Something about the ANZAC character?

I'm about halfway through this book "Keen as Mustard". It goes a lot into the history of chemical weapons since WW1, and follows the events that ended up with the allies conducting chemical weapons experiments on Australian troop "volunteers" during WW2. It's terrible today seeing it but given the circumstances and the time you can see how it all came together to happen.

There was a very real danger that Australia could be invaded by the Japanese, and intelligence reports suggested the Japanese could use chemical weapons. It was therefore considered an urgent matter to research how mustard gas behaved in tropical conditions. Turns out mustard gas is about ten times more effective in tropical heat, which the researchers found out when conducting tests in northern Australia, meaning that the Australian troops often suffered terrible burns during the experiments. 

What I found fascinating though is how their character is referred to in these tests, by the British scientists:

  Chemical warfare scientists and administrators in Britain and the United States became aware early in Gorrill's series of experiments that the Australian subjects were outstanding, uncomplaining and more cooperative than their own troops. Indeed many expressed both admiration and horror at the extent to which the Australians tolerated painful and dangerous testing not only with courage but also with extreme good humour. The view has subsequently been expressed that the excessive tolerance and high spirits of the Australian experimental subjects forced Allied chemical warfare officials to doubt whether British and American troops would cope with chemical combat the way the Australians had done under the simulated battle conditions in Gorrill's experiments. The outstanding nature of the Australian volunteers has thus been attributed as a factor which may have encouraged Allied leaders to decide not to wage a chemical war against Japan in the South West Pacific theatre.
Keen as Mustard, Bridget Goodwin.  

In fact the researchers had to redefine what a casualty actually was because of the Australians:

Gorrill was to make much of this issue in his later reports, but on at least one occasion he had the opportunity to demonstrate to some of his senior British colleagues what he had discovered about the character of Australian troops. A visiting group of senior British military once witnessed for themselves a group who had sustained burns following mustard gas exposure. The volunteers werre instructed by Gorrill to "drop their pants" and reveal the extent of their injuries. The British visitors reaction was one of horror and they declared the ment to be casualties. Gorrill's response was to show the visiting dignitaries what was meant by the difficulty in defining a casualty with Australian volunteers. Subsequently, on Gorrill's command, the volunteers pulled up their trousers, tightened webbing, performed a series of challenges on the notoriously gruelling assualt course and marched away to camp.  
Keen as Mustard, Bridget Goodwin. 

In my own experiences, particularly last year, I always found an outlet in humour when things were terribly bad. The staff in kidney dialysis congratulated me when I ended it on keeping a sense of humour through a very difficult time. The financial advisor has also done the same through all this drama dealing with a debt of tens of thousands of $. And it's still there, the humour. Other week my neighbour (the one in hospital now from alcohol poisoning) was so sick he spewed at the bus stop. I asked simply "So should I call the priest?". We both laughed. It lightened the moment. I still remember a while back somebody in Queensland had half their house blown away by a hurricane up there. The State Emergency Services arrived to help him out. So he's standing there with half a house left and says to them "I'd offer you a cup of tea but we're all out of milk."   

This sort of thing really helps, well with me anyway.

Was looking at a thing from WW2 as I wanted to get an idea to the background of what was happening when these experiments were going on. The Japanese were in fact at our door and we were fighting them desperately to fend them off. The reporter who shot these pictures, Damien Parer, was later killed by mortar on another Pacific island. These were desperate times, with great fear that the Japanese would invade and possibly use mustard gas in it's offensive.