Bomb Bother

Britons were confronted with a seemingly unsolvable problem last week -- what to do with vast stocks of poison gas piled up -- and unused -- in World War II.

Stored all over England are thousands & thousands (the exact figures are a military secret) of deadly 500-lb. gas bombs. For anything but killing, the gas is useless. Some of it is so lethal that it kills in 30 seconds; nurses must stand ready with first aid near the workers who manufacture it. British chemists have considered various schemes:

P: Dump the bombs in the ocean? (A messy -- and possibly dangerous -- procedure.)

P: Bury them in the Sahara? (A staggering transportation problem.)

P: Convert the gas into useful chemical compounds, such as bleach or antiseptics? (Much too expensive.)

P: Neutralize it by chemical treatment? (A slow, difficult job. The British have discovered that it takes a man a full day to neutralize one bomb.)

So far, nothing more practical has been suggested.

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