Bibliographical Note
Research and Development
In the chapters on research and development the author relied on records of the CWS and other branches of the armed forces, on articles, books, and interviews. For the World War I period he used records of the Bureau of Mines which trace the beginnings of chemical warfare in the United States. These documents are in the National Archives. He supplemented this with two series of monographs. The first of these was the fifty-volume Chemical Warfare Monographs prepared by chemists of the Research Division, American University Experiment Station, CWS, in 1919. These volumes are an excellent, detailed account of the work of American scientists in 1917-4918. The second series, about two hundred reports (designated by the letter H) written by commanding officers shortly after the war, give the histories of the various elements of the CWS. Both series of monographs are in the Technical Library, Army Chemical Center, Md. Some of the reports in the latter series of monographs were modified and published in chemical journals from 1919 onward.
For the period between the wars the author relied largely on reports written by chemists, physiologists, engineers, and other scientists, covering projects carried out at Edgewood Arsenal between 1920 and 1940. These reports are filed in the Technical Library where they are designated by the call letters EATR (Edgewood Arsenal Technical Report), EACD (Edgewood Arsenal Chemical Division), MD(EA)MR (Edgewood Arsenal Medical Division Memorandum Report), MRL(EA) (Edgewood Arsenal Medical Research Laboratory), MRD (Medical Research and Development Section), EAL (Edgewood Arsenal Laboratory), EAMD (Edgewood Arsenal Mechanical Division), and ETF (Edgewood Technical File). In addition the author employed articles in the Chemical Warfare Bulletin, a publication which, for three decades, carried articles on all phases of chemical warfare.
The author depended upon a variety of sources for the World War II period. The Technical Library has many reports under the letters DPGMR (Dugway Proving Ground Memorandum Report), TDMR (Technical Division Memorandum Report), MITMR (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Memorandum Report), and other designations that cover research, development, and testing of CWS equipment. Minutes of the Chemical Warfare Technical Committee are a mine of data on any standard item, giving reasons for the development of the item, its good and bad features, and its use. The minutes are on file in the office of the Executive Secretary of the CWTC (now the Chemical Corps Technical Committee), and in the Technical Library. Chemical Warfare Board reports, also filed in the Technical Library, supplied an evaluation of chemical items. The Report of Activities of the Technical Division during World War II, a paper-bound volume written by several CWS officers and issued in 1946, proved useful as a ready reference source. The score of monographs in the series, History of Research and Development of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War II (1 July 1940-31 December 1945), were useful in dealing with the major fields of smoke, mortars, and incendiaries, and with new scientific installations, such as Dugway Proving Ground, the CWS-MIT Development Laboratory, and the CWS-Columbia University Development Laboratory. These R&D monographs, available in the Historical Office, are extremely detailed in their treatment of topics. Histories of CWS installations, activities, and plants, copies of which are in the Historical Office, provided data on pilot plants and production. In the Armed Forces Chemical Journal from 1946 onward there appeared a number of useful articles written by members of the CWS or by contractors.
In tracing the work done by the OSRD (Office of Scientific Research and Development), the NDRC (National Defense Research Committee), and other agencies, the author used published works and unpublished technical reports. The Technical Library contains many OSRD reports on chemical warfare topics. It also has the excellent series of Summary Technical Reports of various NDRC divisions. These reports are in book form, but are not available to the general reader since they are classified. Members of the OSRD published a number of books after the war, including James P. Baxter’s Scientists Against Time and Irvin Stewart’s Organizing Scientific Research for War,
The following documents were helpful in tracing German and Japanese chemical warfare equipment: German Chemical Warfare, World War II, a mimeographed pamphlet issued by the Intelligence Division, CWS,
Headquarters Theater Service Forces, European Theater, in 1945; German Chemical Warfare Materiel, a booklet drawn up by the Intelligence Division, Office of the Chief Chemical Warfare Officer, Headquarters European Theater of Operations; Japanese Chemical Warfare, a book prepared by the Chief Chemical Officer, USASOS, Southwest Pacific Area; Chemical Warfare Intelligence Bulletins; and the Military Intelligence Service’s Tactical and Technical Trends.
In addition to records in the National Archives and other government repositories, to published and unpublished reports, articles and books, the author interviewed members of the Chemical Corps, as well as retired officers and civilians who were in the corps back in the hectic days of World War II. At the time of writing, these interviews were on file in the Chemical Corps Historical Office. Copies will be retired with permanent records of the CWS under file reference 314.7, Interviews and Correspondence File. In the same file are included letters addressed to the Chemical Corps Historical Office.
Procurement and Supply
The procurement and distribution chapters of the volume are based chiefly on official records and reports of the Chemical Warfare Service and higher echelons of the Army and on documents in such private depositories as the Chlorine Institute, New York City, and the Manufacturing Chemists Association, Washington, D.C. Much of this recorded material was supplemented by interviews and correspondence with key participants. There are two published volumes that make reference to CWS procurement and supply activities. These are Benedict Crowell’s, America’s Munitions, 1917–1918 (Washington, 1919), which discusses the World War I period, and a volume entitled The Chemical Warfare Service in World War II: A report of Accomplishments, published in 1948, which devotes a chapter to CWS procurement and supply activities in World War II. The latter volume was prepared by the Historical Office for the Chief of the Chemical Corps and was published by the Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York City, for the Chemical Corps Association.
In addition to Crowell’s account of CWS manufacturing activities in World War I, the author made use of two unpublished histories written shortly after the close of activities by former officers. These were Lt. Col. Edwin M. Chance’s, History of Edgewood Plants and Lt. Col. William McPherson’s, An Historical Sketch of the Development of Edgewood
Arsenal. A copy of Chance’s manuscript is in Historical Office files and a copy of McPherson’s in the Technical Library at the Army Chemical Center, Md. The annual reports of the CWS for the years 1918 to 1921 contained valuable references to certain aspects of the procurement and distribution missions of the service. The reports continued to be compiled up to the fiscal year 1937, when apparently for reasons of economy they were discontinued. During World War II the Chief, CWS, resumed the practice of compiling an annual report.
For information on industrial mobilization planning and on the scanty procurement and supply activities of the peacetime period, the author used pertinent retired files of the Chemical Warfare Service; the War Department Assistant Chief of Staff, War Plans Division (WPD), G-3, and G-4; and The Adjutant General’s Office. Footnote citations throughout the volume which give file numbers preceded by the abbreviation “CWS” indicate documents from the retired files of the Chemical Warfare Service. Records of the Assistant Chiefs of Staff G-3 and G-4 are indicated by the prefixes “G-3” and “G-4,” respectively, those of The Adjutant General’s Office by the prefix “AG.” At the time this volume was written the majority of these records were in the custody of the Department of the Army. Since then, however, these records have been transferred to and are in the custody of the National Archives.
These same files, supplemented by other source material, were consulted for the emergency and war periods. The author found valuable information on the Chemical Advisory Committee to the Army-Navy Munitions Board in the files of the Chlorine Institute and the Manufacturing Chemists Association. He also searched the retired files of the Army-Navy Munitions Board, some of which were in the National Archives and others in the Pentagon. He obtained data on various aspects of CWS procurement and distribution from retired files of the Assistant Secretary of War (ASW), the Under Secretary of War (USW), the Army Service Forces (ASF), the Operations Division (OPD) of the War Department General Staff, the War Production Board (WPD), and the War Department Manpower Board (WDMB), all in the National Archives.
The author made use of appropriate monographs prepared by the Chemical Corps Historical Office and of the installation histories prepared under the supervision of that office. Copies of these monographs and histories are on file in the Chemical Corps Historical Office and in the Office of the Chief of Military History. In addition, he consulted the installation files of The Adjutant General’s Kansas City Record Center. He
reviewed studies and lectures on various phases of logistics in the files of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, those volumes in the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR It that touch on logistics, unpublished monographs in the Office of the Chief of Military History, and historical accounts compiled by a few CWS World War II contractors. (It is a pity more contractors did not write a historical account.) To supplement the record of contractor activities, the author corresponded with and interviewed a number of key plant officials who had experience with the World War II program. These letters and interviews are now on file in the Chemical Corps Historical Office and copies will be retired with permanent records of the CWS under file reference 314.7, Interviews and Correspondence File.