Look out for Gas

Franklin Roosevelt was convinced. He had riffled through reports from Lieut. General Joseph W. Stilwell in Burma; he had read correspondence from the efficient, silent Magruder mission in Chungking; he had seen transcripts of official Chinese broadcasts from XGOY, Chungking. He needed no more persuasion. He wrote:

"Authoritative reports are reaching this Government of the use by Japanese armed forces in various localities of China of poisonous or noxious gases. I desire to make it unmistakably clear that, if Japan persists in this inhuman form of warfare against China, or against any other of the United Nations, such action will be regarded by this Government as though taken against the United States, and retaliation in kind and in full measure will be meted out. We shall be prepared to enforce complete retribution. Upon Japan will rest the responsibility."

There was evidence that in five years of war the Japanese had launched 1,000 mustard and lewisite gas attacks against the Chinese. The heaviest (TIME, Nov. 10) were in the battle for Ichang, in October 1941. On May 26, the Japanese forced a crossing of the Singang River near Kienteh by sending planes ahead to shower gas bombs on the defenders. A fortnight ago the Japanese took Kinhwa with the help of gas, and last week repeated the performance at Chuhsien, 45 miles southwest of Kinhwa.

To Franklin Roosevelt's warning, which paralleled Winston Churchill's previous warning that the British would consider German gas attacks in Russia as if they were against the British, the Japanese answered saucily. They said that if the U.S. uses gas, "Uncle Sam's boys will be given a smell of their own Du Pont gas which the Japanese captured at Guam."

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