At that instant the sound of planes was heard, and five German aircraft came into view. Everyone froze. The planes started dropping bombs on us. Beside bombs, they also dropped a message from ‘Mkiza’ (their ‘Kaiser’) which said – ‘I hate you Uncle Sam, because I do not know what caused you to come and enter this war. I hate Belgium and will crush it, because I have already taken most of it. I hate France. I hate England the most, because it takes other countries into its empire. But in this war, I hate black people the most. I do not know what they want in this European War. Where I find them I will smash them.’” – World War One veteran Stimela Jingoes recalling a 1917 air raid targeting the 5th Battalion (Basutoland-Bechuanaland Protectorate) camp at Dieppe in France.
This coming Wednesday will mark the centenary of an event that has come to be identified with the dawn of the modern era of weapons of mass destruction. At just after 1700 hours on the April 22, 1915 a yellow-green cloud drifted towards trenches that were then occupied by the 45th and 78th divisions of the French army, located in the vicinity of the Belgium town of Ypres.
