Chapter 14: The Chemical Warfare School
The role of the Chemical Warfare School, like that of all service schools, was to present essential instruction which could not be given advantageously within units or in local schools. The World War II military directive governing the school divided such instruction into two clearly defined categories: (1) the training of CWS personnel for branch duties, and (2) the instruction of “officers of other arms and services of Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in tactics and technique of chemical warfare and in protection against chemical attack.1
The importance of the Chemical Warfare School training of branch personnel was emphasized by the fact that chemical officers and enlisted men were, with few exceptions, widely scattered in such small elements as to preclude effective general training at local levels. Excellent schools were conducted at Camp Sibert and at the several CWS arsenals, yet this instruction was for the most part directly related to tasks immediately at hand. It remained for the Edgewood school to attend to the broader aspects of the individual’s military education.
Before the war the Chemical Warfare School had not been actively engaged in the training of CWS personnel as such. As a result, when full mobilization began, the school had not developed and tested a series of courses for this purpose. More than two years elapsed after the declaration of war before a clear-cut solution to the problem of school training of CWS officers was reached. Meanwhile, many courses were instituted, employed for a time, and then discontinued. In this respect the experience of the Chemical Warfare School paralleled that of the newly established ground forces schools which, in contrast to the older schools of the statutory branches, offered a diversity of special courses.
Administration
After the Army reorganization of March 1942, administrative control
of technical branch schools passed from the General Staff to the Army Service Forces. Under long-standing procedure, direct operational control of these schools was in the hands of the chiefs of branches. This arrangement continued under the provisions of a regulation which exempted the Chemical Warfare School, among others, from corps area supervision and control.2 When the service command organization was instituted in July 1942, the ASF adopted the policy of decentralizing all training, including school training, to those commands, and accordingly directed that the CW School be conducted under the immediate supervision of the Commanding General, Third Service Command.3 Because of the technical nature of the instruction, the CWS contended that this procedure was not feasible. The matter eventually was clarified in May 1943, when the Chemical Warfare School was designated a Class IV installation.4 For the remainder of the war period the school was operated by the Chief, CWS, for the Commanding General, ASF.
For a few months early in 1942 the school fell under local jurisdiction of the Troops and Training Department of the Chemical Warfare Center.5 Also included in this department were the Replacement Training Center, Officers Replacement Pool, and the growing number of chemical troop units stationed at the center. This organizational device permitted all military administration and training to be centralized under the command of a single officer (brigadier general).
At this time, as for years past, the Edgewood Arsenal commander was ex officio commandant of the Chemical Warfare School. It was, accordingly, customary for the assistant commandant to command the school directly and to delegate to the school executive the academic functions which would normally be performed by the assistant commandant. This awkward procedure was relieved in September 1942 when the functions of the school commandant were in effect separated from those of the arsenal commander.6 In October Brig. Gen. Alexander Wilson became the school commandant, occupying that position until April 1944. The following month, Col. Maurice E. Barker was returned from combat duty in Italy for assignment to the school where he served as commandant until after the end of the war.
The main building of the Chemical Warfare School, reconstruction of which was completed early in 1942, housed the offices of the commandant and his staff as well as the Commissioned Officer Division of the school. Officer candidate instruction centered at first in temporary buildings located near the school proper. This arrangement served for the first six classes; but rapid expansion thereafter necessitated transfer to the troop area, by the summer of 1942, of all OCS training activities. A similar sequence occurred in connection with the schooling of enlisted personnel. This training was negligible during 1941, except for seven small classes of Coast Guard ratings whose instruction proceeded without difficulty in the main school area. The increasing number of enlisted classes conducted in 1942 compelled the CW School to transfer this training to the troop area of the arsenal close to where the students were housed. With the transfer of classroom and field training of both officer candidates and enlisted personnel to the troop area (a distance of approximately two miles from the main school building) the commandant reorganized the school into three academic divisions, namely, Officers, Officer Candidate, and Enlisted.
The development of training facilities for the several divisions of the school was always hampered by the space limitations of the Edgewood Arsenal reservation. Lower Gunpowder Neck contained a number of fairly adequate fields, but competition for them was keen, and use by the school was strictly limited. The school was therefore obliged to locate some new training areas, generally in sections not already pre-empted by research and development or proving ground activities. The gas obstacle course was an outstanding example of the type of training facility designed and constructed by the school for its use during the war. Another was the incendiary training area, in the northeast section of the reservation, where were staged realistic night demonstrations of the employment of incendiary munitions. For group instruction, bleachers were provided near field exercise areas. Indoor classrooms for officer training were adequate; eventually these were also provided in sufficient number to meet the needs of officer candidate and enlisted classes. The school operated a well-equipped reproduction plant, insuring an ample supply of instructional materials and training aids. In spite of space limitations, the school’s location at the Chemical Warfare Center was never a critical handicap—in fact in some respects the site was ideal. Yet certainly the accomplishment of the school’s mission would have been facilitated if the school could have had more complete control of its operational areas.
The authorized capacity of the Officers Division of the school, which
originally provided for 50 students, increased first to 200 and then to 500 in 1942 and again to 600 in 1943. A year later, the capacity fell to 500, and on 5 February 1945 this figure dropped to 400. The capacity for enlisted students in 1942 was 200.7 These maximum capacity quotas were of value in stabilizing staff and faculty levels and school facilities. Because of wide variation in the duration of school courses, capacity maximums bore little relation to the volume of school training. For example, during the fiscal year 1943 the school graduated 6,699 students, excluding officers candidates, although the authorized officers’ and enlisted capacity during this period was no more than 800.
Training of CWS Personnel
The two courses unquestionably needed for the general training of CWS officers were the Basic Course and the Advanced Course. The first was an introductory course for junior officers. The second was a refresher course for older officers, partially as qualification for admission to the Command and General Staff School and partially in preparation for assignment to field grade duties in the Chemical Warfare Service. Ideal training management anticipated that all newly commissioned officers would attend the Basic Course and that a proportion of these officers would later return to the school for the Advanced Course. This objective, in time, was partially realized as far as troop officers were concerned. In the case of officers commissioned from civilian life for technical or procurement duty such progressive training was by no means general.
A basic course had been included in the school’s curriculum for many years. At the Chemical Warfare School, the term “basic” was traditionally associated with the training of the unit gas officers of the combat arms. It was not until January 1942 that the first class for the basic training of CWS officers was assembled. The course, then of four-week duration, was intended to provide introductory training for officers newly called to active service, something the school had been recommending for more than a year. By then there were many CWS officers on active duty who had not been given basic training. Detaching these officers to attend school at that stage was a difficult problem. In recognition of this fact, a distinction was made in the original Basic Course between general and field training, the latter being concentrated in the separate Troop Officers Course. Officers graduating from
the Basic Course who were on technical or procurement duty returned to their stations, while officers slated for tactical assignment remained at the school another four weeks for additional training in chemical tactics and field operations.
Although this integrated scheme of basic and troop training appeared logical and despite the fact that these courses were spirited and well conducted, actually fewer than 300 officers attended the Basic Course during the first half of 1942, while only 183 graduated from the Troop Officers Course. Clearly, little progress was being made toward meeting the mounting accumulation of officer training problems.
In midsummer 1942 the scheme of separate basic and troop courses was dropped, and a Combined Basic and Troop Course instituted. The consolidated course as finally approved provided for six weeks of instruction, a change which meant a lessening by 25 percent of the total length of the two replaced courses. During the first three weeks of the Basic Troop Course all students received identical instruction; for the remainder of the course, the classes were divided into two groups: (1) troop section and (2) non-troop section. Here a clear distinction was made between the tactical and the nontactical functions of the Chemical Warfare Service. The nontroop section was trained during the second half of the course in such subjects as principles of procurement, manufacture of war gases, and field supply of chemical munitions, areas in which precise knowledge on the part of chemical officers was often lacking.8
Again, as in the case of the separate basic and troop courses, this apparently logical approach to officer training produced disappointingly meager results. Only 375 officers graduated from the four classes conducted during the late summer and fall of 1942. By the end of October, less than 15 percent of the CWS officers on active duty had received formal basic schooling. Nevertheless, the school dropped the Basic and Troop Course in October 1942, and basic training did not reappear on the school agenda until the spring of 1943. Meanwhile two new courses for training CWS officers were introduced. A series of four short refresher classes provided instruction for officers with some field experience to bring them up to date on current progress in chemical warfare tactics and technique. A three-week Command and Staff Course began at the same time with the object of preparing company grade officers for chemical staff duty with tactical units. While the aim
of both courses was the fulfillment of important training requirements, neither course substituted for the Basic and Troop Course which they had replaced on the school program.
The elimination of basic training of chemical officers at the school at this particular time was to some extent a reaction to the increasing output of the CWS Officer Candidate School. The Officer Candidate Course was considered to be in the nature of basic training, so that the Basic Course was, up to this time, intended primarily for non-OCS-graduates. By the spring of 1943 it was becoming evident that the thirteen-week OCS Course was not turning out an adequately rounded officer—nor was it in fact intended to. The function of the Officer Candidate School was to transmute a soldier into a subaltern who, either by experience or further training, would eventually develop the special know-how needed in the work of a commissioned officer. Yet opportunities to learn by experience were relatively few in the case of the CWS subaltern, and OCS graduates were beginning to draw assignments for which they were inadequately prepared. The answer was to be found in additional training for these young officers.
One place where need for such training was apparent was in connection with OCS graduates slated for duty with Army Air Forces. Special instruction to qualify for air duty had been undertaken in a few OCS classes but it was impossible to cover this field adequately during officer candidate training. A better answer was the Air Forces Chemical Course, designed specifically to acquaint CWS officers with the problems they would encounter in service with air commands. This course was approved in February 1943; nineteen classes, graduating 1,022 students, were held during the next two years.
In line with the trend toward further training of OCS graduates, a revised Basic Course was returned to the school program in April 1943.9 Patterned after the Basic and Troop Course of 1942, it accommodated both OCS graduates and junior officers. By eliminating repetition of work covered in the OCS program, the new Basic Course was held to a four-week cycle. The classes assigned to this course were divided into two sections—service and troop. A common schedule prevailed during the first two weeks, after which each section followed its own schedule. The emphasis throughout was tactical, the troop section specializing in chemical weapons and the service section in field logistics. The theory behind the 1943 Basic Course was sound, but not enough training hours were allotted for the amount of ground to be covered.
Resumption of the mobilization of chemical battalions in May 1943 permitted the school to contribute more directly to the training of battalion officers than had been possible when the first series of battalions was organized a year earlier. A four-week Battalion Officers’ Course, inaugurated in the summer of 1943, focused instruction on the functions of mortar company officers. The intent was to coordinate classes with the activation of specific battalions, with the designated battalion commander acting as class commander and thus acquainting himself in advance with the officers who were to be assigned to his unit.10 Although it was not possible to follow this plan exactly for all classes, the establishment of the Battalion Officers’ Course did provide an excellent solution to the requirement for qualified CWS officers for the new battalions. Between the summer of 1943 and the summer of 1944 eleven classes, totaling 1,229 students, were graduated.
Conclusion of the series of battalion officers classes in the summer of 1944 coincided with the inauguration of a new course designated as the Combat and Service Course.11 This supplanted the Basic Course referred to above, and also, in time, the Air Chemical Course. The Combat and Service Course represented the accumulated experience, both at the school and in the field, of two and a half years in the basic school training of younger CWS officers. It extended the range of instruction from the four weeks then allotted to the Basic Course, to a new high of ten weeks. It was frankly designed as an extension of the Officer Candidate Course, graduates of which were, if possible, immediately assigned to the Combat and Service Course. Upon completion of the latter, company grade officers were presumably qualified for duty with both combat and service units, with field supply installations, or for assignment to junior staff positions in the Chemical Warfare Service.
Compared to the training of junior officers, the school instruction of field grade officers was relatively stabilized. The Advanced Course was not initiated until April 1943, but thereafter it was conducted continuously and with little change. Duration was four weeks. Probably the most important accomplishment of this course was the preparation of CWS officers to pursue the Command and General Staff School courses at Fort Leavenworth. By midsummer 1945, the Advanced Course had graduated 544 students in 22 classes.
Although the number of chemical officers who received general training
at the Chemical Warfare School was relatively small, the school training of CWS enlisted men was on a still more modest scale. A total of twenty enlisted courses were presented during the war, yet only one was designed for the general training of chemical noncommissioned officers.12 Early in 1942 a four-week CWS Enlisted Men’s Course was approved. This course intended for instruction of senior NCO’s who were assigned to staff sections of major tactical units and who needed a broader knowledge of CWS procedures than could be obtained in local training. The course program included chemical matériel, tactics, and technique; training; military administration; and clerical subjects. Seven classes were conducted, each averaging seventy students, the last class terminating 28 November 1942. Since students were drawn from a wide cross section of military organizations, the influence of this training was greater than is suggested by the relatively small numbers involved.
Of the specialist courses for enlisted men, only two were integrated with chemical unit training. The seven-week Laboratory Course was highly technical; officers as well as enlisted men were trained for duty with chemical laboratory companies. The Special Mortar Operations Course trained small groups of enlisted specialists for assignment to the chemical battalions mobilized in 1943 and 1944. The remainder of the enlisted courses conducted at the Chemical Warfare School were primarily for the instruction of those outside the Chemical Warfare Service.
Training of Other Arms and Services
At least one out of every three commissioned officers trained at the Chemical Warfare School came from another arm or service. The number of students from naval components was greater than the total sent by either the Army Ground Forces or the Army Air Forces. In the enlisted classes, outside students definitely outnumbered those from the Chemical Warfare Service.
Training of students from other branches was essentially specialist train-ing—instruction in some technical phase of protection against gas attack, in the handling of chemical agents in bulk, in the operation of flame throwers, or in the duties of unit gas personnel. Some of the specialist training and the training of unit gas officers and noncommissioned officers was, by prewar concepts, a local training responsibility and not one to be
undertaken at the special service school level. But this training developed during World War II into a major activity of the Chemical Warfare School. School administrators regarded the Chemical Warfare Center as the best place for this training for two reasons. The first was the authoritative instruction available at the Chemical Warfare School. The second was psychological in nature. Since gas had not been used, field interest in gas defense training had declined; nevertheless both the War and Navy Departments, in the light of their information on the possibility of gas warfare, insisted upon maintenance of high standards of gas discipline. Unit gas defense training was therefore given added prestige by the elevation of instructor training to the specialist school level. And the more thorough training available at that level imbued potential unit instructors with an attitude of realism toward poison gas which was favorably reflected in gas discipline.
Despite the advantages which the Chemical Warfare School offered, outside agencies depended less and less on the school as the war period lengthened. Indications of this development are the action of Army Air Forces in setting up an air chemical school at Barksdale Field, La. (later transferred to Buckley Field, Colo.), and the establishment of the naval chemical warfare school at Dugway Proving Ground. These schools were closer to the technical viewpoints of their arms than was the Chemical Warfare School.13
The Unit Gas Officers (UGO) Course was the most active wartime officers course at the Chemical Warfare School, both in number of classes and in students graduated. This course had been developed and improved over a long period of time. Originally one class was conducted each year. The biweekly scheduling of the class, which began early in 1941, was the first tangible step taken at the Chemical Warfare School in the transition from peace to war. Thereafter and until the end of hostilities, UGO classes were conducted almost continuously at the school. The course thus provided a direct link between the school’s prewar and its wartime training operations. Although it improved with successive presentations, there was little change in the content of the course.
In the fall of 1942, a sixty-hour course of instruction was outlined for training unit gas officers in unit or local schools.14 This course was generally followed in training at division or corps levels. The 60 hours of instruction
was in contrast to the 176 hours, or 4 weeks of resident instruction, in the Chemical Warfare School course. The following tabulation of training hours allotted to the several subjects indicates the differences between the two courses:
| Local UCO Course | CW School Course | |
| Total hours | 60 | 176 |
| Agents | 9 | 15 |
| Matériel | 6 | 23 |
| Operations | 8 | 34 |
| Protection | 22 | 64 |
| Training | 8 | 16 |
| Weather | 3 | 10 |
| General subjects | 4 | 14 |
In all, the Chemical Warfare School conducted 45 Unit Gas Officers classes between February 1941 and August 1945 from which 3,025 students were graduated. The school organized separate classes for air and ground force trainees whenever the student load justified it. Because of the comprehensive degree of instruction presented at Edgewood Arsenal, the graduate of the Chemical Warfare School course, besides emerging as an exceptionally well-trained unit gas officer, was also qualified to conduct varied chemical warfare training in regiments and battalions.
Paralleling the UGO Course was one for the training of enlisted personnel in specialized duties relating to gas defense in regiments and subordinate units. This training began at the Chemical Warfare School with the institution of the Noncommissioned Officers Staff Course in November 1942. The staff course supplanted the Enlisted Men’s Course for CWS personnel already mentioned; it actually was aimed at two separate instructional targets—training of CWS enlisted staff personnel and training of gas NCO’s. The NCO Staff Course was never altogether satisfactory and was soon replaced by the Gas Noncommissioned Officers Course, the first class of the latter series commencing 13 April 1943. No attempt was made to train CWS personnel as such in the latter four-week course, although where classes included sizable numbers of chemical enlisted men, these students were occasionally kept at the school for a fifth week to receive special branch instruction. Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard enlisted men came to Edgewood in considerable numbers to attend the Gas NCO Course and in some cases they were grouped into special classes which emphasized naval aspects of gas protection. The school continued gas NCO classes without interruption
until after the cessation of hostilities. These represented the most important training activity of the Enlisted Division of the Chemical Warfare School. By the end of the war 50 classes were held, and 4,086 students graduated from the Gas NCO Course.
Allied to the unit gas course, but much more technical in nature, was the Medical Officers Course. Military physicians had studied the medical aspects of chemical warfare exhaustively through the 1920s and 1930s. When war began the Medical Department was, from the standpoint of scientific data, well prepared to cope with the special problems of gas warfare. But professional knowledge on this subject was by no means general, since medical practice provided little experience to guide physicians in the diagnosis and prognosis of gas casualties. Yet, an understanding of the proper treatment of such cases promised unusually good dividends in terms of lessened fatalities and early recoveries.
The Surgeon General of the Army requested, during the summer of 1942, that a course be conducted at the Chemical Warfare School for the instruction of medical officers in the therapy of gassed casualties. The War Department quickly approved the proposal and the first class began 7 September 1942. Originally a four-week course, the time was cut to two weeks after seven classes graduated. This reduction was found to be too drastic, so that the course was finally stabilized at three weeks, a period which proved to be a satisfactory compromise between the amount of material to be taught and the time which the officer students could be spared from field assignments.
The Medical Officers Course was a joint CWS-Medical Corps project. Staff instructors taught such subjects as chemical agents, operations, matériel, and protection, where these involved medical aspects. Experienced physicians presented from the school platform all professional medical subject dealing with gas casualties, e.g., physiopathology, symptoms, treatment, and medical service. The splendid facilities of the medical research laboratory at the Chemical Warfare Center were an important factor in this instructional program. Twenty-seven medical officers’ classes were held and 1,973 trainees graduated. These scientifically trained physicians, who eventually became scattered through all elements of the armed forces, represented an important feature of the over-all scheme for defense against enemy gas attack.
The Navy steadily used the Chemical Warfare School facilities throughout the entire war period. Notable in this connection was a consistent trend to widen the scope of instruction and to increase the number of naval students. The naval detachment at Edgewood Arsenal was greatly ex-
panded during the war years, partially in order to facilitate this training. The naval detachment was headed by Captain Michael A. Leahy, USN, Retired, an officer of broad experience whose knowledge of naval procedures and personalities was invaluable to the school.
There were three all-Navy courses of instruction at the Chemical Warfare School when the war ended.15 The most important of these was the four-week Navy and Coast Guard Officers Course. This was an outgrowth of the semiannual Navy Course which had been a regular feature of the curriculum for many years prior to the war. It stressed defense of Navy and Coast Guard units and shore stations against chemical attack, the offensive use of chemical weapons by naval forces, and the training of instructors in this field. As finally developed, this course consolidated separate courses which had previously been presented to Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers.
The Navy Gas Officers and the Navy Gas Enlisted Courses, each of six days’ duration, were not comprehensive. These short courses were limited to technical training in protection against war gases, with particular attention to naval protective matériel and protective measures and decontamination procedures afloat. Where more extended instruction of this type was desirable for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard enlisted personnel, the students were assigned to the NCO Course after April 1943 instead of the special four-week classes.
Other Navy instruction included a series of eleven classes conducted in 1942 for training of petty officers in gas mask repair and a Navy Toxic Gas Handlers Course instituted early in 1943 to permit the practical training of both officers and enlisted men in handling bulk chemicals. The latter was eventually consolidated with the Toxic Gas Handlers Course which provided three weeks of training in this special technique for both Army and Navy students. In all of this work at the Chemical Warfare School, the object of naval instruction was to complement and further the Navy’s own extensive training program in the field of chemical warfare.
Like the training of Navy personnel, the instruction at the Chemical Warfare School for the Army Air Forces had roots extending into the prewar era. The training of unit gas officers for duty with AAF commands was accomplished principally through the fifteen special UGO (Aviation) classes conducted between January 1941 and February 1943. Through this program, the AAF was able to implement its widespread scheme of training
in defense against enemy gas attack. After the conclusion of this series, the diminishing number of AAF students were included in the regular UGO classes. The instruction of air enlisted personnel was limited to the training of gas NCO’s.
Academic Procedures
Variations in the size of classes at the Chemical Warfare School presented a continuing problem in training management. Difficulties arose especially from fluctuations in student enrollments for succeeding classes of the same course. The range of these fluctuations in some cases was great, as is indicated by the following figures:
| Course | High | Low |
| Unit Gas Officers | 171 | 21 |
| Unit Gas Officers (Aviation) | 275 | 38 |
| Unit Gas NCO | 105 | 27 |
| Combined Basic and Troop Officer | 140 | 65 |
| Air Forces Chemical | 111 | 18 |
One reason for such variations in the size of classes stemmed from the general policy of leaving service school training optional with units. Where schooling was undertaken at the specific request of an agency competent to select and order students to Edgewood, classes were generally uniform in size. This was true, for example, of the Medical Officers Course and of the Navy and Coast Guard Course. On the other hand, when school quotas were distributed subject to acceptance by local commanders, fluctuations were inevitable. Certainly, where the training of unit gas personnel was concerned, only the unit commander could decide whether attendance at a special service school was necessary, a situation which of course made almost impossible an even flow of students.
Prewar academic procedures at the Chemical Warfare School had been adjusted to classes of approximately fifty students. For most indoor instruction, groups much in excess of this number presented a problem because of classroom limitations. Consequently it was often necessary to divide large classes into two or even three sections for classroom work, with the sections uniting for outdoor exercise.
Teaching procedures followed the War Department policy and the school developed a library of lesson plans to implement that policy.16 These
plans as well as the actual methods of instruction were constantly subject to review and appraisal by the various Army inspectors. The library of lesson plans developed by the school faculty to supply this policy was a major factor in enabling the school to expand its training operations rapidly after the declaration of war.
A criticism repeatedly directed at the school by officers conducting formal inspections of training was against excessive use of the lecture method in the explanation phase of instruction. This practice was gradually discontinued until instructors, probably to too great an extent, were avoiding the use of this useful teaching method. The officially approved conference method of explanation, involving active student participation, was difficult to apply in large classes and was scarcely effective for some types of school instruction. The trend of training procedure was definitely away from the academic and toward more out-of-door work involving demonstrations and group performance of practical problems, even though individual preparation for such exercises was not always perfect. Toward the end of the war an average of 60 percent of a normal fifty-hour training week consisted of outdoor instruction.
Inspectors noted a lack of uniform supervisory control in all academic divisions during the period of transition of the school into a three dimensional institution. This situation was probably a consequence of the fact that the rapid expansion of school capacity, though inevitable, was late. In the rush to develop instructors, the creation of an appropriate supervisory staff was neglected; yet, such a staff was necessary to insure the extension to other divisions of the excellent instructional methods which the Officers Division of the school had developed. The condition improved with time although the instructional standards of the Enlisted Division never seemed to equal those of the other two divisions.
The building block of each course of instruction was the lesson. A group of lessons composed a subcourse. A group of subcourses in turn constituted a course.
Lesson planning required, first, a decision as to the scope of the single lesson within the pattern of the subcourse. The next step was to determine the method best suited to that particular unit of the instructional process—lecture, conference, demonstration, or field problem. In the lesson plan such miscellaneous notes as text references, location of exercise, training aids required, and other data useful to succeeding instructors could then be included.
Course planning involved a synthesis of subcourses, each modified to
conform to the objective and scope of the particular course. The subcourses included in the curriculum of the Chemical Warfare School were essentially seven: Agents, Protection, Matériel, Field Operations, Training, Weather, and General Subjects. These subcourses had been taught at the school for many years. Occasionally it was necessary to stretch the meaning of words to accommodate all wartime schooling within this pattern of subcourses although on the whole it served well enough.
The examination step of the instructional procedure was informal when applied to the separate lesson but formal when applied to the subcourse. The questioning of individual students from the platform was principally an interest-sustaining device. Informal quizzes were useful in evaluating instructional procedures as well as the student’s progress. Graded problems were also considered in rating the individual. The formal written examination was generally used to determine how well the student had assimilated the instruction pertaining to each subcourse—it was the criterion for graduation.
The Faculty Board met before the graduation of each class to consider the work of individual students. The board included the commandant or assistant commandant, director of the appropriate academic division, the course director, the instructors principally concerned, and the school secretary. Frequently the board was expected to assay the qualifications of CWS officers for particular types of duty or for more extended military training, in addition to determining their elegibility for graduation. When records indicated an average of seventy or above on written work, if the student was otherwise qualified, he was voted a certificate of satisfactory completion of the course. If work in any one subcourse fell below the required standard and the work could not be made up, this subcourse was red-lined from the certificate. When there was a failure in more than one subcourse, the Faculty Board determined whether under Army Regulations the student should be graduated or not.17 This procedure applied both to the Officers Division, where failures were 3.5 percent of all enrollees, and to the Enlisted Division, where failures averaged 3 percent.18
Western Chemical Warfare School
The West Coast Chemical Warfare School, as indicated, was established at Camp Beale, Calif., in December 1943 and was transferred to Rocky
Mountain Arsenal in May 1944.19 Before the school opened, instructors were chosen from among former members of the faculty of the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood and the recently deactivated War Department Civilian Protection Schools at Seattle, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles.20 It was fortunate that the CWS had access to competent instructors, for the press of administrative duties accompanying the opening of the new school left little time for close supervision of teachers.21 The authorized courses were:
Unit Gas Officers (4 weeks) : Identical with the course standardized at Edgewood Arsenal.
Gas Noncommissioned Officers (4 weeks): Same course as given at Edgewood Arsenal.
Navy Gas Course (Officers) (6 days) : Defense of naval forces and shore stations against gas attack; offensive use of chemicals by naval forces.
Navy Gas Course (Enlisted) (3 days) : Special duties involved in protection of naval units and stations against gas attack.22
CWS Refresher (10 days) : To provide a knowledge of recent developments in chemical warfare and to review the principles of defense against gas attack; intended primarily for instruction of CW-trained company grade officers.
CWS Familiarization (10 days) : To demonstrate to field and general officers other than CWS the potentialities of chemical warfare in the Pacific Ocean areas.
Air Raid Protection (6 days) : Air raid protection measures applicable to military installations and coordinated with civilian protection agencies.23
The last three courses were obviously of a precautionary nature to be given only under circumstances which fortunately failed to materialize. The remaining courses, two for Army and two for Navy personnel, represented the real working activities of the school. The orientation of this instruction was definitely toward the war against Japan.
Academic procedures at the western school were identical with those developed and practiced at the Chemical Warfare School. The original corps of instructors were all products of the older school, and relieving officers
were generally veterans of the Pacific theaters. Eventually, much of the training was in the hands of instructors with combat experience. The total number of graduates at Camp Beale and Rocky Mountain was as follows:24
| Officers | Enlisted students | |
| Total | 1,101 | 1,571 |
| Army | 375 | 851 |
| Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard | 725 | 712 |
| WAC | 1 | 5 |
Careful plans were made at the Western Chemical Warfare School in connection with the redeployment training projected for the final struggle with Japan. Fortunately, it was possible to discard these plans when the enemy capitulated in August 1945, and the school was inactivated in September 1945.25
The Western Chemical Warfare School was an experiment in preparedness which would have paid appreciable dividends had operations in the final stages of World War II taken a different turn. As it was, experience in the conduct of this school demonstrated that, given a nice combination of facilities, training know-how, and proper direction, a gratifying satisfactory end product of instruction will result. The school was small and its immediate training objectives were modest; yet the success with which it accomplished its mission indicated that, if necessary, it could easily have undertaken a more ambitious program.
Other Schools
As the war progressed, the CWS gained fresh knowledge on the performance of gas agents under a variety of climatic conditions and means of dispersion, based on scientific data accumulated in tests at chemical warfare experiment stations in Florida, Panama, and Utah. This development and testing work necessitated some review of logistical data and, equally important, some retraining of personnel. The empirical nature of some of the data was such that the CWS cautiously considered the radical revision of its whole training position in the field of offensive gas warfare. Nevertheless, the War Department was convinced that the new information must be passed on to officers assigned to drawing up gas warfare plans.
In September 1943, a group of four Navy officers was sent to Dugway
Proving Ground (Tooele, Utah) to study field trials in progress at that station in order to work up instructional material on offensive gas warfare for use within the Navy. Its work gradually expanded until, in November 1943, the group was officially designated as the “U.S. Navy Chemical Warfare Training Unit,” with responsibility to the Navy for research and training in offensive chemical warfare. This unit had two principal functions: (1) preparation of training literature, including films, and (2) conduct of a school for the training of Navy aerologists. By agreement with the War Department, the Navy conducted this training at Dugway Proving Ground.
The emphasis in this training was originally on micrometeorology—that is, weather conditions at or within a few feet of the earth’s surface, the area in which the antipersonnel effectiveness of gas warfare is ultimately measured. The excellence of Navy instruction in this field soon attracted the attention of the Army Air Forces, the military agency primarily concerned with meteorology. At War Department request, the Navy gladly accepted air officers as students in these classes.
The Navy Chemical Warfare Training Unit was soon pioneering in a hitherto somewhat neglected field of scientific study, the behavior of chemical agents in the “micromet” zone. It was also utilizing quite advanced CWS test data, some of which were still experimental, in its teaching. After observing the progress of this instruction, the Chief, CWS, requested and the Navy agreed to institute a micrometeorology course for CWS Officers. Seven such classes were conducted at irregular periods between October 1944 and September 1945, each running for two weeks. The objective of the course was officially stated as being to train chemical officers in the planning of gas offensive operations, with full cognizance of micro-meteorological conditions. A total of 186 officers received this training. The instructional material developed in this course was, after the cessation of hostilities, transferred to the curriculum of the Chemical Warfare School.
Because of apprehension during the latter stages of the war over the possibility of enemy employment of biological agents, the War Department decided in 1944 to improve its defensive position in this field. One measure was the inauguration of a two-week course of instruction in technical measures of defense against biological attack. This training was computed by the CWS at Camp Detrick, Md. Five classes were held between February and July 1944, the attendance being limited to senior and specially qualified chemical and medical officers and their naval counterparts. The assignment of graduates to theaters of operation was a means of insuring that chemical and medical officers could be properly coached in anti-BW procedures
should a need to apply them arise. A total of 217 officers was graduated from this course.26
Accomplishment of School Training
The training accomplishments of the Chemical Warfare schools can be summarized in the record of 21,673 graduations from the Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood during the emergency and war periods (Table 15),
Table 15: Graduates of the Chemical Warfare School, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland*
| Date | Army (CWS and service) | Army (ground combat) | Army (Air) | Navy | Marine | Coast Guard | WAC | All warrant officers | |||||||
| Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | Off | Enl | ||
| Total | 8,806 | 3,622 | 1,953 | 1,450 | 1,001 | 507 | 1,572 | 596 | 378 | 711 | 134 | 779 | 41 | 51 | 72 |
| Jul–Dec 1939 | 35 | 0 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan–Jun 1940 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Jul–Dec 1940 | 13 | 120 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 53 | 27 | 2 | 0 | 24 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan–Jun 1941 | 146 | 58 | 232 | 0 | 105 | 0 | 48 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 91 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Jul–Dec 1941 | 218 | 25 | 373 | 0 | 69 | 0 | 49 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Jan–Jun 1942 | 437 | 72 | 121 | 0 | 98 | 0 | 68 | 83 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 150 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Jul–Dec 1942 | 1,494 | 410 | 139 | 12 | 196 | 4 | 177 | 24 | 13 | 115 | 25 | 111 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Jan–Jun 1943 | 1,706 | 830 | 130 | 232 | 361 | 119 | 150 | 55 | 61 | 155 | 52 | 106 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| Jul–Dec 1943 | 1,759 | 822 | 249 | 226 | 56 | 87 | 265 | 67 | 131 | 214 | 30 | 266 | 28 | 25 | 26 |
| Jan–Jun 1944 | 1,475 | 527 | 214 | 245 | 51 | 200 | 280 | 194 | 84 | 195 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 9 |
| Jul–Dec 1944 | 934 | 460 | 241 | 428 | 45 | 88 | 275 | 103 | 49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 7 |
| Jan–Jun 1945 | 549 | 298 | 141 | 307 | 20 | 9 | 126 | 33 | 23 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 |
* Exclusive of OCS Graduates.
Source: Chemical Corps School records.
2,672 graduations from the Western Chemical Warfare School, 388 from the course at Dugway Proving Ground, and 217 from the course at Camp Detrick.
Besides the graduation of students, the development of courses represented a major school accomplishment. Forty-six titles designated the various courses presented at the Edgewood and Dugway schools between 1941 and 1945. Some of these courses met only a short-term training requirement. Others were eventually modified or merged under new titles. There
still remained during the last months of the war the following approved courses:27
Chemical Warfare Combat and Service (10 weeks) : For basic training of junior CWS officers.
Advanced (5 weeks) : For training captains and field grade officers in chemical operations, staff procedures, and supply functions.
Air Forces Chemical (4 weeks) : To qualify CWS officers to perform the duties of chemical officers with the AAF.
ASF Depot, Phase II (4 weeks) : For training CWS officers in supply, depot, and toxic gas yard operations supplementing the ASF Depot Course (Phase I), conducted at the Quartermaster School.
CWS Laboratory (7 weeks) : To train CWS officers and enlisted men to carry out technical functions of field laboratory companies.
Toxic Gas Handlers (Officers) (3 weeks) : To train officers in all phases of handling offensive chemical warfare munitions, naval matériel, and bulk agents.
Medical Department Officers (3 weeks) : To train medical officers in the identification of chemical warfare agents, decontamination, and the prevention and care of chemical warfare casualties.
Unit Gas Officers (4 weeks) : To train AGF, AAF, and ASF officers other than CWS in the duties of unit gas officers.
Flame Thrower (2 weeks) : To qualify officers and enlisted men to instruct in and supervise the operation and maintenance of flame throwers.
Navy and Coast Guard (4 weeks) : To give Naval and Coast Guard officers practical and theoretical training in chemical warfare.
Navy Gas (Officer) (6 days) : To train Naval officers in methods and recent developments in protection against chemical agents.
CWS Refresher (10 days) : A stand-by course for quick retraining of CWS officers upon commencement of gas warfare.
CWS Familiarization (10 days) : To demonstrate to ranking officers the potentialities of offensive chemical warfare; a stand-by course to be given in the event of gas warfare.
CWS Officer Candidate (17 weeks) : To qualify candidates for commission as second lieutenants, AUS, for duty in the CWS.
Gas Noncommissioned Officers (4 weeks) : To qualify members of AGF, AAF, ASF, and of Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and WAC, to fulfill duties of gas NCO’s in their units.
Navy Gas (EM) (6 days) : To train Navy enlisted personnel in duties relative to defense of naval units and shore stations against chemical attack.
Toxic Gas Handlers (2 weeks) : To train military and naval service enlisted personnel in the efficient and safe handling of toxic chemicals.
In view of the fact that MTP specialist schooling was offered elsewhere, the number of Chemical Warfare School courses conducted during the war was large, if not excessive, for a school of this size. The diversity of background represented by the students was greater than that found in any other special service school. Since the training facilities of the school were placed so generally at the disposal of agencies outside Army Service Forces control, little was done to regulate the flow of students; consequently, the training load could seldom be anticipated precisely. These factors all combined to make operation of the Chemical Warfare School a challenging and rewarding undertaking.
Although most CWS officers who filled tactical assignments during the war received some training at the Chemical Warfare School, those officers whose principal wartime duties were performed at CWS installations were in many cases not so fortunate. At best, the school training of CWS personnel was spotty.
The primary reason why training of CWS officers was not begun earlier and why it was not given to more individuals was the lack of understanding, both on the part of the school and the Training Division in the Chief’s Office, of the true training mission of the CWS. The early school administration lacked a comprehensive view of the over-all functions of the Chemical Warfare Service. Because of the school’s preoccupation with the tactics and technique of chemical warfare and with gas defense instruction, it was inclined to overlook the fact that the CWS was primarily a technical and supply branch. It therefore failed to move aggressively in extending school training into the fields of procurement, supply, and related activities; and its faculty was always short of instructors well-grounded in such subjects.
The Chief’s Office to a considerable extent shared the school’s predilection for tactical rather than logistical instruction. At least, it was slow in correcting or compensating for this obvious tendency on the part of the school. It was tardy in presenting to other agencies of the Chemical Warfare Service the importance of school training in facilitating the nontactical functions of the branch. Because of the late date at which the training of CWS personnel was actively undertaken at the school, it was difficult if not impossible to recover the ground that had been lost during the period of partial mobilization. Responsibility for this situation rested more with the
OC CWS than with the school. The essential job of the school was to teach the students who were sent to it, according to programs of instruction approved by higher authority; it had no responsibility for the selection of students and it was only partially involved in the initiation of new courses.
A greater degree of prescience in the period when war was foreshadowed undoubtedly would have simplified the wartime operations of the Chemical Warfare School and provided for increased effectiveness. These operations proved to be much more extensive than had been considered likely for a major war in which toxic chemical agents were not employed. At the same time the development of the school was not in fullest measure in the direction of meeting the immediate training requirements of the Chemical Warfare Service. What was lacking at the outset was a clear picture of the school as an integral part of the larger undertaking of CWS wartime training, a picture which in fact only developed in complete outline as the war progressed. Consequently, false starts were sometimes made and opportunities were lost which could not be retrieved. The whole record of the school’s wartime accomplishments, however, is impressive, particularly in the field of protection against chemical attack. Here the impetus of its work extended to all elements and echelons of the armed forces.