Cape Cod Military Museum

10/13/2026

Some of the restored tanks and rare aircraft inside this Massachusetts museum exist nowhere else on Earth, and many of them still run.

10/13/2026

🇫🇷 MOTHERS, BABIES & GAS MASKS ~ FRANCE, c.1939 🇫🇷

📍 France
📅 Circa 1939
😷 French civilian anti~gas protection
👶 Infant protective respirator/enclosure

🇫🇷 What an extraordinary photograph 📸 from the anxious days just before the Second World 🌎 War.

🇫🇷 Here we see French 🇫🇷 women demonstrating anti~gas protection for themselves and their babies 🍼

🇫🇷 A time when governments across Europe feared that poison gas ☢️ might be used against civilian populations in any coming conflict.

😷 The last on the left appears to be wearing a French 🇫🇷 TC-38, a Type Civil respirator dating from around 1938.

😷 The mask worn by the lady carrying the baby on the right appears to belong to the ANP-39/FM-3 family, associated with France’s 🇫🇷 rapid expansion of respiratory protection around 1939.

👶 But the most remarkable objects are the protective anti~gas devices for the babies 🍼

🇫🇷 A normal face mask could not safely be fitted to a tiny infant, so babies 🍼 could instead be placed inside a specially designed protective enclosure.

🇫🇷 A hose and filtering system supplied protected air, while the transparent panel allowed the mother 👩 to see her child.

🇫🇷 It looks incredibly cumbersome ~ and rather alarming to modern eyes ~ but it shows just how seriously the threat of chemical warfare ☢️ against civilians was being taken as Europe approached war 🪖

🇫🇷 Thankfully, despite the enormous preparations made in France 🇫🇷 and Britain 🇬🇧 the feared large~scale poison ☠️ gas attacks on civilian populations did not materialise on the Western Front during the Second World 🌍 War.

🇫🇷 A fascinating photograph 📸 particularly seeing the mothers 👩 actually carrying their babies 🍼 inside the equipment rather than simply posing beside it.

🇫🇷🖤 Gas Mask Girls ~ preserving the strange, fascinating and sometimes unsettling history of respiratory protection. 🖤🇫🇷

10/13/2026

10/13/2026

Discover how maritime history is shaping modern science! Join the Cotuit Historical Society on Thursday, October 15th at 7:00 PM at the Cotuit Library for Whaling Captain's Logs: An Historical Treasure Chest. Experts from WHOI and UMass Dartmouth will share how researchers are using 4,200 century-old logbooks to track global climate and weather changes.

No registration is required for this free presentation, though donations are welcome! Visit the Cape Cod Museum Trail Website's Featured Events page to learn more!

10/13/2026

While moving and sorting some of our collection (costly collection, storage fees have gone through the roof!) of donated and purchase items, I came across this gem: a well written and well researched book on the Target Ship of Cape Cod Bay. I think this topic will be of interest to our readers...