Preface
This is the first of three volumes devoted to the activities of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War II. Part One of the present volume traces the organization and administration of the Chemical Warfare Service from its origins in World War I up through World War II. Part Two deals with training of military personnel for offensive and defensive chemical warfare in the same period.
Even more than other elements of the Army, the Chemical Warfare Service (designated Chemical Corps after World War II) felt the effects of the government’s restrictions on personnel and funds in the years between the two world wars. This was partly the aftermath of international efforts to outlaw gas warfare and partly the result of antipathy to that type of warfare on the part of various high government officials. Certain members of the War Department General Staff, including at times the Chief of Staff himself, were opposed to gas warfare. Consequently the Chemical Warfare Service was considered as more or less a necessary nuisance.
The movement toward general national preparedness that got under way in the late 1930s led to an increase in the stock levels of certain chemical warfare items. Included in 1938 Educational Order legislation providing for a build-up of a limited number of Army items was the gas mask. Later legislation and War Department directives enabled the Chemical Warfare Service to make still further preparations for gas warfare, offensive and defensive. These activities, continued throughout the war years, helped to deter the enemy from initiating gas warfare. During World War II, in addition to discharging its responsibility for gas warfare, the Chemical Warfare Service carried out a number of other chemical warfare missions for which it had little or no preparation in the prewar years. The service was also assigned a biological warfare mission.
Although any of the three volumes on the Chemical Warfare Service can be read as an entity, the first seven chapters of the present work will serve to illuminate the remainder of the CWS story. Against the background provided by Part One, the account of specific functions such as military training (covered in Part Two of this volume), research, procurement, and supply (covered in the second volume), and chemical warfare activities in the oversea theaters of operations (covered in the third volume) will emerge in dearer perspective.
A further word of explanation with regard to Part One may be of assistance to the reader. The aim here is to discuss developments in organization and
administration primarily as they affected the Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, and his immediate staff and secondarily as they affected the commanders of Chemical Warfare Service field installations. Since these developments in almost all instances had their origin at a level higher than that of the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, pertinent background information on policy at the higher level is included.
Dr. Leo P. Brophy is responsible for Part One. He has been assisted in the research and writing on Chapters IV and V by Mr. Herbert G. Wing, formerly of the Historical Staff, Chemical Corps. The late Col. George J. B. Fisher, USA, was primarily responsible for Part Two. Colonel Fisher was taken ill before he was able to complete the research and writing of this portion of the volume. His work was taken up and completed by the staff of the Historical Office. Dr. Brophy wrote the section in Chapter XIII on the training of chemical mortar battalions, and the section in Chapter XVI on the training of the Army in the use of flame, smoke, and incendiaries. Dr. Brooks E. Kleber and Mr. Dale Birdsell assisted in the research of these and other chapters in Part Two.
The authors of this volume were greatly aided in their research by the competent staff of the Departmental Records Branch, Office of The Adjutant General, particularly Mrs. Caroline Moore; by Mr. R. W. Krauskopf of the staff of the National Archives; by Mr. Roger W. Squier, Office of the Comptroller of the Army; and by Mr. Michael D. Wertheimer, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Department of the Army. Mrs. Alice E. Moss supervised the typing of the manuscript.
The authors are indebted to the many veterans of the Chemical Warfare Service who through interviews and otherwise aided them in writing the volume. Among these were several whose assistance was most helpful: Maj. Gen. William N. Porter, Maj. Gen. Alden H. Waitt, Maj. Gen. Charles E. Loucks, Brig. Gen. Henry M. Black, Col. Harry A. Kuhn, Lt. Col. Selig J. Levitan, and Col. Raymond L. Abel.
In the Office of the Chief of Military History, Lt. Col. Leo J. Meyer, Deputy Chief Historian, and his successor, Dr. Stetson Conn, rendered valuable assistance. Final editing was accomplished by Mr. David Jaffe, senior editor, assisted by Mrs. Helen Whittington, copy editor. Mrs. Norma Sherris selected the photographs.
Leo P. Brophy
Washington, D.C.
2 April 1958
United States Army In World War II
Kent Roberts Greenfield, General Editor
Advisory Committee (As of 1 January 1958)
Elmer Ellis, University of Missouri
Samuel Flagg Bemis, Yale University
Gordon A. Craig, Princeton University
Oron J. Hale, University of Virginia
W. Stull Holt, University of Washington
T. Harry Williams, Louisiana State University
Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Newman, U.S. Continental Army Command
Brig. Gen. Edgar C. Doleman, Army War College
Brig. Gen. Frederick R. Zierath, Command and General Staff College
Brig. Gen. Kenneth F. Zitzman, Industrial College of the Armed Forces
Col. Vincent J. Esposito, United States Military Academy
Office of the Chief of Military History
Maj. Gen. Richard W. Stephens, Chief
Chief Historian, Kent Roberts Greenfield
Chief, Histories Division, Col. Seneca W. Foote
Chief, Editorial and Publication Division, Lt. Col. E. E. Steck
Editor in Chief, Joseph R. Friedman
Chief, Cartographic Branch, Elliot Dunay
Chief, Photographic Branch, Margaret E. Tackley