Text from the excellent book "Corvette Navy" the haunting story of men plucked in good health and spirit from a sinking ship by the escort Minas, in a matter of minutes they lay dead. Their Merchant ship had been carrying containers of poison gas for storage in the UK for retaliatory use in the event of a Nazi gas attack The torpedoing had released some of this fearful gas,
they were all doomed. add this to the Bari Italy incident and we can conclude
that both sides knew there was enough stockpiles of gas to kill everyone.
part of a chemical officer job was to check captured filters for changes, British civilian filters kept being added to, till they would not fit custom made carriers.
The USN did gas drills on their ships.
