Alexander Todd - A Time to Remember

Very soon after the outbreak of war I found myself involved with chemical defence research and development. There was at the time an unwarranted assumption that chemical warfare would be let loose on the civilian population and (in my view) a grossly exaggerated idea of the attendant dangers. As a result it was not surprising that there was a good deal of time wasted initially in investigating potential chemical warfare agents and in trying to devise new ones by completely hit and miss methods. To say that we were ill-prepared for chemical warfare in this country (apart from the provision of gas masks for civilians) would be to put it mildly, and it seemed that in the matter of considering new agents, or even the manufacture of known ones, virtually no progress had been made since the First World War. I soon found myself drafted, first as a member then as Chairman of the Chemical Committee which, under the Chemical Board of the Ministry of Supply, was responsible for development and production of chemical warfare agents. The research establishment mainly involved in this work was at Sutton Oak, St Helens, not very far from Manchester and manufacturing facilities were available through I.C.I. plants at Runcorn, Widnes and Blackley. All these are convenient to Manchester and so I remained stationed there throughout the war and was able to keep a reasonable measure of my own research going in the university in addition to work for the war effort. The Chemical Committee used to make occasional visits to the Sutton Oak establishment during the first couple of years of the war while the fear of chemical warfare was still very much to the fore. I recall much discussion about the virtues of the 'brass still' in the purification of mustard gas; as far as I could discover, however, its only virtue lay in the fact that, for one reason or another, and probably merely because of its availability at the time, a brass still had been incorporated in a plant that worked successfully in 1918. Now in 1940 a similar item, it seemed, had to be put into any new plant which was to be built!

The situation regarding arsenical sternutators which had been developed and, I believe, used by the Germans in the First World War was also rather ridiculous. After that war our chemical defence people had undertaken a study of the German manufacturing process of diphenyl chloroarsine by what was known as the double diazotisation process, starting from aniline and proceeding via a procedure well known in the dyestuffs industry called diazotisation modified so as to permit the introduction of arsenic into the molecule. The result of the study was recorded in a voluminous report purporting to show that it was theoretically(!) impossible to get more than about thirty per cent yield of product. This appeared to me to be such nonsense that I undertook to show that I could produce an effective process for manufacturing diphenyl chloroarsine by this method. I was, rather reluctantly, given permission to have a go, and with two research students and a dyestuffs chemist we borrowed from I.C.I. we not only demonstrated that we could get yields approaching the theoretical in the laboratory, but we went up to Blackley Works and there made the necessary arylarsonic acid successfully on a pilot plant producing five tons per week. This was a great experience for me and for the boys in the laboratory; we not only vindicated our criticism of the government report, but we learned quite a lot about the problems encountered in passing from a chemical experiment in the laboratory to large-scale manufacture. Subsequently we used our experience to develop a pilot plant for the production of the so-called 'nitrogen-mustard', but abandoned it when we had a disastrous explosion while chlorinating a sample of methylamine which, unknown to us, was contaminated with ammonia; we wrecked a laboratory, but by sheer luck no-one was injured. I need hardly add that our efforts in these areas contributed precisely nothing to the war effort since chemical weapons were never used.

However, my chemical defence commitments had their lighter moments. I recall being called upon to travel down to the Defence Research Establishment at Porton to watch a demonstration of a new chemical weapon for use against tanks. It must have been in 1941, because air-raids were heavy and frequent, tobacco was very scarce and, as petrol was equally hard to come by, I travelled down from Manchester by train through Bristol to Salisbury. As it happened Bristol had a big raid on the night my train was passing through and we had to lie stationary in the railway yards with bombs dropping uncomfortably close until the raid ended. We then trundled on through the placid countryside of south-west England and arrived at Salisbury around 8 a.m. where I was to breakfast before setting out in an army car for the demonstration on the open plain near Porton. Now, in those days I was quite a heavy cigarette smoker and the modest supply I had wheedled from my supplier in Manchester had long since gone and I was rather desperate; but, needless to say, I could find no-one in Salisbury who would supply me with any. So I breakfasted, trundled off to Porton, watched gloomily a rather unconvincing weapon demonstration and was taken to the local officers' mess for lunch. After having a wash I proceeded to the bar where - believe it or not - there was a white-coated barman who was not only serving drinks but also cigarettes! I hastened forward and rather timidly said 'Can I have some cigarettes?'

'What's your rank?' was the slightly unexpected reply.

'I am afraid I haven't got one,' I answered.

'Nonsense - everyone who comes here has a rank.'

'I'm sorry but I just don't have one.'

'Now that puts me in a spot,' said the barman, 'for orders about cigarettes in this camp are clear - twenty for officers and ten for other ranks. Tell me what exactly are you?'

Now I really wanted those cigarettes so I drew myself up and said 'I am the Professor of Chemistry at Manchester University.'

The barman contemplated me for about thirty seconds and then said 'I'll give you five.'

Since that day I have had few illusions about the importance of professors!

In wartime air-raids, fire was perhaps the greatest danger we had to contend with, and the university - and especially departments such as chemistry - took fire precautions very seriously. At the outbreak of war word was sent to all departments to examine all attics and ensure that they contained no inflammable materials. I well remember our venture into the attics in chemistry. We must have been the first entrants for many years, and we were somewhat taken aback to find in straw-lined open boxes a considerable number of sealed bulbs containing metal alkyls which dated from the last century and evidently belonged originally to Frankland (their discoverer). As these compounds are spontaneously inflammable they represented a considerable but entirely unsuspected fire risk even in peacetime! Another somewhat alarming discovery was made when we decided to look at our basement as well as our attics. Here we found several large bottles of mustard gas and a substantial amount of rather ominous looking decaying cordite; these we decided not to touch ourselves but to have dealt with by an army bomb-disposal unit.

Following this preliminary clean up, firewatching was put on an organised footing. In the chemistry department we had a rota system in which no distinction was made between teaching staff, technical staff and research students although it happened that most of the technical staff were engaged in firewatching or Home Guard duties in their home areas so that our departmental firewatching teams were made up for the most part of staff and research students and included about once or twice a week Ralph Gilson, F. S. Spring, at that time Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, and myself. These were rumbustious nights with every conceivable practical joke laid on and very little sleep for the participants even in the absence of raids. In my view the firewatching system was a huge success in a quite unexpected way. It brought into intimate contact research students and staff and I believe it made the Manchester chemical school of those days into a tightly knit group and set up relationships of mutual trust and respect that have endured to this day. I for one shall always cherish the experience of those nights on duty.