The first deaths from exposure to the gas occurred within 24 hours of the bombing. Men who appeared for the most part fine one minute, would slip into severe respiratory distress the next, and be gone in minutes. Many doctors came to the correct conclusion that the victims had been contaminated with mustard gas. There was however no announcements from military or political officials confirming this to be so. No instructions or warnings were given to rescuers or medical personal of precautions to take, or of the danger they could face while attempting to render aid.Almost the entire crew of the John Harvey had been killed in the initial attack. Since very few others in Bari knew of the mustard gases presence on board, this lack of information greatly affected the amount of time in which an alarm or warning of its contents could have be given. There were others besides the crew who did know about the deadly contents on-board however, and their silence during the days and weeks that followed was to be blamed on the need for ‘war time’  secrecy.
Six British and American officers in Bari, all with knowledge of the deadly cargo which had been released, had met in the days following the attack to discuss a course of action. It was decided upon at their meeting that the presence of the mustard gas was to be kept secret, les the Germans think that the Allies were preparing to use it against them in an attack. The only precaution ordered to be taken by these officers was to dump bleach into the harbor. No hospitals or care facilities were to be notified of the gases presence.
The suffering of many and further spread of the chemical could have been avoided if the simple instructions had been given to the medical staffs to quickly remove the victims clothing and to bathe them to rid the body of the residue.  The choice was, in reality, to sacrifice the lives of some to avoid a feared massive German response in the event they believed the Allies intended to use gas against the Reich. This decision made by ‘looking at the big picture’, would bring no confort to those in suffering, nor to those who lost loved ones as a result of the silence.
The Allied authorities attempt to keep the release of the mustard gas quite was not fully successful.  Word and rumors would spread over the following days as the medical staffs, as mentioned earlier, were able to piece together what was happening. In perhaps the ultimate sign of the cover ups failure, Axis Sally, Goebbels’s seductive voiced propagandist, was on the radio proclaiming “I see you boys are getting gassed by your own poison gas.”
In February the Americans would finally come around and admit that there was indeed an accident at Bari, but they stressed that the mustard gas was present only for retaliatory purposes. The British were not so forth coming. The measures they took to keep the presence of the gas and its subsequent release concealed reached all the way to the highest levels. Winston Churchill ordered that no word of mustard gas be mentioned in any official reports, and that the cause of death or injury in any relevant cases be listed as “burns due to enemy action”  It would be decades before the classified documents would be made public, and the full scope of the incident was finally known.
Bari Harbor would be completely closed to merchant shipping for three weeks after the attack. It would not be fully operational until February of 1944. Along with the loss of the ships and materials from the attack, the causalities suffered were also quite high. Over 1000 US and British naval and merchant marine personal were killed in the bombing. Approximately the same number of Italian civilians also had perished amidst the hellish destruction.
On top of that, nearly 630 Allied sailors and merchant marines were hospitalized from exposure to the mustard gas. Of those, 83 would suffer an agonizing death. There are no firm statistics on the number of Italian civilians affected by the mustard gas. Many had fled Bari hours after the bombing, and either had sought medical attention from family or at other hospitals scattered around Italy. With the fall of the Fascist government only a few months earlier, there was very little coordination or communication at a national level, thus the data on these cases was never gathered. It is believed that at a minimum the number stricken was equal to those effected in Allied service, but perhaps could have been far greater.
The tragic events of December 2nd 1943 were one of many that the civilian population of Italy would have to endure for the duration of the war. The Bari Mustard Gas tragedy was a microcosm of the position Italy found itself in after the Armistice.   It took both sides involved in the conflict, the Allies bringing the mustard gas to the harbor, and the German bombs to unleash it, to precipitate this unparalleled disaster. It was much like the great battle that presently raged through the country; the Allied hammer on one side, the German anvil on the other, Italy itself trapped in the middle. In a war that produced more than its share of heartache and sadness for Italy, that day in Bari stands out as one of the most tragic she would endure.
References:
The day of Battle, The War in Sicily and Italy:Â Â Â Rick Atkinson
Nightmare in Bari: The World War II Liberty Ship Poison Gas Disaster and Coverup:Â Â Gerald Reminick
USMM.org
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Correction to the previous post.
The Japanese did not really have the chemical industry to support widespread use of chemical agents, and shifted their emphasis to biological warfare, which they also tested on the Japanese. They tested in on the CHINESE, along with a fair number of allied prisoners.
A couple of comments.
First, the M47A1 was not an artillery shell, it was the standard US Army Air Force 100 pound chemical bomb, which consisted of a thin steel shell with an explosive burster to distribute the contents. If I have the chance, I will post an image of the bomb on the site. Alternate fillings included white phosphorus and napalm. The napalm-filled bombs were used by Curtis LeMay’s 20th Air Force B-29 in the incendiary attacks on Japan in 1945.
Second, the Japanese used chemical agents against the Chinese on a fairly regular basis through about 1942, ranging from dual-purpose smoke candles, that produced both smoke and were vomiting agents, to phosgene, chlorine, a phosgene-chlorine mix, and mustard. There are strong indications in the communication intelligence leading up to the Battle of Midway that the Japanese were prepared to use at least the phosgene-chlorine mixture in a cloud gas attack to support the invasion, and Midway was quite concerned about the possibility of a mustard agent bombing attack. Fortunately, this did not occur, otherwise the Pacific War would have been even nastier than it was. The Japanese did not really have the chemical industry to support widespread use of chemical agents, and shifted their emphasis to biological warfare, which they also tested on the Japanese.
Most of this information is based on my research at the US National Archives.