggered on, emerging at the other end done to a turn, to face the unfeeling laughter of the instructors who stood clear of the stinging atmosphere."

Moonraker