Operation Sealion - Widescale deployment of chemical warfare

[Skinny87]

We now know that the Cabinet discussed the wide-scale deployment of chemical warfare in the event of German landings on the South-East coast in 1940. It would have been a last-ditch attempt to repel the invasion, and I suspect not even used initially, likely only if it seemed that the Wehrmacht were going to break out of their beachheads.

However, if chemical weapons like mustard gas and perhaps even more potent chemicals had been deployed, I'm trying to research what effect this might have had on the soil, wildlife and other elements of the British countryside. We know what that stuff does to humans, but what might it have done to the country itself? Assuming wide deployment, and a successful repelling of the Germans, would we be looking at soil damage, perhaps long-term or even permanently? And I'm assuming it would get into the food chain as well.

 

[Creekmench]

Maybe it would be like a British Chernobyl or a zone rouge thing. Maybe in the Pop culture the chemical area becomes a B-movie cliche. I can see the Nazis using it in their propaganda denouncing the "Jewish-ran" UK government for the cowardly use of chemical weapons and for poisoning Britain.

 

[JN1]

CW was very widley used in WW1. You'll note that there is no 'zone rouge' in France. I'm certainly not aware of any long-term damage to French and Belgian territory.
From all I've read of our plans it was Mustard that we were planning to spray on beaches. The UK did manufacture other CW, including Phosgene and Chlorine.

 

[The Red]

However, if chemical weapons like mustard gas and perhaps even more potent chemicals had been deployed, I'm trying to research what effect this might have had on the soil, wildlife and other elements of the British countryside. We know what that stuff does to humans, but what might it have done to the country itself? Assuming wide deployment, and a successful repelling of the Germans, would we be looking at soil damage, perhaps long-term or even permanently? And I'm assuming it would get into the food chain as well.

I got rather acquainted with mustard gas whilst writing Decisive Darkness, it really is horrible stuff. Less "effective" than nerve gas but just as bad for humans and animals and worse in terms of what it does to the soil and to any surface it touches. It's not only corrosive but it also helps enable other toxins to develop in soil that prevents plant growth and even some weaker fungi. What's worse is that it hangs around, sometimes for years, waiting in clumps to be disturbed where it then turns to spores which can easily be inhaled. The comparisons to Chernobyl are a bit hyperbolic but clean-up will need to involve removing the top soil layer to make the land viable again as quickly as possible and to ensure the safety of unprotected people and animals in the areas of its use. As @JN1 says, nature has overcome it in France and Belgium and it did so fairly quickly but there's really no time to waste presuming the Germans don't quit after Sea Lion fails.