Chapter 11: Official Publications
“Training literature” was the imposing description applied to the wartime products of the CWS publication agency. This term was only partially appropriate. It did serve, however, to underwrite the idea that all texts required for military training were to be found in the list of official publications.
Volume of Wartime Publications
The War Department publications that were available at the beginning of the war period are listed in a thin, pocket-size pamphlet of twenty-one pages. The corresponding list and index of 16 May 1945 was a 386-page quarto volume, FM-6, while two additional field manuals (21-7 and 21-8) were required to enumerate the various films and graphic training aids that were eventually provided. The contrast between the 1940 and 1945 listings affords an interesting sidelight on America’s unpreparedness for war when the period of national emergency began. Not only did the Army lack the military publications needed in a major war effort, but, to a considerable extent, it lacked a realization of the necessity for such publications. And the means for producing them scarcely existed.
The situation of the Chemical Warfare Service as to training publications, while unfavorable, was probably neither better nor worse than that of the Army as a whole. Listed in the first issue of FM 21-6, 2 January 1940, were six CWS publications. Two were volumes of the field manual series, three were technical manuals describing chemical munitions, and one was a training regulation (Examination for Gunners). Besides, the Chemical Warfare Service had two training films—one produced in 1930 and one in 1933 —as well as a portfolio of graphic training charts. There was in addition some miscellaneous printed matter in the form of extension (correspondence) courses, technical bulletins, specifications covering supplies procured by the CWS, a nomenclature and price list of chemical munitions, and so
forth. This modest group of prewar publications was a mere token compared to the flood of printed materials which the CWS was soon to sponsor.
The renaissance of the Chemical Warfare Service in the emergency period meant a marked stimulation of the development and production of CWS matériel, all of which required description or other treatment in official literature. The remarkable progress made during the war in producing fire and smoke weapons alone accounted for many new publications. A glance at the number and status of these publications as of 1 July 1945 indicates the task involved in the preparation of CWS training literature during World War II. At that time the following had been published or were being prepared for publications:1
| In Print | In Preparation | |
| Field Manuals | 10 | 6 |
| FM Changes | 13 | 2 |
| Technical Manuals | 34 | 10 |
| TM Changes | 40 | 3 |
| Technical Bulletins | 90 | 25 |
| TB Changes | 8 | 5 |
| Training Circulars | 8 | 3 |
| Training Films | 23 | 4 |
| Film Bulletins | 17 | 1 |
| Film Strips | 25 | 5 |
| Graphic Training Aids | 52 | 10 |
In addition to this series of publications, the CWS was particularly concerned with the preparation of FM 21-40 , Defense Against Chemical Attack, and TM 8-285, Treatment of Casualties from Chemical Agents. The following logistical documents also were prepared for official publication:
62 Supply Bulletins
28 Supply Catalog Pamphlets
4 Modification Work Orders
2 Lubrication Orders
1 War Department Pamphlet
Setting Up the Publications Program
The prewar official Army manual was well written, but in a staid and unexciting style. It was directed toward the instructor rather than to the
trainee. Into the enlarged World War II publications program was introduced a new element, reader interest. Deliberate effort was made in writing to capture and hold attention. Illustrations, both photographic and “art,” were lavishly employed. The Publications Division, AGO, in time established an editorial and art staff to assist preparing agencies in this work. The skills of the advertising expert and commercial illustrator were utilized in producing attractive formats. The new manuals were often striking departures from the publications of the past, yet such departures were necessary if the mass of new instructional material was to be quickly translated into usable knowledge. The preparation of publications to meet the standards of World War II required the development of a group of technical specialists—writers, editors, and illustrators—not previously available to the Chemical Warfare Service.
The CWS manuals published before the war were prepared under the general supervision of the Training Division of the Chief’s Office. That division was responsible for obtaining War Department authorization for proposed publications, for arranging for the writing of manuals, and for obtaining concurrences, when necessary, of other arms and services to final drafts.
Three agencies at Edgewood Arsenal were engaged from time to time in writing manuals. The preparation and review of training regulations and manuals had been a function of the Chemical Warfare Board since 1925.2 The Research Division kept two civilians employed in writing CWS technical reports and in preparing technical matter for inclusion in other publications. The Chemical Warfare School prepared tactical texts either for its own use or for official publication. Experienced officers serving with chemical troops were sometimes called on for assistance. The task of preparing a prewar manual was undertaken by whoever chanced to know most about a particular subject, and the task of reconciling divergent viewpoints of several writers was attempted with varying success by the Training Division in Washington. Occasionally the Training Division took a hand at writing. The system represented a defensive rather than a positive approach to the problem of providing the War Department texts needed to delineate the CWS mission. As soon as the pressure for new publications became urgent, a better scheme for producing them had to be devised.
Of the three offices concerned with the preparation of publications at
Edgewood Arsenal, the Chemical Warfare Board most nearly represented the over-all viewpoint of the CWS. The preparation of all field and technical manuals was centralized under the board in February 1941 as the first step toward development of a group specializing in the writing of manuals.3 The writing of CWS technical bulletins by the technical agency was continued; with this exception the board was to coordinate and carry forward the entire publications program. The board’s small staff of two officer-writers and one civilian artist was gradually built up to eight officers, four enlisted men, and seven civilians in the course of the next year and a half.4
In these months the CWS developed a capable nucleus of a manual writing agency. There was at the start a definite advantage in having this unit grow up within the framework of the Chemical Warfare Board. Once the child matured, difficulties arose. The work of the board’s publications section was somewhat outside the main current of board activities, and its volume grew so fast as to make supervision by the board a continuing problem. The section had in fact become an almost separate entity when, in the fall of 1942, it was dissolved and its functions assumed by the newly established Training Aids Section, an independent agency of the Chemical Warfare Center.5 This section operated under the Training Division, OC CWS,6 and was responsible for preparing training literature, films and film strips, and tables of organization and allowances for chemical units. All personnel who had been working on the preparation of publications were transferred from the board to the Training Aids Section.7
This reorganization was advantageous to both the board and the Training Division. It freed the board from a considerable flow of administrative work that was interfering with its own important duties, and it enabled the Training Division to deal directly rather than indirectly with one of its essential operating agencies. By the time the Training Aids Section broke away, it no longer needed the administrative guidance that the board had initially provided although its success during the remainder of the war period was evidence of the sound development that marked its early growth.
The Training Aids Section remained an operating agency of the Office of the Chief located at the Chemical Warfare Center until June 1943 when, with its equipment and staff, it became a division of the Chemical Warfare
School.8 The reasons for this action are not entirely clear. There is no indication that the work of the Training Aids Section had suffered because of the nature of its administrative status between September 1942 and June 1943. It is true that during this period the preparation of publications was somewhat hampered by lack of enough competent technicians, especially civilians, to enable the section to keep abreast of the demands made upon it. A great deal of highly specialized equipment, including cameras, enlargers, and automatic typewriters, had been procured, so that the section was becoming well equipped to meet all calls made upon it. But the problem of personnel was tougher, with greater difficulty in obtaining qualified civilians in 1943 than in 1941 and 1942. The Training Aids Section had placed too much reliance at the start on the services of officers and enlisted men who, after becoming experienced in the work of the Training Aids Section, were often reassigned to other duties. The CWS no doubt expected that by merging the training aids unit with the Chemical Warfare School the latter, with its larger reserve of personnel, would be able to facilitate the work of writing, illustrating, and editing. Actually the Training Aids Division suffered rather than benefited by this arrangement in that it was expected to contribute to the needs of the school for training aids while receiving little help from the school for its own manpower needs.
The preparation of official publications continued to be a responsibility of the Chemical Warfare School until July 1944. While under the school, the Training Aids Division had a somewhat autonomous status since the school authorities had neither the time nor experience to assume active control of the publications program. On 19 July a new administrative procedure, one that proved most satisfactory, was announced.9 It abolished the Training Aids Division of the school, and placed the function of preparing official publications in the Tactical Doctrine Branch, Training Division, OC CWS. A field office of the Tactical Doctrine Branch was set up at the Chemical Warfare Center, and to it was assigned the publications personnel and facilities that during the preceding year had been accommodated within the organic structure of the school. Thereafter the Chief’s Office, instead of supervising the preparation of official CWS publications, actually assumed full responsibility and accomplished this work during the remainder of the war period by means of its own field operating agency.
The trial-and-error organizational experience of the CWS publications
agency followed in part from the failure at the beginning to measure properly the matériel and personnel requirements of this entirely new type of producing unit. Appropriate budgetary needs were only grudgingly met when they could no longer be avoided. At the time the agency was separated from the Chemical Warfare Board in September 1942, $25,000 was set aside to cover its operating expenses for the remainder of the fiscal year; this proved to be less than half the sum actually needed. The staff of the Tactical Doctrine Branch ultimately included 38 officers, 4 enlisted men, 4 enlisted women, and 49 civilians; of these, 4 officers and 3 civilians served in Washington. Funds allocated to the CWS publications program for fiscal year 1945 approached a half million dollars.10
The Pattern of Military Publications
The pattern of official War Department publications was firmly set at the beginning of hostilities, under the general provisions of the 310 series of Army Regulations. A general directive issued by the War Department in January 1941 may be taken as launching in earnest the World War II publications program. The system of military publications was supervised by the Operations and Training Division, War Department General Staff.11 The principal standardized publications at this time were field manuals, technical manuals, training circulars, mobilization regulations and training programs, tables of organization and equipment, training films, and film strips. Although this system was somewhat expanded, the essential pattern was not altered during the war. The basic number “3” served to identify all CWS publications in each category.
The publications system was based on two types of documents—the field manual and the technical manual. The field manual group included a general series, covering the fundamental employment of combined arms and services, and a particular series, containing instructions on the employment of specific units of the several arms and services. The technical manual group, on the other hand, described matériel, its maintenance and operation, and contained other data more specialized in nature than was considered appropriate for inclusion in field manuals. These two groups furnished basic doctrine for the employment of CWS procedures and materials.
Although the field and technical manuals were conceived as being relatively permanent in form, the demand for increasing CWS support
throughout World War II called for constant amendment and change to accepted doctrine. Revision of these manuals could not keep pace with requirements, and two new series of publications, the training circular and the technical bulletin (War Department as contrasted with CWS), were therefore adopted to permit the ready dissemination of tentative data.
At first the training circular was employed to amend both field and technical manuals, as well as to announce new training policies. Toward the end of the war the importance of the training circular diminished, especially after the appearance of the technical bulletin. The somewhat belated addition of the latter to the list of official publications was necessitated by the striking technological advances of America’s munitions program. Introduced as a means for quick publication of technical information, the technical bulletin was exempt from prior review by The Adjutant General. It represented the largest single item in the CWS publication program. Other publications standardized during the war and with which the CWS was particularly concerned were supply bulletins and spare parts catalogs.12
In the field of visual training aids, the film bulletin was introduced during the war to complement the training film in much the same way that the technical bulletin complemented the technical manual. It dealt with new military developments, not necessarily based on doctrine, but issued for the information of officers and enlisted men.
The graphic training aid (GTA), used to some extent before the war, was widely employed in training. Two types were standardized as official publications. War Department graphic training aids were those of Army-wide application. In this category were a number produced by CWS for training in defense against gas attack. A larger number were Chemical Warfare Service GTA’s, intended only for use in the training of chemical personnel.
Through this wide range of publications—manuals, bulletins, films, film bulletins, graphic training aids—ran two divergent currents. One was the distinction between the tactical and the technical publications, as represented by the field manual and the technical manual. The other was the need for quick dissemination of data on new technical developments, without too great a disturbance of the old and well established. These views could be accommodated within the scheme of official publications. The Chemical Warfare Service emphasized the technical rather than the tactical and the new methods and materials rather than the old.
The Preparation of Manuals
Before March 1942, responsibility for the formulation of doctrine for employment of chemical munitions rested with the CWS. Under the 1942 reorganization of the War Department the AAF and the AGF were made responsible for development of tactical and training doctrine for the weapons which they used, and CWS responsibility was confined to the preparation of suitable instructions covering the technical care and use of the matériel it supplied. Within the Training Division, OC CWS, the Tactical Doctrine Branch was responsible for coordinating, supervising, and finally for actually authoring a manuscript. This name was adopted in deference to Pentagon practice, the Tactical Doctrine Branch of the Office of the Director of Military Training, ASF, being the office through which CWS publications were cleared.13 Even tactical doctrine pertaining to CWS service troops was cleared with the combat forces before publication. In the case of incendiary bombs, matters of tactical employment were decided by the Army Air Force. With such munitions as smoke generators and mechanized flame throwers, the line between tactics and technique was not always clear; the CWS sometimes had to provide acceptable tactical answers. Yet where tactical doctrine appeared in CWS publications, this was formulated by or in agreement with the using arm and was not a principal contribution of the CWS.
At the outset of the war, field manuals covering tactical and logistical aspects of chemical warfare had already been published. The only wartime addition to this series was the publication of six manuals covering field operations of chemical service units.
Five CWS technical manuals had been published at the time of Pearl Harbor. These were:
TM 3-205 The Gas Mask
TM 3-215 Military Chemistry and Chemical Agents
TM 3-240 Meteorology
TM 3-250 Storage and Shipment of Dangerous Chemicals
TM 3-305 Use of Smokes and Lacrimators in Training
Among the considerable number of CWS items then standardized, only the gas mask and chemical agents were discussed in War Department technical literature. It was therefore necessary, after war was under way, to publish technical descriptions of certain equipment already being supplied to troops,
and at the same time to prepare for publication descriptions of new chemical items as they appeared for the first time in the Army supply program—mechanical smoke generators, field impregnating plants, incendiary bombs, mechanized flame throwers, napalm, and so on. For without detailed instructions on how munitions should be used and maintained, they quickly become a liability in a theater of operations.
The genesis of the technical description of a military item was to be found in data accumulated during the stage of research and development. Such data were used by the Technical Division at the Chemical Warfare Center to prepare CWS technical bulletins. Thirty-seven of these were published between 1940 and 1943. Although of limited circulation, they were important in providing a starting point for the development of the “3-series” of War Department technical bulletins, publication of which was first undertaken in 1943.14 The function of the CWS publication agency was to take such essentially technical information as had been developed while the item was being designed and eventually produced, and translate it into a manuscript meeting the needs of a lay reader, providing suitable illustrations, and generally adapting the material to the standards set by The Adjutant General for official publication. A few of the CWS technical bulletins thus found their way into publication as War Department technical manuals although the more general procedure was for them to appear, in 1944 and 1945, as War Department technical bulletins. In practice, most of the “3-series” of technical bulletins appeared so late that no attempt was made to incorporate them in the more permanent medium of the technical manual.
While the CWS publication agency in time acquired a polished professional approach in the production of attractive and useful manuals, it necessarily had to seek from others much of the substance which it incorporated into them. The source most generally drawn on, other than the Technical Command, was the Chemical Warfare School. The school over a number of years had developed a series of locally reproduced texts covering features of tactics and technique not included in the scanty list of official publications. Some of these, as appropriations permitted, were accepted and printed by the War Department as official texts. Thus three of the five CWS technical manuals available at the beginning of the war were based on texts originally developed for use at the Chemical Warfare School.15 This general type of procedure continued throughout the war; the unofficial school texts
were steadily laid aside as additional War Department publications became available, while many of the latter that were processed by the Chemical Warfare Service were derived at least in part from school publications. As early as February 1941, unofficial texts had ceased to be used in teaching at the Chemical Warfare School.16
The debate over official and unofficial texts persisted in some measure throughout the war. There was continuing complaint, even when a War Department manual was available, that the coverage was incomplete and had to be supplemented to meet local training needs. Often this was true. Yet ASF policy was that the soldier should be trained with the same document that would be available to him in the field and that no local publication should take the place of this official text. Any compromise with this policy would have been unfortunate, since uniformity in training was essential whether the training was done in Louisiana, in northern Ireland, or in Burma.
One useful bridge between the official and unofficial publication was the “tentative” manual, numbered and approved by the War Department for use only at special service schools. Several Chemical Warfare School texts had this status until time and experience determined the desirability of official publication. An example is FM 3-5 which appeared in June 1942 as Tactics of Chemical Warfare, prepared under the direction of the Chief, CWS, for use at the Chemical Warfare School only; later this was superseded by two War Department field manuals: (1) Characteristics and Employment of Ground Chemical Munitions and (2) Characteristics and Employment of Air Chemical Munitions.
The Chemical Warfare Board, after it ceased to be responsible for the writing of publications, continued to review many of the manuscripts processed by the Tactical Doctrine Branch, a procedure which enabled the writing agency to take full advantage of the board’s experience in all fields of chemical warfare.
Procedures to be followed in the preparation of official publications were set forth in great detail in ten mimeographed pages of ASF Circular 62, issued in March 1944. By this time the technical services were turning out a steady stream of well written and attractively illustrated publications; Circular 62 added little to what was then known, although it did authenticate existing practices and provided a permanent record of the manual writing
procedures in vogue in the ASF during World War II. One object of this lengthy directive was to limit the multiplicity of War Department publications, although the success of the effort was questionable.
The steps ordinarily involved in the preparation of an official publication appear somewhat complicated, yet they were necessary to insure system and order in such a large publications program as that of the U.S. Army in World War II. When a new CWS publication was needed, or when a change in an existing publication was desirable, the CWS made a pertinent recommendation to the ASF. If approved, the CWS then prepared a full statement of the scope of the publication and an outline of the proposed manuscript. This, after review, was referred by the ASF to The Adjutant General who studied the project from the viewpoints of essentiality and appropriate medium of publication. If TAG concurred, the outline was returned to the CWS where it served as the blueprint for the preparation of the manuscript. Informal concurrences were obtained from air and ground forces headquarters as well as other interested agencies as the work progressed so that formal concurrences to the completed manuscript could be obtained quickly as a routine matter. The final manuscript with illustrations was sent to the ASF for approval and for securing necessary outside concurrences. Headquarters, ASF, then referred the manuscript to The Adjutant General, who reviewed for conformity with editorial standards and with media requirements; afterwards it was either returned to the Chemical Warfare Service for any essential changes or was transmitted to the printer for reproduction. After printing, distribution to troops also was handled by TAG. The same general procedure was followed in processing graphic training aids and film projects.17
Speeding Up the Program
As the publication program began to gain momentum, there appeared danger that it might bog down unless something was done to reduce the excessive time lapse between the initial approval and the final distribution of a printed pamphlet. In the case of some CWS manuals, the interval ran to as much as eight months.
This time was consumed in three ways: first, in writing and illustrating;
second, in obtaining concurrences of interested commands; third, in printing and binding. The ASF undertook to control the time spent on writing by assigning a deadline to each project as it was approved and by requiring submission of regular progress reports until the pamphlet was completed. But shortcuts had to be developed in the matter of concurrences and also in the printing of manuals.
The handling of concurrences to CWS publications by ground and air forces was greatly simplified by the ASF in November 1943 under a procedure which permitted the publication of new technical manuals without advice or consent of other agencies.18 It also delegated to technical services full responsibility for approval of these publications, without reference to the ASF—a real departure from the initial procedure referred to above. This action was clearly dictated by the urgent necessity for speed in getting technical literature into the hands of troops. The line between the technical manual and the field manual was now more sharply drawn. Into the technical manual went instruction as to what was to be done about the maintenance and operation of new equipment, thus leaving for later publication in a field manual specific instructions for crew or individual equipment operation in the field. This meant the elimination of doctrine from technical manuals, and with it, much of the prepublication concern of the combat forces with these pamphlets. Upon distribution, copies of new technical manuals were circulated for comments which, wherever appropriate, were published later as technical bulletins or as changes to technical manuals.
The mushrooming of the Army publications program had the effect of clogging the Government Printing Office with work so that, by the summer of 1943, as much as three months were required merely for the printing of CWS manuals. In order to cut this time, use of the Chemical Warfare School reproduction plant was proposed. This plant was well equipped for offset printing which, under AGO policy, was acceptable for editions of less than 30,000 copies. Since most CWS publications fell within this limit, printing of manuals at the school was quickly authorized. During the remainder of the war practically all CWS pamphlets published for the War Department were reproduced at the school plant. Final drafts of manuscripts were produced by electromatic typing and, upon approval, were thus ready for immediate offset reproduction. The proximity of the publications agency, within a few hundred yards of the reproduction plant, was a
favorable circumstance. The average time of printing a pamphlet was thus reduced to about two weeks.
The deadline set by the ASF for the completion of official publications ceased to apply to technical manuals after November 1943 since the preparation of these publications was now left entirely to the technical services. A very effective deadline nevertheless remained in the War Department requirement that initial shipment of new munitions to overseas theaters be accompanied by appropriate technical instructions.19 There is no record that any new chemical equipment was actually held up in shipment because of delays in providing technical literature, although occasionally frantic efforts had to be made to prevent such a contingency. Manufacturers were asked to prepare, in the format of technical manuals, instructions in the operation, care, and maintenance of equipment they were supplying. This was expected to insure the readiness of printed directions in time to accompany new equipment overseas. Chemical Warfare Service experience revealed that this procedure did not always result in producing a satisfactory substitute for a technical manual prepared by the Tactical Doctrine Branch. For example, the producer of the mechanical smoke generator, M-2, was asked in December 1943 to prepare an instructional pamphlet covering this new equipment for which he had been awarded a contract. The pamphlet was ready in April 1944 but it did not satisfy War Department standards. The manufacturer’s publication was permitted to accompany the first shipments of these new smoke generators; but the CWS undertook to rewrite, reillustrate, and reprint the pamphlet, which was distributed two months later as TM 3-381.
The measures taken to expedite the preparation of publications during the later stages of the war resulted in reducing by at least 50 percent the time requirements for CWS technical publications. In 1945 these were being produced within approximately three months. In view of all the factors involved, this meant that the program was moving at good speed. Yet study of the official publications issued prior to the end of hostilities show that many of them were distributed too late to have had much effect on military operations. This was true, for example, of the excellent TM’s covering mechanized flame throwers; manuals could not be written until weapons were standardized, which in this instance was late in the war.
Although the prewar list of publications was small, it was possible for the individual officer to be acquainted with all manuals relating to chemical
warfare. The mass of material that had been published by the end of the war precluded this—none but the specialist could become familiar with it all. When the war ended it was not easy—nor was it desirable—to cut off the publications program in mid-air. Many manuals were left only partially written; these in most cases were completed, under the theory that it always is much quicker to revise an existing publication than to bring out a first edition. The publications program, in short, had built up a momentum that inevitably carried it to a point well beyond the end of hostilities. How far it was carried by the enthusiasm of the publications specialist beyond the point of cogent need was a question that only the future can determine.