Chapter 2: Research and Development in Peace and War
Chemical warfare research and development dipped to its lowest point at the end of 1919. At this time the service was still a temporary wartime organization, with no guarantee that Congress would pass legislation making it a permanent branch of the Army. But word finally filtered down to Brig. Gen. Amos A. Fries, who had succeeded General Sibert as chief on 28 February 1920, that the legislators would probably continue the CWS, and Fries began to rebuild its organization. He revamped the Office of the Chief in Washington, establishing a Technical Division to act as his staff in matters concerning research and development.1 A year later he added a Medical Division, headed by an officer from the Medical Department, to supervise medical investigations relating to chemical warfare and to act as liaison with the Public Health Service, the Veterans’ Bureau, and the Army and Navy Medical Departments.2
Since the CWS had been formed as a service organization to all other branches of the Army, close liaison with them was essential in order to meet their requirements. To fulfill this function General Fries established the Chemical Warfare Technical Committee (CWTC) in March 1920, composed of officers of the CWS and of all combatant branches interested in chemical munitions.3 After the CWTC was formed its duties were
expanded to include the preparation of the project program for chemical warfare materiel. To handle the development of materiel intended for use by CWS troops only, General Fries set up a similar group composed of CWS personnel and called the Chemical Warfare Branch Committee.
To the American Chemical Society, which had provided an advisory committee to assist the CWS during the war, General Fries went with a request for another committee to consult with him on scientific matters. The society appointed a group of outstanding chemists who met periodically with General Fries and with later chiefs to discuss chemical warfare and to recommend promising lines of research, changes in organizational structure, and possible solutions to vexing chemical warfare problems.4 Through this organization the CWS had access to the best minds in American chemistry.
In reorganizing Edgewood Arsenal, General Fries provided for two technical groups: the Chemical Research and Development Division (later the Chemical Division) to investigate smokes, incendiaries, and toxic agents; and the Mechanical and Electrical Research and Development Division (later, the Mechanical Division) to design munitions and masks.5 In 1921, when the War Department ordered the CWS to remove its wartime proving ground from Lakehurst, N.J., General Fries set up a Proof Department at Edgewood.6 The following year he completed the basic technical organization at the arsenal by adding a Medical Research Division to determine the toxicological and physiological action of chemical compounds, to develop methods of treating chemical warfare casualties, and to instruct officers in the medical aspects of chemical warfare.
Fries kept the Chemical and Mechanical Divisions and the Proof Department at Edgewood in the normal command channels, but because of the highly technical nature of their work he placed them under a Technical Director, the first of whom was Dr. James E. Mills, appointed in April 1921.7 The Medical Research Division, on the other hand, remained under an officer of the Medical Department.
General Fries did not alter the research organization for several years,
but in the meantime he established a Chemical Warfare Board, which came to play a part in the technical program. The board, composed of seven officers, was created in 1923 for the purpose of outlining broad policies and shaping them in definite form for the chief chemical officer.8 In 1926 Fries reorganized the board, reduced its membership to four officers, and stationed it at Edgewood Arsenal.9 A primary function of the board now was to study and coordinate the technical developments of the CWS with tactical doctrines and methods.10 In carrying out its mission the board conducted or supervised service tests of equipment used by chemical troops and studied proposed projects before they were acted upon by the Chemical Warfare Technical Committee.11
With the addition of the board to the other technical agencies, which included the medical and technical staffs in the Office of the Chief, the laboratories and shops at Edgewood Arsenal, the CWTC, and the American Chemical Society advisory committee, the basic research and development organization of the CWS was complete. The organizational structure, however, still did not satisfy General Fries. Edgewood Arsenal had grown and the projects had increased since 1920, bringing a certain amount of unwieldiness in operations. In the autumn of 1928 he divided the three technical divisions, Chemical, Mechanical, and Medical, into six divisions—Research, Munitions Development, Protective Development, Engineering, Medical, and Information. Each division, in turn, was made up of several departments.12 The Research Division consisted of an Organic Department, which synthesized new compounds and investigated manufacturing processes on a small scale; a Physical Department, which made fundamental studies of smokes, charcoal, and filtration; and an Analytical Department, which performed routine analyses and identified new substances. The Medical Division had two branches: a Toxicological Department, which determined the toxicity of substances and conducted fundamental research on toxicity; and a Medical Department, which studied physiological action and mechanism of chemical warfare agents and developed
first-aid treatment. The Munitions Development Division consisted of a Munitions Department, which developed grenades, bombs, candles, and shells; a Weapons Department, which developed mortars, Livens projectors, large-area smoke screen generators, airplane spray tanks, and gas cylinders; and a Plants Department which developed, constructed, and operated pilot plants and full-scale toxic and impregnite plants. The Information Division had three units—a Technical Files Department to handle files and prepare monographs, a Technical Library Department, and an Editorial Department to edit research and development reports. The Protective Development Division consisted of a Protective Clothing Department, which developed protective clothing and methods of decontamination; a Gas Mask Department; and a Collective Protection Department. The Engineering Division was divided into a Design Department, which prepared designs, drafts, and specifications; a Physical Testing Department, which conducted physical tests on materials; a Shops and Loading Department, in charge of machine shops and surveillance facilities; the Field Testing Department, which conducted all tests in the field, and a Photography Department. After the reorganization of 1928, the technical structure of the CWS remained much the same until World War II.
The Peacetime Scientific Program
At the time of the Congressional action of 1920, service scientists had no official project program. The CWTC several months earlier had drawn up a list of projects which General Fries submitted to the War Department, and while the Secretary of War was studying the matter, scientists at Edgewood and Lakehurst continued to work on problems that had been left unfinished at American University. In December 1920 the Secretary approved Fries’ program, under which scientists were to concentrate on perfecting unsatisfactory wartime implements and then, as salvage operations were completed, to turn to the investigation of new items. In this way Fries planned to improve the inferior chemical warfare items that had been produced during war, thus saving the cost of new equipment and at the same time providing the Army with a reserve of chemical warfare supplies for training and emergency use. By the end of fiscal year 1921 the salvage operations were largely completed and a number of new projects had been started.13
During the period from 1920 to 1940 the CWS initiated approximately 700 projects for the Army, the Navy, and for civilian organizations. The military subjects encompassed gas masks, protective clothing, protective ointments, incendiary materials, mortars, airplane spray tanks, chemical cylinders, chemical artillery shells, colored smoke, chemical grenades, toxicological studies, meteorology, analytical methods, pilot plants, full-scale plants, filling plants, and medical studies.
In the 1920s the CWS placed emphasis on long-range projects.14 During these years Capt. Louis M. McBride, Dr. G. S. Maxwell, and their co-workers made radical improvements in the mortar, greatly increasing its range and accuracy. Dr. James E. Mills applied the theory of probability to the study of toxic compounds, and pointed the way to better methods of determining toxicities. Dr. Leo Finkelstein conducted fundamental research on the filtration of aerosols to improve the smoke retaining properties of gas mask canisters.
In the 1930s the CWS de-emphasized long-range research and concentrated on filling the gaps in chemical warfare equipment. This involved the development of new items, the redesigning of chemical plants to conform to modern engineering practice, and the drawing of specifications needed from the procurement of materiel.
While the CWS placed a large number of projects on its technical program, the research organization itself was not large. The service received very small appropriations from Congress (from 1923 to 1926, less than a million dollars a year; from 1927 to 1938, less than two million; in 1939 and 1940, between two and three million), and thus it was severely limited in the funds it could spend on research and development.15 As a consequence some of the projects received only a few hundred dollars, with the average only a few thousand.
Although the primary purpose of the CWS was to produce implements of war, the service took every opportunity to volunteer its facilities and staff to assist civilian groups in carrying out special scientific studies. Among these projects were: Rat Extermination (1921), War Gases as Insecticides (cooperative project with the Bureau of Entomology, 1922), Apparatus for Toxicological Experiments (cooperative project with the Bureau of Entomology, 1922), Extermination of Locusts (cooperative project with the Philippine Islands Department of Agriculture, 1923),
Extermination of Field Rats (cooperative project with the Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association, 1923), cooperative project with the Biological Survey (1923), Marine Piling Investigation (1923), and Boll Weevil Investigations (1920-27). These projects were generally financed by Congress or some agency of the government since the CWS did not have funds to underwrite extracurricular research.16
The longest and most important of these investigations was the search for a boll weevil insecticide. Shortly after World War I, the weevil seriously menaced cotton crops in the South. In July 1920 the CWS made arrangements to test toxic war agents as insecticides on the farm of the State Board of Entomology, Baxley, Ga. While the agents destroyed the weevils, they also injured the cotton. Chemists then prepared a series of compounds and mixtures which they tested at Tallulah, La.; the South Carolina Experiment Station, Clemson College, Clemson, S.C.; the Florida Experiment Station, Gainesville; Experiment, Georgia; and Auburn, Ala. Out of thousands of poisonous mixtures, the CWS found several that could be produced commercially and were acceptable to the farmer.17
Another investigation of considerable importance concerned the protection of submerged wooden pilings against marine borers. The Committee on Marine Piling Investigation of the Division of Engineering and Industrial Research, National Research Council, arranged for the Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and the Quartermaster Corps to pay for the cost of the work. The CWS carried out laboratory experiments at Edgewood Arsenal and at the Bureau of Fisheries, at Beaufort, N.C., to find poisons that would kill or repel shipworms, and other borers. Then it soaked sections of railroad ties with these poisons, and exposed them to borers in the harbor at Beaufort and at Pearl Harbor. Through this procedure, the service found a number of substances for treating wood that was to be submerged under water.18
The CWS and the Public Health Service cooperated in developing an alarm for deadly hydrogen cyanide fumigating gas. They did this by
adding tear gas to the odorless cyanide. The tear gas would quickly drive away anyone who might accidentally enter an area under fumigation.19 For the Navy the CWS worked on a special paint to prevent barnacles and other marine growths from fouling the bottoms of ships.20 CWS protection experts also developed ammonia masks for workmen in ice plants, carbon monoxide masks for industrial firms, and fumigation masks for the Public Health Service. After a disastrous fire at the Cleveland Hospital Clinic on 15 May 1929, in which many of the 125 dead were suffocated by gases from burning X-ray film, the CWS studied the factors involved in the combustion of film and then widely publicized the danger of improper storage conditions.21
The value of this nonmilitary research could not be measured in dollars, but men within the CWS felt that its peacetime benefits to the nation were greater than the cost of its program.
Development Procedure
All research and development carried on by the CWS, whether for civilian or military purposes, and along chemical or mechanical lines, differed from academic research in that it aimed at definite, practical goals rather than the discovery of new scientific principles. In this sense it was akin to industrial research and development, which also sought the development of goods for a definite purpose, the consumer market. But even so the course of development followed by the CWS was painstaking and rigorous because it was directed toward the production of equipment upon which lives and battles might depend. The War Department, on the other hand, ordered the process to be carried out as expeditiously as possible: “The desire for perfection in any item of equipment must not delay the designation as standard type of at least one adopted type of every required article of equipment so that in any case of an emergency the procurement program may be launched without delay.”22 In the laboratories and shops
this was translated into the motto: “Strive for practicability rather than perfection.”23
In passing from the original idea to the final product, the CWS employed a procedure based upon regulations laid down by the War Department.24 The idea itself could stem from the laboratories at Edgewood, a CWS officer, another branch of the Army, or a patriotic civilian. It was then studied in the Office of the Chief and perhaps by the Chemical Warfare Board. If the idea was accepted the Technical Committee drew up a military requirement, an official statement that the proposed article was needed by the Army, and the military characteristics, a list of specifications that stated the desired size, shape, weight, materials of construction, and performance of the finished article. After approval of the requirements and characteristics by the Chief, CWS, and the War Department, Edge-wood Arsenal went to work.
The first step was a preliminary investigation in the library or the laboratory to see what had been done by others along the same line, and to aid in analyzing the problem. With this information the staff drew up a project specification outlining the problem and estimating the time and money required. Then the technical experts took over, constructing and testing a series of models until they produced one that fulfilled the military requirements and characteristics. The Chemical Warfare Board tested the article under simulated service conditions and recommended any improvements that were needed. The laboratories made the improvements, the Board tested the equipment again and gave its approval. The CWS canvassed industry to make certain that materials and facilities were available to produce the munition in wartime quantities. Finally, when the article was known to be satisfactory for use under field conditions and procurable in the required quantities, it was cleared through the War Department and designated as a standard item of equipment. The procedure varied slightly when the request for the development of an item came from
another branch of the Army or from the Navy, In this case the ultimate user set forth the desired characteristics and tested the equipment.
Maj. Gen. Harry L. Gilchrist, chief of the CWS from 1929 to 1933, estimated that in time of peace ten years were required to go through the normal development cycle of research (two years), development (three years) adoption (one year), and supply and improvement (four years).25 Much of this time was spent in funding, delays in authorization, staffing, procurement of materials, and administrative work, rather than in laboratory and test work. During World War II the CWS had to telescope the procedure and take short cuts in order to supply the Army, Navy and Air Forces with the weapons they wanted. But this speed, particularly in the early days of the conflict, frequently resulted in items that had not been sufficiently tested in the engineering process or in the field and consequently were not entirely suitable.
Laboratories and Proving Grounds
In the 1920s and 1930s the CWS had to creep along, but the outbreak of war in Europe changed matters. The Congressional appropriation jumped from approximately two million dollars in 1940 to more than sixty million in 1941. To handle the new problems that arose, the CWS scientific organization had to expand enormously.
In 1940 the CWS carried on all research and development at Edge-wood Arsenal, mainly in buildings dating from World War I. The old laboratories had been suitable for the small-scale operations characteristic of the 1920s and 1930s, but not for the tremendous volume of technical work necessary to support the armed forces in World War II. The service drafted plans for a chemical research laboratory and a medical research laboratory at Edgewood. Since these buildings could not be completed until 1942, the CWS expanded as it had in World War I, by seeking assistance from university laboratories.
In Cambridge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology erected a new building which the CWS leased as a development laboratory.26 The
Conference on Expansion Program, Office of Chemical Warfare Chief, January 1942. From left. Brig. Gen. Paul X. English, Brig. Gen. Rollo C. Ditto, Maj. Gen. William N. Porter, Chief of Chemical Warfare Service, Brig. Gen. Ray L. Avery, Col. Augustin M. Prentiss, Maj. William M. Creary, and Maj. Lester W. Hurd.
location was advantageous because it was in the center of an industrial and university area, and because the MIT faculty was at hand for consultation. Operations began in June 1941, under the direction of Capt. Jacquard H. Rothschild. For four years CWS scientists worked here, carrying out a wide variety of investigations. In the course of their assignments the men studied the pilot plant production of phosgene, mustard gas, and thionyl chloride; designed a filling plant for irritant grenades; drew up plans for the M2 field laboratory; assisted with the development of civilian, assault, and headwound gas masks, and collective protectors; investigated flame throwers and flame thrower fuels; and examined German, Japanese, and Italian protective equipment and gas detectors. The laboratory continued to operate until the end of the war when the CWS disposed of its equipment and turned the building back to MIT.
In New York City, Columbia University permitted the CWS to occupy laboratories in the Building of Mines early in 1942.27 At that time
the service was working top speed on the development and production of incendiary bombs, and scientists, under Lt. Col. Ralph H. Talmage, sought to improve magnesium bombs and incendiary fillings. Later in 1942 the Columbia laboratory expanded its operations. The staff investigated the manufacture of napalm, sought substitutes for the scarce components of incendiary gels, and designed stronger base plates for the chemical mortar. The CWS remained at Columbia for twenty months, and then transferred its workers to Edgewood Arsenal where space was available in new laboratories.
As with laboratory space, the CWS found itself in need of larger testing and proving grounds. Since 1921, when the CWS had given up Lake-burst Proving Ground, all testing and proofing had been done at Edge-wood Arsenal. The fields there, shared by the Chemical Warfare Board, the Chemical Warfare School, and Ordnance Department’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, were overcrowded, close to thickly populated areas, and too small to permit large-scale assessment of toxic agents.
In addition to the laboratory facilities in the United States the CWS had field laboratories in operation overseas. The chemical laboratory companies and laboratory sections of chemical service companies, whose mission was the surveillance of CWS materiel and examination of enemy agents and equipment, were initially supplied with a field laboratory designated as model M1, standardized in 1936 and in service until the latter part of 1943. Its 21,000 pounds of equipment, comprising 88 footlockers, 20 boxes, and 15 crates of laboratory materials, as well as a truck-mounted machine shop, had to be transported on seven 1½-ton trucks. Edgewood manufactured eleven M1 laboratories before the model was discarded in 1943.
In 1942 the CWS issued five trailer vans to the First Chemical Laboratory Company which installed its laboratory equipment in them. The company found that the vans lacked sufficient interior space for the work, they were unwieldly to transport on railroads, they were difficult to conceal from enemy observation in the field, and they were hard to handle on poor roads. After several months the service dropped the idea of putting field laboratories on wheels.28
Late in 1942 the development of a more compact laboratory unit, with new and improved materials, was turned over to the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), the CWS Development Laboratory at
MIT, and the Technical Division at Edgewood. The new unit, standardized in April 1944 as the M2 base laboratory, and, like the M1, designed for semipermanent installation, was contained in 36 plywood shipping cases and 19 crates, totaling 20,000 pounds, which could be transported in five 2½-ton trucks. Among many improvements in techniques and equipment devised for this unit was a semimicroanalytical system developed by C. S. Nieman and E. H. Swift of the California Institute of Technology.29
In December 1943 the CWS began design of still another laboratory, this time a highly mobile unit for proposed laboratory teams accompanying task forces in the combat zone. This portable unit for gas intelligence missions weighed 3,293 pounds and was packed in 7 plywood boxes and 9 smaller cases that could be stowed in a single 2½-ton truck. It was assembled and standardized in October 1944 as the M3 mobile laboratory.30
The first new proving ground was set up in 1942 in the desert wasteland of Utah, and included part of Dugway Valley.31 Dugway Proving Ground became the major installation for the field testing, proof firing, and surveillance of chemical agents and munitions under temperate zone conditions. Here researchers carried out airplane spray tests of unthickened and thickened mustard at various altitudes to develop the technique of air-spraying; to determine the effect of the height and speed of the plane, as well as meteorological conditions of the atmosphere, upon the spray; and to evaluate agents and apparatus. Planes dropped incendiaries on facsimile German and Japanese buildings to enable investigators to learn what happened when bombs of certain types struck enemy structures.32 They also dropped phosgene, cyanogen chloride, and hydrogen cyanide bombs ranging in size from 100 to 4,000 pounds from different altitudes under different meteorological conditions to test bombs and to estimate the quantity of munitions required to lay down a lethal concentration of gas upon a given area. Researchers determined firing tables for the 4.2-inch chemical mortar and for chemical rockets. They studied the behavior of gas and smoke clouds under different meteorological conditions. Smoke munitions
Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, major installation for field testing, proof-firing, and surveillance of chemical agents and munitions under temperate zone conditions.
were fired to permit a comparison of the effectiveness of different munitions, and to ascertain the relative merits of white phosphorus and plasticized white phosphorus. In 1945 the installation was the scene of a most unusual test, the SPHINX project, by means of which the CWS demonstrated to General Staff officers the potentialities of gas munitions against Japanese cave fortifications of the type that had proved invulnerable to high explosives at Iwo Jima.
As the battle lines shifted from North Africa across the Mediterranean, Dugway Proving Ground sent a mobile unit to conduct studies of chemical agents in the Targhee National Forest, and the National Defense Research Committee sent a group from the University of California to Mount Shasta, where the climate and terrain were similar to those in sections of Italy. The investigations of these two groups were chiefly concerned with clouds of nonpersistent gas released from 100-pound M47A2 bombs.
To learn the behavior of agents under Pacific island conditions, Dugway sent other units to Camp Paraiso in the Panama Canal Zone and to Bushnell, Fla. The Bushnell installation, staffed by CWS and NDRC personnel, began operations in November 1943, and continued to function
after the war.33 The initial test project determined the offensive value of bombs filled with nonpersistent agents when used on semitropical terrain. Later operations ascertained the offensive value of persistent agents in such country, this being a departure from the old tactical concept that persistent agents were a weapon for defense. Between 1943 and the end of the war investigators evaluated a large variety of chemical munitions (bombs, shells, thermal generators, land mines, rocket heads, and spray tanks) for their efficiency in dispersing toxic agents. On Florida beaches they determined the hazard of mustard contaminated sand to assault troops. At the end of the war Bushnell closed its agent and munition program and turned to the testing of insecticides, fungicides, and miticides.
In addition to Dugway Proving Ground and its branches, the CWS established an experimental station in 1944 on San Jose Island, off the west coast of Panama.34 Here the CWS, the NDRC, Great Britain, and Canada cooperated in assessing chemical warfare weapons under tropical conditions. Technicians tested a variety of munitions including 1000-pound AN-M79 bombs containing phosgene and cyanogen chloride, and 115-pound M70 mustard filled bombs. They also studied diverse problems such as the hazards faced by troops in mustard contaminated jungle, the purification of water contaminated by chemical agents, and the effectiveness of bangalore torpedoes in clearing paths through mustard spotted vegetation. These studies gave the participants valuable data on the offensive and defensive phases of chemical warfare in jungle fighting.
Assistance from Industries and Universities
The new laboratories at Edgewood, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at Columbia University, coupled with the new proving grounds at Dugway, Bushnell, and San Jose, gave the CWS facilities for the tremendous wartime program, but the first installations could not be ready until 1941. To obtain assistance in getting the work started sooner the CWS again went outside of the Army.
Early in 1940 the CWS decided to engage industrial and educational institutions to carry out research and development along certain lines. The
service, finding that the War Department did not have a contract to cover this type of endeavor, took standard supply contracts, modified them in each case to suit the circumstances, and had them approved by the Office of the Judge Advocate General before signing. The CWS was a pioneer within the War Department in drawing up research and development contracts, and it had to proceed cautiously to keep within regulations. Its experience was subsequently of value to other branches of the Army.
The contracts specified the work that was to be done, but they did not try to tell the contractor how to carry out his task. Each contract included a clause granting the government rights to any invention made as a result of the work. Each contract was written for a fixed sum. In cases where the time stated in the contract proved insufficient to carry out the work, the CWS negotiated a supplemental agreement extending the time and granting additional funds.
From July 1940 to September 1945 the CWS spent nearly five and one-half million dollars for work done under approximately four hundred contracts. At the same time it was receiving a similar kind of assistance indirectly through the efforts of a powerful civilian organization, the NDRC.
The NDRC was established by order of the Council of National Defense on 27 June 1940 to undertake those scientific problems for which the facilities of the Army and Navy were inadequate.35 In the new organization there were five divisions. Division B (Bombs, Fuels, Gases, Chemical Problems), with James B. Conant as chairman, was responsible for chemical warfare projects.36 To Division B the CWS recommended the following six projects:
CWS-1. Aerosols—Their Generation, Stabilization, and Precipitation.
CWS-2. Study of the Theory of Toxicity—To Correlate Chemical Structure, Physical Properties and Toxicological Action of Organic Compounds.
CWS-3. Synthesis of Organic Arsenicals.
CWS-4. General Method of Synthesis of Certain Non-Arsenical Organic Compounds Including Several Specific Compounds.
CWS-5. Test of Pro-Knock Materials for Use Against Gasoline Engines.
CWS-6. Chemical Detection of Persistent Chemical Agents.
In December 1940, the CWS added three additional projects:
CWS-7. Fundamental Study of Gas Mask Absorbents.
CWS-8. The Generation of Colored Smokes.
CWS-9. Manufacturing Process for Lewisite.
A tenth project, “Flame Throwers—Fuel Composition and Nozzle Design,” was added in February 1941.
On 28 June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was set up in the President’s Office for Emergency Management and the NDRC was transferred to the new agency. In December 1942 the NDRC was reorganized and its alphabetical divisions were broken down into nineteen numerical divisions. Division 9, “Chemistry”; Division 10, “Absorbents and Aerosols”; and Division 11, “Chemical Engineering” directed the majority of chemical warfare investigations.
In undertaking these projects the NDRC drew up the program, selected a contractor (either an academic institution or an industrial firm), and then came to terms with the contractor concerning the scope of the work, patent rights, and the cost. When an agreement was reached, the contractor and the NDRC drew up a detailed plan for research. Officials of the NDRC known as technical aides followed the work of specific contracts. The contractor submitted reports periodically to the NDRC and the CWS showing the progress and results of the project.
The CWS and NDRC maintained liaison through one or more CWS officers from 1941 onward, reinforced by NDRC members in the Office of the Chief and at Edgewood Arsenal from 1942 onward. By August 1942 the volume of university-industrial assistance had reached the point where the CWS and NDRC had to form a joint Technical Committee to plan and allocate all research and development carried out by military and nonmilitary groups. On this committee were the chief of the Technical Division, the director of the Office of Assistant Chief for Materiel, the chairman of the NDRC, and the chairmen of Divisions 9 and 10, NDRC. The chief of the Medical Division joined the committee in August 1943.
By the end of the war the following projects had been added to the CWS list:
CWS-11. Incendiary Leaves.
CWS-12. Thickening of Vesicants.
CWS-13. Prevention of Corrosion of Chemical Munitions, Vesicant Filled.
CWS-14. Analysis and Detection of Chemical Warfare Agents in Water.
CWS-15. Filter Materials.
CWS-16. Filter Design.
CWS-17. Production and Stabilization of Fog.
CWS-18. Effect of Noise on Man and Devices for Producing Such Noises.
CWS-19. Influence Fuzes for Airplane Spray Apparatus.
CWS-20. Biological Problems.
CWS-21. Incendiary Materials.
CWS-22. Rocket Propulsion of Chemical Munitions.
CWS-23. Formation of Flexible Films.
CWS-24. Development of Protective Clothing.
CWS-26. Meteorology.
CWS-27. New Munitions for Chemical Agents.
CWS-28. Acoustical Properties of Gas Masks and Diaphragm Materials.
CWS-29. Non-Volatile Toxic Chemicals and their Uses.
CWS-30. Improvement of the Exterior Ballistics of Liquid-Filled Shell.
CWS-31. Insecticides, Rodenticides and Repellents.
CWS-32. Improvement of 4.2-Inch Mortar
These aspects of chemical warfare were not alone in receiving assistance from civilian organizations; medical research also benefited. In October 1940 the Subcommittee on Clinical Research of the Committee on Medicine, NRC, took up problems dealing with the treatment of mustard-induced bronchopneumonia, the purification of contaminated water, and the treatment of skin lesions caused by vesicant agents. In August 1941, at the request of the Chief of the Medical Research Division, CWS, the Division of Medical Sciences of the National Research Council organized the Committee on the Treatment of Gas Casualties (CTGC).37 This was a medical advisory body to the Chemical Warfare Service, to assist in organizational problems of medical research and to gather and coordinate information on problems and research results obtained in the study of medical aspects of gas warfare in the various OSRD agencies and in the chemical warfare centers of other nations. To the end of the war the CTGC proved of signal help to the Chemical Warfare Service in its acquisition of medical personnel to staff the Edgewood laboratories and in advising on the research conducted there and, under contract, in universities, hospitals, and industrial laboratories.38 Among the problems investigated was therapy for injuries to the nervous system, for mustard burns, for lung injuries, and for eye injuries caused by vesicant agents.
At the same time the NRC was having this research done for the Medical Research Division of the CWS, the NDRC was sponsoring research on behalf of the toxicological research group. After General Porter merged the medical and toxicological groups into a single Medical Division in July 1943, the new division received assistance from both NRC and NDRC.
The aforementioned civilian agencies, and the universities and companies that worked for the CWS under contract, rendered invaluable service to the CWS in World War II on all phases of the research and development program. Among their most notable contributions were the M69 incendiary bomb, the M1 mechanical smoke generator, and napalm. The NDRC toxicity laboratory at the University of Chicago screened many hundreds of potential chemical warfare agents, the majority of which had been synthesized in university laboratories under NDRC contracts. Meteorological studies by scientists gave the CWS accurate data on the behavior of gas clouds. Academic and industrial laboratories helped the CWS overcome the undesirable properties of certain standard toxic agents and to, improve the large-scale processes of preparing agents. Much of the development of the 4.2-inch recoilless chemical mortar was carried on at the NDRC Allegany Ballistics Laboratory. Investigations on protective ointments led to the new M5 ointment. This list could be extended to a much greater length, but as it stands it serves to show the quality, variety, and magnitude of assistance that the CWS received from nonmilitary organizations.
Cooperation with the British Commonwealth
Shortly before the United States entered the war, the Americans and British began to exchange information on chemical warfare through the U.S. Assistant Military Attachés in London and representatives of the British Purchasing Commission in America. After American forces arrived in the British Isles in 1942, CWS personnel could visit British installations and learn at first hand what the British were doing.
To link the chemical warfare organizations of Canada and the United States, a joint U.S.-Canadian Advisory Committee was established. Membership of the committee was subsequently broadened to include Great Britain. This three-power committee eliminated much duplication of effort, established uniform test procedures, and accelerated cooperative work on such items as toxic gases, flame throwers, and smoke munitions.
In the fall of 1942, the Combined Chiefs of Staff set up the United States Chemical Warfare Committee (USCWC), headed by the Chief, CWS, to coordinate all chemical warfare activities.39 One of the objectives of the USCWC was to insure that all types of chemical warfare materiel used by the British and Americans would be interchangeable. The
necessity for this decision is illustrated by a problem involving incendiary bombs. American munitions were attached to the plane by two lugs, British bombs by only one lug. In order to make the bombs suitable for carrying in both American and British planes, the designs had to be changed to provide for three lugs.
Although the principle of interchangeability was of great importance it could not be fully achieved. By the time the United States entered the war, facilities had already been designed to produce models developed for the American Army without thought of standardization with the British. With protective equipment it was practically impossible to obtain a wide range of uniform items. One case where the goal was achieved was that of the British light respirator, whose screw thread was made to take either the British or American canister. In the case of colored smoke there was some uniformity in regard to colors, but no standardization of munitions. There was practically no uniformity of flame throwers or flame thrower fuel, but a standard method of testing was adopted.
Evaluation of United Kingdom and American equipment was accomplished more readily than interchangeability. In April 1944 the Advisory Committee on the Effectiveness of Chemical Warfare Materiel in the Tropics, consisting of representatives of the CWS, the Canadian Field Experimental Station, and the British Army, was established to provide operational data for planning chemical warfare in the tropical theaters of war. This committee was served by the Project Coordination Staff which evaluated chemical warfare tests carried out in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and India. The staff considered all factors involved in the use of chemical weapons, including weather and terrain, protective devices, and weapons and munitions.
British information, most helpful to the CWS early in the war, continued to the end of the conflict, and covered practically all areas in which the CWS worked. The flow of information, however, was not one-way. The CWS returned the favor by sending reports of weapons, agents, and research across the Atlantic to give the British Commonwealth the benefit of American experience.
Information from the Enemy
Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s the CWS had kept informed of foreign chemical warfare technical activities through reports from chemical officers traveling abroad, and through representatives in the offices of
the military attaches at the London and Berlin embassies. There was no special intelligence unit in the service to handle these matters, and reports from abroad were routed to the appropriate division in the Office of the Chief.40 Several years before World War II the practice of stationing representatives abroad was discontinued, and the CWS was cut off from any direct contact with European sources. In 1940 the chief established an Information Division to collect, evaluate, and distribute information on enemy chemical warfare activities.41 This division channeled appropriate data to the technical agencies.
Certain reports received through intelligence caused the CWS to emphasize research along certain specific lines. This was the case with nitrogen mustards which the service had dropped many years before, but which it again began to investigate after learning that the Germans were interested in these compounds. Generally speaking, intelligence reports were not as fruitful as direct examination of captured enemy equipment.
The CWS put its first intelligence units into the field in February 1944 when the Director of Intelligence, ASF, authorized the Chief, CWS, to send teams consisting of one major and four enlisted men to ETO, MTO, Central Pacific Area, South Pacific Area, Southwest Pacific Area, and CBI, where they would compose the CWS Section of the ASF Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service Teams. These teams were trained to examine captured equipment and report any information of value. Before the war was over the original 6 teams were reinforced by 5 more, 1 for the China theater and 4 for ETO.
In addition to its organized procedures for peering over the enemy’s shoulder, the CWS at times obtained information directly from officers and men on the fighting fronts. In February 1942, for example, American forces on Bataan, Philippine Islands, captured two flame throwers.42 Col. Stuart A. Hamilton, Chemical Officer, USAFFE, shipped one of these back to Edgewood Arsenal where the technical staff examined the weapon and adopted the cartridge type of ignition for the American flame thrower.
Toward the end of the war in Europe, and after V-E Day, the CWS continued to obtain information on German chemical warfare through two agencies.43 The first of these was a group known as the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS), organized to uncover all German military secrets and scientific discoveries. The second was the United States’ world-wide organization, Field Intelligence Army, Technical (FIAT).
The work of these agencies was done by teams of experts who went into an area after it was overrun. One team of experts spent four months in Germany studying plants that had produced hydrogen peroxide as a propellant for torpedoes and V-2 bombs. Their 350-page report, later released to the public, was the most complete authority anywhere on the manufacture and handling of concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Another team inspected chlorine plants to study the operation of mercury cells, with which the Germans had replaced the diaphragm type cells. Other investigators found plants that had been constructed to synthesize acetylene from hydrocarbons, and to react acetylene under high pressure, processes in which the German chemical industry had been pioneers. The survey of German plants occupied the time of scores of men and produced mountains of reports. This information was released to the public, and proved a stimulant to industry, the profession, and the universities.
While the CWS obtained a large volume of information on German, Italian, and Japanese gas masks, incendiary bombs, smoke munitions, flame throwers, and other equipment from intelligence sources or the examination of captured weapons, the information generally resulted in only minor changes in components of CWS items, rather than in drastic redesign. Information from the British and the NDRC had much more influence in bringing about significant improvements or innovations in materiel.
The new laboratories, proving grounds, testing stations, and sources of friendly and enemy data, gave the CWS a larger technical organization than it ever dreamed of in the 1920s and 1930s. With the additional facilities, funds, and personnel it had the task of sending scientists and engineers along a variety of paths and of producing an extremely diversified line of items. Some of its research was fruitful, some was fruitless. Some of its products were welcomed by fighting men, some were not satisfactory. Like other services that carried on research and development, the CWS had scientific victories and defeats.