UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

The Technical Services

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE

SERVICE:

FROM LABORATORY TO FIELD

by

Leo P. Brophy, Wyndham D. Miles

and

Rexmond C. Cochrane

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., I939

This volume, one of the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, is the second to be pubhshed in the group of three Chemical Corps volumes in the subseries THE TECHNICAL SERVICES. All the volumes will be closely related and the series will present a comprehensive account of the activities of the Military Establishment during World War II. A tentative list of subseries is appended at the end of this volume.

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UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

Stetson Conn, General Editor

Advisory Committee

(As of 15 June 1959)

Elmer Ellis Maj. Gen. Hugh M. Harris

University of Missouri U.S. Continental Army Command

Samuel Flagg Bemis Brig. Gen. Edgar C Doleman

Yale University Army War College

Gordon A. Craig Brig. Gen. Frederick R. Zierath

Princeton University Command and General Staff College

Oron J. Hale Brig. Gen. Kenneth F. Zitzman

University of Virginia Industrial College of the Armed Forces

W. Stull Holt Col. Vincent J. Esposito

University of Washington United States Military Academy

T. Harry Williams Louisiana State University

Office of the Chief of Military History

Col. Warren H. Hoover, Acting Chief

Chief Historian Stetson Conn

Chief, Histories Division Lt. Col. Joseph Rockis

Chief, Publication Division Lt. Col. E. E. Steck

Editor in Chief Joseph R. Friedman

Chief, Cartographic Branch Elliot Dunay

Chief, Photographic Branch Margaret E. Tackley

History of THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Organizing for War

From Laboratory to Field

Chemicals in Combat

IV

. . . to Those Who Served

Foreword

Rather belatedly, the United States Army in preparing for World War II investigated on an intensive and very large scale the chemical munitions that might be necessary or useful in fighting the Axis powers. This effort required the collaboration of a host of civilian scientists and research centers as well as a great expansion of the laboratories and prov- ing grounds of the Chemical Warfare Service itself. A similar development, recounted at the beginning of this work, came too late to influence the outcome of World War I. In World War II, on the other hand, the Army not only prepared against gas warfare sufficiently well to discourage its employment by the enemy, but also developed a number of new chemical weapons that contributed materially to victory. The authors add perspective and interest to their story by telling very briefly about cor- responding German and Japanese activity.

The manufacture of chemical munitions in quantity was possible only through a rapid expansion of private industry to support and supplement the work of Army arsenals. Both necessity and choice led the Chemical Warfare Service to make widespread use of small industrial concerns throughout the United States, and the account of production in this work is especially pertinent to a consideration of the problems involved in mili- tary contracting with small business on a big scale. In this and other respects, From Laboratory to Field complements other volumes in the Army series dealing with problems of military procurement. Readers generally as well as members of the Chemical Corps particularly should find it instructive.

Washington, D.C. WARREN H. HOOVER

9 June 1959 Colonel, U.S.A.

Acting Chief of Military History

The Authors

Dr. Leo P. Brophy holds an A.B. degree from Franklin and Marshall College and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Fordham University. After teaching history and sociology at Fordham and Seton Hall Universities, he joined the staff of the Chemical Corps Historical Office in 1945. He has specialized in ad- ministrative and logistic history. Since 1953 Dr. Brophy has served as Chief of the Chemical Corps Historical Office. He is coauthor of The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War.

Dr. Wyndham D. Miles has an M.S. degree in organic chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard. After working in industry as a research chemist, and teaching chemistry at The Pennsylvania State University, he joined the staff of the Chemical Corps His- torical Office in 1953.

Dr. Rexmond C. Cochrane obtained a Ph.D. in English Literature from Columbia University and was a member of the Chemical Corps Historical Office from 1945 until 1948. After teaching at Indiana University and the University of Virginia, he returned to the Historical Office as a consultant historian. He is at present a Research Associate in the Department of History, University of Maryland.

Vlll

Preface

This volume, the second in a series of three devoted to the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) in World War II, now the Chemical Corps, covers research, development, procurement, and distribution of chemical warfare materiel. It traces the history of these activities from the World War I period, when the CWS was activated to supervise the offensive and defensive aspects of gas warfare throughout the Army, until the end of World War II. The first volume in the series. Organizing for War, dis- cusses the development of the CWS organization and mission as well as personnel management and military training. The third volume, entitled Chemicals in Combat, will deal with chemical warfare activities in the theaters of operations.

In treating research and development, the present volume concentrates on CWS projects that proved of greatest significance to the armed forces during World War II. It attempts to point up the problems that arose in the course of research and development and to indicate the solutions which the scientists hit upon. Since research and development in the zone of the interior was closely related to research and development in the theaters of operations, the volume covers activities in both areas.

In contrast to research and development, procurement and distribution differed considerably as between the zone of the interior and the theaters of operations; in the theaters these activities were closely associated with the commanders' combat responsibilities. The volume, therefore, confines itself to a review of procurement and distribution in the zone of the interior, leaving narration of theater activities to the forthcoming Chemicals in Combat.

In World War II the CWS procured a variety of munitions and components both from government arsenals and from private industry. For some of these items the service had prepared plans in the prewar years, but for others it had not had ihe opportunity to make such plans.

Procurement by the CWS of some items was on a scale never before ex- perienced in peace or war. As in the treatment of research and develop- ment, the volume attempts to devote major attention to items that proved significant to the war effort.

Dr. Leo P. Brophy wrote all of the chapters and sections of chapters dealing with procurement and distribution. He was assisted in the re- search and writing of Chapters XIV and XVI by Mr. Sherman L. Davis of the Historical Staff, Chemical Corps. Dr. Wyndham D. Miles wrote all of the chapters on research and development except the section of Chapter IV dealing with the treatment of gas casualties and Chapter V. The latter were researched and put in draft form by Dr. Rexmond C. Cochrane. Dr. Brooks E. Kleber and Mr. Dale Birdsell reviewed the chapters and offered helpful comments.

The authors of this volume were greatly aided in their research by the competent staff of the National Archives, particularly Mr. Robert W. Krauskopf of Modern Army Branch and Mrs. Caroline Moore, Mrs. Lois C. Aldridge, and Mrs. Hazel Ward of the World War II Records Divi- sion, National Archives and Records Service; Mr. Charles E. McCusker, Mr. Howard V. Baute, Mrs. M. Virginia Nester, and Mrs. Mary K. Stuart of the Federal Records Center, GSA, Alexandria, Va.; Mr. Joseph A. Logan, Office of the Comptroller of the Army; Miss Clara J. Widger, Librarian, Industrial College of Armed Forces; and Mr. Robert T. Baldwin of the Chlorine Institute, New York City. Members of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps records and technical information staff, particularly Miss Alice M. Amoss, U.S. Army Chemical Corps Chemical Warfare Laboratories, Mrs. Marion O. Varney, Miss Ethel M. Owens and the late Mrs. Elizabeth V. Owens of the Office of the Chief Chemical Officer, were most helpful. Mrs. Alice E. Moss assisted in the verification of sources and supervised the typing of the manuscript.

The authors are indebted to the many veterans of the Chemical War- fare Service who through interviews and otherwise aided them in writing the volume. Special thanks are due for the assistance afforded by Maj. Gen. Charles E. Loucks, Brig. Gen. Clifford L. Sayre, Brig. Gen. Harold Walms- ley, Col. Philip J. FitzGerald, Mr. Marvin J. Silberman, Mr. Robert M. Estes, Dr. L. Wilson Greene, Lt. Col. Allan C Hamilton, Col. W. P. Fuller Brawner, Col. Frank M. Arthur, Mr. Lester J. Conkling, Col. Ralph W. Hufferd, and Mr. Roman L. Ortynsky.

Thanks also are due to several members of the Office of the Chief of Military History who did much to improve this work. These include Dr. Stetson Conn, Chief Historian, who offered valuable advice; Mr. David Jafife, who was Editor of the volume; Mr. Thomas H. Monahan, Copy Editor; and Miss Margaret E. Tackley, Chief of the Photographic Branch, who selected the photographs.

Washington, D.C. LEO P. BROPHY

15 June 1959 WYNDHAM D. MILES

REXMOND C. COCHRANE

XI

Contents

Chapter Page

I. RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR 1 1

The Committee on Noxious Gases, National Research Council 2

Chemical Warfare Research in the Bureau of Mines 4

Medical Research 8

Research in the AEF 9

The Centralization of Activities in the Chemical Warfare Service 12

Chemical Munitions 14

Gas Defense Equipment 18

Field Testing of Chemical Munitions 22

Demobilization 24

IL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 28

The Peacetime Scientific Program 31

Development Procedure 34

Laboratories and Proving Grounds 36

Assistance from Industries and Universities 41

Co-operation with the British Commonivealth 45

Information from the Enemy A6

III. TOXIC AGENTS 49

Phosgene 51

Hydrogen Cyanide 55

Cyanogen Chloride 58

Mustard Gas 61

Lewisite 67

Nitrogen Mustards 69

Chloroacetophenone 70

Adamsite 73

IV. PROTECTION AGAINST TOXIC AGENTS 75

The Gas Mask 77

Collective Protectors 87

Eyeshields, Dust Respirators, and Individual Protective Covers 88

Protective Clothing and Impregnites 90

Protective Ointments - 91

Medical Kits and Supplies 93

Protection of Food and Water Supplies Against Toxics 96

Treatment of Gas Casualties 97

Chapter Page

V. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE RESEARCH 101

CWS Interest in Biological Warfare 102

The WBC Committee and War Research Service 103

CWS and the U.S. Biological Warfare Committee 106

The Special Projects Division 108

Keeping It Secret Ill

Defense Against Biological Attack 115

The Achievement in Biological Warfare Research 120

VI. CHEMICAL MORTARS AND SHELLS 123

The 4.2-Inch Chemical Mortar 123

Mortars of Unusual Design 130

Mortar Shells 133

Mortar Gunboats 136

VII. FLAME THROWERS 139

Portable Flame Throwers 139

The One-Shot Flame Throwers 147

Mediumweight Flame Throwers 149

Main Armament Mechanized Flame Throwers 150

Main Armament Flame Throwers Produced in Hawaii 153

Auxiliary Mechanized Flame Throivers 159

Auxiliary Flame Throwers Made in Hawaii 161

Incendiary Projector for Airplanes 163

Emplaced Flame Throwers 163

Seri'icing Flame Throwers 164

Toxicology of Flame Attack 165

VIII. INCENDIARIES 167

Incendiary Bombs 168

Incendiary Grenades 190

Incendiary Shells 192

Incendiary Rockets 194

IX. SMOKE 197

White Phosphorus 197

Smoke Pots 200

Oil Smoke Generators 208

Airplane Smoke Tanks 214

Colored Smoke Munitions 219

X. PEACETIME PREPARATION FOR SUPPLY 226

Planning for Mobilization 230

Procurement Planning 231

xiv

Chcipter Page

XI. BEGINNINGS OF INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION 241

Educational Order Program 242

The Munitions Program 244

Appropriations 250

Facilities Expansion Gets Under Way 252

Procurement in the Emergency Period 258

Mobilization of the Distribution System 262

XII. MORE AND MORE OF EVERYTHING 266

Procurement of Service Equipment 267

Procurement of Chemicals 269

Estimating Requirements in Wartime 272

Facilities Expansion in Wartime 276

Materiel Shortages and Imbalances 279

The Search for Suitable Contractors 282

Inspection of Materiel 286

The Pricing Program 289

XIII. BALANCING PROCUREMENT AND DISTRIBUTION 297

Developments of Early War Years 297

Advent of the Supply Control Program 302

Procurement and Distribution of Spare Parts 306

Improved Maintenance Practices 309

XIV. PROCUREMENT OF DEFENSIVE MATERIEL 314

Gas Mask Procurement 314

Production of Impregnite (CC-2) 328

Procurement of Impregnating Plants 329

Protective Ointment 332

Detector Kits 334

Decontaminating Apparatus 336

Miscellaneous Protective Items 339

XV. PROCUREMENT OF OFFENSIVE MATERIEL 342

Incendiaries 342

Procurement of the 4.2-Inch Mortar 352

Procurement of the 4.2-Inch Mortar Shell 355

Criminal Involvement of Mortar Shell Contractors 361

Flame Throwers 367

Smoke and Smoke Munitions 371

Problem of Morale 378

Chapter Page

XVI. STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION 38i

Growth of CWS Storage Activities 381

Storage and Transportation of Toxics 386

Storage of Other CWS Items 389

Packing and Packaging 393

Distribution 397

Lend-Lease 403

Supplying the Ports of Embarkation 408

XVII. INDUSTRIAL DEMOBILIZATION 412

Preparations for Demobilization 412

Disposition of Facilities 415

Contract Terminations 417

Property Disposal 424

To Be or Not To Be? 431

Appendix

A. Status of CWS Facilities Program 436

B. Government Investment in Facilities, World War II, as of 31 December 1945. 448

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE : 455

GLOSSARY 460

INDEX 471

Tables

No.

1. Plants and Projects of Edgewood Arsenal During World War 1 17

2. Gas-Defense Items Shipped Overseas From June 1917 to November 1918 23

3. Gas Mask Production at Edgewood Arsenal, 1927-1938 229

4. CWS Educational Orders Program, FY 1939, 1940 & 1941 Summary of

Awards • 245

5. Cost to Government of Gas Mask Educational Program 246

6. CWS Depot Storage Space in Operation, December 1941 264

7. Summary of Estimated Dollar Value of CWS Procurement: 1940-1945 266

8. Expansion in Production of Selected CW Items, World War II 268

9. CWS Gross Storage Space in Operation, 1945 383

10. CWS Property Disposal Activities, July 1943 Through July 1945 428

11. CWS Property Available for Disposal, January- December 1945 429

Charts

No. Page

1. Total Army Service Forces Estimated Dollar Value of Procurement Deliveries

by Technical Services: 1 January 1942-31 December 1945 267

2. Schematic Diagram, Chemical Warfare Supply as of 6 December 1944 400

Illustrations

Bureau of Mines Experiment Station 6

New Chemical Building at American University 7

Battery of Livens Projectors 10

Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries 15

Plant at Edgewood Arsenal 16

Women Workers in Gas Mask Factory 21

Conference on Expansion Program 37

Dugway Proving Ground, Utah 40

Types of Gas Masks, April 1918 77

Army Photographer Wearing Service Gas Mask 78

Soldier Wearing Service Gas Mask 79

Service Gas Mask 83

Walt Disney With Staff Members of Chemical Warfare Service 85

Biological Warfare Test Station 109

George W. Merck 121

Stokes Mortar Firing Gas Shells 124

4.2-Inch Chemical Mortar • 129

Mortar Gunboat 1 38

Operator Firing a Portable Flame Thrower ElRl l4l

Attacking a Japanese Bunker 144

Firing an M2-2 Portable Flame Thrower 145

American and German Portable Flame Throwers 147

M4 Medium Flame-Thrower Tank 156

Lt. Gen. Wilhelm D. Styer 157

M3A1 Light Tank Equipped With Flame Gun 160

Flame Gun To Fit .30-Cal. Machine Gun Mount 161

Burning Phosphorus From a 100- Pound Incendiary Bomb 171

B-25 Bomber Loaded With 500-Pound Clusters of M54 Bombs 175

Lockheed P-38's Dropping Fire Bombs 182

Smoke Pots Being Set Off^ in the Argonne Forest 198

512467 O-60— 2

Page

Smoke Screen Demonstration 201

Small Ml Smoke Pots Set Off in a Series 203

Troops Landing at Elba, June 1944 206

Mechanical Smoke Generator Ml (100-Gallon) 210

Mechanical Smoke Generator M2 (50-Gallon) 213

Lockheed A-29 Spraying Smoke From M33 Smoke Tanks 216

Lt. Col. Claude E. Brigham 235

Members of the Chemical Advisory Committee 248

Maj. Gen. William N. Porter 257

Meeting of Chemical Warfare Service Officers 260

Col. Norman D. Gillet 263

Lt. Col. Robert M. Estes 291

Officer Personnel of the Control Division 299

Executive Branch of the Industrial Division 302

4.2Tnch WP Chemical Mortar Shells : 359

Brig. Gen. William A. Borden 373

Boxed Cans of Decontaminating Solution 385

Toxic Gas Yards, Midwest Chemical Warfare Depot 388

Drums of Bleaching Powder 397

All illustrations are from Department of Defense files.

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE: FROM LABORATORY TO FIELD

N

CHAPTER I

Research and Supply in World War I

Although armies have used crude chemical devices since ancient times, chemical warfare, as an applied science, is comparatively modern.^ Chem- ical warfare came along as a companion of modern chemistry, which itself dates from the late 1700's, when natural philosophers brought about a revolution in this science. As a result of this pioneer work, chemists un- covered a multitude of facts and conceived laws to hold these facts to- gether. By the middle of the 19th century it was a simple matter for men with a knowledge of chemistry to visualize the application of toxic chemicals to warfare, and to suggest specific methods of using them.

During the Crimean War the British chemist Lyon Playfair proposed that a naval shell containing cacodyl cyanide, a toxic organic arsenic compound, be fired into Russian ships." In the same war Admiral Thomas Cochrane urged that an attempt be made to drive the Russians out of Sevastopol by burning huge quantities of sulphur in front of the fortress and letting the wind carry sulphur dioxide gas into enemy positions.'^ In the American Civil War, John W. Doughty of New York sent plans for a chlorine filled shell to the War Department, and Forrest Shepherd of New Haven recommended to President Lincoln that a cloud of hydrogen

' Examples of the primitive use of chemicals may be found in: (1) Charles Hederer and Mark Istin, L'Arfne Chimique et Ses Blessures (Paris: J. B. Bailliere, 1935), pp. 18-25. (2) Rudolf Han- slian, ed., Der Chemische Krieg (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1937), I, 1-4. (3) Julius Meyer, Der Gaskampf und die Chemtschen Kampfstoffe (3d ed, Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1938), pp. 12-23. (4) Tenney L. Davis and James R. Ware, "Early Chinese Military Pyrotechnics," Journal of Chemical Education. 24 (1947), 522-37.

- Wemyss Reid, Memoirs and Correspondence of Lyon Playfair (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1899), pp. 159-60.

•' Wyndham D. Miles, "Admiral Cochrane's Plans for Chemical Warfare." Armed Forces Chem- ical Journal, XI (November-December 1957), 22-23.

2 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

chloride be used to drive the Confederates out of Petersburg.^ During the century several other men proposed the use of toxic chemicals in munitions.^

Despite arguments that the use of chemicals in warfare was practical and that chemicals would cause less suffering than conventional weapons, national governments refused to test the ideas. Finally in 1915 Fritz Haber convinced the German Army that chlorine could force the Allies out of the trenches and he was given the responsibility of emplacing cylinders of gas in the front lines near Ypres. The first gas cloud attack, launched on a favorable breeze in the afternoon of 22 April, was a success.^ Allied troops were driven from their positions and only the failure of the German Army to exploit this advantage saved the Allies from a more serious setback.

Once the practicality of chemical warfare had been demonstrated the belligerents organized special units to employ military chemicals, and to conduct chemical and medical research. In the United States the War Department gave responsibility for designing protective equipment to the Medical Department in late 1915, but the Army did not set up combat chemical units or begin scientific investigations until mid-1917.'

The Committee on Noxious Gases, National Research Council

The first American chemical warfare research was not carried out by the Army, but by the Bureau of Mines. Early in 1917, as the strained relations between the United States and Germany approached the breaking point, the Secretary of the Interior requested the bureaus in his Depart- ment to determine how they could assist the government if the country were drawn into the war. On 7 February Van H. Manning, Director of the Bureau of Mines, called together his division chiefs to discuss the question. During the meeting George S. Rice suggested that the bureau might turn its experience in mine gases and rescue apparatus toward the

^ Wyndham D. Miles, "Chemical Warfare in the Civil War," ibid.. XII (March-April 1958), 26-27, 33.

'' (1) Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries and Maj. Clarence J. West, Chemical Warfare (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1921), pp. 4-9. (2) Hanslian, Der Chemische Krieg. pp. 4-8 (3) Meyer, Der Gas- kampf. pp. 23-28.

•^ The chlorine attack at Ypres has been discussed by many writers. See especially: Rudolf Han- slian, Der Deutsche Gasangrijf bei Ypern am 22 April 1915 (Berlin: Verlag Gasschutz and Lutt- schutz, 1934).

" "The Medical Department of the United States in the World War," vol. XIV, Medical As- pects of Gas Warfare (Washington, 1926), p. 27.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 3

investigation of war gases and masks/^ The following day Manning noti- fied the Military Committee of the National Research Council that the bureau stood ready to assist the Army and Navy on any problems that might arise in the development of masks. ^ Through the months of Feb- ruary and March the NRC considered the matter. The bureau, in the mean- time, did not remain inactive but laid plans for research. On 3 April, with the declaration of war imminent, the council accepted the bureau's offer of co-operation, and appended to the Military Committee a Sub- committee on Noxious Gases composed of Army and Navy officers, members of the NRC's Chemistry Committee, and the Director of the Bureau of Mines (chairman), "to carry on investigations into noxious gases, generation, and antidote for same, for war purposes; also investi- gations into gas masks." ^°

During the early days of its existence, the Subcommittee on Noxious Gases was extremely important in initiating and co-ordinating chemical warfare research. It met frequently to discuss information received from abroad, and upon request it gave advice to the Army and Navy on ques- tions regarding chemical warfare. Its most important act, however, was to approve a plan of research for the Bureau of Mines. It is clear from the records that the directing force here was Manning and a small but extremely enthusiastic group of men whom he brought together to act as the nucleus of a chemical warfare research organization. Manning and his staff drew up a detailed plan for research, based on reports of the state of chemical warfare in Europe, and then laid the plan before the subcommittee. After some discussion the group approved the plan, thus enabling Man- ning to proceed.^' It was from this action by the NRC Subcommittee on Noxious Gases that the Bureau of Mines derived the authority, which it exercised for more than a year, to carry on chemical warfare research and development projects for the Army and Navy. The Subcommittee on

■* Memo by George S. Rice, Bureau of Mines, regarding early history of mask and gas investi- gations for the army, 9 Jan 18. War Gas Investigations, Records of Bureau of Mines (National Archives). Cited hereafter as War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

■' Van H. Manning, War Gas Investigations. Bu of Mines Bull 178-A (Washington, 1919).

'" Meeting of the Military Committee of the NRC, 3 Apr 17. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines. For membership of the subcommittee, which changed somewhat from time to time, see Manning, War Gas Investigations, p. 4, and George A. Burrell, "The Research Division, Chemical Warfare Service, U.S.A.," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry {(ormerly Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry). 11 (1919), 93-94.

" Min, Mtg, NRC Subcomm on Noxious Gases, 21 Apr 17. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

4 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Noxious Gases became less important as the war pl-ogressed and in August 1918 it was dissolved/"

Chemical Warfare Research in the Bureau of Mines

In expanding the activities of the Bureau of Mines into the field of chemical warfare, Manning's first step was to assemble a group of men to carry on the work. The leader of his staff was George A. Burrell, a consulting chemist who had formerly been with the bureau. Upon Burrell fell the responsibility of directing the building of the new research struc- ture. Associated with Burrell were Arno G. Fieldner and J. W. Paul of the Bureau of Mines; Bradley Dewey, director of the research laboratory of American Sheet and Tin Plate Co.; Warren K. Lewis, professor of chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Yandell Henderson, professor of physiology at Yale University. ^^

As a first move these men marked out various lines of research based on reports from Europe to the Army and Navy. The most urgent task was the design of a gas mask for the Army. Other projects included study of the physiological effect of toxic compounds and the proper med- ical treatment for casualties, work on the preparation and properties of gases already in use on the battlefield, and the discovery of new toxic agents.

The bureau had neither the space nor the men to handle all the proj- ects. As an emergency measure Manning obtained from the Subcommittee on Noxious Gases authority to accept offers of assistance from the Johns Hopkins University, the Mellon Institute, and other institutions. Manning then sent Dewey to seek co-operation from industrial and university lab- oratories in the West, and Lewis to laboratories in the East.^^ In addi- tion Manning enlisted the aid of E. Emmet Reid, professor of organic chemistry at Johns Hopkins, who requested organic chemists throughout the nation to synthesize compounds that might be useful as agents. ^^ By

'- Manning, War Gas Investigations, p. 4.

'■* (1) Min, Mtg, NRC Subcomm on Noxious Gases, 21 Apr 17. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines. (2) A group photograph showing Manning with his staff, consultants, and advisory committee appears in Armed Forces Chemical journal, IX (September-October 1955), 20-21.

" Ltr, George A. Burrell to the Director, Bu of Mines, 2 May 17, sub: Gases in Warfare. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

^^ (1) E. Emmet Reid, History of Offense Research, Johns Hopkins University Station. CWS, H-149. (2) E. Emmet Reid, "Reminiscences of World War I," Armed Forces Chemical Journal. IX (July-August 1955). 37-39.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 5

the end of May 1917 the bureau had obtained the aid of laboratories in twenty-one universities, three industrial companies, and three government agencies, with a total of 118 chemists/*' In time additional universities and firms volunteered for research projects. These civilian laboratories were extremely helpful, for they enabled the bureau to begin chemical warfare research immediately instead of waiting several months for a government laboratory to be equipped and staffed with chemists.

Up to 30 June 1917 the Bureau of Mines paid the cost of chemical war- fare research from its own appropriations.^^ It engaged 16 men for physio- logical investigations on gases and masks, 20 to develop masks, 5 to work on munitions, 4 to prepare toxic agents and smoke, and several as super- visors and clerks. ^^ After June the Army and Navy provided funds.

As chemical warfare research expanded the volume of work became so great that the bureau needed a large central laboratory for co-ordinating university and industrial research, and for undertaking secret Army and Navy projects. After examining several sites in the District of Columbia, in Delaware, and at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J., Burrell and his assist- ants finally chose American University, which the trustees had offered to President Wilson for government use on 30 April. ^^ The university was then on the outskirts of Washington, and sufficiently isolated to be used as a training center for chemical troops and to permit field testing on a small scale. Two large buildings and several hundred acres of ground were available.

The War and Navy Departments in June allotted the Subcommittee on Noxious Gases $175,000 to convert American University classrooms into laboratories and to hire more chemists."'' Several weeks later, on 21 July the trustees granted the government free use of the university.

Throughout the summer of 1917 contractors worked at the university, converting rooms into offices and laboratories. Temporary buildings, large and small, were erected to serve as workshops and as houses for workers and as shelters for animals. The War Department converted a section of the grounds into Camp Leach, where officers and enlisted men could learn the technique of chemical warfare.

'" Rpt submitted at Mtg of Subcomm on Noxious Gases, 25 May 17. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

'^ Manning, War Gas Investigations, p. 1.

"* Rpt, G. A. Burrell to the Director, Bu of Mines, 2 Jul 17, sub: Statement of Activities on Gas Work at the Present Writing. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

"* Yandell Henderson, History of Research at Yale University, pt. 2, p. 3. CWS, H-150.

-" Manning, War Gas bwestigatiuns, pp. 6-7.

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Bureau of Mines Experiment Station for chemical warfare, American Univer- sity, Washington, D.C., 1917 . McKinley building (with dome) was then known as the Ohio building.

In September the first chemists arrived. The laboratories were not finished, there was no heat, and there was insufficient equipment. Yet, there were so many problems awaiting solution that chemists set up their apparatus on improvised benches while carpenters installed hoods and desks, plumbers laid gas and water lines, and electricians wired sockets."^

Shortly after the research center at American University opened, Man- ning organized it into eight sections: Chemical Research, Physiological Research, Pyrotechnic Research, Chemical Manufacture, Mechanical Re- search, Submarine Gases, Dirigible and Balloon Gas, and Gas Mask Examination.-"

Liaison was maintained among the Army, Navy, and Bureau of Mines through frequent committee meetings and by personal contact between officers and members of the research staff. Twice a week, conferences were held between officers and scientists. One conference considered chemical warfare offisnse, the other, problems in defense. Twice each month a re- port was sent to the War Department, the Navy Department, the Ameri-

-' Reid, "Reminiscences of World War I."

-- Organization Chart dated 1 Sep 17. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I

-■■%

••saai.

New Chemical Building at American University under construction for chemical warfare research. Note the class in bayonet drilL foreground.

can Expeditionary Forces in France, and to British and French chemical warfare investigators.

By the fall of 1917 the bureau had the benefit of an increased flow of information from Europe. In the opening months of the war it had depended upon reports from special observers in Europe, such as Professor George A. Hulett of Princeton University, or upon information acquired by Army and Navy officers. Then in October, Maj. Samuel J. M. Auld, chemical adviser of the Third British Army, and a group of officers and NCO's came to the United States as part of the British Military Mission. Auld and his men gave information on toxics, chemical munitions, and protec- tive equipment, and helped to lay out a chemical proving ground."^ Also in October, the Army assigned an officer in London to the task of obtain- ing and sending home information on chemical warfare.^^ By these means the bureau learned of research being done by the Allies, and of new developments in enemy chemical warfare.

'-■■' A resume of work done by the British may be found in the series of reports: British Gas Mission to the U.S.A., A General Record of the American Chemical Warfare Service and the Rela- tions therewith of the British Gas Warfare Mission. CWS, H-1 to H-10.

^^ History of Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, Liaison Office, London. CWS, H-24.

8 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

By the end of 1917 the chemical warfare staff of the bureau had increased to 277 civilians, 34 commissioned officers, and 200 enlisted men. The funds allotted by the Army had jumped to $612,000 and by the Navy to $150,000.'^ Throughout the first half of 1918 the staff continued to grow, and on 25 June numbered 1,682 persons, civilian and military, 1,034 of whom were classified as technicians."*^

Medical Research

The Bureau of Mines was not alone in conducting chemical warfare research and development for the Army and Navy. The Medical Depart- ment, U.S. Army, also participated for a short time, taking over certain projects from the bureau, continuing them for awhile, and then sur- rendering them to the new Chemical Warfare Service.

The plans for medical research were drawn up by Professor Henderson of Yale University. Because there was no laboratory space available in Washington, Yale allowed Henderson to remodel the Athletic Club House into a laboratory and to use the athletic field. '^ Yale also built a laboratory beneath the bleachers, as the University of Chicago was to do some twenty-five years later at Stagg Field for research on the atom bomb. Faculty members of the university, medical students, and employees of the Bureau of Mines formed the staff. The men were divided into sec- tions working on toxicology, therapeutics, pharmacology, pathology, and physiology. After space became available at American University, the bureau transferred much of the work to Washington.

By December 1917 medical research had become so diversified that Henderson and the section leaders began to hold monthly conferences in Washington. Known as the Medical Advisory Board, the group served as a clearinghouse for problems, ideas, and discoveries in the medical phase of chemical warfare.

Other university groups in addition to the one at Yale were drawn into medical research. In September 1917 professors and students at the University of Wisconsin began research on ways to protect the employees of poison gas factories.-^ At the University of Michigan, men studied the

-■'' Rpt, Research Work of the Bureau of Mines on Gases Used in Warfare for the Year 1917. War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

-^ Manning, War Gas Investigations, p. 10.

-' Henderson, History of Research at Yale. H-150.

^* History of the University of Wisconsin Section, Medical Division, CWS, H-Hl.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 9

physiology and pathology of mustard gas poisoning."'^ At Western Reserve University, the University of Chicago, and the Marine Biological Labora- tory at Woods Hole, Mass., scientists took up projects. In the spring of 1918 the Gas Defense Service of the Medical Department absorbed the majority of the laboratories.

Research in the AEF

The Bureau of Mines was too far from the battle zone to carry on research for the AEF, and General Pershing in the fall of 1917 requested the War Department on several occasions to furnish him with a labora- tory service to investigate war gases and powders. On 1 November 1917 the War Department created a Chemical Service Section to comply with Pershing's request.'^" Col. William H. Walker, chief of the new section, took immediate steps to provide a laboratory for the AEF. Turning to Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, Walker enlisted the co-operation of its director, Ray- mond F. Bacon, and its assistant director, William A. Hamor. Hamor, who was commissioned a major, had as his first important assignment the draw- ing up of plans for a laboratory for the AEF.^^

To obtain chemicals and equipment for the new laboratory. Bacon and Hamor turned to the president of the Fisher Scientific Company of Pitts- burgh, Chester G. Fisher. Before World War I Germany was the world's chief source of chemicals and laboratory equipment and the Fisher Scientific Company depended on producers in Bavaria for its supply of these materials. After the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 and the subsequent dislocation of shipping on the high seas, the Bavarian suppliers became very wary of making further shipments, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Fisher Scientific got material through to Pittsburgh. But by an unusual stroke of fortune a considerable quantity of laboratory equipment arrived shortly before the entrance of the United States into the war. Fisher had this equipment on hand when Bacon and Hamor approached him late in 1917.^"

-^ Aldred Scott Warthin and Carl Vernon Weller, The Medical Aspects of Mustard Gas Poison- ing (St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Co., 1919).

"' ( 1) Report of the Chemical Warfare Service, 1918, pp. 4-5. The annual reports of the CWS were also published as Report of the Director of the Chemical Warfare Service, Annual Report of the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, and Annual Report of the Chemical Warfare Service, all hereafter cited as Rpt of CWS, with appropriate year. (2) The Chemical Service Section is dis- cussed at greater length in Leo P. Brophy and George J. B. Fisher, The Chemical Warfare Service: Organizing for War. UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1959), ch. I.

^' Interv, Hist Off with W. A. Hamor, 30 Dec 58.

^- (1) Interv, Hist Off with Chester G. Fisher, 30 Dec 58. (2) Hamor interv.

10

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Battery of Livens Projectors at Hanlon experimental testing field near Chau- mont, France, 1918.

The government made immediate arrangements for the Fisher Scientific Company to equip a laboratory for the AEF. All the apparatus which had recently arrived from Bavaria was put in wooden crates and shipped, along with chemicals, books, a glassworking shop, and another for instruments — seven full freight cars in all— to the Hoboken Port of Embarkation for ship- ment to France. Fisher obtained a written statement from the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, that the shipment should be given a high priority. To accom- pany the laboratory overseas the Fisher Scientific Company furnished a glass blower, an instrument maker, a chief clerk, and a stock clerk. '^^

Meanwhile in France, Col. Amos A. Fries, head of the AEF Gas Serv- ice,^^ had obtained permission from the French Government to convert a former research laboratory for tuberculosis at Puteaux, near Paris, into a chemical warfare laboratory. In January 1918 Colonel Bacon, accom- panied by a small group of chemists, arrived from the United States to head the laboratory. Since it would take several months for the equipment

■'■' Fisher interv.

" General Pershing estabUshed the Gas Service to supervise chemical warfare activity in the AEF. AEF GO 31, 3 Sep 17.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I u

from the United States to reach France, Colonel Bacon managed to obtain some laboratory supplies from French sources. Eventually other scientists arrived from the United States, so that the staff was to average between 60 and 70 chemists, approximately 12 of whom were commissioned officers. In this group were several men who were or later became famous in the field of chemistry— Gilbert N. Lewis, of the University of Califor- nia, one of the world's outstanding physical chemists; Joel H. Hildebrand, a future president of the American Chemical Society; and Frederick G. Keyes, who became director of the research laboratory of physical chem- istry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Paris Laboratory investigated a variety of chemical and physical problems having to do with toxic agents and protective devices, and also acted as a consulting laboratory for other nonchemical branches of the AEF.^^ For convenience the laboratory was divided into five divisions- Organic, Physicochemical, Mechanical, Control, and Miscellaneous. The organic chemists developed a systematic procedure for analyzing the con- tents of dud enemy chemical shells and of determining the agents present in contaminated water or earth. They synthesized possible war gases and searched for camouflage gases to simulate or conceal the characteristic odor of standard agents. For example, they learned that by adding butyl sulfide to it mustard gas gave out a strong skunklike odor; since much of the French countryside was infested by skunks the enemy was misled on the presence of gas. The physical chemists determined such important physical constants as density, vapor pressure, and rate of hydrolysis. The Control Section tested old and new gas mask canisters. The need for pro- tection against mustard was so urgent that the sections collaborated in developing antimustard salves, a field detector for mustard, and protective fabrics. The Miscellaneous Section worked on problems submitted by other branches of the AEF, such as the development of a special airplane propeller glue for the Air Service and the production of a gasproof pigeon container for the Signal Corps.

Coupled to the Paris Laboratory was a field for experimental work and for training officers in gas warfare. Colonel Fries had asked for such an experi- mental field in December 1917. Receiving permission, he chose an area cov-

'■"• (1) Col. Raymond F. Bacon, "The Work of the Technical Division, Chemical Warfare Serv- ice, AEF," Industrial ami Engiueering Chemistry. 11 (1919), 13-13. (2) Maj. W. A. Hamor and Col. R. F. Bacon, "A Letter from France," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 10 (1918), 495. (3) History of the Chemical Warfare Service, AEF Technical Division, Part I, General History. CWS, H-18. (4) History of the Chemical Warfare Service, AEF Technical Division, Part II, Paris Laboratory. CWS, H-19.

12 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

ering twenty square miles near Chaumont, headquarters of the AEF. He then sent officers to Porton, England, to learn how the British had laid out their experimental field and were conducting tests. The AEF started construction in April 1918, and the first tests were made in June. In August the installa- tion was christened Hanlon Field in honor of 2d Lt. Joseph T. Hanlon of the First Gas Regiment, the first CWS officer killed in action.

Hanlon Field ultimately had two projector ranges, an artillery range complete with trenches, and fifty-five buildings, including chemistry, pa- thology, and physiology laboratories, a shell opening plant, and a shell filling plant. ^^ Among the projects carried out were the testing of Amer- ican equipment under battlefield conditions, examination of captured equipment, analysis of the chemical fillings in dud enemy shells, and physiological research. ^^ From the viewpoint of organization, the Paris Laboratory and Hanlon Field were considered as the Technical Division of the AEF, Gas Service.^*

The Centralization of Activities in the Chemical Warfare Service

A year after American entrance into the war, the Bureau of Mines, Medical Department, Ordnance Department, Signal Corps, Corps of Engi- neers, and AEF were sharing the responsibility for chemical warfare. The War Department had made an attempt in October 1917 to co-ordinate the activity by creating a Gas Service of the Army, headed by an Engi- neer colonel, Charles C. Potter, and composed of Medical, Ordnance, and Chemical Service Section officers. The Gas Service could offer advice, but it had no authority to control research, policy, or production. The service could therefore not bring about the high degree of teamwork that the War Department wanted.

Finally on 11 May 1918 the War Department placed Maj. Gen. William L. Sibert at the head of the Gas Service, and instructed him to

3« Lt. Col. Joel H. Hildebrand, "The Organization and Work of Hanlon Field," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 11 (1919), 291-92.

^^ (1) History of the Chemical Warfare Service, AEF Technical Division, Part II, Hanlon Field. CWS, H-20. (2) Col. Raymond F. Bacon, "The Work of the Technical Division, Chemical War- fare Service, AEF." Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 11 (1919), 13-15. (3) Medical Aspects of Gas Warfare, pp. 49-50.

38 United States Army in the World War. 1917-1919 (Washington, 1948), vol. 15, pp. 300-302.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 13

draw up a plan for better co-ordination of chemical warfare. Sibert was certain that this could be done only by coalescing all men and facilities into one organization. He asked the War Department to transfer chem- ical warfare personnel from the Medical Department, Ordnance Depart- ment, Corps of Engineers, and Signal Corps to the Gas Service. There was no problem here. But Sibert also wanted the research organization of the Bureau of Mines, a request that was difficult for the War Depart- ment to fill. Sibert nevertheless persuaded Secretary of War Newton D. Baker that the move was necessary. Baker then attempted to convince President Wilson. Manning and his associates opposed the transfer vig- orously.'^^ President Wilson was reluctant, but finally agreed that the exigencies of war necessitated the move; and on 25 June 1918, under au- thority of the Overman Act, he placed the research organization of the bureau under the War Department "for operation under the Director of Gas Service of the Army." ^° The War Department commissioned Bur- rell as a colonel, and gave other research leaders corresponding rank. The militarization of the research organization did not affect the assignments of the scientists. They continued their work at American University and other laboratories.

On 28 June 1918 President Wilson approved Sibert's conception of a unified chemical warfare organization by directing the War Department to establish a Chemical Warfare Service in the National Army.^^ The new CWS included the Chemical Service Section of the Army, the research organization from the Bureau of Mines, and portions of the Ord- nance Department, Corps of Engineers, Signal Corps, and Medical Depart- ment. Sibert organized the service into nine divisions: European, Medical, Training, Research, Administration, Gas Offense Production, Gas Defense Production, Development, and Proving.^- Of the nine divisions in the new CWS, six sprang wholly or in part from the chemical warfare research organization started by the Bureau of Mines.

■" (1) Memo on Gas War Work, Origin and Progress of Work and Comments Relative to the Transfer of this Work to the War Dept, 3 Jun 18; (2) Memo on Conference held in the Office of the Secretary of War, . . . May 25, 1918, regarding Proposed Transfer of the War Gas Investiga- tions of the Bureau of Mines to the War Department. Both in War Gas Investigations, Bu of Mines.

^" Wilson's Executive Order 2894, and a letter that he sent to Manning commending the Bu- reau of Mines, were widely reprinted. See, for example. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 10 (1918), 654.

^' WD GO 62, 28 Jun 18.

^-RptofCWS, 1919, p. 3.

512467 O-60— 3

14 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Chemical Munitions ^'^

Before the establishment of the CWS, responsibiHty for procuring and issuing chemical warfare items was divided between the Medical and Ord- nance Departments of the Army. The Medical Department was assigned responsibility for defensive items and the Ordnance Department for offen- sive material. The Ordnance mission included the procuring, filling, and testing of toxic gases. The Army, of course, had never had occasion to purchase or produce poison gas. Its first step, therefore, was to choose the agents that would be used by the AEF. After evaluating the chem- icals that had been used by armies in Europe, the Bureau of Mines recommended chloropicrin, hydrogen cyanide, phosgene, and xylyl bromide to the Ordnance Department in July 1917.^^ A few months later Colonel Fries sent recommendations from France that chlorine, phosgene, chloro- picrin, bromoacetone, and mustard gas be procured.^''

It was the intention of the War Department at the start of the war to arrange for the manufacture of toxic gases by commercial chemical companies under Ordnance Department supervision and to confine direct government activity to the filling of shells with toxic materials.^'' In the fall of 1917 the Ordnance Department set out to interest private industry in the manufacture of war gases and began to plan the erection of a shell filling plant near Edgewood, Md.^'

Immediate responsibility for drawing up the plans was assigned to Capt. Edwin M. Chance, of the Trench Warfare Section, Gun Division of the Office of the Chief of Ordnance, then headed by Capt. E. J. W. Rags-

^^ Unless otherwise indicated this section is based on the following: ( 1) Benedict Crowell, America's Munitions. 1917-1918 (Washington, 1919), pp. 395-410. (2) Lt. Col. William Mc- Pherson, An Historical Sketch of the Development of Edgewood Arsenal, 1 Feb 1919, pp. 290- 344. CWS, H-169. (3) Report on Edgewood Arsenal, January 1919. CWS, H-168. (4) Lt. Col. Wilder D. Bancroft, History of the CWS in the United States, 31 May 1919, pp. 29-344. CWS, H-11. Col. F. M. Dorsey, "The Development Division, Chemical Warfare Service, U.S.A.," In- dustrial and Engineering Chemistry. 11 (1919), 281-91. (6) Charles H. Herty, "Gas Offense in the United States A Record Achievement," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 11 (1919), 5-12.

^^ (1) Ltr, Manning to Brig Gen William Crozier, 20 July 1917, War Gas Investigations. Bu of Mines. ( 2 ) Mustard gas, missing from this list, was not used until 12 July 1917, and the bureau did not know of the gas at the time. Later advice from abroad led to elimination of hydrogen cyanide. The recognition of the superior lachrymatory property of bromobenzylcyanide led to the abandonment of xylyl bromide.

'^ Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, pp. 100-102.

^^ Lt. Col. Edwin M. Chance, History of Edgewood Plants, p. 10. Colonel Chance submitted this report to the Assistant Secretary of War on 31 December 1918. See Ltr, Chance to Hist Off, 4 Feb 54.

'■' This property was acquired by the government under a presidential proclamation of 16 Oc- tober 1917. It was at first called Gunpowder Neck Reservation and then Gunpowder Reservation. Later it took the name Edgewood Arsenal from the nearby village of Edgewood.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I

15

Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries, head of the AEF Gas Service, f Photo taken after July 1920.)

dale.^^ Captain Chance had the ad- vice and assistance of Lt. Raoul E. Hankar of the French High Com- mission who suppHed the plans of the French filHng plant at Auber- villiers together with details on the properties of the gases to be filled. After careful examination of the data furnished by Lieutenant Hankar, Captain Chance concluded that the French methods were totally unsuited to American conditions, that the French production units were too small for production of good quality, and that their methods of handling the gases led to an unduly high casualty rate in French plants. Chance then decided to study the possibility of applying the methods of the commercial bottling industry to a gas filling plant and he visited a number of works where milk, beer, and carbonated liquids were bottled. Convinced that commercial methods could be adapted to gas filling plants, he drew up plans accordingly.^^

Erection of the first shell filling plant at Edgewood, Md., was begun in September 1917 and practically completed by the close of the year. It consisted of four filling buildings radiating from a central powerhouse at 90-degree angles to each other. Each building was a complete unit in itself, with individual gas handling rooms, mixing rooms, washing towers, and ventilating equipment. If one building would have to be shut down because of an accident or for other reasons, it would be possible to keep the remaining units in production. The units were so constructed that the fan discharges were separated by a distance of over 400 feet, a precaution which prevented the accumulation of a dangerous concentration of gases during plant operation. This shell filling plant, known as Filling Plant No. 1, was completed by January 1918 and put into immediate operation. In the spring of 1918 construction got underway on two similar plants, both of which were approximately 80 percent complete by November. In

^'^ The Trench Warfare Section, Ordnance Department, was organized in April 1917. *^ Chance, History of Edgewood Plants, p. 1.

16

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Plant at Edgewood Arsenal where filled shells ivere classified, tested for leaks, painted, and boxed for shipment. Livens drums, foreground, were painted with two white stripes to indicate they were filled with phosgene.

addition, two grenade filling plants and an incendiary-drop-bomb plant were either completed or were nearing completion when the war ended. By the close of 1917 the War Department had come to the conclu- sion that the government would also have to erect its own manufacturing plants at Edgewood. The efforts of the Ordnance Department to interest the chemical industry in the manufacture of war gases had not proved successful because of the danger inherent in the manufacture of toxic materials, because industry lacked experience in the production of such materials, and because the toxic plants would serve no useful purpose after the war. During the unseasonably cold winter of 1917-18 a chloro- picrin plant and a phosgene plant were built. In April 1918 construction was begun on a large-scale mustard plant and in the next month on a chlorine plant. The chlorine plant, which when completed had two 50- ton units with a total capacity of 100 tons of liquid chlorine a day, was the largest plant of its kind in the United States at that time. These plants collectively were on 4 May 1918 designated "Edgewood Arsenal," an instal- lation of the Army Ordnance Department. ^°

5« Ord Dept GO 7, 4 May 18.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I

17

In the construction and operation of the plants at Edgewood the Ord- nance Department received valuable assistance from the Bureau of Mines and from representatives of the British and French Governments." While this plant construction was going on at Edgewood, Ordnance continued to solicit the interest of private industry in the manufacture of toxic agents. The government decided to construct chemical plants at various points throughout the country and to urge the chemical companies to operate these plants. During the war a number of plants, including those oper- ated by the government and those operated by contractors, were erected. {Table 1)

Table 1 — Plants and Projects of Edgewood Arsenal During World War I

Plant Location	Project	Operator
Edgewood, Md	Manufacture of chloropicrin .... Manufacture of phosgene Manufacture of mustard gas. . . . Manufacture of chlorine Manufacture of sulphur mono- chloride. Manufacture of chloropicrin .... Manufacture of mustard gas. . . . Manufacture of bromobenzyl- cyanide. Manufacture of diphenylchlo- roarsine. Manufacture of lewisite Manufacture of phosgene 17 brine wells for bromine sup- plies. Manufacture of phosgene Manufacture of sulphur mono- chloride. Manufacture of mustard gas. . . .	Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood Arsenal. Oldbury Electro-Chemical Co. Dow Chemical Co.
Edgewood, Md
Edgewood, Md
Edgewood, Md
Edgewood, Md
Stamford, Conn
Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y Kingsport, Tenn
Croyland, Pa
Willoughby, Ohio
Niagara Falls, N.Y
Midland, Mich
Bound Brook, N.J	Frank Hemingway, Inc. Charleston Chemical Co. National Aniline & Chemical Co.
Charleston, W. Va Buffalo, N.Y

When the Chemical Warfare Service was activated in June 1918, a Gas Offense Production Division, with headquarters in Baltimore, Md., was

^' Among those whose counsel was particularly valuable were Captain Hankar of the French High Commission, mentioned previously; W. Gordon Carey and T. D. Gregory, representatives of English firms engaged in the manufacture of toxic gases; Maj. G. M. Brightman and Lt. Col. Sam- uel J. M. Auld of the British Army. See acknowledgment in McPherson, An Historical Sketch of Edgewood Arsenal.

18 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

set up. This division, headed by Col. WilHam H. Walker, former com- manding officer of Edgewood Arsenal, took over from Ordnance the func- tion of supervising the "production of toxic gases and other substances used offensively in gas warfare." ^~ Edgewood Arsenal and its subsidiary plants were included in Colonel Walker's command.

By November 1918, the United States was manufacturing almost as much gas as England and France combined and nearly four times as much as Germany, which at the start of the war had led all other nations in the field of chemistry.^" The manufacture and filling of gas at Edgewood Arsenal was carried out by the military because others lacked experience with that type of operation. A peak employment of over 7,000 officers and enlisted men was reached at Edgewood during the war. Government representatives were stationed at the various plants operated by the con- tractors, but civilians with some experience in the chemical industry were employed in the actual operation of those plants.

The plans for filling gas shells and shipping them across the ocean did not work out as expected. The chief difficulty was the extreme short- age of shell boosters.''"* At no time during the war did the supply of boosters come near meeting the demand. Consequently, the United States resorted to ocean shipment of bulk toxics, with more than 3,500 tons going to Europe. In England and France this gas was put into Allied shells and was eventually used against the enemy.

The implements which the U.S. Army employed to release gas on the enemy were obtained in great part from the Allies, particularly the Brit- ish. These munitions included cylinders from which gas was dispersed and Livens projectors. Not until shortly before the armistice were these items received in the theater from the United States. ^^ The delay was due in large part to the time required to get noncommercial items of this type into satisfactory production.

Gas Defense Equipment ^^

As early as the fall of 1915 the War Department delegated the task of designing, developing, and procuring gas masks to the Medical Depart-

"RptofCWS, 1918, p. 4.

^^RptofCWS, 1919, p. 8.

'""^ The booster, an explosive-filled metallic tube, was used as a burster to crack open the gas shell and free the gas.

■'''' Fries and West, Chemical Warfare, p. 78.

■''^ Unless otherwise indicated this section is based on the following: ( 1) Benedict Crowell, America's Munitions, pp. 410-31. (2) Bancroft, History CWS in the United States, pp. 85-103. (3) George A. Burrell, The Research Division, Chemical Warfare Service, U.S.A.," Industrial

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 19

ment. Early in 1917 the Bureau of Mines offered its assistance in research and development, an offer which the Medical Department gratefully accepted. The bureau designed and tested masks in its own laboratories and co-operated with the following universities in experiments on absorb- ents for gas mask canisters: The Johns Hopkins University, the University of California, Princeton University, Wesleyan University, and the Carnegie Institute of Technology. In conjunction with the Bureau of Chemistry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Carbon Co., the National Lamp Works of the General Electric Co., as well as the University of Chicago, the bureau tested charcoal obtained from different woods, nuts, and seeds, and began to develop large-scale processes for carbonizing raw materials and activating chemicals. In the summer of 1917 much of this research and development work was transferred to the Medical Department. Bradley Dewey, who was then working with the Bureau of Mines, was commissioned in the Medical Department and put in Charge of the gas mask program. Colonel Dewey became chief of the Gas Defense Production Division of the CWS upon its activation in June 1918.

The Medical Department received its first procurement directive for gas masks in May 1917. Twenty-five thousand were needed at once, the War Department stated, to equip General Pershing's First Division, then about to sail overseas. At the same time the Medical Department was directed to supply the armed forces with 1,100,000 masks by 30 June 1918.

Maj. L. P. Williamson of The Surgeon General's Office turned to the Bureau of Mines for assistance in filling the order for the first 25,000 masks. The bureau sought out and obtained the services of various manufacturers. The facepieces, for example, were manufactured by the B. F. Goodrich Co. of Akron and the canisters by the American Can Co. of Brooklyn. American Can also had the contract for assembling the masks. By June 1917 over 20,000 of the masks were at sea, bound for France, and some 5,000 followed shortly thereafter. The masks proved unsatisfactory, primarily because they did not protect the wearer against chloropicrin, which was beginning to be widely used. Since the British and French had more than enough masks, they readily

and Engineering Chemistry. 11 (1919), 93-104. (4) Bradley Dewey, "Production of Gas Defense Equipment for the Army," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 11 (1919), 185-97. (5) Dorsey, "The Development Division, Chemical Warfare Service, U.S.A.," pp. 281-91- (6) A. C. Fieldner and A. F. Benton, History of the Gas Mask Research Section, Research Division, Chemical War- fare Service, U.S.A. CWS, H-146. (7) Warren K. Lewis. "Protective Work in the Research Division, Chemical Warfare Service, in the War," Chemical Warfare Bulletin 18 (April 1932) pp. 1113-19 (a publication prepared by the CWS School, formerly Chemical Warfare).

2<t THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

supplied the American First Division with all it needed.'^' Although the 25,- 000 American masks were not used the experience resulted in improvement in the design of the mask.

The policy of obtaining masks exclusively through contract with private industry was continued throughout 1917. Contracts for procuring compo- nents of the mask were awarded to various manufacturers throughout the country, while a contract for assembling the parts into complete masks went to the Hero Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia in the fall of 1917. From then until the end of the war Hero was the sole private contractor assem- bling masks. During the last months of 1917 transportation difficulties were aggravated by excessive snowfalls and the company experienced great delay in getting components from such points as Boston and Akron to Philadelphia. Ifhis was doubtless an important factor in the Hero's failure to attain scheduled production.

As early as mid-November 1917 the War Department had concluded that in order to meet the gas mask requirements for American troops being sent to France, as well as to insure the rigid standards demanded in this item of equipment, the government would have to construct its own gas mask factory. The site for the government factory was Long Island City, New York, where during the early months of 1918 the government took over a group of five large buildings and converted them into a factory. '^^ A dollar-a-year man, Ralph R. Richardson of Chicago, was named plant manager with a lieutenant colonel as his assistant. The various depart- ments in the plant were headed by either military or civilian personnel. Some 12,000 workers, of whom 8,500 were women, were at one time em- ployed in the plant.

The government did not alter its plans of procuring masks from pri- vate industry after establishing the Long Island City plant, but on the contrary made every effort to step up production from private sources. The extent of private production during the war is indicated by the fact that the Gas Defense Division of the CWS at one time supervised contracts in approximately 600 factories extending from Boston to San Francisco.''^

■'' This was but the beginning of American procurement of British and French masks in the AEF. Colonel Fries, upon assuming command of the Gas Service, AEF, in August 1917. began placing orders with the British and French in anticipation of the arrival of large numbers of Amer- ican troops. About 200,000 masks were obtained from the French and not less than 600,000 from the British. See Amos A. Fries, History of Chemical Warfare Service in France, 1919, pp. 4, 9-

■"* The official directive for the activation of the government gas mask plant was Memo SW for SG, 20 Nov 17, sub; Establishment of Government Operated Plant for Gas Mask Manufacture. CWS, H-175.

■"RptofCWS, 1919, p. 50.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I \

21

Women Workers in Gas Mask Factory, Long Island City, New York.

Since the Army had no previous experience with gas masks, the con- tractors, as well as government officials supervising the contracts, had to learn largely through trial and error. One of the most baffling procure- ment problems in connection with the manufacture of the gas mask was that of obtaining sufficient charcoal for the canisters of the masks. Early in the war the War Department undertook a concerted drive to speed the shipment of coconut shells, from which the charcoal was made, from Cey- lon, India, and other oriental countries to the Philippine Islands. There a government charcoal plant was erected which during 1917-18 produced 1,300 tons of coconut shell charcoal; 300 tons of this had been shipped to the United States by November 1918, but that amount was by no means sufficient to meet the demand. In the effiDrt to find other sources of sup- ply, the Gas Defense Division of the CWS sent agents to Mexico and to Central and South America to investigate ways of expediting the importation of coconuts into the United States. At the same time possi- ble substitutes for the coconut shell were investigated. It was found that the corozo nut, the fruit of the Manaca palm tree, was the most suitable sub- stitute and thousands of tons of these nuts were shipped into this country.

A colorful touch was lent to the search for carbon materials for the gas

22 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

mask in September 1918 when a nut gathering campaign was undertaken throughout the United States. The Red Cross, the Department of Agricul- ture, the Food Administration, and the Boy Scouts were among the groups sponsoring this venture. Two motion picture reels depicting the urgent need for charcoal were made and given wide circulation. By the close of the war on 11 November an estimated 4,000 tons of nut shells were en route to the great carbon plant at Astoria on Long Island.

This carbon plant was established in 1917 to activate charcoal, an even more difficult problem than the making of the charcoal itself.^^° The acti- vation had to be done in facilities permitting fine control of temperature, and the government spent over $1,000,000 in constructing the Astoria plant. This facility was erected adjacent to the large gas works of the Astoria Light, Heat, and Power Co., at the junction of the East River and Long Island Sound, the point known as Hell Gate.

The first gas masks of export standard were sent overseas in January 1918, although not until May were they shipped in large numbers.'''^ By November some 4 million masks had been shipped, together with consid- erable quantities of other gas defense items. {Table 2) Among these were bleaching powder, used to decontaminate gassed areas; extra antidimming, used to prevent moisture from condensing on gas mask eyepieces; sag paste, a protective ointment; dugout blankets, which were hung at the doors of dugouts as a protective device; dugout-blanket oil, a special heavy oil used to impregnate cotton blankets; warning devices, such as Klaxon horns and watchmen's rattles; and trench fans, to draw gases out of dug- outs and trenches.

Field Testing of Chemical Munitions

While drawing up plans for a shell filling plant in the fall of 1917, the Ordnance Department began to consider the establishment of a prov- ing ground where gas shells could be tested under simulated battle condi- tions. The Bureau of Mines co-operated by providing a competent scientist, William S. Bacon of the Yale section, to take charge of the program.''^

'^° Activated charcoal is a specially treated, extremely porous charcoal which is very effective in absorbing chemical agents.

•^^ Fries, History of Chemical Warfare Service in France, p. 9.

«M1) Bancroft, History of the CWS in the United States, pp. 345-60. (2) Lt. Col. William S. Bacon, "The Proving Division, Chemical Warfare Service, USA," Industrial cind Engineering Chemistry, 11 (1919), 513-16. (3) History of the Proving Division, Chemical Warfare Service. CWS, H-70.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I

23

Table 2 — Gas-Defense Items Shipped Overseas From June 1917 to No- vember 1918

Item

Quantity

Respirators (Gas Masks)

Extra Canisters

Horse Masks

Bleaching Powder

Extra Antidimming. . . .

Sag Paste

Dugout Blankets

Dugout-Blanket Oil ... .

Warning Devices

Trench Fans

3, 938, 808

1, 805, 076 351,270

1,867

2, 855, 776

915

36, 221

5,000

19, 620

27, 690

Source: This table appears in Annual Report of the Director, CWS 1919, p. 51, and in Crowell, America's Munitions, p. 431.

The British, who maintained a chemical proving ground at Porton, Eng- land, contributed the services of Maj. H. R. LeSueur, who helped lay out the grounds and organize the tests. *^^

The Ordnance Department started construction of a proving ground at Edgewood near the shell filling plant in January 1918. A month later the department stopped work at Edgewood because it was felt that the location was not sufficiently isolated and started anew in the pine forests near Lakehurst, N.J.

At Lakehurst, Ordnance constructed ranges, impact areas, laboratories, magazines, gun emplacements, observation towers, animal houses, barracks, and other buildings necessary for successful operation of a proving ground. To determine the quantity of gas present after explosion of a shell, Ord- nance laid out two lines of trenches with dugouts and designed an auto- matic sampling apparatus to collect gas laden air in glass bottles located within the area.

The proving ground was manned by Medical, Ordnance, and Quarter- master officers and men. Tests were carried out jointly by chemists, phys- iologists, and meteorologists. The first gas shells fired in the United States were discharged at Lakehurst on 25 April 1918. Thereafter firing trials were made to determine the extent of decomposition of toxic agents dur- ing the explosion of shells, to ascertain the relative effi^ctiveness and per-

«■ Maj H. R. LeSueur, British Gas Warfare Mission to the USA, Section VII, Work of the Lakehurst Experimental Station. CWS, H-6.

24 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

sistency of mustard, to find the number of shells necessary to build up a concentration of gas in a given area, to test experimental shells, and to test representative samples from the production line.

Demobilization

With the coming of peace in November 1918, the industrial and col- legiate laboratories assisting the CWS dropped war projects and returned to their normal scientific research. At American University the volume of research subsided as the staff of more than twelve hundred technical men, among whom were many of the finest chemists in the United States, dwindled away until only a handful were left. The dismemberment of the service proceeded so rapidly that by 30 June 1919, 97 percent of its mili- tary personnel had been demobilized.'^^ In a short time the CWS would have disappeared completely had not Congress on 11 July 1919 ordered the War Department to retain the service as an independent branch of the Army for another year.'"'^ Under the National Defense Act of 1920 the CWS became a permanent branch of the Army.*^''

For several months after the war the CWS retained the wide authority granted by the War Department in 1918 to carry on "all investigation and research work in connection with gas warfare." ^"'^ In reality this meant little because the small staff could not cope with all projects relevant to chemical warfare. The only projects carried on were the development of boosters for gas and smoke shells, and the determination of bursting charges.*'^ Shortly after Congress extended the life of the CWS in July 1919, the War Department issued the first peacetime instructions concern- ing research and development. The Department did not insist that the Chief keep up the wartime level of research and development, but it did require him to maintain a "competent body of chemical warfare specialists with facilities for continuous research and experimentation," and to keep "in touch with civilian agencies for chemical research and chemical indus- tries capable of being converted for the production of wartime material." *^^

«^RptofCWS, 1920, p. 13.

^'^ (1) 41 U.S. Statutes at Large ch. IV p. 219. (2) WD Bull No 23, 19 Jul 19. 8« P.L. 242, 66th Cong., Sec 12a. «^ WD GO 62, 28 Jun 18.

""^ Rpt of CWS, 1920, pp. 23-24. ;

•"^ Instructions from the War Department to the Chief Chemical Officer, 28 Nov 19. Cited in Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 5.

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 25

There was little else that the CWS could have done at this time even had it desired. The government had returned American University to the trus- tees, and the Research Division of the CWS was busy preparing new lab- oratories at Edge wood Arsenal and transferring equipment and records. CWS scientists, uncertain of their future, were not disposed to remain, so that between 1 July and 1 November 1919 there was only an average of eighteen technical men to keep the work alive.'"

The central gas mask factory at Long Island City was demobilized after the war. This was done on a gradual basis, each employee being discharged only after he had been placed in other civilian employment.'^ A second demobilization project was the termination of over twelve hundred formal contracts and over fifty informal contracts. By 1 July 1920 all CWS for- mal contracts and over 98 percent of the informal contracts had been settled. '^-

More time consuming was the sale of the surplus chemical plants and surplus items of chemical warfare equipment and materiel. By 1 July 1920 the plants had either been sold or transferred to other government bureaus, and by that time also great quantities of surplus materiel had been sold." But disposition of some World War I surplus property con- tinued into 1925.'^

Certain materiel that might prove useful in peacetime was not declared surplus, notably the gas mask. Planners realized that a number of masks would be needed for training purposes in peacetime as well as for war reserve. Not only would World War I masks have to be reconditioned, but it would also be necessary to manufacture improved masks during the peacetime years. Thus within a year after the signing of the armistice it was decided that a government-owned, government-operated gas mask fac- tory would be built at Edgewood Arsenal, to be equipped with machin- ery used in the Long Island City plant.^^

Much of this machinery had been sold as surplus after the war and the remainder shipped for storage to the government plant at Hastings- on-Hudson, N.Y. In late 1919 and early 1920 this machinery was trans- ferred to Edgewood, where it was installed in the new gas mask factory.

'"Ibid., p. 29.

'■ Rptof CWS, 1919, p. 51. "RptofCWS, 1920, p. 16. '•* Rptof CWS, 1920, p. 15. "^ Rptof CWS, 1920, p. 17. "Rptof CWS, 1920, p. 30.

26 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

A more difficult problem was that of securing operators to run the machin- ery, for although a number of the supervisors from the Long Island plant came to Edgewood very few of the operators did. Consequently, it was necessary to train new operators, a process which required a period of about six months."'' The gas mask factory at Edgewood reconditioned approximately one half million World War I masks and produced 120,000 new masks in the years 1920-21.^^

With the armistice the staff of the proving ground was quickly demo- bilized. In November 1919 the CWS established an officers' training school at Lakehurst, where shortly afterwards the First Gas Regiment was stationed. In the spring of 1920 the service resumed testing operations."'*

During the twenty months in which the United States was involved in World War I, the Bureau of Mines and the Army built up the largest organization of scientists ever assembled in this country, perhaps in the world. The volume of research carried on by these scientists was tremen- dous and their contributions notable.^"* One group, headed by Capt. Win- ford Lee Lewis, of Northwestern University, discovered lewisite and an- other group under Maj. Roger Adams, of the University of Illinois, pro- duced adamsite. Some scientists carried on extensive research on protective equipment and chemical warfare weapons. In medical research, physiolo- gists studied the reaction of chemical agents upon the body, so that meth- ods of treatment could be devised.

When the War Department launched the program to produce gas war- fare munitions, neither the military establishment nor American industry had had any experience in manufacturing gas warfare items. Under these conditions it is surprising that so much gas warfare equipment was manu- factured and that such a large portion of it was delivered to the theater by the close of the war.

Yet the amount of such equipment reaching France was only a frac- tion of what the troops needed and the U.S. Army therefore had to rely on the French and the British to fill the bulk of its needs. This situation was not confined to gas warfare items by any means; throughout 1917 and 1918, the AEF depended upon the French and British for almost every

'"Rptof CWS, 1921, p. 23.

" (1) Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 31. (2) Rptof CWS, 1921, p. 24.

'« (1) Rpt of CWS, 1920, pp. 39-40. (2) Annual Report. Edgewood Arsenal. Md. and Lake- hurst Proving Ground. Lakehurst. N.J. FY 1921, pp. 26-28. CWS 314.7 Early CWS History File.

" A partial report on the work of the scientists is the 50-volume series of chemical warfare monographs completed in 1919-

RESEARCH AND SUPPLY IN WORLD WAR I 27

Ordnance item except rifles and small arms ammunition.*" The implica- tions of this experience were not lost on the War Department or on the Congress, and in the 1920 revision of the National Defense Act provision was made against future emergencies through the inauguration of a system of industrial mobilization planning.

•'*° Constance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance De- partment: Planning Munitions for War. UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955), p. 24.

CHAPTER II

Research and Development in Peace and War

Chemical warfare research and development dipped to its lowest point at the end of 1919. At this time the service was still a temporary war- time organization, with no guarantee that Congress would pass legislation making it a permanent branch of the Army. But word finally filtered down to Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries, who had succeeded General Sibert as chief on 28 February 1920, that the legislators would probably continue the CWS, and Fries began to rebuild its organization. He revamped the Office of the Chief in Washington, establishing a Technical Division to act as his staff in matters concerning research and development.^ A year later he added a Medical Division, headed by an officer from the Medical Depart- ment, to supervise medical investigations relating to chemical warfare and to act as liaison with the Public Health Service, the Veterans' Bureau, and the Army and Navy Medical Departments."

Since the CWS had been formed as a service organization to all other branches of the Army, close liaison with them was essential in order to meet their requirements. To fulfill this function General Fries established the Chemical Warfare Technical Committee (CWTC) in March 1920, com- posed of officers of the CWS and of all combatant branches interested in chemical munitions.^ After the CWTC was formed its duties were ex-

' (1) Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 5. (2) The responsibilities of the Technical Division are given in Pamphlet, Organization of the Office of the Chief of Chemical Warfare Service, 7 Nov 21, pp. 5- 7. CWS 314.7 Early CWS History File.

-The responsibilities of the Medical Division are given in: (1) Pamphlet, Organization of OC CWS, p. 7. (2) Rpt of CWS, 1921, pp. 13-14.

3 OC CWS SO 74, 31 Mar 20.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 29

panded to include the preparation of the project program for chemical warfare materiel. To handle the development of materiel intended for use by CWS troops only, General Fries set up a similar group composed of CWS personnel and called the Chemical Warfare Branch Committee.

To the American Chemical Society, which had provided an advisory committee to assist the CWS during the war, General Fries went with a request for another committee to consult with him on scientific matters. The society appointed a group of outstanding chemists who met periodi- cally with General Fries and with later chiefs to discuss chemical warfare and to recommend promising lines of research, changes in organizational structure, and possible solutions to vexing chemical warfare problems.^ Through this organization the CWS had access to the best minds in American chemistry.

In reorganizing Edgewood Arsenal, General Fries provided for two technical groups: the Chemical Research and Development Division (later the Chemical Division) to investigate smokes, incendiaries, and toxic agents; and the Mechanical and Electrical Research and Development Division (later, the Mechanical Division) to design munitions and masks. ^ In 1921, when the War Department ordered the CWS to remove its wartime prov- ing ground from Lakehurst, N.J., General Fries set up a Proof Depart- ment at Edgewood.*^ The following year he completed the basic technical organization at the arsenal by adding a Medical Research Division to determine the toxicological and physiological action of chemical com- pounds, to develop methods of treating chemical warfare casualties, and to instruct officers in the medical aspects of chemical warfare.

Fries kept the Chemical and Mechanical Divisions and the Proof Department at Edgewood in the normal command channels, but because of the highly technical nature of their work he placed them under a Techni- cal Director, the first of whom was Dr. James E. Mills, appointed in April 1921.^ The Medical Research Division, on the other hand, remained under an officer of the Medical Department.

General Fries did not alter the research organization for several years,

'' ( 1 ) The original members of the ACS advisory council are listed in Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 18. (2) For the history of the advisory council see Carl B. Marquand, The American Chemical Society Committee and its Relation to the Chemical Corps, 1955. CWS 314.7 ACS File.

■^ Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 26.

•' (1) Rpt of CWS, 1921, pp. 29-31. (2) Annual Report. Edgewood Arsenal, Edgewood. Md.. and Lakehurst Proving Ground, Lakehurst, N.J., 1921, pp. 7-8, 26-28.

" (1) Rpt of CWS, 1921, p. 17. (2) A brief account of James E. Mills may be found in "Au Revoir, Dr. Mills," Chemical Warfare Bulletin 15 (July 1929), 606-07.

512467 O-60— 4

30 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

but in the meantime he estabHshed a Chemical Warfare Board, which came to play a part in the technical program. The board, composed of seven officers, was created in 1923 for the purpose of outlining broad policies and shaping them in definite form for the chief chemical officer.^ In 1926 Fries reorganized the board, reduced its membership to four officers, and stationed it at Edgewood Arsenal.^ A primary function of the board now was to study and co-ordinate the technical developments of the CWS with tactical doctrines and methods. ^° In carrying out its mission the board conducted or supervised service tests of equipment used by chemical troops and studied proposed projects before they were acted upon by the Chemical Warfare Technical Committee. ^^

With the addition of the board to the other technical agencies, which included the medical and technical staffs in the Office of the Chief, the laboratories and shops at Edgewood Arsenal, the CWTC, and the Ameri- can Chemical Society advisory committee, the basic research and develop- ment organization of the CWS was complete. The organizational struc- ture, however, still did not satisfy General Fries. Edgewood Arsenal had grown and the projects had increased since 1920, bringing a certain amount of unwieldiness in operations. In the autumn of 1928 he divided the three technical divisions, Chemical, Mechanical, and Medical, into six divisions- Research, Munitions Development, Protective Development, Engineering, Medical, and Information. Each division, in turn, was made up of several departments.^" The Research Division consisted of an Organic Depart- ment, which synthesized new compounds and investigated manufacturing processes on a small scale; a Physical Department, which made fundamen- tal studies of smokes, charcoal, and filtration; and an Analytical Depart- ment, which performed routine analyses and identified new substances. The Medical Division had two branches: a Toxicological Department, which determined the toxicity of substances and conducted fundamental research on toxicity; and a Medical Department, which studied physiologi- cal action and mechanism of chemical warfare agents and developed first-

» OC CWS SO 19, 21 May 23.

'•' OC CWS so 59, 19 Nov 26.

'OAR 50-10, 3 Jan 27.

'' (1) "The Chemical Warfare Board," Chemical Warfare Bulletin 12 (December 1926), p. 1. (2) Rpt of CWS, 1928, p. 20. (3) Ltr, Maj E. Montgomery to C CWS, 5 Jan 27, sub: Procedure in Development, Test and Adoption of Chemical Warfare Materiel, with 3 Inds. Edgewood Ar- senal (EA) 400.112/2. Copy in CWS 314.7 Early CWS History File.

'- (1) Capt Maurice E. Barker, "The Technical Divisions, Edgewood Arsenal," Chemical War- fare Bulletin 15 (July 1929), 607-10. (2) CWS News Letter, no. 1, 1 Jan 29, pp. 1-2. Technical Library, A CmlC, Md. (3) For charts see Rpt of CWS, 1931 (secret supplement).

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 31

aid treatment. The Munitions Development Division consisted of a Muni- tions Department, which developed grenades, bombs, candles, and shells; a Weapons Department, which developed mortars. Livens projectors, large- area smoke screen generators, airplane spray tanks, and gas cylinders; and a Plants Department which developed, constructed, and operated pilot plants and full-scale toxic and impregnite plants. The Information Divi- sion had three units— a Technical Files Department to handle files and prepare monographs, a Technical Library Department, and an Editorial Department to edit research and development reports. The Protective Development Division consisted of a Protective Clothing Department, which developed protective clothing and methods of decontamination; a Gas Mask Department; and a Collective Protection Department. The Engineering Division was divided into a Design Department, which pre- pared designs, drafts, and specifications; a Physical Testing Department, which conducted physical tests on materials; a Shops and Loading Depart- ment, in charge of machine shops and surveillance facilities; the Field Test- ing Department, which conducted all tests in the field, and a Photography Department. After the reorganization of 1928, the technical structure of the CWS remained much the same until World War II.

The Peacetime Scientific Program

At the time of the Congressional action of 1920, service scientists had no official project program. The CWTC several months earlier had drawn up a list of projects which General Fries submitted to the War Depart- ment, and while the Secretary of War was studying the matter, scientists at Edgewood and Lakehurst continued to work on problems that had been left unfinished at American University. In December 1920 the Secretary approved Fries' program, under which scientists were to concentrate on perfecting unsatisfactory wartime implements and then, as salvage opera- tions were completed, to turn to the investigation of new items. In this way Fries planned to improve the inferior chemical warfare items that had been produced during war, thus saving the cost of new equipment and at the same time providing the Army with a reserve of chemical warfare supplies for training and emergency use. By the end of fiscal year 1921 the salvage operations were largely completed and a number of new proj- ects had been started. ^'^

"RptofCWS, 1921.

32 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

During the period from 1920 to 1940 the CWS initiated approximately 700 projects for the Army, the Navy, and for civihan organizations. The military subjects encompassed gas masks, protective clothing, protective ointments, incendiary materials, mortars, airplane spray tanks, chemical cyl- inders, chemical artillery shells, colored smoke, chemical grenades, toxico- logical studies, meteorology, analytical methods, pilot plants, full-scale plants, filling plants, and medical studies.

In the 1920's the CWS placed emphasis on long-range projects. ^^ Dur- ing these years Capt. Louis M. McBride, Dr. G. S. Maxwell, and their co-workers made radical improvements in the mortar, greatly increasing its range and accuracy. Dr. James E. Mills applied the theory of probabil- ity to the study of toxic compounds, and pointed the way to better methods of determining toxicities. Dr. Leo Finkelstein conducted fundamental re- search on the filtration of aerosols to improve the smoke retaining prop- erties of gas mask canisters.

In the 1930's the CWS de-emphasized long-range research and concen- trated on filling the gaps in chemical warfare equipment. This involved the development of new items, the redesigning of chemical plants to con- form to modern engineering practice, and the drawing of specifications needed from the procurement of materiel.

While the CWS placed a large number of projects on its technical program, the research organization itself was not large. The service re- ceived very small appropriations from Congress (from 1923 to 1926, less than a million dollars a year; from 1927 to 1938, less than two million; in 1939 and 1940, between two and three million), and thus it was se- verely limited in the funds it could spend on research and development.^^ As a consequence some of the projects received only a few hundred dol- lars, with the average only a few thousand.

Although the primary purpose of the CWS was to produce implements of war, the service took every opportunity to volunteer its facilities and staff to assist civilian groups in carrying out special scientific studies. Among these projects were: Rat Extermination (1921), War Gases as In- secticides (co-operative project with the Bureau of Entomology, 1922), Apparatus for Toxicological Experiments (co-operative project with the Bureau of Entomology, 1922), Extermination of Locusts (co-operative project with the Philippine Islands Department of Agriculture, 1923), Ex-

'■* Duncan MacRae, "The Scientific Approach to Military Problems," Armed Forces Chemical Journal. V (January 1952), 26-27.

'■'' Brophy and Fisher, Organizing for War, ch. 2.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 33

termination of Field Rats (co-operative project with the Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association, 1923), co-operative project with the Biological Sur- vey (1923), Marine Piling Investigation (1923), and Boll Weevil Investi- gations (1920-27). These projects were generally financed by Congress or some agency of the government since the CWS did not have funds to underwrite extracurricular research. ^*^

The longest and most important of these investigations was the search for a boll weevil insecticide. Shortly after World War I, the weevil seri- ously menaced cotton crops in the South. In July 1920 the CWS made arrangements to test toxic war agents as insecticides on the farm of the State Board of Entomology, Baxley, Ga. While the agents destroyed the weevils, they also injured the cotton. Chemists then prepared a series of compounds and mixtures which they tested at Tallulah, La.; the South Carolina Experiment Station, Clemson College, Clemson, S.C; the Florida Experiment Station, Gainesville; Experiment, Georgia; and Auburn, Ala. Out of thousands of poisonous mixtures, the CWS found several that could be produced commercially and were acceptable to the farmer. ^^

Another investigation of considerable importance concerned the pro- tection of submerged wooden pilings against marine borers. The Commit- tee on Marine Piling Investigation of the Division of Engineering and Industrial Research, National Research Council, arranged for the Depart- ment of Commerce, the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and the Quartermaster Corps to pay for the cost of the work. The CWS carried out laboratory experiments at Edgewood Arsenal and at the Bureau of Fisheries, at Beau- fort, N.C., to find poisons that would kill or repel shipworms, and other borers. Then it soaked sections of railroad ties with these poisons, and exposed them to borers in the harbor at Beaufort and at Pearl Harbor. Through this procedure, the service found a number of substances for treat- ing wood that was to be submerged under water. ^*

The CWS and the Public Health Service co-operated in developing an alarm for deadly hydrogen cyanide fumigating gas. They did this by add-

"' Resumes of nonmilitary research may be found in: (1) Maj. Gen. Amos A. Fries, "By-Prod- ucts of Chemical Warfare," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 20 (1928), 1079-84. (2) Carl B. Marquand, "Contributions To Better Living From Chemical Corps Resenrch," Journal of Chem- ical Education, 34 (1957), 532-35.

'■ (1) H. W. Walker, "A Brief Resume of the CWS Boll Weevil Investigation, ' Chemical Warfare Bulletin 13 (December 1927), 231-37. (2) James E. Mills and H. W. Walker, Chem- ical Warfare Service Boll Weevil Investigation. EACD 485, Aug 1928.

'* (1) William G. Atwood and A. A.Johnson, Marine Structures; Their Deterioration and Preservation (Washington: National Research Council, 1924), pp. 165-220. (2) Maj. Gen. Amos A. Fries, "Summary of Marine Piling Investigation," Military Engineer, 17 (1925), 237-39.

34 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

ing tear gas to the odorless cyanide. The tear gas would quickly drive away anyone who might accidentally enter an area under fumigation.^'* For the Navy the CWS worked on a special paint to prevent barnacles and other marine growths from fouling the bottoms of ships.-" CWS protection ex- perts also developed ammonia masks for workmen in ice plants, carbon monoxide masks for industrial firms, and fumigation masks for the Public Health Service. After a disastrous fire at the Cleveland Hospital Clinic on 15 May 1929, in which many of the 125 dead were suffocated by gases from burning X-ray film, the CWS studied the factors involved in the com- bustion of film and then widely publicized the danger of improper storage conditions.-^

The value of this nonmilitary research could not be measured in dol- lars, but men within the CWS felt that its peacetime benefits to the nation were greater than the cost of its program.

Development Procedure

All research and development carried on by the CWS, whether for ci- vilian or military purposes, and along chemical or mechanical lines, dif- fered from academic research in that it aimed at definite, practical goals rather than the discovery of new scientific principles. In this sense it was akin to industrial research and development, which also sought the devel- opment of goods for a definite purpose, the consumer market. But even so the course of development followed by the CWS was painstaking and rigorous because it was directed toward the production of equipment upon which lives and battles might depend. The War Department, on the other hand, ordered the process to be carried out as expeditiously as possible: "The desire for perfection in any item of equipment must not delay the designation as standard type of at least one adopted type of every required article of equipment so that in any case of an emergency the procurement program may be launched without delay." -- In the laboratories and shops

19 (1) H. W. Houghton, New Method for Ship Fumigation. EACD 200, 3 Aug 42. (2) C. D. Quick, Additional Investigation on the Hydrocyanic Acid— Cyanogen Chloride Fumigation Mix- ture. EACD 294, 31 May 23.

-" (1) Byron L. Wehmhoff, Albert M.Jordan, and Harry C. Knight, "Hot Plastic Shipbottom Paint," Chemical Warfare Bulletin 15 (December 1929), 675-80. (2) "Chemical Warfare Vs. the Barnacle," ibid.. 14 (July 1928) 369-71.

-' Proceedings of a Board of the Chemical Warfare Service appointed for the purpose of investi- gating conditions incident to the disaster at the Cleveland Hospital Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, on May 15. 1929 (Washington, 1929).

-•- AR 820-25, Par. 15.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 35

this was translated into the motto: "Strive for practicabiHty rather than perfection." -^

In passing from the original idea to the final product, the CWS em- ployed a procedure based upon regulations laid down by the War Depart- ment."^ The idea itself could stem from the laboratories at Edgewood, a CWS officer, another branch of the Army, or a patriotic civilian. It was then studied in the Office of the Chief and perhaps by the Chemical War- fare Board. If the idea was accepted the Technical Committee drew up a military requirement, an official statement that the proposed article was needed by the Army, and the military characteristics, a list of specifica- tions that stated the desired size, shape, weight, materials of construction, and performance of the finished article. After approval of the requirements and characteristics by the Chief, CWS, and the War Department, Edge- wood Arsenal went to work.

The first step was a preliminary investigation in the library or the lab- oratory to see what had been done by others along the same line, and to aid in analyzing the problem. With this information the staff drew up a project specification outlining the problem and estimating the time and money required. Then the technical experts took over, constructing and testing a series of models until they produced one that fulfilled the mili- tary requirements and characteristics. The Chemical Warfare Board tested the article under simulated service conditions and recommended any im- provements that were needed. The laboratories made the improvements, the Board tested the equipment again and gave its approval. The CWS canvassed industry to make certain that materials and facilities were avail- able to produce the munition in wartime quantities. Finally, when the article was known to be satisfactory for use under field conditions and procurable in the required quantities, it was cleared through the War Department and designated as a standard item of equipment. The procedure varied slightly when the request for the development of an item came from an-

-■^ Intervs, Hist Off with Dr. Frederick W. Lane and Mr. Harry C. Knight, 22 May 57.

'^•^ (1) Pamphlet, Edgewood Arsenal, the Seat of Chemical Warfare, pp. 7-10. (2) Instructions from Chairman CWTC, Principles that Should Govern in the Research and Development of Ma- teriel and Ammunition Pertaining to the Chemical Warfare Service, 30 Mar 22. (3) Maj Earl J. Atkisson, Policy Governing Research and Development, 19 Jul 22. All in CWS 314.7 Early CWS History File. (4) Pamphlet, Procedure in Development, Test and Adoption of Chemical Warfare Material, approved 31 Jul 26, corrected to 29 Aug 27, and revised edition, 6 Sep 29. (5) Pam- phlet, Development Procedure, 16 Dec 31, and revised edition, 1 Feb 38. All in CWS Publications File, Technical Library, A CmlC, Md. (6) Rpt of CWS, 1920, p. 29. (7) Rpt of CWS, 1931 (secret supplement), pp. 17-20. (8) Barker, "The Technical Divisions, Edgewood Arsenal."

36 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

other branch of the Army or from the Navy. In this case the ultimate user set forth the desired characteristics and tested the equipment.

Maj. Gen. Harry L. Gilchrist, chief of the CWS from 1929 to 1933, esti- mated that in time of peace ten years were required to go through the normal development cycle of research (two years), development (three years) adoption (one year), and supply and improvement (four years). "^ Much of this time was spent in funding, delays in authorization, staffing, procurement of materials, and administrative work, rather than in labora- tory and test work. During World War II the CWS had to telescope the procedure and take short cuts in order to supply the Army, Navy and Air Forces with the weapons they wanted. But this speed, particularly in the early days of the conflict, frequently resulted in items that had not been sufficiently tested in the engineering process or in the field and consequently were not entirely suitable.

Laboratories and Proving Grounds

In the 1920's and 1930's the CWS had to creep along, but the out- break of war in Europe changed matters. The Congressional appropriation jumped from approximately two million dollars in 1940 to more than sixty million in 1941. To handle the new problems that arose, the CWS scien- tific organization had to expand enormously.

In 1940 the CWS carried on all research and development at Edge- wood Arsenal, mainly in buildings dating from World War I. The old laboratories had been suitable for the small-scale operations characteristic of the 1920's and 1930's, but not for the tremendous volume of technical work necessary to support the armed forces in World War II. The serv- ice drafted plans for a chemical research laboratory and a medical research laboratory at Edgewood. Since these buildings could not be completed un- til 1942, the CWS expanded as it had in World War I, by seeking as- sistance from university laboratories.

In Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology erected a new building which the CWS leased as a development laboratory.'*^ The loca-

-^ Rpt, Maj Gen Harry L. Gilchrist, title: The Chemical Warfare Service, prepared by direc- tion of General MacArthur, 24 Mar 31.

'-*' (1) Sylvester John Hemleben, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Chemical Warfare Service Development Laboratory, in the monograph series History of Research and Development of the CWS in WW II. (2) Capt. Jacquard H. Rothschild, "New Development Laboratory Opens," Chemical Warfare Bulletin 28 (January 1942), 52-54.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR

37

Conference on Expansion Program, Office of Chemical Warfare Chief Janu- ary 1942. From left: Brig. Gen. Paul X. English, Brig. Gen. Rollo C. Ditto, Maj. Gen. William N. Porter, Chief of Chemical Warfare Service, Brig. Gen. Ray L. Avery, Col. Augustin M. Prentiss. Maj. William M. Creasy, and Maj. Lester W. Hurd.

tion was advantageous because it was in the center of an industrial and university area, and because the MIT faculty was at hand for consultation. Operations began in June 1941, under the direction of Capt. Jacquard H. Rothschild. For four years CWS scientists worked here, carrying out a wide variety of investigations. In the course of their assignments the men stud- ied the pilot plant production of phosgene, mustard gas, and thionyl chloride; designed a filling plant for irritant grenades; drew up plans for the M2 field laboratory; assisted with the development of civilian, assault, and headwound gas masks, and collective protectors; investigated flame throwers and flame thrower fuels; and examined German, Japanese, and Italian protective equipment and gas detectors. The laboratory continued to operate until the end of the war when the CWS disposed of its equip- ment and turned the building back to MIT.

In New York City, Columbia University permitted the CWS to oc- cupy laboratories in the Building of Mines early in 1942.-' At that time

-' Capt. Bernard Baum, Columbia University Chemical Warfare Service Laboratories, in mono- graph series History of Research and Development of the CWS in WW II.

38 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

the service was working top speed on the development and production of incendiary bombs, and scientists, under Lt. Col. Ralph H. Talmage, sought to improve magnesium bombs and incendiary fillings. Later in 1942 the Columbia laboratory expanded its operations. The staff investigated the manufacture of napalm, sought substitutes for the scarce components of incendiary gels, and designed stronger base plates for the chemical mortar. The CWS remained at Columbia for twenty months, and then transferred its workers to Edgewood Arsenal where space was available in new laboratories.

As with laboratory space, the CWS found itself in need of larger test- ing and proving grounds. Since 1921, when the CWS had given up Lake- hurst Proving Ground, all testing and proofing had been done at Edge- wood Arsenal. The fields there, shared by the Chemical Warfare Board, the Chemical Warfare School, and Ordnance Department's Aberdeen Proving Ground, were overcrowded, close to thickly populated areas, and too small to permit large-scale assessment of toxic agents.

In addition to the laboratory facilities in the United States the CWS had field laboratories in operation overseas. The chemical laboratory com- panies and laboratory sections of chemical service companies, whose mis- sion was the surveillance of CWS materiel and examination of enemy agents and equipment, were initially supplied with a field laboratory desig- nated as model Ml, standardized in 1936 and in service until the latter part of 1943. Its 21,000 pounds of equipment, comprising 88 footlockers, 20 boxes, and 15 crates of laboratory materials, as well as a truck-mounted machine shop, had to be transported on seven lV2-ton trucks. Edgewood manufactured eleven Ml laboratories before the model was discarded in 1943.

In 1942 the CWS issued five trailer vans to the First Chemical Lab- oratory Company which installed its laboratory equipment in them. The company found that the vans lacked sufficient interior space for the work, they were unwieldly to transport on railroads, they were difficult to con- ceal from enemy observation in the field, and they were hard to handle on poor roads. After several months the service dropped the idea of put- ting field laboratories on wheels."^

Late in 1942 the development of a more compact laboratory unit, with new and improved materials, was turned over to the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), the CWS Development Laboratory at

-^ Hilbert Sloan, Field Laboratories, vol. 13 of History of Research and Development of the CWS in WW II.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 39

MIT, and the Technical Division at Edgewood. The new unit, standard- ized in April 1944 as the M2 base laboratory, and, like the Ml, designed for semipermanent installation, was contained in 36 plywood shipping cases and 19 crates, totaling 20,000 pounds, which could be transported in five 2^2 -ton trucks. Among many improvements in techniques and equipment devised for this unit was a semimicroanalytical system devel- oped by C. S. Nieman and E. H. Swift of the California Institute of Technology. ""^

In December 1943 the CWS began design of still another laboratory, this time a highly mobile unit for proposed laboratory teams accompany- ing task forces in the combat zone. This portable unit for gas intelligence missions weighed 3,293 pounds and was packed in 7 plywood boxes and 9 smaller cases that could be stowed in a single 2^2 -ton truck. It was as- sembled and standardized in October 1944 as the M3 mobile laboratory.^"

The first new proving ground was set up in 1942 in the desert waste- land of Utah, and included part of Dugway Valley. ^^ Dugway Proving Ground became the major installation for the field testing, proof firing, and surveillance of chemica^l agents and munitions under temperate zone conditions. Here researchers carried out airplane spray tests of unthickened and thickened mustard at various altitudes to develop the technique of air-spraying; to determine the effect of the height and speed of the plane, as well as meteorological conditions of the atmosphere, upon the spray; and to evaluate agents and apparatus. Planes dropped incendiaries on fac- simile German and Japanese buildings to enable investigators to learn what happened when bombs of certain types struck enemy structures. ^^ They also dropped phosgene, cyanogen chloride, and hydrogen cyanide bombs ranging in size from 100 to 4,000 pounds from different altitudes under different meteorological conditions to test bombs and to estimate the quan- tity of munitions required to lay down a lethal concentration of gas upon a given area. Researchers determined firing tables for the 4.2-inch chemical mortar and for chemical rockets. They studied the behavior of gas and smoke clouds under different meteorological conditions. Smoke munitions

-« (1) CWTC Item 1024, Standardization of Laboratory, Base, CWS, M2, 5 May 44. (2) The work of NDRC contract groups at MIT, Cornell, Iowa, Nebraska, and elsewhere is described in W. A. Noyes, Jr., editor Chemistry. A History of the Cheinistry Components of The National Defense Research Committee. 1940-1946 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948), pp. 174-75, 221-23.

30 CWTC Item 1 198, Standardization of Laboratory, Mobile, CWS, M3, 26 Oct 44.

" Bernard Baum, Dugway Proving Ground, in monograph series History of Research and De- velopment of the CWS in World War II.

■" Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 392-94.

40

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

DuGWAY Proving Ground, Utah, major installation for field testing, prooffiring, and surveillance of chemical agents and munitions under temperate zone conditions.

were fired to permit a comparison of the effectiveness of different muni- tions, and to ascertain the relative merits of white phosphorus and plas- ticized white phosphorus. In 1945 the installation was the scene of a most unusual test, the Sphinx project, by means of which the CWS demon- strated to General Staff officers the potentialities of gas munitions against Japanese cave fortifications of the type that had proved invulnerable to high explosives at Iwo Jima.

As the battle lines shifted from North Africa across the Mediterranean, Dugway Proving Ground sent a mobile unit to conduct studies of chemi- cal agents in the Targhee National Forest, and the National Defense Re- search Committee sent a group from the University of California to Mount Shasta, where the climate and terrain were similar to those in sections of Italy. The investigations of these two groups were chiefly con- cerned with clouds of nonpersistent gas released from 100-pound M47A2 bombs.

To learn the behavior of agents under Pacific island conditions, Dug- way sent other units to Camp Paraiso in the Panama Canal Zone and to Bushnell, Fla. The Bushnell installation, staffed by CWS and NDRC per- sonnel, began operations in November 1943, and continued to function

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 4i

after the war.^^ The initial test project determined the offensive value of bombs filled with nonpersistent agents when used on semitropical terrain. Later operations ascertained the offensive value of persistent agents in such country, this being a departure from the old tactical concept that persistent agents were a weapon for defense. Between 1943 and the end of the war investigators evaluated a large variety of chemical munitions (bombs, shells, thermal generators, land mines, rocket heads, and spray tanks) for their efficiency in dispersing toxic agents. On Florida beaches they determined the hazard of mustard contaminated sand to assault troops. At the end of the war Bushnell closed its agent and munition program and turned to the testing of insecticides, fungicides, and miticides.

In addition to Dugway Proving Ground and its branches, the CWS established an experimental station in 1944 on San Jose Island, off the west coast of Panama.^^ Here the CWS, the NDRC, Great Britain, and Canada co-operated in assessing chemical warfare weapons under tropical conditions. Technicians tested a variety of munitions including 1000-pound AN-M79 bombs containing phosgene and cyanogen chloride, and 115- pound M70 mustard filled bombs. They also studied diverse problems such as the hazards faced by troops in mustard contaminated jungle, the purifica- tion of water contaminated by chemical agents, and the effectiveness of bangalore torpedoes in clearing paths through mustard spotted vegetation. These studies gave the participants valuable data on the offensive and de- fensive phases of chemical warfare in jungle fighting.

Assistance from Industries and Universities

The new laboratories at Edgewood, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at Columbia University, coupled with the new proving grounds at Dugway, Bushnell, and San Jose, gave the CWS facilities for the tremendous wartime program, but the first installations could not be ready until 1941. To obtain assistance in getting the work started sooner the CWS again went outside of the Army.

Early in 1940 the CWS decided to engage industrial and educational institutions to carry out research and development along certain lines. The

^^ The section on the Bushnell installation is based on Historical Monograph on CWS Experi- mental Station at Bushnell, Fla. MS in Hist. Off.

^^ (1) Capt. Jay S. Stockhardt, "San Jose Project," Armed Forces Chemical Journal. II (January 1948), 32-35. (2) Col. Robert D. McLeod, Jr., "In the Wake of the Golden Galleon, or Select- ing a Jungle Proving Ground," Armed Forces Chemical Journal IX (March-April 1955), 36-39.

42 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

service, finding that the War Department did not have a contract to cover this type of endeavor, took standard supply contracts, modified them in each case to suit the circumstances, and had them approved by the Office of the Judge Advocate General before signing. The CWS was a pioneer within the War Department in drawing up research and development contracts, and it had to proceed cautiously to keep within regulations. Its experience was subsequently of value to other branches of the Army.

The contracts specified the work that was to be done, but they did not try to tell the contractor how to carry out his task. Each contract in- cluded a clause granting the government rights to any invention made as a result of the work. Each contract was written for a fixed sum. In cases where the time stated in the contract proved insufficient to carry out the work, the CWS negotiated a supplemental agreement extending the time and granting additional funds.

From July 1940 to September 1945 the CWS spent nearly five and one- half million dollars for work done under approximately four hundred con- tracts. At the same time it was receiving a similar kind of assistance indirectly through the efforts of a powerful civilian organization, the NDRC.

The NDRC was established by order of the Council of National De- fense on 27 June 1940 to undertake those scientific problems tor which the facilities of the Army and Navy were inadequate.^^ In the new or- ganization there were five divisions. Division B (Bombs, Fuels, Gases, Chemical Problems), with James B. Conant as chairman, was responsible for chemical warfare projects. ^*^ To Division B the CWS recommended the following six projects:

CWS-l. Aerosols— Their Generation, Stabilization, and Precipitation.

CWS-2. Study of the Theory of Toxicity— To Correlate Chemical Structure, Physi- cal Properties and Toxicological Action of Organic Compounds.

CWS-3. Synthesis of Organic Arsenicals.

CWS-4. General Method of Synthesis of Certain Non- Arsenical Organic Compounds Including Several Specific Compounds.

CWS-5. Test of Pro-Knock Materials for Use Against Gasoline Engines.

CWS-6. Chemical Detection of Persistent Chemical Agents.

In December 1940, the CWS added three additional projects:

CWS-7. Fundamental Study of Gas Mask Absorbents. CWS-8. The Generation of Colored Smokes. CWS-9. Manufacturing Process for Lewisite.

^■' The History of the NDRC, from the viewpoint of organization, may be found in Irvin Stew- art, Organizing Scientific Research For War, the Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Re- search and Development (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948).

'^^ An account of the work done for the CWS by the NDRC may be found in Noyes, Chemistry.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 43

A tenth project, "Flame Throwers— Fuel Composition and Nozzle Design," was added in February 1941.

On 28 June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was set up in the President's Office for Emergency Management and the NDRC was transferred to the new agency. In December 1942 the NDRC was reorganized and its alphabetical divisions were broken down into nineteen numerical divisions. Division 9, "Chemistry"; Division 10, "Absorbents and Aerosols"; and Division 11, "Chemical Engineering" di- rected the majority of chemical warfare investigations.

In undertaking these projects the NDRC drew up the program, se- lected a contractor (either an academic institution or an industrial firm), and then came to terms with the contractor concerning the scope of the work, patent rights, and the cost. When an agreement was reached, the contractor and the NDRC drew up a detailed plan for research. Officials of the NDRC known as technical aides followed the work of specific con- tracts. The contractor submitted reports periodically to the NDRC and the CWS showing the progress and results of the project.

The CWS and NDRC maintained liaison through one or more CWS officers from 1941 onward, reinforced by NDRC members in the Office of the Chief and at Edgewood Arsenal from 1942 onward. By August 1942 the volume of university-industrial assistance had reached the point where the CWS and NDRC had to form a joint Technical Committee to plan and allocate all research and development carried out by military and non- military groups. On this committee were the chief of the Technical Di- vision, the director of the Office of Assistant Chief for Materiel, the chairman of the NDRC, and the chairmen of Divisions 9 and 10, NDRC. The chief of the Medical Division joined the committee in August 1943.

By the end of the war the following projects had been added to the CWS hst:

CWS-ll. Incendiary Leaves.

CWS-12. Thickening of Vesicants.

CWS-13. Prevention of Corrosion of Chemical Munitions, Vesicant Filled.

CWS- 14. Analysis and Detection of Chemical Warfare Agents in Water.

CWS-15. Filter Materials.

CWS-16. Filter Design.

CWS-17. Production and Stabilization of Fog.

CWS- 18. Effect of Noise on Man and Devices for Producing Such Noises.

CWS-19. Influence Fuzes for Airplane Spray Apparatus.

CWS-20. Biological Problems.

CWS-21. Incendiary Materials.

CWS-22. Rocket Propulsion of Chemical Munitions.

CWS-23. Formation of Flexible Films.

44 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

CWS-24. Development of Protective Clothing.

CWS-26. Meteorology.

CWS-27. New Munitions for Chemical Agents.

CWS-28. Acoustical Properties of Gas Masks and Diaphragm Materials.

CWS-29. Non- Volatile Toxic Chemicals and their Uses.

CWS-30. Improvement of the Exterior Ballistics of Liquid-Filled Shell.

CWS-31. Insecticides, Rodenticides and Repellents.

CWS-32. Improvement of 4.2-Inch Mortar

These aspects of chemical warfare were not alone in receiving assistance from civilian organizations; medical research also benefited. In October 1940 the Subcommittee on CHnical Research of the Committee on Medicine, NRC, took up problems dealing with the treatment of mustard-induced bronchopneumonia, the purification of contaminated water, and the treat- ment of skin lesions caused by vesicant agents. In August 1941, at the request of the Chief of the Medical Research Division, CWS, the Divi- sion of Medical Sciences of the National Research Council organized the Committee on the Treatment of Gas Casualties (CTGC).^^ This was a medical advisory body to the Chemical Warfare Service, to assist in or- ganizational problems of medical research and to gather and co-ordinate information on problems and research results obtained in the study of medical aspects of gas warfare in the various OSRD agencies and in the chemical warfare centers of other nations. To the end of the war the CTGC proved of signal help to the Chemical Warfare Service in its acquisition of medical personnel to staff the Edgewood laboratories and in advising on the research conducted there and, under contract, in universities, hos- pitals, and industrial laboratories.^^ Among the problems investigated was therapy for injuries to the nervous system, for mustard burns, for lung in- juries, and for eye injuries caused by vesicant agents.

At the same time the NRC was having this research done for the Medi- cal Research Division of the CWS, the NDRC was sponsoring research on behalf of the toxicological research group. After General Porter merged the medical and toxicological groups into a single Medical Division in July 1943, the new division received assistance from both NRC and NDRC.

3^ Rexmond C. Cochrane, Medical Research in Chemical Warfare, in monograph series, His- tory of Research and Development of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War II, p. 117.

3« (1) Cochrane, Medical Research in Chemical Warfare, pp. 90-93. (2) A list of the major CMR contracts with their subjects and investigators appears in E. C. Andrus, et al., eds., "Science in World War II," Advances in Military Medicine, Vol. II (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946), 870-71. Hereafter cited as Advances in Military Medicine, II. (3) The range of OSRD investigations in a single study, on the mechanism of action of war gases, is indicated in Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 249-51.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 45

The aforementioned civilian agencies, and the universities and compa- nies that worked for the CWS under contract, rendered invaluable service to the CWS in World War II on all phases of the research and devel- opment program. Among their most notable contributions were the M69 incendiary bomb, the Ml mechanical smoke generator, and napalm. The NDRC toxicity laboratory at the University of Chicago screened many hundreds of potential chemical warfare agents, the majority of which had been synthesized in university laboratories under NDRC contracts. Mete- orological studies by scientists gave the CWS accurate data on the behavior of gas clouds. Academic and industrial laboratories helped the CWS over- come the undesirable properties of certain standard toxic agents and to improve the large-scale processes of preparing agents. Much of the devel- opment of the 4.2-inch recoilless chemical mortar was carried on at the NDRC Allegany Ballistics Laboratory. Investigations on protective oint- ments led to the new M5 ointment. This list could be extended to a much greater length, but as it stands it serves to show the quality, variety, and magnitude of assistance that the CWS received from nonmiHtary organizations.

Co-operation with the British Commonwealth

Shortly before the United States entered the war, the Americans and British began to exchange information on chemical warfare through the U.S. Assistant Military Attache in London and representatives of the Brit- ish Purchasing Commission in America. After American forces arrived in the British Isles in 1942, CWS personnel could visit British installations and learn at first hand what the British were doing.

To link the chemical warfare organizations of Canada and the United States, a joint U.S.-Canadian Advisory Committee was established. Mem- bership of the committee was subsequently broadened to include Great Britain. This three-power committee eliminated much duplication of effort, established uniform test procedures, and accelerated co-operative work on such items as toxic gases, flame throwers, and smoke munitions.

In the fall of 1942, the Combined Chiefs of Staff set up the United States Chemical Warfare Committee (USCWC), headed by the Chief, CWS, to co-ordinate all chemical warfare activities. ^^ One of the objec- tives of the USCWC was to insure that all types of chemical warfare ma- teriel used by the British and Americans would be interchangeable. The

^^ Brophy and Fisher, Organizing for War. ch. IV. 512467 O-60— 5

46 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

necessity for this decision is illustrated by a problem involving incendiary bombs. American munitions were attached to the plane by two lugs, Brit- ish bombs by only one lug. In order to make the bombs suitable for car- rying in both American and British planes, the designs had to be changed to provide for three lugs.

Although the principle of interchangeability was of great importance it could not be fully achieved. By the time the United States entered the war, facilities had already been designed to produce models developed for the American Army without thought of standardization with the British. With protective equipment it was practically impossible to obtain a wide range of uniform items. One case where the goal was achieved was that of the British light respirator, whose screw thread was made to take either the British or American canister. In the case of colored smoke there was some uniformity in regard to colors, but no standardization of munitions. There was practically no uniformity of flame throwers or flame thrower fuel, but a standard method of testing was adopted.

Evaluation of United Kingdom and American equipment was accom- plished more readily than interchangeability. In April 1944 the Advisory Committee on the Effectiveness of Chemical Warfare Materiel in the Tropics, consisting of representatives of the CWS, the Canadian Field Ex- perimental Station, and the British Army, was established to provide op- erational data for planning chemical warfare in the tropical theaters of war. This committee was served by the Project Co-ordination Staff which eval- uated chemical warfare tests carried out in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and India. The staff considered all factors involved in the use of chemical weapons, including weather and terrain, protective de- vices, and weapons and munitions.

British information, most helpful to the CWS early in the war, con- tinued to the end of the conflict, and covered practically all areas in which the CWS worked. The flow of information, however, was not one-way. The CWS returned the favor by sending reports of weapons, agents, and research across the Atlantic to give the British Commonwealth the bene- fit of American experience.

Information from the Enemy

Throughout the 1920's and early 1930's the CWS had kept informed of foreign chemical warfare technical activities through reports from chemi- cal officers traveling abroad, and through representatives in the offices of

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PEACE AND WAR 47

the military attaches at the London and Berhn embassies. There was no special intelligence unit in the service to handle these matters, and reports from abroad were routed to the appropriate division in the Office of the Chiefs" Several years before World War II the practice of stationing rep- resentatives abroad was discontinued, and the CWS was cut off from any direct contact with European sources. In 1940 the chief established an In- formation Division to collect, evaluate, and distribute information on en- emy chemical warfare activities. ^^ This division channeled appropriate data to the technical agencies.

Certain reports received through intelligence caused the CWS to em- phasize research along certain specific lines. This was the case with nitrogen mustards which the service had dropped many years before, but which it again began to investigate after learning that the Germans were inter- ested in these compounds. Generally speaking, intelligence reports were not as fruitful as direct examination of captured enemy equipment.

The CWS put its first intelligence units into the field in February 1944 when the Director of Intelligence, ASF, authorized the Chief, CWS, to send teams consisting of one major and four enlisted men to ETO, MTO, Central Pacific Area, South Pacific Area, Southwest Pacific Area, and CBI, where they would compose the CWS Section of the ASF Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service Teams. These teams were trained to ex- amine captured equipment and report any information of value. Before the war was over the original 6 teams were reinforced by 5 more, 1 for the China theater and 4 for ETO.

In addition to its organized procedures for peering over the enemy's shoulder, the CWS at times obtained information directly from officers and men on the fighting fronts. In February 1942, for example, American forces on Bataan, Philippine Islands, captured two flame throwers.^" Col. Stuart A. Hamilton, Chemical Officer, USAFFE, shipped one of these back to Edgewood Arsenal where the technical staff examined the weapon and adopted the cartridge type of ignition for the American flame thrower.

^° Many of the intelligence reports on foreign research and development are in the Technical Library, Army Chemical Center, Md.

" (1) OC CWS OffO 6, 6 July 40. The Information Division underwent several reorganiza- tions and changes in name. (2) Tliis discussion of CWS intelligence activities is drawn largely from History of Intelligence Activities, OC CWS, 6 July 1940-31 December 1945. CWS 314.7 Intelligence File.

*^ Col. Stuart A. Hamilton, Activities Chemical Warfare Service, Philippine Islands, World War II, 22 Nov 46. In OCMH. (2) Ltr, Hamilton to ACofS, G-2, USAFFE, 21 Feb 42, sub: Re- port of Physical Examination of Japanese Flame Thrower No. 1, with 1 report and 3 inds. CWS 319.7A/33.

48 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Toward the end of the war in Europe, and after V-E Day, the CWS continued to obtain information on German chemical warfare through two agencies."*^ The first of these was a group known as the Combined In- telhgence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS), organized to uncover all German military secrets and scientific discoveries. The second was the United States' world-wide organization. Field Intelligence Army, Technical (FIAT).

The work of these agencies was done by teams of experts who went into an area after it was overrun. One team of experts spent four months in Germany studying plants that had produced hydrogen peroxide as a propellant for torpedoes and V-2 bombs. Their 350-page report, later re- leased to the public, was the most complete authority anywhere on the manufacture and handling of concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Another team inspected chlorine plants to study the operation of mercury cells, with which the Germans had replaced the diaphragm type cells. Other investigators found plants that had been constructed to synthesize acetylene from hydrocarbons, and to react acetylene under high pressure, processes in which the German chemical industry had been pioneers. The survey of German plants occupied the time of scores of men and produced moun- tains of reports. This information was released to the public, and proved a stimulant to industry, the profession, and the universities.

While the CWS obtained a large volume of information on German, Italian, and Japanese gas masks, incendiary bombs, smoke munitions, flame throwers, and other equipment from intelligence sources or the examina- tion of captured weapons, the information generally resulted in only minor changes in components of CWS items, rather than in drastic redesign. Information from the British and the NDRC had much more influence in bringing about significant improvements or innovations in materiel.

The new laboratories, proving grounds, testing stations, and sources of friendly and enemy data, gave the CWS a larger technical organization than it ever dreamed of in the 1920's and 1930's. With the additional facilities, funds, and personnel it had the task of sending scientists and engineers along a variety of paths and of producing an extremely diversi- fied line of items. Some of its research was fruitful, some was fruitless. Some of its products were welcomed by fighting men, some were not satisfactory. Like other services that carried on research and development, the CWS had scientific victories and defeats.

''- Col. Harry A. Kuhn, "German Technical Information," Armed Forces Chemical Journal. I (January 1947), 12-14.

CHAPTER III

Toxic Agents

The Chemical Warfare Service came into existence because the armed forces needed a branch to deal with the problems arising from the use of poison gas, and although the service acquired the responsibility for other areas of warfare, such as incendiaries and smokes, its major concern during World War II remained the research, production, and neutraliza- tion of toxic agents. The first chemical used in World War I was chlo- rine, a heavy green gas. As the war progressed liquid and solid compounds were also used to launch chemical attacks.^

One of the first steps by the CWS just before World War II was to expand research on the classes of substances that might be suitable for toxic agents. In this program the National Defense Research Committee did much work." Soon after the committee came into existence in 1940, the CWS submitted to it six projects, four of which were concerned wholly or partially with toxic agents. To screen compounds synthesized by hundreds of chemists in universities and industry, the NDRC established in April 1941 a toxicity laboratory at the University of Chicago.'^ In its four years of existence this laboratory screened about seventeen hundred compounds.^ The most promising of these, including sulphur fluorides,

' (1) Despite the inexactness of referring to all these substances as poison "gases," the term has continued to be commonly used. The correct military expression is "toxic agent." (2) Chlorine was not used as a toxic agent in World War II, but was used for other purposes. See ch. XII below.

- (1) Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 157-62, 166-74. (2) Chemical Warfare Agents, and Related Chem- ical Problems, Summary Technical Report of Division 9, National Defense Research Committee (Washington, 1946), pp. 3-264.

^ (1) Final Technical Report of the University of Chicago Toxicity Laboratory. OSRD 5527. (2) George H. Mangun, "Toxicity Laboratory, University of Chicago," Armed Forces Chemical Journal, I (January 1947), 25-26, 49-50.

^ The results frorn the toxicity laboratory occupied fifty-three classified reports. A list of the reports may be found in OSRD 5527.

50 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

nitrogen mustards, arsenicals, sulphur mustards, aromatic carbamates, fluoro- acetates, and aliphatic nitrosocarbamates were studied in more detail by the CWS at the Edgewood laboratories.

Of the vast number of compounds investigated, the CWS and NDRC found not one new standard agent. The difficulty lay in finding substances that met a large number of varying conditions. The compound had to be highly toxic so that a small amount would contaminate a large area. It had to be available in large quantities from the chemical industry, or it had to be of such a nature that it could be synthesized on a large scale at a reasonable price. It had to be stable during storage and not decom- pose into harmless materials. It was desirable that the density of the gas or vapor be heavier than air so that the compound would linger over the target. The vapor had to be nonflammable so that it would not be ignited by the flash of the burster. "' It could not react unduly with air or mois- ture. It could not corrode the container or evolve a gas that might burst the container. If it were a liquid, the freezing point had to be low, else it would freeze in a cold climate or in airplanes at high altitudes. Finally, the chemical, physical (i.e., color) and physiological (i.e., odor) properties had to be such that the enemy would be unable to detect the gas quickly and would have difficulty in providing protection.

These conditions were difficult to meet. Of the thousands of com- pounds considered by the CWS between 1917 and 1940, and by the CWS and NDRC during World War II, not one was found that could come up to the standbys of World War I. This was also the experience of Great Britain and the other Allied nations; and only the Germans through an accidental industrial discovery made while investigating insecticides, came upon a new group of agents, the so-called nerve gases or G-agents.^

In addition to seeking new agents the CWS spent much time im- proving the methods of preparing the standard agents and of overcom- ing such undesirable properties in the agents as instability. The service erected new plants using the improved processes at CWS arsenals and at other locations, and renovated older plants. It advanced the design of

■' See above, p. 18, n. 54.

'' In 1936 Dr. Gerhard Schrader, a research chemist with I. G. Farbenindustrie in Leverkusen, synthesized an extremely toxic compound, "Tabun," while investigating insecticides. The com- pound was reported to the Ministry ofWar. In 1938 research along the same lines led to "Sarin." "Soman" was prepared in 1944. For the sake of secrecy the Germans called these compounds Trilon, the name of a detergent manufactured in Germany. The existence of the G-agents was un- known to Great Britain and the United States until German chemical shells were captured and analyzed in 1945, although vague hints about them appeared occasionally in intelligence reports from 1943 onward.

TOXIC AGENTS 51

chemical munitions, and obtained considerable information on their poten- tial usefulness through exhaustive field tests. Arsenals and depots con- ducted large-scale surveillance tests to determine the storage life of agents. During World War II the CWS devoted most of the time spent on the research and development of toxics to the standard agents.

Phosgi

ene

Phosgene, or carbonyl chloride (CWS symbol, CG), is a colorless liquid, slightly denser than water. It boils at 47° F. and hence in warm weather is in the form of vapor, unless under slight pressure as in a cylinder or shell. The vapor dissipates into the air in a few minutes, and for this reason CG is known as a nonpersistent agent. The vapor smells like green corn or new mown hay, and is extremely toxic. When inhaled, phosgene damages the capillaries in the lungs, allowing watery fluid to seep into the air cells. If the quantity inhaled is less than the lethal dose the injury is slight, the fluid is reabsorbed, the cell walls heal, and the patient eventually recovers; but if a large amount is inhaled, the air cells become flooded and the patient dies from lack of oxygen. It is difficult to estimate the severity of poisoning since the full effect is usually not apparent until three or four hours after exposure.

Phosgene was the second major agent to appear in World War I. The Germans first employed it in a cloud gas attack against the British in Flanders in December 1915 when 88 tons of the gas released from 4,000 cylinders caused more than 1,000 casualties.^ The Allies quickly adopted it and used it in enormous quantities throughout the war. It was an ex- tremely dangerous agent, causing more than 80 percent of all chemical fatalities. After the war the CWS surveyed all of the nonpersistent agents, but could not find any that were more effisctive than phosgene.^ In 1928 the service classified CG as a substitute standard agent and in 1936 as a standard.^

In World War I Edgewood Arsenal and several chemical companies

^ Lt. Col. Augustin M. Prentiss, Chemicals in War: A Treatise on Chemical Warfare (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), pp. 154-55.

* G. S. Armstrong and S. A. White, Selection of Quick Acting Non-persistent Agent. EATR 191, 4 Apr 35.

■' (1 ) Ltr, C CWS to TAG, 21 Feb 28, sub: Adoption of Type (Chemical Agents), and Inds. Copy in CWTC. (2) Memo, C CWS for Chairman, CWS Branch Comm, 26 Feb 36, sub: Clas- sification of Chemical Agents. Copy in CWTC. (3) Memo, C CWS for TAG, 5 Mar 37, sub: Sub- committee Report on Military Characteristics and Classification of Gas, Non-persistent. Copy in CWTC.

52 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

produced phosgene for the AEF.^^' The compound was prepared by com- bining chlorine and carbon monoxide in the presence of a catalyst. There were two methods of carrying out the reaction; in one concentrated car- bon monoxide was used, in the other, dilute. The American plants adopted the concentrated gas process, but after the war the CWS weighed the relative merits of the two processes and concluded that the dilute gas method was more practical because it required simpler equipment that would be more readily available in an emergency." The CWS, however, was unable to construct a dilute gas plant because of lack of funds.

From 1922 onward the phosgene plant at Edgewood lay idle as the War Department forbade the manufacture of toxic agents. In 1937 the CWS rehabilitated and operated the plant for a brief period to produce phosgene and to provide the Technical Division with engineering data for a larger plant. The design was ready in 1939, and the new plant con- structed and placed in operation in July 1941.^'

Between 1940 and 1945 the CWS studied the manufacture of phosgene along four lines: improvement of the Edgewood process, pilot plant studies of the dilute gas process, erection of a by-product plant in Tennessee, and investigation of the diphosgene process.

Improvement of the Edgewood plant began in 1942 when the Tech- nical Division carried out experiments that increased the efficiency of the process at an annual savings of $65,000.^^ In 1944 the division established a pilot plant for further improvement of the process." The plant at Edge- wood served as model for a plant of thirty tons' capacity a day that the CWS erected at the Huntsville Arsenal and began operating in 1944.^^

The concentrated gas process used at the Edgewood plant required solid carbon dioxide, pure oxygen, refrigeration equipment, and gas com- pressors, all classified as critical materials. In July 1942 the CWS Develop-

'" (1) Short account of the manufacture of L3 (Phosgene) as carried on at Edgewood Arsenal during the summer and fall of 1918. EAL 572, 1 Dec 18. (2) Historical information concerning the Bound Brook Plant of Edgewood Arsenal. CWS, H-193. (3) Clarence J. West, Phosgene, Chemical Warfare Monographs, vol. 22, pt. 1, May 1919.

" L. Vickroy, Post War Developments in the Manufacture of Phosgene. EACD 110, 28 Feb 22.

'- (1) Brooks F. Smith, Phosgene Plant Design; Operation of Edgewood Arsenal Plant, June, July and August 1937. EATR 267, 25 May 39. (2) N. M. Bouder, Phosgene Plant Design, Final Report on Project A 3.1-1.1. EATR 294, 23 Jun 39. (3) Edgewood Arsenal in Chemical Warfare Production, July 1940-December 1943, pp. 51-53.

'■' Agents II (Lung Irritants), monograph MS, vol. 2 of series History ot Research and Devel- opment of the CWS (1 July 1940-31 December 1945), pp. 33-35. Hereafter cited as Agents II.

" Capt Charles B. Griffen, Jr.', and Capt P. H. Schneider, CG Process Development. TDMR 952, 30 Jan 45.

^^ History of Huntsville Arsenal, July 1941 to August 1945, vol. I, pp. 456-65.

TOXIC AGENTS 53

ment Laboratory at MIT began to investigate a dilute gas process using ordinary producer gas, containing from 15 to 20 percent carbon monoxide, in place of concentrated carbon monoxide. After eight months of labor the laboratory perfected a pilot plant capable of producing ten pounds of liquid phosgene an hour. Using the data obtained from the trials the lab- oratory drew up plans for a plant having a capacity of twenty-five tons a day and requiring for the most part standard industrial equipment. The CWS found it unnecessary to construct a dilute gas plant, but the plans were on hand for use in an emergency. ^"^

In 1944 the CWS added yet another process. It erected a plant near Columbia, Tenn., to take advantage of the tremendous quantity of carbon monoxide available as a by-product from the Monsanto Chemical Co. phosphate works. This carbon monoxide contained impurities, particularly phosphorus and sulphur compounds, which had to be removed before the gas could be used. The Monsanto Co., under CWS contract, set up two pilot plants for the development of a large-scale method of purifying car- bon monoxide and manufacturing phosgene. These pilot plants and those at Edgewood furnished the CWS with information for the design of a large plant with capacity of thirty-six tons a day. Construction began in May 1944, and the first phosgene was produced in February of the follow- ing year. Monsanto operated the process until the CWS closed the plant in April. ^^

The fourth and most unusual method of producing phosgene was based on the use of trichloromethyl chloroformate or diphosgene. This compound is less volatile than phosgene and is therefore less dangerous and troublesome to load into bombs and shells. By means of a catalyst it is quickly converted into phosgene. Taking these facts into consideration the CWS conceived the possibility of filling munitions with diphosgene and enclosing a catalyst which would convert the material into phosgene. In 1942 Morris S. Kharasch at the University of Chicago and in 1943 S. Temple at E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. investigated the reaction under NDRC contracts. Kharasch also studied the catalysts. ^^ The scheme

>« (1) Hemleben, CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, pp. 34-44. (2) R. P. Whitney, F. W. Holt, Jr., C. H. King, Jr., A Pilot Plant Investigation of the Manufacture of Liquid Phosgene. MITMR 37, 13 Aug 43.

'' History of the Duck River CWS Plant, passim.

'" (1) M. S. Kharasch, The Preparation of Diphosgene. OSRD 304, 15 Apr 42. (2) S. Temple, Preparation of Diphosgene. OSRD 1437, 20 May 43. (3) M. S. Kharasch, The Catalytic Con- version of Diphosgene into Phosgene. OSRD 332. 9 Jan 42. (4) M. S. Kharasch, Catalytic Con- version of Diphosgene into Phosgene within Closed Heavy Metal Containers. OSRD 899, 28 Sep 42.

54 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

appeared practicable, but the CWS finally decided that the advantages of the method did not compensate for the higher cost of diphosgene and the changes that would have been necessary in the design of munitions.

During the war the CWS manufactured and purchased from industry more than forty million pounds of phosgene for use in various muni- tions/^ Two munitions for phosgene, the chemical mortar shell and the portable cylinder, had descended from World War I. In the event of gas warfare, the mortar would have been the chief weapon of the ground forces for laying down concentrations of phosgene on caves, dugouts, bunkers, and artillery and machine gun emplacements. From 1941 to 1944 the CWS filled almost half a million 4.2-inch mortar shells with CG. Each shell held almost seven pounds of CG, about 25 percent of the total weight of the filled munition.

The cylinder had been a standard weapon in the static trench warfare of World War I, but it was scarcely suited for the blitz tactics of World War II. It could have been used, however, to overcome resistance within caves or bunkers on Japanese-held islands. It contained thirty-one pounds of phosgene, about 56 percent of the total weight. The cylinder also held about two pounds of carbon dioxide to expel the phosgene in the form of a mist. In view of the possible employment of cylinders, the service retained the final model MlA2, standardized in 1936, until World War II was over.-"

New phosgene weapons were the 7.5-inch rocket, the AN-M78 500- pound bomb, and the AN-M79 1000- pound bomb. The rocket, which was the World War II counterpart of the World War I Livens projectile, was readied by 1944. The Navy took almost eight thousand of these, the Army more than twenty-three thousand.

Development of phosgene bombs started in early 1942 when the CWS asked the Ordnance Department for a series of chemical bombs of ap- proximately the same shape as general purpose bombs. The new munitions were produced in 1943 and sent to Dugway Proving Ground for testing and 'evaluation.-^ The 1000-pound bomb holding 415 pounds of CG

'" Richard H. Crawford, Lindsley F. Cook, and Theodore E. Whiting, Statistics, "Procure- ment," p. 21. Copy in OCMH. Statistics is a forthcoming volume in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II.

-" (1) CWTC Item 1545, Obsoletion of Cylinders, Portable, Chemical, Ml, MlAl, M1A2, and Apparatus, Charging, Portable Chemical Cylinder, Ml, 28 Mar 46. (2) CWTC Item 1614, same title, 23 May 46.

2' (1) Baum, Dugway Proving Ground, pp. 201-24. (2) CWTC Item 826, Classification of Fillings for Chemical Munitions, 15 Oct 43. (3) CWTC Item 881, Classification of Fillings for Chemical Munitions, 3 Dec 43.

TOXIC AGENTS 55

turned out to be an extremely effective munition. When it hit the ground and burst open a large amount of liquid phosgene was freed. The evapo- rating liquid cooled the vapor and caused it to flatten out against the ground in a pancake-shaped cloud instead of rising as had been expected. This cloud always fDtmed, regardless of the weather. The 500-pound bomb containing 205 pounds of CG was not quite half as effective as the 1000- pound bomb, but it was still a useful munition because American planes could carry more than twice as many 500-pound bombs as 1000-pound bombs. The CWS filled twenty-five thousand 500-pound bombs in 1944, and sixty-three thousand 1000-pound bombs from 1943 to 1945. The Air Forces could, in case of chemical warfare, have used these chemical bombs against targets beyond mortar range, against fortifications on Iwo Jima and other islands before amphibious assaults were made, and against strategic targets, such as war plants during working hours.

After the war examination of stocks of gas weapons captured in Ger- many showed that the German Army had on hand thousands of 250- and 500-kilogram phosgene bombs."'- These bombs, however, had been largely superseded by bombs containing the nerve gas tabun, which the Germans began producing in 1942. '-'^ The Germans did not favor the use of phosgene in shells. Italy had phosgene bombs, and shells ranging in size from l49-mm. to 305-mm.-^ Phosgene shells, from 75-mm. up to 150- mm. were captured from the Japanese, who also had bombs in sizes up to 200 kilograms."''

Had gas warfare started early in World War II, phosgene would probably have been used widely by the Allied and the Axis armies wher- ever the tactical situation called for the employment of a nonpersistent, delayed-action agent. Sometime in 1942 or thereafter, evidence indicates that as a stockpile accumulated the Germans would have introduced tabun, and phosgene would then have had to share the field with the

new nerve gas.

Hydrogen Cyanide

At the battle of the Somme in July 1916 French artillery fired shells filled with hydrogen cyanide (CWS symbol, AC)."^ The compound had

--First United States Army. Report of Operations 23 Feb-8 May 1945. Annex No. 9, p. 192.

^^ Intel Div, CWS, Theater Service Forces, ETOUSA, German Chemical Warfare, World War II, Sep 45, p. 39. Hereafter cited as German Chemical Warfare.

-■' CW Intel Bull No. 16, Italian Chemical Warfare, 1 Jul 43.

-■' (1) CW Intel Bull No. 49, pt. I, Japanese Gas Shells, 1 Feb 45. (2) CW Intel Bull No. 14, Aerial Gas Weapons of Germany, Italy and Japan, 15 May 43.

-" Hydrogen cyanide is also known as hydrocyanic acid and prussic acid.

56 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

been familiar to chemists for a century but this was the first time it was used in warfare."" It is a colorless liquid which evaporates quickly at room temperature and boils at 78° F. The liquid and vapor interfere with nor- mal processes in body cells, particularly in the respiratory center of the nervous system, and if present in more than a certain small concentration quickly causes death. But if cyanide is present in less than the lethal con- centration the cells can convert it into a harmless compound and the body is uninjured. In this respect AC is different from phosgene, mustard, and other toxic agents which are harmful even when present in less than the lethal dose.

The French had some difficulty in using hydrogen cyanide as an agent because AC vapor is light and therefore has a tendency to diffuse instead of lying close to the ground. Also, AC has a tendency to decompose- sometimes so violently that the container exploded.'"^

In an attempt to cut down the rate of diffusion the French mixed AC with stannic chloride. To prevent AC from decomposing the French added arsenic trichloride. To keep the mixture from crystallizing and to make soldiers more susceptible to the agent they added chloroform. The addi- tion of these compounds diluted the AC so much that the final mixture contained only 50 percent of the cyanide. This meant that twice as many shells, or shells with twice the capacity, were needed to deliver the same weight of the cyanide— a rather wasteful procedure.

In addition to employing a dilute agent the French used small shells holding only about a pound of filling. Furthermore, their artillery fired at a slow rate. As a result the French were not able to place a lethal con- centration of gas on an enemy area. Other nations observed the apparent failure of hydrogen cyanide and came to the conclusion that it was not suitable as a war gas, but the French never lost faith in it and continued to use it until the end of the war.

Despite its drawbacks, hydrogen cyanide was inexpensive, commercially available, and had several of the other properties that have been men- tioned as being necessary or desirable for a toxic agent. After the war the opinion gained ground in the CWS that the agent had not been given a fair trial. "^ In the 1930's chemists made laboratory and field studies, in-

-' Maj. Gen. C. H. Foulkes, "Gas!" The Story of the Special Brigade (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1934), p. 108, says that hydrogen cyanide was "reported" to have been em- ployed by Austrian artillery in Italy in September 1915.

■-"* After World War I the CWS experienced several explosions among AC shells and cylinders in storage sheds at Edgewood Arsenal.

-'^ Rudolph Macy, Hydrocyanic Acid: Its Military History and a Summary of its Properties. EATR 219, 20 May 37.

TOXIC AGENTS 57

eluding firing tests with 155-mm. howitzer shells, and came to the con- clusion that the compound was potentially an effective lethal, nonper- sistent agent.^° They overcame the old problem of decomposition with the aid of Du Pont and American Cyanamid, manufacturers of hydrogen cyanide, who gave information which finally enabled the CWS to stabilize the cyanide in munitions. ^^

After the United States entered World War II the CWS extended its work and tested AC bombs of the 100-, 11 5-, 1000-, and 2000-pound size. The 1000-pound bomb, holding approximately 200 pounds of agent, proved particularly suitable as a munition. With this large quantity of the cya- nide the cooling effect brought about by evaporation of the liquid pro- duced a cloud of gas whose density was greater than air and which hovered close to the ground. Under favorable meteorological conditions the cloud was fatal hundreds of yards from the point of impact. ■^'-

The bomb was unquestionably an efficient munition for use in a cya- nide gas attack, but the tests uncovered a serious problem. The vapor which billowed outward from the bomb was easily ignited by the flash of the burster. In some tests, practically all the bombs caught fire as they split open. There were three ways of preventing the burning of AC: one was to devise a "cold" bursting charge that would not ignite the vapor, the second was to use a more powerful bursting charge that would push the vapor cloud away from the bomb faster than the flame could follow, and the third was to add a substance that would make AC more difficult to ignite. Since the first two methods would have required too much time and field work, the third was followed. Anton B. Burg and his associates conducted the research under an NDRC contract at the University of Southern California. They discovered that hydrocarbons such as those in gasoline were the best flame inhibitors. Dugway Proving Ground tested AC protected with hydrocarbons and found that it did not take fire as readily as pure AC, but bombs still burned occasionally, and the problem was never completely solved.'^^

The 1000-pound bomb would have been the chief means of dumping hydrogen cyanide on the enemy if gas had been used in the latter part of the war. It was standardized for use with AC in 1943, and about 5,000

'" Samuel A. White, Hydrocyanic Acid: Field Tests (Static and Artillery Fire) of HCN in 155- mm. Shell. EATR 299, 5 May 39.

•" G. N. Jarman, HCN: Stability in Shell, Status Report, 1940. EATR 340, 6 Mar 41.

•■'- Baum, Dugway Proving Ground, pp. 214-29.

■■'■' Military Problems with Aerosols and Nonpersistetit Gases. Summary Technical Report of Division 10, National Defense Research Committee (Washington, 1946).

58 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

bombs were filled and stored.'^' This munition accounted for almost all of the 1,132,000 pounds of AC procured by the CWS from July 1940 to the end of 1945.^^

An unusual AC weapon was a glass bottle holding about a pint of liquid.'^*^ This grenade was produced from 1942 onward as a possible last- ditch weapon against tanks or in overcoming bunkers. It was finally dropped from the approved munitions in 1944 because of the danger of breakage during shipment, either through accident or enemy action, and because tests had proven that it would not always break on soft jungle underbrush or if it glanced off log bunkers.^'

In view of the fact that the Germans did not regard hydrogen cyanide as highly as some other agents, they did not procure large quantities or fill shells, bombs, or grenades. They did, however, think that AC might be useful in the form of a spray, and the Luftwaffe carried out extensive field trials with aerial spray tanks.

The Japanese, on the other hand, felt as the Americans did about the value of AC, but they planned to use it in shells and grenades rather than in bombs. Their AC munitions ranged from mortar shells— light, medium, and heavy— to 150-mm. howitzer shells. Japanese glass grenades containing hydrogen cyanide were captured on Guadalcanal, in Burma, and on the upper Chindwin River.

Hydrogen cyanide was not as important as some of the other toxic agents, but if gas warfare had broken out, both sides would certainly have employed it in tactical situations where its rapid action and lack of per- sistence would have been of advantage to the attacking force.

Cyanogen Chloride

Cyanogen chloride (CWS symbol, CK) is a colorless liquid slightly denser than water.^^'* It boils at a temperature of 55° F., giving off a vapor which is approximately twice as dense as air and which irritates the eyes

^M 1) CWTC Item 826. (2) CWTC Item 881, (3) Chemical Warfare Service Report of Pro- duction, 1 Jan 40 through 31 Dec 45, p. 4. Prepared by Prod Br, Proc Div, CWS. CWS 314.7 Procurement File.

'■'■■' Consolidated Chemical Commodity Report, 16 Oct 51, p. 16. This report was prepared by Facilities Br, Ind Div. OC CmlO. CWS 314.7 Procurement File.

3« CWTC Item 495, Standardization of HCN Filling for Grenade, Frangible Ml, 10 Feb 42.

^" (1) CWTC Item 1117, Obsoletion of Grenade, Frangible (AC), Ml and Grenade, Frangible (FS), Ml, 31 Aug 44. (2) CWTC Item 1201, same title, 26 Oct 44.

^^ In June 1943 the CWS changed the symbol CK to CC. But the letters CC resembled CG (phosgene) when printed, and there was some confusion. In November 1944 the symbol CK was restored. See CWTC Item 1179.

TOXIC AGENTS 59

and nasal passages. When air containing a high concentration of the vapor is inhaled the compound quickly paralyzes the nervous system and causes death. When a low concentration is inhaled the reaction is not so rapid, but the compound accumulates in the body until a lethal concentra- tion is reached.

Cyanogen chloride was first used as a toxic agent by the French in October 1916. In 1917 and 1918 the CWS investigated the manufacture, the chemical, physical, and physiological properties, and the effectiveness in shells and Livens projectiles of cyanogen chloride.'^^ The Research Divi- sion found that the gas passed rapidly through the German but not through the American mask. This was an important discovery and might have led to the adoption of the compound as an American chemical war- fare agent had not the density of the vapor been so low that the CWS felt it was impossible to place a lethal concentration of cyanogen chloride on enemy positions. ^° The same decision, apparently, was also reached by the French and other European armies, for cyanogen chloride was never used to any extent.

Between the wars the CWS conducted few trials with CK. The com- pound's chief test came in 1933 when the Technical Division, searching for an agent that would act more rapidly than phosgene, the standard non- persistent agent, examined CK and decided it was not acceptable. ^^ But early in World War II the CWS, while examining captured Japanese and German masks, obtained data that indicated that CK would penetrate enemy canisters in harassing concentrations if the humidity of the air was high — a condition common to the tropics.^" This discovery opened the way for the adoption of CK as a standard agent. As a prelude to stand- ardization technicians had to learn if a lethal concentration could be laid down over enemy positions, to see if CK was available in quantities suffi- cient for military use, to find means of overcoming the instability of the compound, and to modify the canister of the mask for greater protection to American soldiers.

The CWS and NDRC assessed CK at Dugway Proving Ground in

3^ Clarence J. West, Cyanogen Derivatives, Chloride, Bromide, Iodide, Sulfide, Chemical War- fare Monographs, vol. 25, April 1919.

"" Phosgene, mustard, lewisite, and other agents have a density 3.4 to 7 times that of air. CK is only twice as dense as air. Only one agent, hydrogen cyanide, is less dense than CK.

^' Armstrong and White, Selection of Quick-Acting Nonpersistent Agent.

^- A comparison of enemy and friendly canisters may be found in: (1) CWTC Item 811, Standardization of Nonpersistent Agent, Cyanogen Chloride, 3 Sep 43. (2) Military Problems with Aerosols and Nonpersistent Gases. Summary Technical Report of Division 10, National Defense Re- search Committee (Washington, 1946).

60 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

February and March 1943.'*^ Testers placed a 100-pound chemical bomb containing 67 pounds of CK and a 500-pound bomb containing 280 pounds of CK in shallow craters and split them open with tetryl bursters. They estimated the strength of the gas cloud by means of vapor sampling devices and goats placed downwind from the burst. The trials showed that the 500-pound bomb released a low-hanging cloud that was lethal' for a considerable distance and that the flash from a tetryl burster would not ignite the compound.

Even though CK was shown to be suitable as an agent, the CWS still might not have standardized it if the protective properties of the Amer- ican mask had not been improved. The mask carried by soldiers at the start of the war gave excellent protection against chloropicrin, phosgene, mustard, and lewisite but only fair protection against hydrogen cyanide, and cyanogen chloride. The CWS in 1943 adopted Type ASC charcoal, treated with chromium, which was more effective in removing CK. Thus at the time when the investigators were uncovering evidence of the use- fulness of CK on the offense, the technicians were developing better protection for defense.

Another hurdle that remained was the chemical instability of cyanogen chloride which had a tendency to polymerize. That is, the short molecules of the compound would join together spontaneously to torm large mole- cules of a new compound. Sometimes the reaction took place so rapidly that the container exploded. Polymerization within bombs or shells also meant a wastage of the munition, since the new compounds were rela- tively harmless as agents.

The task of preventing or retarding polymerization was undertaken by Division 10 of the NDRC in 1942. A group of chemists headed by Wendell M. Latimer of the University of California made a preliminary search for stabilizing compounds. Later researchers of American Cyanamid Co., working under CWS contract, took up the quest and uncovered addi- tional information. Dugway Proving Ground contributed to these studies by setting up a large-scale surveillance test of munitions filled with CK. In August 1943 the NDRC started an additional experimental program under Anton B. Burg of the University of Southern California. Burg's group ran nearly two thousand tests on cyanogen chloride. This work expanded the knowledge of the chemistry of CK, particularly the reactions which took place during storage, but still did not provide the complete

'^ B. G. Macintire, Static Tests of CC in 100-lb. and 500-lb. Chemical Bombs. DPGMR 5, 12 Mar 43.

TOXIC AGENTS 61

answer. In 1944 Division 9 of the NDRC entered the field with a group of men under Kharasch of the University of Chicago. This group observed the retarding power of inorganic compounds on the polymerization of CK and finally found that a small amount of sodium pyrophosphate would preserve CK under normal storage conditions for many years. From then on sodium pyrophosphate was used to stabilize CK.

In order to obtain sufficient CK for chemical munitions, the CWS had to erect a plant. Before the war the only plant in the country was owned by the American Cyanamid Co. at Warners, N.Y. This plant produced sufficient cyanogen chloride for industry, but could not turn out the large quantity needed for chemical warfare. In October 1943 the War Depart- ment approved the construction of a CWS plant with a capacity of fif- teen tons, later increased to sixty tons, per day.^^ The Chemical Construc- tion Co. broke ground for the "Owl" plant, as it was called, on 27 Nov- ember at a site adjacent to the American Cyanamid Co.'s hydrogen cyanide plant at Azusa, Calif This location thus assured the "Owl" plant with the hydrogen cyanide needed in the process. American Cyanamid, which operated the plant under contract, started the first unit in April 1944.

The CWS chose two types of munitions for cyanogen chloride— 4.2- inch mortar shells and bombs. The mortar shell was made the official CK munition for ground forces in 1945, but was not filled. Instead, almost all of the twenty-five million pounds of CK procured by the CWS went into 33,347 M78 500-pound bombs, each holding 165 pounds of agent, and 55,851 M79 1000-pound bombs, each holding 332 pounds.^^

Cyanogen chloride bombs, in event of chemical warfare, would prob- ably have been used early against the Japanese, particularly in the tropics, where the humidity would have assisted the vapor in passing through the canister. The soldier then would have been forced to tear off his mask, exposing himself to other lethal agents dropped simultaneously. In time the Japanese and Germans could have treated the charcoal in such a way that CK would no longer pass through their canisters. The agent would then have lost its chief usefulness as a war gas.

Mustard Gas

In World War I the protection experts on each side tried to devise means of neutralizing enemy agents as soon as new agents appeared. Chlo-

*■• History of the Owl Plant, passim.

■•s Consolidated Chemical Commodity Report, p. 56. (2) CWS Report of Production, 1 Jan 40 through 31 Dec 45, p. 4.

512467 O-60— 6

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rine, the first gas used, was soon parried by an adequate mask. As new gases appeared, the masks were improved. Soon the mask furnished full protection and men were gassed only when they were careless, panicky, or caught by surprise. But in July 1917 the German Army brought out a new type of agent, mustard gas, that not only attacked the respiratory sys- tem but also the skin, soaking through clothes and shoes and raising painful blisters. It was almost impossible to shield soldiers completely against mustard. It became the king of battle gases and caused four hun- dred thousand casualties before the armistice.^''

Crude mustard gas (CWS symbol, H) was a mixture of approximately 70 percent )S,yS'-dichloroethyl sulfide and 30 percent of sulphur and other sulphur compounds. It was an oily, brown liquid that evaporated slowly, giving off a vapor five times heavier than air. It was almost odorless in ordinary field concentrations but smelled like garlic or mustard in high concentrations — hence the name. It irritated and poisoned body cells, but generally several hours passed before symptoms appeared.

The chief problem concerning mustard had to do with its purification. In World War I the CWS adopted the Levinstein process of the English in which ethylene reacted with sulphur monochloride under carefully con- trolled conditions.^' The reaction at first glance seems simple, but actually it was rather complex and defied the eflforts of CWS chemists to chart its course. The impurities were of such a nature that they could not be iso- lated and analyzed. They resisted separation from the main ingredient, /S,/5'-dichloroethyl sulfide, and caused or hastened decomposition of the sulfide. Decomposition was a disadvantage, first, because some of the re- sulting products corroded the storage container, making storage unsafe; secondly, other products settled out as a sludge that could change the bal- listic properties of shells or prevent the liquid from dispersing in the most favorable pattern; thirdly, a gas was evolved which built up pressure and threatened to burst containers; and, later, after airplane spray tanks were devised, the decomposition products made it impossible to thicken mus- tard for use in airplane spray attacks.

Chemists of the research and development division investigated meth- ods of purifying mustard, but the processes proved to be impractical for large-scale use.^*^ After the armistice the CWS disposed of the mustard

*''' Prentiss, Chemicals in War. p. 199.

''^ James K. Senior, "The Manufacture of Mustard Gas in World War I," Armed Forces Chem- ical Journal. XII (Sept-Oct 1958), 12-14, 16-17, 29; XII (Nov-Dec 1938), 26-29.

" Clarence J. West, Dichloroethyl Sulfide and Homologues, Chemical Warfare Monographs, vol. 40, 1 Aug 18.

TOXIC AGENTS 63

plants at Cleveland, Ohio, Buffalo, N.Y., Midland, Mich., and Hastings- on-Hudson, N.Y., and closed the plant at Edgewood. Research on mus- tard practically ceased until the early 1930's when the plant at Edgewood was restored. In 1937 this plant was put into production for a two-week period but not until 1940 was it opened for large-scale production. ^^

After Edgewood Arsenal began producing mustard again the CWS, assisted by the NDRC, examined a number of purification methods in- cluding distillation under low pressure, distillation using steam and organic liquids, extraction with solvents, treatment with ammonia, flash distilla- tion, and crystal fractionation. Of these processes only vacuum distillation, steam distillation, and solvent extraction proved to be feasible for use on a large scale.

Purification by extraction dated back to 1918 when the CWS carried out laboratory and pilot plant investigations to see if ^,)S'-dichloroethyl sulfide could be separated from impurities by dissolving it in gasoline or other solvents. The insoluble impurities remained in the residue and the sulfide was recovered from the solvent by distillation. '''' In 1942 this line of research was resumed at the CWS-MIT Development Laboratory. The chemists first obtained data on the solubility of the constituents of crude mustard in various solvents, and on rates of solution. Then, using glass extraction apparatus, they determined the data necessary for designing a large-scale extractor. '^^ The NDRC assisted by awarding a contract to the Texas Co. for pilot plant studies. Texas Co. engineers proved that large- scale extraction was practical, but they found that the product was less pure than steam distilled mustard and that the process required complex, expensive equipment.

Steam distillation, in which a current of steam was passed into the still to help carry away mustard, leaving the impurities behind as a tarry residue, had also been tested by the CWS back in 1918. In 1943 the CWS- MIT Development Laboratory re-examined this method and found that it produced a sulfide of high purity and fair stability, and that only simple equipment was required. "'" The Texas Co. then made a pilot plant inves-

^^ (1) Capt William Creasy and L. Wilson Greene, Six-Ton Levinstein HS Plant, Engineering Test. EATR 254, 14 Apr 39. (2) Edgewood Arsenal in Chemical Warfare Production, pp. 48-51.

■'" (1) Single, Successive and Continuous Extraction of Mustard Gas with Solvents. EAL 11, 24 May 18. (2) Thomas G. Thompson and Harry Odeen, "The Solubility of /?, /^'-Dichloroethyl Sul- fide in Petroleum Hydrocarbons and Its Purification by Extraction with These Solvents," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. 12 (1920), 1057-62.

■" Scott W. Walker, Capt John H. Carpenter, and Theodore Q. Eliot, Purification of Levinstein H. MITMR 66, 23 May 44.

'-- Ibtd.

64 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

tigation to obtain data for the construction and operation of a full size plant. ^^ It is possible that this process would have been the one utilized, as it seemed the most promising at the time, had not the CWS and NDRC come across a superior method, vacuum distillation.

The CWS obtained the clue which led them to vacuum distillation in November 1943 when Capt. J. W. Eastes visited the University of Illinois to confer with NDRC chemists. He learned that they had distilled at low pressure mustard which had been washed with water, and that the tem- peratures in the distillation column indicated that fairly pure j8,/8'-dichloro- ethyl sulfide could be prepared in this way.^^ In other words, water removed certain impurities, and distillation removed the remainder. The CWS had investigated vacuum distillation earlier, but had never washed the crude mustard before distilling.^^ The Technical Division investigated the process and found that it produced a purer and more stable l^,/3'-di- chloroethyl sulfide than the other methods and that it was quite practical so far as apparatus was concerned. A pilot plant was first set up and then a full-scale plant.^^ In 1945 the service switched to the new process at Edgewood and at Rocky Mountain Arsenal. ^^ By the end of the year 9,218,- 357 pounds of distilled mustard (symbol, HD) had been produced. With the successful production of HD, production of the old Levinstein mus- tard was halted.

Mustard, in terms of the quantity that the CWS stockpiled, was the most important American toxic agent. The plants at the Edgewood, Hunts- ville, Pine Bluff, and Rocky Mountain arsenals produced 174,610,000 pounds, exclusive of the nine million pounds of the new distilled mus- tard.^^

Since mustard evaporated slowly and thus remained effective from sev- eral hours to several days, depending upon the weather and terrain, its use was indicated on strategic targets or on enemy positions that would not be taken immediately by American troops. Thus, it could be used to "seal ofiP' an enemy area into which American troops were advancing, and

5^ W. E. Kuhn, G. B. Arnold, and L. E. Rudisch, Purification of Levinstein Mustard. OSRD 3217, 5 Feb 44.

■'-* Agents III (Vesicants), monograph MS, vol. 3 of series History of Research and Develop- ment of the CWS (1 July 1940-31 December 1945), pp. 80-81.

^■'' Elford D. Streeter, "Continuous Vacuum Still for 'Mustard Gas. ' biJ;/srrnil and Engineer- ing Chemistry. 11 (1919), 292-94.

5« Capt William R. Wheeler, Capt Willard Marcy, Andrew E. Perry, and William R. Wilson, Vacuum Distillation of Levinstein H, Pilot Plant Study. TDMR 985, 17 Mar 45.

■" History of Rocky Mountain Arsenal, 1945, vol. IK, pt. L PP- 647-715.

"Crawford, Cook, and Whiting, Statistics, "Procurement," p. 21.

TOXIC AGENTS 65

to hamper enemy lines of communication, airfields, landing beaches, artil- lery emplacements, and observation points. In withdrawals it could be used to contaminate the routes of enemy advance.

For delivery of mustard by ground troops the CWS had 4.2-inch mor- tar shells, artillery shells, and land mines. The land mines were simply rectangular 1-gallon tin cans, such as were commonly used to hold varnish or syrup. They had a capacity of ten pounds of mustard. When exploded with a slow-burning fuze or by electrical means, the mines spread mustard over a considerable area. They were intended for use as booby traps or in contaminating fields, roads, and buildings. The CWS procured and stored (but did not fill) almost two million such mines. ''^ For possible use by troops, 540,746 4.2-inch mortar shells were filled and stored. For the artil- lery, 1,360,338 75-mm. Mk 64, 1,983,945 105-mm. M60, 784,836 155-mm. Mk 2Al, 290,810 155-mm. Ml 10, and smaller quantities of other shells, were readied. '^°

For carrying out aerial mustard attacks the CWS had chemical bombs and spray tanks. "^^ The service procured 594,216 M70 and M70Al 115- pound bombs, developed by the Ordnance Department, and 539,727 M47A1 and M47A2 100-pound bombs, developed by the CWS in the 1930's.''" The bombs were slightly over 4 feet long, about 8 inches in di- ameter, and contained a cylindrical burster. The bombs held from 60 to 70 pounds of mustard, and when dropped contaminated an area of from 15 to 40 yards in diameter, depending upon the altitude of the plane, hardness of the ground, thickness of vegetation, and so on.*^^

In addition to bombs the service procured 92,337 MlO 30-gallon air- plane spray tanks. A plane flying at an altitude of 100 feet and carrying four of these tanks could spray mustard over an area 75 to 80 yards wide and 600 to 700 yards long. A larger tank, the M33 or M33A1, of which the service obtained 20,598, held more than twice as much mustard. A plane carrying two of these tanks could contaminate an area 75 to 100 yards wide and 700 yards long.*'^

In anticipation of the use of spray tanks the CWS expended much ef- fort in trying to improve the spraying properties of mustard. In the 1930's the CWS had accepted the doctrine that mustard spray attacks would be

"'' Ibid., p. 24.

«" CWS Report of Production, 1 Jan 40 through 31 Dec 45, pp. 28-30.

'^^ Spray tanks were also used to dispense Hquid smoke agents. See ch. IX, "Smoke."

«- CWS Rpt of Production, 1 Jan 40 through 31 Dec 45, pp. 3-4.

•^^ FM 3-6, Employment and Characteristics of Air Chemical Munitions, Oct 46.

«^ Ibid.

66 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

carried out by planes flying at low altitudes and moderate speeds. By 1941 plans called for planes flying a mile high and at speeds up to 350 miles an hour. At high altitudes and speeds the wind could easily carry small droplets beyond the target or spread them over too wide an area. Small droplets also evaporated so quickly that they either might not reach the ground at all, or else become so minute as to be practically ineffective. To obtain the desired large droplets chemists began to search for mate- rials which would thicken mustard.*'^

After starting the project CWS learned that the British had already de- termined the best size for high altitude droplets and were adding various substances to mustard to increase the particle size. In co-operation with the NDRC the CWS tested more than seventy thickeners.'''' Finally, the search narrowed down to polystyrene and methyl methacrylate. After methyl methacrylate sheet scrap (Plexiglas and Lucite) became available from air- craft factories, the CWS adopted it as a m.ustard thickener.'^"

As things turned out the work of the CWS and NDRC on thickeners went for naught. High and low altitude spray tests carried out by the CWS in co-operation with the Signal Corps and Army Air Forces at Dugway Proving Ground from 1943 onward finally proved that unthickened mus- tard was a better substance for spraying purposes than thickened mustard, and thickening agents were given up.''*

Like the American Army, the German Army placed much reliance on mustard. An examination of captured documents and gas dumps showed that they had produced more than twice as much mustard as any other agent for use in artillery shells of all calibers, mortar shells, 250- and 500- kilogram bombs, rockets, and spray tanks. '^'^ A notable feature was the tendency to use mustard in conjunction with thickening agents or with substances that would lower the freezing point. Arsenol, a mixture of ar- senic compounds, mainly diphenylchloroarsine, was widely used for this purpose.

The Japanese, too, used mustard as a filling for shells and bombs. They

8^ Agents III (Vesicants), pp. 96-135.

''^ Miscellaneous Chemical Eng!neeri>7g Problems. Summary Technical Report ot Div 11, National Defense Research Committee (Washington, 1946).

•'^ (1) CWTC Item 1007, Standardization of Thickened Persistent Agent, HV, and Persistent Agent Thickener, VV, 5 May 44. (2) CWTC Item 1074, same title, 7 Jul 44.

'5'* (1) Baum, Dugway F'roving Ground, pp. 153-64. (2) CWTC Item 1277, Obsoletion of HV and W, 22 May 45. (3) CWTC Item 1346, same title, 24 May 45.

"■' (1) German Chemical Warfare, p. 32. (2) L. Wilson Greene, "Documents Relating to the Capture of a German Gas Dump," Armed Forces Chemical journal. III (January 1949), 26-32.

TOXIC AGENTS 67

favored a 50-50 mixture of mustard and lewisite, the lewisite acting to lower the freezing point and also as a toxic agent in its own right.

In all probability if toxics had been called upon in World War II, mustard would have been used extensively whenever tactics pointed to the need of a persistent chemical agent.

Lewisite

In I9I8 a group of organic chemists headed by Dr. Winford Lee Lewis prepared a highly vesicant substance, dichloro (2-chlorovinyl) arsine, which they named lewisite.'" The CWS leased the old Ben Hur Auto- mobile Co. building at Willoughby, Ohio, installed equipment, and began to produce the agent. "^ A shipment was on the seas headed for Europe when the war ended. The CWS kept the existence of lewisite and the site of its manufacture a strict secret during the war, but later revealed the information in scientific journals.""^ After the armistice the service closed down the Willoughby plant and did not prepare the compound again ex- cept in laboratory quantities until 1941.

In the early method of manufacture, acetylene and arsenic trichloride were combined with the aid of a catalyst, aluminum chloride. The process was complicated, a large quantity of unwanted by-products were formed, and sometimes the crude product exploded as it was being distilled. In the early 1920's the CWS renewed its research on lewisite, but was un- able to continue the investigation to any great length because of the small staff and projects of higher priority. ^^ In 1939 the service set out to de- sign a pilot plant that would produce lewisite by a continuous process using the old aluminum chloride catalyst. Shortly thereafter reports from Great Britain told of the successful use ot mercuric chloride as a catalyst.'^

' " ( 1 ) W. Lee Lewis, Summary of Work Done in Organic Unit No. 3, Offense Research Sec- tion, CWS, 26 Mar 19. CWS, H-209. (2) Clarence J. West, Organic Arsenic Derivatives, Chem- ical Warfare Monographs, vol. 21, pt. 4, April 1919. (3) The CWS symbol for lewisite in World War I was G-34. Later it was change to M-1, and finally to L.

'' The plant is described in The Story of the Development Division. Chemical Warfare Service (1920), pp. 213-23, a souvenir book issued by General Electric Co.

^'- (1) W. Lee Lewis and G. A. Perkins, "The Beta-Chlorovinyl-Chloroarsines," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 15 (1923), 290-95. (2). W. Lee Lewis and H. W. Stiegler, "The Beta- Chlorovinyl-Arsines and their Derivatives," Journal of the American Chemical Society, Al (1925), 2546-56. '

■' (1) G. E. Miller, The Laboratory Development of a Method of the Manufacture of M-1. EACD 239, 5 Jan 23. (2) A. B. Reed, Investigation of New Methods for the Preparation of M-1. EACD 352, 20 Aug 25. (3) H. V. Wright and H. G. Shaffer. Development of Manufacturing Process for M-1. EACD 367, 1 Mar 26.

'^ Production of Lewisite by a New Process, pt. L Laboratory and Semi-Technical Develop- ment, 13 Dec 39, S.O./R/448.

68 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

The CWS checked this work, found that the new catalyst was an improve- ment, and adopted it." But since the mercuric chloride was a batch proc- ess, unlike the aluminum chloride process which had been continuous, engineers had to modify the design of the pilot plant.'" Furthermore, with the new catalyst there was considerable corrosion of equipment." As a result of the problems attending the change in process the production of lewisite was held up until the end of 1942, when plants were opened at Huntsville and Pine Bluff Arsenals. ^^ In 1943 a larger plant was started at Rocky Mountain Arsenal.'^

While the CWS was erecting and starting plants, evidence was accumu- lating that lewisite might have only limited use. The service had no World War I data to use in evaluating lewisite since the war ended before the agent reached France. The information gained from field tests between 1920 and 1940 was not sufficient for World War 11.^'' To obtain additional data the CWS conducted toxicological and field tests. ^^ Results indicated that lewisite was of less value than had been supposed because there was dif- ficulty in setting up a high concentration in the field, the gas mask gave complete protection against the vapor, the vapor had a distinctive odor that made it readily recognizable, and the agent could be readily decon- taminated. In addition, British chemists had come upon a powerful thera- peutic agent, DTH or BAL (British Antilewisite), that destroyed lewisite on contact.^^

Consideration of all these facts led the CWS to close the lewisite plants in 1943, after 20,000 tons had been produced.^^ Because of the possible utility of lewisite under certain limited conditions, a supply was retained

" (1) Capt N. H. Hale, M-1 Process Development, Use of Mercuric Chloride as the Catalyst. TDMR 280, 24 Apr 41. (2) Capt R. M. Cone, M-1 Process Development, Pilot Plant Production of M-1 by a Continuous Process Using Mercuric Chloride as Catalyst. TDMR 354, 6 Mar 42.

'« M-1 Manufacturing Plant- 1941 Design. ETF 112.62-1.

^' A. M. Reeves and Capt N. H. Hale, M-1 Process Development, Mercuric Chloride Cata- lytic Process, Corrosion Resistance of Miscellaneous Materials to Mercuric Chloride, Catalyst Solu- tion and Crude M-1. TDMR 326, 21 Nov 41.

" (1) History of Huntsville Arsenal, pp. 436-55. (2) Pine Bluff Arsenal, Preliminary History, Sec. VII.

'■' History of Rocky Mountain Arsenal, 1945, vol. Ill, pt. I, pp. 767-864.

«" ( 1 ) J- E. Mills, H. W. Walker, R. Macy, B. G. Macintire, B. F. Smith, and H. Scheer, Lew- isite Field Tests. EACD 411, 28 Feb 31. (2) E. L. Wardell, Lewisite (M-1), 1940 Summary of Physiologic and Toxicologic Data. EATR 285, 15 Mar 41.

*' (1) Capt Fred E. Culp, Lewisite, Dispersion as Airplane Chemical Spray. TDMR 473, 20 Nov 42. (2) Project Co-ordination Staff, Relative Value of Lewisite, 15 Jun 45. ETF 112.5.

*^ A. L. Stocken and R. H. S. Thompson, The Treatment of Arsenical Burns with Dithiol Compounds, Oxford Univ, Research Item 21, Report 33, 26 Apr 41.

**■' CWS Report of Production, 1 Jan 1940 through 31 Dec 45, p. 20.

TOXIC AGENTS 69

throughout the war. Afterwards the CWS sank a large quantity at sea, and finally abandoned the agent completely. ^^

As has been mentioned, lewisite, because of its ability to lower the freez- ing point of mustard (which was only 58° F.), was used in the form of lewisite-mustard mixtures by the Japanese. The Russians also employed lewisite for this purpose. The Germans were familiar with L-H mixtures for cold weather, but they preferred to use other arsenical liquids in place of lewisite.

Nitrogen Mustards

In 1935 there appeared an article by Kyle Ward, Jr., describing the preparation of a new compound, 2,2',2" trichlorotriethylamine, and call- ing attention to its marked vesicant action.*^ The CWS prepared and studied a sample of the substance, but found that it was less vesicant than mustard. ^*^ Early in World War II the CWS learned through intelligence that the Germans were working with the same compound and with re- lated compounds— which by now had gained the name of the "Nitrogen Mustards" because of their analogy to mustard gas.*'

These reports led the CWS, NDRC, and British laboratories to syn- thesize and test a large number of nitrogen mustards. Three compounds known as HN-1 (N-ethyl(2,2'dichloro)diethylamine), HN-2 (N-methyl- (2,2'dichloro)diethylamine), and HN-3 (2, 2', 2" trichlorotriethylamine) were most promising because of their vesicant action and their lack of odor, and these the CWS studied intensively.

The British concentrated mainly on HN-2 and HN-3, but the Ameri- cans felt that HN-1 would be the most useful. Edgewood Arsenal set up a small pilot plant in 1942. Using data obtained from this plant, the CWS in 1943 set up a larger plant at Pine Bluff Arsenal capable of producing one ton per day.

In the meantime field evaluation showed that the 1936 estimate had been correct, and that the nitrogen mustards were not as potent as mus- tard gas. The plant at Pine Bluff turned out about 100 tons of HN-1 over

«* CCTC Item 3114, Obsoletion of Lewisite, 2 Nov 5 5.

*^ Kyle Ward, Jr., "Chlorinated Ethylamines, A New Type of Vesicant," Journal of the Amer- ican Chemical Society, 57 ( 1935), 914-16.

*'' T. P. Dawson, W.J. H. B. Wells, and C. W. MacFarlan, Preparation and Vesicant Action of Tris(B-chloroethyl) amine and Tris(B-chloroethyl) amine Hydrochloride. EATR 281, 22 Mar 39.

**' Nellie M. Cone, Possible Chemical Warfare Agents of the Axis Powers. TDMR 616, 26 Apr 1943.

70 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

a period of four months, mainly to mislead German intelligence, and then closed down.^*

The Germans had much more faith in nitrogen mustards than the Ameri- cans, and during the war turned out about 2,000 tons of HN-3. At the end of the war they had on hand 105-mm. and 150-mm. artillery shells, and 150-mm. rockets, filled with HN-3.^^

Chloroacetophenone

Both sides used tear gas early in World War I to harass opposing troops. Troops exposed to tear gas had to wear masks for long periods of time and were very uncomfortable in the old-fashioned, heavy, bulky devices.

During the war the French, Germans, and British introduced a greater variety of tear gases than any other class of agents. After the United States entered the conflict, American chemists investigated chloroacetophenone (CWS symbol, CN) and found that it had the advantage of being cheaper and less corrosive to the inside of shells than other tear gases. The CWS developed methods of producing the agent, but the war ended before large- scale manufacture got underway.

After the armistice the service selected chloroacetophenone as the standard American tear gas. It erected a manufacturing plant at Edgewood Arsenal (1922), and developed a number of munitions for dispersing solid CN or solutions of CN in the field. The solid could be scattered from shells and grenades by means of high explosives, and volatilized from pots and candles by means of heat. Solutions of CN in chloroform (CNC), with chloropicrin in chloroform (CNS), and in carbon tetrachloride and benzene (CNB) could be thrown out by grenades, shells, and high pres- sure cylinders.

In 1941 the CWS erected a modern plant with a rated capacity of one ton of CN per day. This became the sole CWS plant in 1943 when the old 1922 plant was dismantled. '^° The manufacture of chloroacetophenone involved three steps: the production of monochloroacetic acid, the chlo- rination of the acid to chloroacetyl chloride, and condensation of chloro- acetyl chloride with benzene in the presence of a catalyst. The CWS was aware of another method that was potentially capable of being adapted to large-scale manufacture, the chlorination of acetophenone. If this could be

'*** Report of Activities of the Technical Division During World War II. OC CWS, p. 200. ^^ German Chemical Warfare, pp. 32, 126-27. '■"' History of Edgewood Arsenal, pp. 353-54.

TOXIC AGENTS 71

done satisfactorily the service was assured of a dependable source of low- cost CN.

In 1944 the Solvoy Process Co. contracted to develop the process and obtain data necessary for construction and operation of a plant. As events turned out the new plant was not needed, but the technical information was at hand in case of an emergency."'

In addition to the development work on CN the CWS tested new compounds for their lacrimatory effect. The Universal Oil Products Co. and Du Pont suggested other possibilities. But none of the new tear pro- ducing chemicals proved superior to the standard agent.

During the war the CWS produced at Edgewood Arsenal and pur- chased from the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. and the Lake Erie Chemical Co. a total of 1,281,560 pounds of chloroacctophenone."'" A por- tion of this went to make up 5,282,000 pounds of CNB tear gas solution, another portion went into 3,309,000 pounds of CNS solution."^ Almost all of this solution was stored, but some was used to fill 4.2-inch chemi- cal mortar shells, and 75-mm., 105-rhm., and 155-mm. artillery shells.

Solid chloroacetophenone went into pots and grenades. The tear gas pot was a modified version of the ordinary tin can and was filled with 1.2 pounds of a CN-powder mixture. When the pot was ignited by a match- head, heat from the burning powder volatilized the CN. The pot gave off CN smoke for several minutes. Edgewood Arsenal filled a total of 785,383 pots for possible use in the war."^

The tear gas grenade was one of the first munitions developed by the CWS after World War I. The body was a small tin can having six holes to let out smoke. The filling contained CN and a powder that provided the heat to volatilize the CN. During World War II, the CWS filled 689,610 M7 grenades, each containing about six-tenths of a pound of tear gas mixture, at the Edgewood and Huntsville Arsenals. ■''

Since the CWS had learned back in the 1920's that tear gas grenades were not enough to drive determined men from their posts, they adopted the practice of adding another agent that would cause vomiting and other reactions. Gradually they perfected a mixture of chloroacetophenone and adamsite (CWS symbol, DM), as a filling for grenades. Adamsite caused

^' Development of Process For Manufacture of CN, Final, 14 Sep 44. ETF 141.6-10.

^- Consolidated Chemical Commodity Report, p. 73.

'"Crawford, Cook, and Whiting, Statistics, "Procurement," p. 21.

9^ Ibid., p. 23.

'>'' Ibid., p. 21.

72 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

nausea, pain in the chest, sneezing, coughing, headache, and otlier disor- ders. It had another advantage— it acted so rapidly that the victims were unable to pick up the grenades and throw them back, as they did occa- sionally with ordinary tear gas grenades. Between 1941 and 1944, the Edgewood and Huntsville Arsenals filled 582,327 M6 grenades, each hold- ing about six-tenths of a pound of chloroacetophenone-adamsite mixture.^*^

In 1943 the Provost Marshal General requested the CWS to develop a tear gas grenade with the size, shape, and weight of a baseball for mili- tary police to use in breaking up riots. The finished grenade, standardized in February 1945, was a plastic ball holding about two-tenths of a pound of CN, fused to burst 2-3 seconds after it left the hand and before it could be picked up by a rioter and thrown back. The service produced more than 10,000 of these riot grenades by the end of the year.^"

Tear gas rockets, for possible use as antitank missiles, were first in- vestigated by the CWS in 1942 with assistance from the California Insti- tute of Technology and the National Bureau of Standards. While this work was in progress the Ordnance Department developed and standard- ized the antitank high explosive rocket, M6. The CWS thereupon turned to the Ordnance rocket and developed heads to carry chemical agents. The antitank tear gas rocket was finally dropped, but the idea took a new turn in 1943 when the Provost Marshal General's office requested a rocket for use, like the tear gas grenade, in controlling riots. The CWS modified the rocket head to meet the new requirements, but the problems associ- ated with ballistics, bursters, and size proved so difficult that in 1944 the project was canceled.

The Germans and Japanese, like the Americans, used CN. The Ger- mans employed it in two forms, one being solid CN, while the other was a mixture of CN, wax, and explosive. The explosive mixture was used in 250-kilogram and 500-kilogram air burst bombs, from which CN was dispersed in lumps. ^^ The Japanese had on hand an unusual tear gas can- dle containing a propellant charge capable of tossing a one-quarter pound chunk of CN a distance of 130 to 300 yards, depending on the angle of elevation. For closer quarters a grenade containing a solution of CN in carbon tetrachloride was available.^^

In tactics, tear gases would probably not have been as useful in World

«« Ibid.

»^ Ibtd.

^* German Chemical Warfare, pp. 130-32.

^^ CW Intel Bull No. 8, Japanese Chemical Warfare Weapons & Equipment, 15 Feb 43.

TOXIC AGENTS 73

War II as they were in 1914-18. Positions did not remain static as they had in World War I, and the opportunities for harassment would not have been as great. In certain cases, however, such as attacks upon Japanese caves and bunkers, or upon isolated positions, in the Pacific Islands, the gases might have brought about surrender or have driven the enemy into the open.

Adamsite

The German Army introduced vomiting gases or sternutators into chemical warfare in July 1917, as an ingenious method of penetrating the canisters of Allied gas masks. They first used a solution of diphenylchloro- arsine (CWS symbol, DA), which evaporated and left minute particles of DA floating in the air. The canisters at that time were able to trap true gases, the particles of which were molecular in size, but they could not retain the larger particles of DA, which were colloidal in size. Therefore the DA passed through the canister into the mask and was inhaled by the soldier. It irritated his eyes, nostrils, throat, and chest, causing nausea and vomiting. The victim had to tear off his mask, exposing himself to lethal gases fired at the same time.

After the United States entered the war, American chemists investi- gated the possibility of manufacturing DA. The German process proved to be complicated. Still, the CWS might have gone into production if chemists had not found a related compound that could be manufactured more easily. This was diphenylaminechloroarsine, which was named adam- site after the chemist Roger Adams.

The United States did not produce vomiting gas in time for use by American troops. In the 1920's the CWS operated, for a brief time, a pilot plant for the production of DA and DM at Edgewood Arsenal, but it did not need a full size plant since DM could be purchased from the chemi- cal industry.

The development work, instead, concentrated on means for spreading sternutators in the field. This could be done by explosion, which shat- tered the agent into a dust or mist, or by heat, which produced smoke. Engineers tested irritant smoke shells, ranging in size from 75-mm. to 105-mm., filled with solid agents and high explosives (HE), or with solu- tions of agents and HE, up to 1942, but the service did not produce any for combat use. Smoke candles, which were simply cans filled with a mix- ture of agent and fuel, proved to be much more efficient for dispersing DM. The early candle, dating from 1920-22, was displaced in 1941 by a

74 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

new model, M2, which differed in having a better fuel. The M2 weighed 9 pounds, held 2 pounds of DM, and burned from three to five minutes. Edgewood Arsenal filled 92,485 candles during the war, with a portion of the 644,589 pounds of DM purchased by the CWS.'""

The Germans employed DM as a filling for base ejection and HE shells, candles, and bombs; and DA solution as a filling for rockets. ^"^ The Japanese relied upon another arsenical vomiting gas, diphenylcyanoarsine (DC), as a filling for mortar shells, artillery shells, and candles.^""

Undoubtedly vomiting gases would have found much less use in World War II than they had in 1917-18 because the canister of the gas mask had been improved by the addition of filters which held back fine particles. In certain limited situations, such as attacks upon isolated posts or upon surrounded caves or bunkers, the vomiting agents might have been em- ployed to bring about surrender or weaken resistance.

An investigation of the status of chemical warfare within Germany made after V-E Day disclosed that it had produced a total of approxi- mately 78,000 tons of agents — mustard, tabun, arsenol, chloroacetophenone, phosgene, adamsite, nitrogen mustard, and diphenylchloroarsine — during the Hitlerian period. ^"'^ In addition, the Germans had appreciable stocks of Italian, French, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, and Yugoslavian agents at their disposal. The quantity of war gases produced by Japan was placed at one-tenth of the German production. American production, on the other hand, amounted to more than 146,000 tons of chemicals— mustard, chloro- acetophenone, phosgene, adamsite, nitrogen mustard, hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride, and lewisite— from 1940 to the end of 1945.^°''

Although the United States did not employ toxic agents during World War II, the money and time that went into the research, development, field tests, and production was not wasted. The armed forces had supplies of agents and equipment with which they could have waged warfare ener- getically if necessary. In this sense the work of the CWS was America's insurance against chemical warfare.

"'" (1) Consolidated Chemical Commodity Report, p. 80. (2) CWS Rpt of Production, 1 Jan 40 through 31 Dec 45, p. 5.

'"^ German Chemical Warfare, pp. 127-32.

'"- (1) CW Intel Bull No. 8. (2) CW Intel Bull No. 49, pt. I, 1 Feb 45.

"" German Chemical Warfare, pp. 31-51.

'"^ Compiled from Crawford, Cook, and Whiting, Statistics, "Procurement"; CWS Rpt of Pro- duction; and Consolidated Chemical Commodity Report.

CHAPTER IV

Protection Against Toxic Agents

"Unfortunately, except tor blister gases, there is no practical method of detecting gases other than the sense of smell," wrote Brig. Gen. Alden H. Waitt early in the war.^ But sensory tests were hazardous and uncertain, particularly for chemicals with little odor or which were masked by the encmv or by field conditions, and the CWS had long sought rapid, fool- proof chemical and physical tests.

By March 1942 a number of blister gas detectors, all of which were based on color changes in a dye base and had their origins in British and American developments in 1918, had been standardized. They included the M4 vapor detector kit, capable of registering even faint concentrations of nitrogen and sulphur mustards; M5 liquid vesicant detector paint; M6 liquid vesicant detector paper; and M7 vesicant detector crayon, sensitive to mustard and lewisite.- Although the CWS had not discovered a better dye base than that developed by the British, NDRC chemists at the Uni- versity of Chicago, at the University of Virginia, and at Ohio State im- proved its composition and developed new detector materials.'^

An excellent detector kit proved to be the M9, developed with NDRC help in the CWS laboratories at Edgewood and MIT and standardized in July 1943.^ The Army considered this compact, efficient, and widely used kit one of the significant developments ot the CWS defensive research program. Any soldier could learn to operate it alter brief training, and it proved itself during the war in the inspection of chemical munitions at U.S. Army depots at home and abroad.

' Brig. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, Gas Warfare (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1942), p. 205.

= CWTC Item 483, Military Characteristics and Standardization of Chemical Agent Detectors, 31 Mar 42.

^ Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 157-62, 166-74.

■' (1) CWTC Item 783, Standardization of Kit, Chemical Agent Detector, M9, 23 Jul 43. (2) Hemleben, CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, pp. 73-82. The M4 Kit was made obsolete by CWTC Item 1476, 4 Oct 45.

76 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Superior to the M4 vapor detector kit in every respect, the M9 was an adsorption type of detector, consisting of a hand pump and nearly two hundred small tubes of reagent dyes in silica gel, capable of detecting even slight concentrations of such war gases as the mustards, phosgene, and cyanogen chloride.^ The discovery by Weldon G. Brown at the Univer- sity of Chicago of a sensitive and specific detector for any war gas react- ing to alkali (such as the mustards) was of signal importance in the development of the kit/' Tests devised later for lewisite, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen cyanide were at once incorporated in the kit.

After a requirement was established in March 1943, the laboratory at MIT also got up an agent sample collection kit, the MIT-E12, which en- abled the user to get samples of airborne agents as well as agents in con- taminated soil and to keep them without loss or decomposition until they could be delivered to a jfield laboratory. This was standardized in Au- gust 1945 as the Ml 2 agent sampling kit and, along with a newly developed MlO chemical agent analyzer kit and the Mil smoke identification kit, was made a component of the M3 mobile laboratory unit.^

Unknown to the American Army, the Germans had discovered nerve gases, a new class of toxic compounds. The CWS first learned of the exist- ence of these agents after the war was over. None of the reagents in de- tector kits, nor any other U.S. detector devices, were sufficiently rapid or reliable to warn in time of the presence of nerve gases. In liquid form these agents reacted with the detector paint in the American kit, but no substance in it could detect the agents in spray or vapor form. Had these gases been used it is likely that only the onset of clinical symptoms would have revealed their presence. Despite the accomplishments of the United States in developing sensitive methods of detection, the definite evidence in 1945 that the Germans had nerve gases reopened the whole problem of detection.

As for enemy methods of detection, the Germans had a powder con- taining a dye which, when sprinkled on liquid mustard, changed color. German vesicant detector cards worked in the same manner as American vesicant detector paper, but were more sensitive to some reagents, and gave a more sharply defined color. For testing the air outside fortifications, the Germans had an apparatus with six pumps, operated electrically or manu-

5 TM 3-290, 27 Mar 44, pp. 70-78.

" Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 217-19.

' CWTC Item 1407, Standardization of Chemical Warfare Agent Detection and Sampling Kits,

2 Aug 45.

PROTECTION AGAINST TOXIC AGENTS

77

Types of Gas Masks, April 1918. From left, American, French, early British, and German.

ally, which forced air through six tubes of reagents. A German detector kit, comparable to CWS model M9, contained tubes of reagents and a small hand pump to force air through the tubes.*

The Japanese also had detector kits, a number of which were captured during the war. One of these, tested at the CWS-MIT laboratory late in 1943, was larger and heavier than the CWS model M9, had no reagent for nitrogen mustard, gave uneven results, and allowed misleading inter- pretations of tests owing to the faintness of some reactions. On the other hand, a naval-type detector examined shortly thereafter, although also with- out a test for nitrogen mustard, compared favorably with the M9 in de- sign, simplicity, and effectiveness of operation, and had several good points that were considered for possible inclusion in later American models.^

The Gas Mask

Gas masks were the earliest devices for protecting soldiers against toxic agents. The German Army supplied crude masks to the troops who released chlorine at Ypres, the first chemical attack of World War I.

» (1) Hemleben, CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, pp. 202-03, 210-12. (2) Intel Div, OC CWS, ETOUSA, German Chemical Warfare Materiel, p. IV-C-1.

Ml) Hemleben, CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, pp. 201-04. (2) Off, Ch Cml O, USASOS, Southwest Pacific Area, Japanese Chemical Warfare. Hereafter cited as Japanese Chem- ical Warfare.

512467 O-60— 7

78

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

Between 1915 and 1918 the warring nations developed a variety of masks, some completely covering the head and others covering only the face. American troops in France first wore French and British gas masks, then the American C. E. (Corrected Eng- lish) mask, and finally the R.F.K. box respirator, a modification of the British mask by Ralph R. Richard- son, E. L. Flory, and Waldemar Kops of the CWS. The R.F.K. gas mask consisted of a canister, a fabric facepiece with nose clip, mouth- piece, and hosetube, and a carrier for the two units. ^" It provided ade- quate protection against the agents used on the Western Front, but was uncomfortable if worn for long periods. After the war came the 1919-model gas mask, consisting of a facepiece and hosetube of rubber, covered on one side with elastic stockinette, a canister, and a carrier as- sembly. The trapezoidal facepiece was fitted with circular eyepieces of laminated flat glass, deflectors to discharge air over the eyepieces to pre- vent fogging, an outlet valve, an angletube, and a head harness. The can- ister was of the radical flow type containing a filter unit for the removal of solid and liquid particles from incoming air and charcoal and soda lime absorbents tor the disposal of gases. This mask was designated MI- I-I and adopted as standard in 1921. It was supplied in five sizes and with improvements remained the standard U.S. Army gas mask until 1940. After the United States entered World War II, substantial quantities of this service mask, then designated the M1A2-9A1-4, were still available in reserve stocks."

In improving the mask during World War II the CWS sought to

Army Photographer Wearing Service Gas Mask with M I A2 face- piece, Camp Robinson, Arkansas, Jan- uary 1942.

'" A detailed description of the R.F.K. mask may be found in Fries and West, Chemical War- fare, pp. 210-20.

" ( 1) The Ml and its improved versions, the MlAl ( 1934) and MlA2 ( 1935), were not declared obsolete until 1944. CWTC Item 1193, Obsoletion of Stockinette Type Facepieces and Large Size Gas Mask Carrier, 26 Oct 44. (2) The model of a gas mask was designated by the

PROTECTION AGAINST TOXIC AGENTS

79

m	^^^^^^^^y^^^V^- ^^Brl'" ^^M^ ^^
	: 4^ V	fBBmt^^
Si
'4 :	i	•<w-«r ^^rT^^m^^^B'W

make it more comfortable, increase the degree of protection, and to make it lighter. One of these steps was to develop a fully molded face- blank. It eliminated the vulnerable chin seam, the angletube, separate deflectors, and multiple metal parts in the eyepiece assembly, and it also brought the lenses of the eye- piece closer to the wearer's eyes, thereby enlarging his field of vision and reducing the dead air space in the facepiece. This molded facepiece also resulted in lower manufactur- ing costs by permitting mass pro- duction methods of assembly, in contrast to the hand work required in the older masks. The new serv- ice mask was heavy and not water- proof, but it was an excellent de- vice for protecting the wearer against toxic vapors.

Because there was urgent demand for the new fully molded facepieces, the CWS provided only three sizes of molds for its manufacturers.^^ These molds were based on fitting tests on a limited number of workers at Edgewood Arsenal. Variation in the manufacturers' molds made it pos- sible to fit 90 percent of the troops with the so-called universal size, and large and small sizes were provided for special cases. Their wearability was confirmed in tests on more than a thousand soldiers at Camp Edwards, Mass. Difficulties in tooling for the production of these facepieces pre- cluded further changes.

The chief gas mask problem, the CWS felt, was not the faceblank but better absorbents and filters for the canister. The possibility of meeting with new Axis toxic agents and the development of war gases by the United

Soldier Wearing Service Gas Mask with M2A2 facepiece during maneuvers, Camp Polk, Louisiana, June 1942.

three "M" numbers of the facepiece, canister, and carrier, respectively. "A" represents an altera- tion in the basic model design. In models under development, "E" stood for experimental and "R" for revision. (3) A study of World War II masks and their components appears in the S. H. Katz, "Status of the U.S. Army Service Gas Masks," Artned Forces Chemical Journal. II (October 1947), pp. 32-40.

'■-They included the Industrial, Dryden, Continental, Sun, Acushnet Process, Firestone, Good- year, General Tire, and U.S. Rubber Companies.

80 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

States made it desirable to find better canister materials. The first attack on the problem was on the absorbents, and NDRC contracts were set up for fundamental studies at the University of Illinois, at Johns Hopkins University, and at Northwestern University. ^^

Whetlerite, a copper impregnated, activated charcoal, was the absor- bent then used in the M9AI canister." Mixed with 20 percent soda lime, this filling removed such standard gases as chloropicrin, phosgene, mus- tard, and lewisite. It furnished only a fair degree of protection against hydro- gen cyanide and cyanogen chloride, a degree thought particularly danger- ous in the case of hydrogen cyanide because glass grenades containing this agent had been found among captured Japanese munitions. Initial studies at Northwestern University confirmed the British finding that the addition of silver to the charcoal in the canister greatly improved protection against phosgene and hydrogen cyanide, and the CWS adopted this new compos- ite whetlerite early in 1942.^^ Studies later that year indicated that soda Hme, included in the canister since World War I to assist in the adsorp- tion of volatile acid gases such as phosgene and hydrogen cyanide, was no longer needed and it was removed. ^*^

The NDRC meanwhile tackled the problem of increasing the cyanogen chloride absorbing power of canisters to meet the possibility that the CWS might adopt this substance as an agent. Research at Northwestern Univer- sity led to the addition of chromium to the silver and copper already in the charcoal, a measure which considerably improved the cyanogen chloride protection of the canister, even under the severest semitropical weather conditions that could be simulated in the laboratory. The service adopted this third type of charcoal (Type ASC) in July 1943 and incorporated it in the M9A2 canister. ^^ Shortly thereafter, scientists developed highly sat- isfactory wood and coal charcoals as substitutes for the unobtainable coco- nut charcoal used before the war.^^ As a result, the charcoal and its impregnites in the 1943-44 canister gave the United States an absorbent considered better than those in either the German or Japanese canisters.

'^ NDRC research is reported in Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 296-313.

i^CWTC Item 40, Canister, Service, MlXAl -Standardization, 12 Sep 39.

'■^ (1) Lt Col Charles E. Loucks, Visit to Porton Experimental Station. London MA Rpts 41524, 19 Aug 40, p. 1, ETF 350E284. (2) CWTC Item 535, Standardization of Light Weight Service Gas Mask, Military Requirement and Military Characteristics, 4 Aug 42.

"^ The Value of Soda Lime in Gas Adsorbents, OSRD 437, 6 Mar 42.

'^CWTC Item 772, Standardization of Canister, Service, M9A2, 23 Jul 43.

'" Saul Hormats, Development of the Impregnated Charcoals for U.S. Military Gas Mask Canisters. TDMR 1201, 13 Feb 46.

PROTECTION AGAINST TOXIC AGENTS 81

The second phase of canister improvement involved filters, incorporated to remove solid toxic particles breathed into the gas mask canister/^ The filter paper in all canisters in 1940 consisted of a cellulose fiber mat known as alpha web, which had recently been improved by impregnating it with fine carbon particles. This filter assured substantial protection against toxic smokes, such as adamsite, but it increased the resistance to air flow and it offered only limited protection against liquid particles. The development ot new mechanical smoke generators necessitated further work on the filter, because fine oil particles of the smoke deteriorated the impregnated paper. Gas mask experts tested rock wool, fiber glass, and other materials as paper substitutes, and finally found that asbestos, a material in British, German, Japanese, and Russian filters, added to the alpha web made the canister safe against minute droplets of oil.""

The CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, in co-operation with indus- trial paper companies and Arthur D. Little, Inc., produced three types of asbestos bearing paper, each of increasing effectiveness. After 1942 they were used successively in place of the carbon-impregnated filter paper in the M9A2 and MlOAl canisters."^ Further research led to the substitution for the asbestos of a paper fiber made from esparto grass, obtained from Morocco. The new fiber had less air resistance in the canister while it maintained a filtering capacity comparable to asbestos. The service further improved this filter material by treating it with dimethyl silicane, which rendered the paper highly water repellent— a useful property when troops had to ford streams while carrying the gas mask.

The M2 type service mask previously described was, from the point of view of the technical staff of CWS, an excellent product. Anticipating that gas would be used in the war, the service had designed a mask that would provide troops with the most complete protection possible against gas attack. The mask was rugged and efficient, but it was heavy (weighing almost five pounds with its steel box canister), bulky, inconvenient, and therefore unsuited to the combat requirements of World War II. Troops in training in 1940 and 1941 wore the mask unwillingly and only for gas exercises, leaving it behind on combat maneuvers. When the War Depart-

'* NDRC filter studies of W. H. Rodebush at the University of Illinois and E. P. Stevenson and T. L. Wheeler of Arthur D. Little, Inc., are reported in Noyes, Chemistry, pp. 265-72. Those at MIT appear in Hemleben, CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, pp. 120-25, 128-30.

-° CWTC Item 759.

= ' (1) CWTC Item 772. (2) CWTC Item 827, Standardization of Canister, Service, MlOAl, 15 Oct 43.

82 THE CHEMICAL WARFARE SERVICE

ment insisted that the mask be worn in all exercises, the ground arms reacted at once. The design had to be changed if troops were to fight effec- tively while wearing it.'"

The requirement established in January 1942 for a lighter and less cum- bersome mask for combat troops resulted in the development of the light- weight service gas mask. With a smaller, rounded canister, a shorter hose and a simpler carrier, this mask weighed 3^^^ pounds, yet because of better absorbents and new filter materials, it provided almost the same, though not as prolonged, protection as the heavyweight service mask.-^ One short- coming of the new mask was the increased breathing resistance, caused principally by the smaller canister. Nevertheless, when Cavalry, Infantry, and Armored Force Boards, as well as Airborne Command tests of the new mask were completed, the Army Ground Forces recommended that the mask be issued as quickly as possible.

The mobility of modern warfare, its jungle operations, and particularly the increase in amphibious operations brought demands from the theater commanders and the Army Ground Forces for an even lighter and more compact gas mask, and especially for one that could be waterproofed. The requirement suggested a snout type mask such as was used by German assault troops. This type would not have an awkward hosetube, would weigh less than two and a half pounds, be waterproof or carried in a water- proof carrier, offer the same protection as the lightweight service mask, and not <