British forces

History The secret was released some time after World War II when it became apparent that British forces provided a grenade specially concocted with botulinal toxins to kill Reinhard Heydrich, the much feared head of the Nazi Security Service, better known as the SD. After the successful killing in the Prague, Czechoslovakia, the stunned Germans shot and burned the town of Lidice (where free-Czechs from Britain had been parachuted in kill Heydrich), and arrested an estimated 10,000 Czechs. 

The second opium war was characterized by increased British forces, resulting in a more violent conflict. Some reports estimated that in one battle, involving the British storming the port of Canton, 10,000 Chinese had been captured or killed within 10 minutes. Further reports indicated that within one 27-hour period, large swaths of Canton were... 

Discussions between the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Callaghan, and McNamara in June 1965 revealed that the latter was concerned about a collapse of NATO, brought about not only by a reduction of British forces in Germany but also by de Gaulle s attempts to change the... 

It has been known for many years that the human brain is dependent for its norman functioning on a regular input of sensory stimuli. Sensory deprivation leads to hallucinations and finally to mental breakdown. The use of these sensory deprivation techniques by British forces in Northern Ireland(Ref 7) was the subject of an official investigation (Ref 4). This commission concluded that physical torture had not been used. But a commission set up by Amnesty International concluded that the technique clearly amounted to brutality and was dangerous both to the immediate mental health of the individual subjected to this treatment and to the long-term health of some subjects (Ref S) See also under Sound as a Weapon in Vol 9 Refs 1)G.C. Mohr etal, Effects of Low Frequency and Infiasonic Noise on Men , Aero-spaceMedicine 36 (1965), 817-824 2) R. 

Note Compiled from PRO, WO 32/5951, casualties caused by poison gas in British forces 1915-1918 (1918-1919). 

British forces in Canada, General Sir Fenwick Williams. (16) The report names George N. Sandis as the group s money mover Sandis was an American citizen, formerly an advisor to... 

Mass Grave in Bergen-Belsen camp, filled mainly with inmates who had succumbed to a typhus epidemic shortly before the end of World War II or thereafter. Photo taken after the liberation of the camp by British forces. ... 

Early in 1944, U.S. and British forces knew that the quick killer cyanogen chloride readily penetrated German and Japanese gas masks, and Allied gas masks successfully stopped this gas. This advantage might have tempted Allied forces to use cyanogen chloride, for example, against Japanese soldiers occupying islands in the southwest Pacific. 

British opinion then was generally against the German use of chemicals, but accepted that as such weapons had been used and were seen to be effective, Britain would have no option but to reply in kind. The use of gas by British forces was at first represented as a reprisal against the German use of gas. However, gas use soon escalated and British use far passed any reasonable definition of a reprisal. By the close of WWI, chemical warfare seemed to have been accepted as a regrettable fact of military life, and the existence of customary law against its use would have been difficult to demonstrate. 

Sir Alan struck me as a conscientious and sincere man who has been doing his best, with diminishing authority and in a situation in which both sides blame the British for everything. He was rather annoyed when I hinted that some Jewish officers felt they were being hampered in their efforts by the presence of British forces who sometimes confiscated their weapons. 

This would be a perfectly practicable and reasonable idea, provided (a) that the Iranian Army will fight (b) that the Iranian officer corps proves capable of carrying out such a complicated and difficult operation as a steady point-to-point withdrawal in the face of enemy pressure and (c) that the operation is part of a general plan by which, in due course, American and British forces will come to the help of the Iranians, either directly or by attacking the Russians elsewhere. 

It is also a disturbing fact—already commented on earlier in this book—that there is no plan of combined action for American and British forces, though should there be trouble with the Russians these forces would certainly act together. 

Thus the actual British forces present in the area are considerably stronger than ours. On the other hand, our ability to reinforce our air and naval forces quickly is considerably greater than theirs, since our Atlantic Fleet is much stronger than the British Home Fleet, and our air forces at home are quite a lot stronger than the permanent establishment of the Royal Air Force in Great Britain. Our possession of step-pingstone bases at Newfoundland and in the Azores gives... 

In between, a sort of bioterrorism came to the New World in the fifteenth century, aimed to defeat the Indians. Spanish conquistador Pizarro gave clothing contaminated with the smallpox virus to natives in South America. During the French and Indian War (1754-1767) Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of British forces in North America, suggested the deliberate use of smallpox to reduce Native American tribes hostile to the British [116]. An outbreak of smallpox at Fort Pitt results in the opportunity to execute Amherst s plan. On June 24, 1763, Captain Ecuyer, Amherst s subordinate, gives blankets and a handkerchief from the smallpox hospital to the Native Americans and records in his journal, I hope it will have the desired effect. This was followed by an epidemic of smallpox among Native American tribes in the Ohio River valley, which may also have been spread by contact with settlers. Transmission of smallpox by fomites (on blankets) is inefficient compared with respiratory droplet transmission. 

By 1915, the trench line between the French and British forces and the Germans was established from the English Channel to the Swiss border, and a stalemate set in. At the junction of the British Expeditionary Force and a French territorial division near the old Belgian city of Ypres, an event occurred on 22 April 1915 that marked a new kind of warfare (Figure 3-3) ... 

Told from the American point of view, the scene might go like this The Americans were assembled near Boone Hill when they got word that British forces were advancing. General Washington ordered his men, a ragtag group of 300, to stand firm, as nearly 2,000 British soldiers advanced toward them. 

From the British point of view, it might go this way British forces prepared to charge on the Americans who were assembled nearby. A force of nearly 2,000 men, they had little difficulty with the terrain as they approached Boone Hill, where General Washington was waiting with a rag tag force of about 300. 

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