The exhalation valve, which is seemingly unique to the ASBR is attached to the angletube via fabric tape and wire. The size is stamped on the facepiece above the angletube. Very early examples of the mask did have an exhalation valve guard similar in construction to that of the Small Box Respirator. The angletube is noticeably smaller than that of the Corrected English Box Respirator and normally does not have an exhale valve guard present. Directly adjacent to the lenses are defogging pockets which the user can insert a finger into in order to defog the lenses. The lenses were made from a single sheet of celluloid plastic and surrounded by a metal frame that was attached to the faceblank via twine. The rubber is extremely thin, and extremely prone to disintegration. The facepiece of the ASBR was made of rubber-backed cloth. Some use later canisters, but specifically which ones is uncertain.īecause the angletube remained unchanged, the best way to differentiate an ASBR or ATGM from a Corrected English is by looking at the angletube assembly.Some Type A canisters are marked with red paint.Lenses are the type used on the Corrected English as opposed to being a single sheet of celluloid plastic with the frame being attached to the facepiece with twine.The head harness is changed to a fully-elastic 5-point instead of having a cloth forehead strap.See the list below for examples of differences: Production of the ASBR did continue despite its failure as a protective mask, later production examples would only be used as training masks and have some differences from the original 25,000 and will be referred to as the American Training Gas Mask. With the original ~25,000, a stamp was added to the facepiece saying “FOR TRAINING PURPOSES ONLY. (commonly known as the CEM).īecause of the mask’s failure, the ASBR was repurposed exclusively for training. The result of this revision was the Box Respirator, Type C.E. The United States, learned from this failure, and revised the design by reinforcing the facepiece, adding a larger angletube, adding an exhale valve guard, an additional internal metal support for the mouthpiece, and switched from the Type A filter to a series of lighter canisters that were more compact and functioned better. Not only did the facepiece fail to resist the chemical weapon chloropicrin, but the soda-lime granules in the Type A canister would block inhalation due to their tendency to clump up, blocking airflow. These masks were sent to the British for testing and were found to be useless. Note: Some of the hoses were sourced from British companies that had manufactured hoses for the British Small Box Respirator. who produced tins for the anti-dimming solution, and the National Carbon Co. who printed the record-keeping tags, the Improved Mailing Case Co. who manufactured the carriers, the Seaver Howland Press who printed instruction cards, the Beetle & MacLean Manufacturing Co. who manufactured angletubes, the Simmons Hardware Co. who sourced soda-lime granules, the Doehler Die Casting Co. who activated the charcoal by baking it in their ovens for free, making it ready for the filter-canisters, the General Chemical Co. who assembled the masks and manufacture of the canister, the Ward Baking Co. who burned charcoal for the filter-canister, the American Can Co. Goodrich who manufactured the faceblanks with lenses, hoses, and inlet valves, the Day Chemical Co. Companies that worked on the production of parts for the mask include B.F. In under a month, just over 20,000 masks were produced with the remaining 5,000 to be produced soon afterwards. The mask that would be referred to as the Bureau of Mines Mask or the American Small Box Respirator (ASBR).ĭoctor William Chauncey Geer. Geer's goal was to reverse engineer the British Small Box Respirator to create an American made variant. As well as the Chairman of the Gas Defense Division of the War Service Committee, and the Chief Chemist for the B.F. William Chauncey Geer, a Cornell University Graduate of the class of 1905. With soldiers already on their way to France, work had to begin rapidly. Bliss commanded the surgeon general to immediately begin producing protective masks for the Army. On May 16, 1917, Acting Chief of Staff Tasker H. Of course, there was not much time for the Bureau of Mines to work on such a thing. Goodrich to design a standard gas mask for the US Army. This led to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Mines and B.F. The United States' government wanted something domestically engineered, and manufactured. Instead the US Army had to rely on foreign manufactured and designed masks such as the French M2, British PH Helmet, British Small Box Respirator, and the French Appareil Respiratoire Tissot.
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