Sicily

CWS ofiScers in North Africa exerted every effort to acquaint infantry commanders with the chemical mission, including the 4.2-inch mortar and its proper employment. Even before the arrival of the chemical battalions they conducted demonstrations with 4.2-inch mortar WP shells, colored grenades, and flame throwers. With the arrival of the first three battalions CWS officers were able to hold mortar demonstrations for the chief of staff of Seventh Army and other high ranking officers.  

The experience in Sicily prompted some of the participating CWS officers to predict the unlikelihood of mortar employment in subsequent landing operations. The Fifth Army chemical officer felt that when one is making a landing at a distance from his base, shipping space is so precious that I doubt if it will ever be possible to mount the 4.2-inch 

Upon entry in combat each of the mortar battalions was composed of 1,010 men 36 officers, i warrant officer, and 973 enlisted men, distributed among a headquarters, a headquarters company, a medical detachment, and four weapons companies. Each company had 2 platoons, each platoon z sections, and each section 3 squads. On the basis of one mortar per squad, the battalion complement of mortars was 48. Transportation of the battalion consisted of 88 a -ton trucks and 36 vehicles of varying smaller sizes. Chemical mortar carts were present in case of rough terrain. Side arms for the battalion included 820. 43-caliber automatics.  

Pulling a 4.2-Inch Mortar Cart Over Rugged Terrain 

Early next morning the infantry tried again, and one B Company platoon concealed the advance to the attack position with a 1,000-yard screen. The mortars maintained this screen for almost fourteen hours despite difficulties caused by shifting winds. Once the screen was established it was kept up by two WP rounds a minute, although for a short period around noon weather conditions made it necessary to raise this number to five. The mortar crews lifted the screen several 

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Sicily) 7.8%, which are too high to be able to say with certainty that sulfur comes only from organic material alone. 

Eddy Currents ttike their name from the swirls (eddies) observed in turbulent water flow. The Greek mythology tells us about Charybdis. A monster eddy current between Italy and Sicily whose attractive field pulled unwary sailors to their destruction. Our kind of eddy currents are usually not so dangerous, they flow in electrical conductors and are a branch of Electromagnetics. Where does that spring from Could it make eddy currents the very oldest NDT technique ... 

Large deposits of free sulphur occur in America, Sicily and Japan. Combined sulphur occurs as sulphides, for example galena, PbS, zinc blende, ZnS, and iron pyrites, FeSj, and as sulphates, notably as gypsum or anhydrite, CaS04. 

Potassium sulfate is produced in Sicily by controlled decomposition of the natural mineral kainite, KCl-MgS04-2.75H2 0 (26). This salt is first converted to schoenite in an aqueous solution from a potassium sulfate conversion step. A similar process is used in the United States. Kainite is obtained as the potassium feedstock by stage evaporation of Great Salt Lake bitterns (see Chemicals frombrines). 

Evaporite Basin Sulfur Deposits. Elemental sulfur occurs in another type of subsurface deposit similar to the salt-dome stmctures in that the sulfur is associated with anhydrite or gypsum. The deposits are sedimentary, however, and occur in huge evaporite basins. It is befleved that the sulfur in these deposits, like that in the Gulf Coast salt domes, was derived by hydrocarbon reduction of the sulfate material and assisted by anaerobic bacteria. The sulfur deposits in Italy (Sicily), Poland, Iraq, the CIS, and the United States (western Texas) are included in this category. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the world s sulfur demand of about two million metric tons was met by sulfur produced from elemental deposits in Sicily, Italy, and from pyrite mined on the Iberian Peninsula. By 1995, sulfur was recovered in more than 78 countries. 

Property Kentucky Oklahoma Alabama Texas Sicily Germany... 

The crystallographic world was stunned when at a meeting in Erice, Sicily, in 1982, Hartmut Michel of the Max-Planck Institute in Martinsried, Germany, displayed the x-ray diagram shown in Figure 12.12. Not only was this the first x-ray picture to high resolution of a membrane protein, but the crystal was... 

Volcanic sources of the free element are also widespread they have been of great economic importance until thi.s century but are now little used. They occur throughout the mountain ranges bordering the Pacific Ocean, and also in Iceland and the Mediterranean region, notably in T irkey, Italy and formerly also in Sicily and Spain. 

Stanis la o Ca n n izza ro (1826-1910) was born in Palermo, Sicily, the son of the chief of police. He studied at the University of Pisa under Rafaelle Piria and also worked in Peris with Michei-Eugene Chevreul. As a youth, he took part in the Sicilian revolution of 1848 and was at one point condemned to death. He was professor of chemistry at the universities of Genoa, Palermo, and Rome and is best known for being the first to clarify the distinction between atoms and molecules. 

Fig. 5.13 Map of eastern Sicily showing Laurencia obtusa collection sites...

Caccamese, S., R. Azzolina, R. M. Toscano and K. L. Rinehart, Jr. 1981. Variations in the halogenated metabolites of Laurencia obtusa from eastern Sicily. Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 9 241-246. 

Sticks of elder have been used to kill serpents and drive off robbers. Even today in Sicily, elder branches are still considered best for this task. Elder is believed to help deter attackers of every sort, including those of evil enchantment. There are tales told of witches who needed to hide who would transform themselves and take refuge in the branches of a nearby elder. 

Malaria cases in Sicily exceeded battle casualties. At some West African airbases, personnel averaged an infection and a relapse yearly. The disease was an important factor in the fall of Bataan in the Philippines and in other early Pacific war disasters. For each battle casualty early in the New Guinea campaign, six to eight malaria patients had to be evacuated. An entire division of U.S. Marines was withdrawn from the front after more than half contracted malaria in the summer of 1942. Unless malaria could be controlled, General Douglas MacArthur said that he would have one division of men hospitalized with malaria and another division recuperating from it for every combat-ready division. 

William N. Sullivan. The Coupling of Science and Technology in the Early Development of the World War II Aerosol Bomb. Military Medicine, 136 (Feb. 1971) 157-158. Source for Sicily and African airbases. 

In the summer of 2004, the NATO A.S.I. on the subject Optical Chemical Sensors was organised in Erice, Sicily. This NATO A.S.I. was the 40th Course of the International School of Quantum Electronics, under the auspices of the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Center for Scientific Culture and was directed by Dr. J. Homola of the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronic (IREE) of the Academy of Sciences in Prague and by Dr. F.Baldini of the Nello Carrara Institute of Applied Physics (IFAC-CNR). It is also the fourth course in the framework of the ASCOS (Advanced Study Course on Optical Chemical Sensors) series, founded in 1999 by Prof. Otto Wolfbeis. This book presents the Proceedings of this advanced course providing a deep overview of both the fundamentals of optical chemical sensing and the applications of chemical sensors. 

Olaffson J (1981) Trace Metals in Seawater. In Wong CS et al. (eds) Proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Institute on Trace Metals in Seawater, 30/3-3/4/81, Sicily, Italy. Plenum Press, New York, NY, USA... 

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