Chapter 5: Biological Warfare Research1
In the years just before America’s entry into World War II, both Germany and Japan were reported to be preparing for biological warfare and, it was believed, had devised agents capable of assailing the best defenses that medical science had evolved. In the United States there were skeptics who doubted the effectiveness of biological warfare against a modern army.2 They reasoned that with the development of modern sanitary precautions, water purification, and insect and rodent control, the normal incidence of bacterial activity could largely be thwarted. Combat troops took the field supported by the best medical protection available and were armed with antitoxins, vaccines, and sera as a safeguard against diseases caused by some of the most harmful common bacteria. Furthermore, these skeptics felt, the problem of disseminating great quantities of bacteria in order to overwhelm any possible defense would present immense technical difficulties. But in their opinion the chief deterrent to initiating biological warfare was the danger to the side which unleashed it. Only an isolated enemy could be safely attacked, and there was no longer any such thing as an isolated enemy. On the other hand, American intelligence agencies reported that neither the Japanese, Germans, nor the embattled British shared this skepticism.3 Nor did the Chemical Warfare Service, which had for years been interested in the potential problems of the bacterial weapon.
CWS Interest in Biological Warfare
Ever since the League of Nations Conference of 1924 and the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 linked chemical, biological, and incendiary warfare as related problems, the Chemical Warfare Service had regarded biological warfare as within its sphere of responsibility, and from time to time members of the service had prepared appraisals of its war potential.4 In simplest terms, biological warfare may be defined as the intentional cultivation or production of pathogenic bacteria, fungi, viruses, rickettsia, and their toxic products, as well as certain chemical compounds, for the purpose of producing disease or death in men, animals, or crops. The definition also includes the development of defenses against these organisms and toxic substances. Potential agents might include the organisms producing the intestinal diseases of typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, through pollution of water supplies; the respiratory diseases of smallpox, diphtheria, epidemic meningitis, scarlet fever, and influenza, which are ordinarily dependent upon ideal epidemic conditions; the insect transmitted diseases of malaria, yellow fever, dengue, typhus, and plague; infections such as tetanus, anthrax, gangrene, and the pyrogenic diseases; agricultural diseases in the form of the boll weevil, corn borer, and Mediterranean fruit fly, as well as fungus diseases of crops and plants; and glanders, foot and mouth disease, Newcastle disease, fowl plague, and other diseases to which domestic animals and fowl are subject.5
In August 1941 the growing concern of the CWS led to the activation by oral order of the chief of the service of a unit designated the Medical Research Division, in the Technical Service at Edgewood Arsenal, to plan preliminary technical studies and to accumulate data “in connection with the medical aspects of chemical warfare, including bacteriology and immunization.”6 The division, consisting of five members,7 examined potential sites, facilities, and personnel for an expanded biological program,
prepared a bibliography of published literature on BW,8 and drew up tentative programs for research. It also established contact with the British scientists working on BW at Porton, in Wiltshire, England, and with Canadian BW experts.9
The WBC Committee and War Research Service
Government agencies other than the Chemical Warfare Service also showed concern over the threat. These included the Institute of Health of the U.S. Public Health Service, the Council of National Defense, officers of the staffs of the Surgeons General of the Army and Navy, and G-2 of the Army.
In July 1941, Harvey H. Bundy, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War, called a meeting of representatives of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), The Surgeon General, the CWS, and Army G-2, to discuss means for coordinating work in BW. As a result of this meeting the OSRD recommended to the Secretary of War that the National Academy of Sciences investigate the possibilities of BW.10
Two months before Pearl Harbor, the president of the National Academy and the chairman of the National Research Council asked Edwin B. Fred to help form and act as chairman of a committee to study and assess current potentialities of BW. A group of twelve scientists met on 18 November 1941, designated the WBC Committee (War Bureau of Consultants). Liaison members of the committe included Lt. Col. Maurice E. Barker, Lt. Col. James H. Defandorf, and 1st Lt. Luman F. Ney of the Chemical Warfare Service, as well as representatives of Ordnance, the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, The Surgeon General’s Office, the Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Public Health Service. The committee report to the Secretary of War in February 1942 declared the BW was distinctly feasible, that it was a potential threat to national security, and that steps should be taken at once to formulate defensive and offensive measures.
Through liaison established with the British BW group at the Porton Experiment Station, reports of the work there were made available to the CWS and the WBC Committee beginning in May 1942. By that time British research in BW had progressed from the theoretical stage and experimental study to actual small-scale production. Its director, Dr. Paul Fildes, urged that the United States undertake the large-scale studies that his group was not equipped to do, and in November he came to Washington to discuss the organization and operations of his group.11
Informed of the WBC Committee’s findings, the War Department General Staff recommended, principally as a security measure and to avoid alarming the public, that the task of formulating defensive measures and procedures for retaliation be undertaken by a civilian agency.12 The President therefore on 15 May 1942 authorized the Secretary of War to establish such an organization in the Federal Security Agency, a special nonresearch agency under the President. It was administered by Paul V. McNutt, and had been set up “to promote social and economic security, advance educational opportunities and promote public health.” Thus obscured, the branch of FSA later known as War Research Service (WRS) came into being and was formally organized four months later with George W. Merck as director.
War Research Service was primarily an advisory body of eight members including Mr. Fred of the disbanded WBC Committee. It was charged with making a continuous survey of the BW situation and reporting its recommendations to appropriate government agencies, in particular the CWS, the Medical Department, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy, and the U.S. Public Health Service. Other agencies that came within the orbit of WRS included the Provost Marshal General’s Office, the Assistant Chief of Staff G-2, Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Agriculture. The WRS was further charged with initiating research projects in universities and in private research foundations, with the proviso that these civilian agencies were to be “strictly limited to carrying out such projects as were assigned to the Chemical Warfare Service by WRS.”13 In other words, the Chemical Warfare
Service actually issued the orders and directives necessary to implement WRS recommendations. The assigned research projects were to determine areas of investigation and special procedures necessary to maintain security, and to provide means of retaliation should the enemy resort to BW.
To act as technical adviser to WRS, on 16 October 1942 a new group, known as the ABC Committee, an arbitrary alphabetical designation, was formed with the help of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council. Its chairman was W. Mansfield Clark of Johns Hopkins University and among its members were Roger Adams and Dr. Milton C. Winternitz, who were then also directing chemical and medical research work through OSRD agencies for the Chemical Warfare Service. Liaison members included Ira L. Baldwin, of the University of Wisconsin, and Comdr. Leroy D. Fothergill, MC, USNR (later the successive directors of the Special Projects Division, CWS); Colonel Defandorf, of the CWS Medical Research Division; Dr. Rolla E. Dyer, of the U.S. Public Health Service; and Mr. Merck, director of WRS.
On the assumption that BW was a real and immediate threat to this nation, War Research Service as its first action initiated through the Office of The Surgeon General antibiological warfare programs in the Hawaiian Department, the Caribbean Defense Command (including the Panama Canal Zone and Puerto Rico), the military districts of the United States, and in overseas theaters of operations. The programs instructed medical and security officers in detection and defense measures against biological attack and requested status reports of their plans and preparations.14 Next, the WRS established approximately twenty-five contracts with universities and foundations for basic BW research. Most of these contracts were later transferred to the CWS. The War Research Service also established a special BW intelligence service, appointing the well-known novelist, John P. Marquand, as director of intelligence and information.
Taking the view that U.S. preparations for BW depended on enemy plans and capabilities, WRS officials at once directed Mr. Marquand to make arrangements to obtain all available information on enemy BW activity in possession of the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, ONI, Medical Intelligence Division, OSS, and the FBI. The meager material in their files suggested to Mr. Marquand that these agencies might not be properly alerted to manifestations of BW activity, and G-2 sent instructions for
collecting such intelligence to all military attaches and to theater and area commanders in the British Isles, North Africa, Middle East, China-Burma-India Theater, and the Pacific. When this alert also proved unproductive, Mr. Marquand himself went overseas, early in 1943, to consult with intelligence authorities and with theater surgeons. One of the results of his visit was that WRS, with the approval of the Office of the Surgeon General, recommended to the Secretary of War that blood samples be taken from prisoners of war to determine whether these individuals had been immunized against biological agents which the enemy might possibly employ.15 By means of these samples WRS hoped to learn, for example, whether Japanese troops were being inoculated against yellow fever, a disease not present in the Far East, and whether Japanese or German troops were being protected against typhus, anthrax, dysentery, or botulism. It was also considered possible that improved methods of immunization developed by enemy scientists might thus be discovered. However, the Army finally decided that this kind of examination would not yield useful information.
CWS and the U.S. Biological Warfare Committee
Even before civilian research had begun under WRS, the Chemical Warfare Service had felt that civilian agencies could not achieve the degree of BW readiness for which ultimately the military had to assume responsibility. From long experience in preparing and maintaining a state of readiness for chemical warfare the service was certain that operational research and development in offensive aspects of BW, which required extensive laboratory and field trials, could not be delegated. Nevertheless until November 1942 the War Department continued to be reluctant to permit any military agency to participate directly in the biological research being conducted in the universities. By then the inability of WRS agencies to carry out research beyond the laboratory stage, and the necessity of establishing military requirements, had become apparent. “In order ... to obtain a clearer understanding of the dangers that confronted the nation” the WRS issued a succession of directives making the Chemical Warfare Service directly responsible for the military phases of the program.16 To carry them out, the CWS began construction of Camp Detrick, the CWS
biological warfare center, at Detrick Field, a National Guard airport near Frederick, Md., in April 1943, and by November it was in operation. The mounting threat of the German rocket program during 1943 gave added impetus to the urgency of American preparations for BW, for defense officials thought these rockets might readily be converted into efficient vehicles for BW agents. Current reports of the OSS and the BW Sub-Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the BW potential of the enemy also served to increase apprehensions. In January 1944 the Secretary of War directed the Chief of Staff to transfer the entire BW program from War Research Service to the Chemical Warfare Service. The Army authorized the CWS to begin preparations for possible retaliation in BW and, in cooperation with The Surgeon General, to provide means and methods for protection against attack.17
With the transfer of the program to the CWS, the Army dissolved the War Research Service, and assigned the responsibility for civilian research and development to the OSRD.18 Mr. Merck was appointed special consultant on BW to the Secretary of War, with Mr. Fred and Mr. Marquand as scientific adviser and intelligence aide, respectively, to Mr. Merck. The ABC Committee was succeeded by the DEF Committee which was headed by Dr. O. H. Perry Pepper of the University of Pennsylvania, and which guided the technical program of the Special Projects Division, OC CWS, soon to be formed.
The U.S. Biological Warfare Committee, with Mr. Merck as chairman, came into being in October 1944, as a supervisory body to make recommendations to the Secretary of War and Chief of Staff on policy and to establish liaison with its British counterpart, the London Inter-Service Sub-Committee on Biological Warfare (ISSCBW). Members of the new committee included the Chief, Chemical Warfare Service; the director of the New Developments Division, WDSS; the director of the Office of Strategic Services; the chief of the Navy Bureau of Ordnance; the Surgeon Generals of the Army and Navy; the chief of the Military Intelligence Service; the Chief of Staff, ASF; the chief of the Requirements Section, AGF; the assistant chief of Air Staff Plans; the British Army Staff representatives; the director of Canada’s Department of Chemical Warfare and Smoke; and the CWS representative on the ISSCBW. Research and
development on BW in the United States remained under the direction of this committee until October 1945 when the War Department dissolved it and transferred its functions to the New Developments Division.19
The Special Projects Division
The CWS had maintained an element variously known as the “Medical Research Division,” and “Special Assignments Branch” at Edgewood ever since August 1941, principally for studying biological warfare, acquiring the staff to conduct it, and in assigning BW research projects to NDRC agencies. It was not until 18 January 1944, however, that a separate organization, the Special Projects Division, was established in the Office of the Chief, Chemical Warfare Service, to administer the biological warfare program.
By January 1944 the CWS had already begun operations at Camp Detrick and at the field test station on Horn Island in Mississippi Sound, and was constructing the Granite Peak test installation, adjacent to Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, and the Vigo plant in Indiana.
The Special Projects Division was to develop measures for defense and retaliation against BW, to produce or procure the necessary material, to collect and evaluate intelligence on enemy activity, to maintain liaison with other military and civilian organizations concerned with biological warfare here and abroad, to prepare training publications and conduct instruction in biological warfare, and to supply technical advice to the armed forces.20 The division had an immense task and had to do the work hurriedly because of the urgency of the problem as understood at that time. Construction, research, and instruction were necessarily simultaneous operations at all installations of the Special Projects Division.
In April 1943, a little more than two weeks after the Army began construction at Detrick Field, Camp Detrick was formally activated.21 The Horn Island installation, with its 2,000 acres of sand dunes and scrub, began operations in October 1943. These were restricted to preliminary small-scale experiments because the island was only ten miles away from the mainland and because it was belatedly discovered that for two-thirds of the year the prevailing winds blew toward the mainland.
Biological warfare test station, Granite Peak, Utah
In view of the limitations of Horn Island, the principal BW test station became Granite Peak, activated in June 1944, with test operations commencing shortly thereafter. The isolated terrain at Granite Peak, thirty-five miles from the military post at Dugway Proving Ground, made it a relatively safe area for testing living biological agents, and there all the major field studies were carried out.22
The Vigo plant was a converted Ordnance installation south of Terre Haute, Ind. The CWS took over the plant in May 1944. Scientists and engineers installed equipment for large-scale production of a harmless bacterium, Bacillus globigii, based on preliminary pilot plant studies made at Camp Detrick. The CWS did not intend to produce pathogenic agents until the plant had been thoroughly tested for safety and until employees could be trained to a high degree of efficiency. These operations were still in progress at the end of the war.23
To a greater degree, perhaps, than in any of the other CWS research programs, the one for biological warfare was a joint service undertaking. The Navy, for example, provided almost a quarter of the technical staff required at Camp Detrick and other test installations, drawing them principally from the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and the Bureau
of Ordnance. In addition the Navy Department maintained an independent research unit at the University of California, although its work was coordinated with that being done at Detrick and elsewhere in university laboratories.24
The Office of The Surgeon General, a participant in all matters concerning BW, had representatives from the outset on each of the committees formed to study the problems and conduct of BW research. At the direction of the War Research Service, the Office of The Surgeon General and officers of the Medical Corps initiated antibiological warfare programs in the continental United States, in Hawaii, in the Canal Zone, and in the theaters of operation. The SGO also assigned trained sanitary engineers to protect essential industrial plants against sabotage. In cooperation with the CWS and the Corps of Engineers it developed procedures for protecting water supplies of municipalities and Army posts. In cooperation with the Provost Marshal General, the Veterinary Corps inspected all meat and dairy products used by the Army. All food, beverage plants, and water supplies in the Hawaiian Department were inspected regularly. Studies were made of the possible dangers of sabotage of medical supplies while in production, in storage, or being distributed, and control methods were devised for use by the drug industry to prevent sabotage.25
When the War Department assumed responsibility for the BW program, it directed The Surgeon General to cooperate with Chemical Warfare Service in all defensive aspects of the project. It soon became apparent that the line between offensive and defensive BW research could seldom be distinguished. Further, The Surgeon General felt that it would not be proper or desirable for the Medical Department to accept responsibility for any phase of BW research.26 The CWS therefore assumed both aspects of this research. While The Surgeon General was thus relieved of responsibility for the technical program, he designated a liaison officer to keep him informed of its progress and he made available scientists of his Preventive Medicine Service, Veterinary Division, and Medical Consultants Division. At the same time, The Surgeon General set up a BW
committee in his office to advise him on BW policy and procedure and to direct the procurement and storage of all biological supplies developed by the Special Projects Division for protecting personnel against biological agents.
At the peak of operations the Special Projects Division was the largest single research element in the Chemical Warfare Service and vied only with the Manhattan Project—at times successfully—in securing certain types of scientists. It was so large, in fact, that it was extremely difficult at times to control the numerous research divisions at Camp Detrick. The best known demonstration of this unwieldiness was in the independent and original achievement of workers in two different divisions, each of which was able to claim legitimate credit for isolating, for the first time, the Type A botulinum toxin. In August 1945, at maximum strength, the division had 396 Army officers, 2,466 Army enlisted men, 124 Navy officers, 844 Navy enlisted men, and 206 civilians.27
Keeping It Secret
From the very beginning responsible officials maintained the strictest secrecy in this country, Canada, and England concerning the fact that work was being done in BW. They took stringent security measures not only to prevent the enemy from obtaining information, but also to keep the public and the armed forces from becoming unduly alarmed over the possibility of BW.
Security and Safety
Because they were set up as classified exempt stations, Camp Detrick and other BW installations took elaborate precautions to conceal their purpose. The professional background of employees could not be revealed, no person receiving “special procedures” (as the vaccination routines were called) might donate blood to the Red Cross, and the nature of materials and stores procured for the installation was disguised.
An important phase of security operations at Camp Detrick involved the nearby town of Frederick. Despite all efforts, as was reported in a security survey made in the town, anyone who really wanted to find out
that BW research was being conducted at Detrick could easily have done so through the camp construction workers who lived in Frederick and the post employees who visited its restaurants, stores, and theaters, or by studying the type of materials purchased for the post in Frederick or shipped in by rail. Above all, the physical layout of the camp, with its smoke stacks and special sewage arrangements, was informative, and clearly visible from Braddock Heights, a nearby prominence. The security officer nevertheless found that townspeople in general considered Detrick only a secret chemical warfare installation and either showed little interest or pointedly refrained from expressing curiosity about it.28
All research at Detrick had to be geared to considerations of safety in order to minimize the danger of exposure to pathogenic organisms. The creation of a Safety Division was one of the first steps in the organization of the center, its functions equally divided between a biological protection group and operational safety control groups. The first element was made responsible for close inspection of employees, first aid, and immunization; the second for inspection of operations in the pilot plants and laboratories, and for providing methods of detecting, decontaminating, and treating biological materials and wastes which might escape and infect the people at Camp Detrick or in the surrounding community. Many of the practices, testing devices, and techniques developed by the Safety Division for research and development operations at Camp Detrick, some of them wholly new and others on a scale never attempted previously, have since been applied to industry and medicine.29
Intelligence
The extraordinary effectiveness of American security and counterintelligence policies was revealed after the fall of Germany and Japan. The security measures of Germany and Japan made their capabilities almost equally inscrutable, a matter of concern to the United States since to a degree the direction of the CWS’s BW program depended on knowledge of enemy intentions.
When the War Department assumed control of BW research, the CWS’s Special Projects Division took charge of intelligence. It sent War Department directives to all theaters and commands alerting them to BW, describing defensive measures against possible sabotage, and recommend-
ing appointment of staff BW officers. In the European Theater of Operations, for example, the Chief Chemical Officer prepared BW plans and directives, supervised BW training, maintained liaison with British BW authorities in the theater, and cooperated with the Chief Surgeon and Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2. The period of greatest apprehension occurred in the early months of 1944 when planners feared that, as the allied offensive across both oceans began to move forward, the enemy in the face of his steady deterioration might “in desperation resort to biological warfare.”30 Largely to meet this threat, the service established a BW school at Camp Detrick, with the first class held in February 1944. After attending the school, the chief of CWS intelligence went overseas to alert CWS officers in the Middle East and North Africa theaters. Other graduates went from Detrick to the China-Burma-India and Pacific theaters to indoctrinate G-2, ONI, and medical officers stationed there. The Army attached trained BW officers to all major military operations in Europe and in the Pacific. Chiefs of the Joint Intelligence Collecting Agency in the North African, Middle East, and China-Burma-India theaters were given BW instructions, as were military attaches in New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, China, and Australia. Also CWS members of the ASF materiel collecting teams, previously briefed on what BW materiel to look for, arrived in the European, North Africa, South Pacific, Southwest Pacific, Central Pacific, and China-Burma-India theaters in the summer of 1944. All BW intelligence flowing from these far-flung sources, as well as from service and central intelligence agencies, was reported in the voluminous Special Projects Periodic Intelligence Reports.
On neither the intelligence nor instructional level were British efforts as strenuous as those of the United States. They had no school similar to that at Camp Detrick, nor did they train special BW officers. Then, too, they had no counterpart to the United States BW intelligence network. They gave instruction in BW only to the highest echelons of command, whereas the CWS prepared directives for all those above troop level in the Chemical Warfare Service and in American medical and intelligence services.31
The findings of the ALSOS Mission provided the first indication that the truth about German BW activities was considerably at variance with earlier intelligence reports. False reports of German intentions to resort to germ warfare had unquestionably been spread as a psychological warfare weapon. In spite of the first reports of the mission, tension was not relaxed until early in 1945, when it was generally agreed that it was too late for Germany to use BW as a tactical weapon against Allied forces.
The comprehensive report of September 1945 prepared by the BW team with the ALSOS Mission32 revealed that BW research in Germany had been aimed at devising defensive measures against possible Allied use of biological agents and specifically against the sabotage efforts of guerrilla fighters that menaced the German Army in Poland and Russia. Among the biological agents reportedly used by guerillas against German troops in the Eastern theater were typhoid bacilli, botulinum toxin, typhus, dysentery, glanders, cholera, anthrax, and paratyphoid.
Investigators examined more than seventy sites in Europe where Germans had conducted medical research. Nazi defensive measures consisted mainly in alerting agriculture, veterinary, and public health officials to the dangers of biological attack. They took their only large-scale defensive measure in 1942, when, after hearing that Russian troops had been immunized against plague, they sent one million doses of plague vaccine to the Stalingrad front. The files of German intelligence gave extensive information on Russian and Polish BW efforts and were fairly complete on French research. But they contained no reliable information from the United Sates or the United Kingdom after 1942, a tribute to security precautions. For example, in German intelligence files the ALSOS mission found a report stating that the United States had a large BW agent production plant at Huntsville Arsenal, Ala., and that the U.S. BW program was headed by an outstanding microbiologist, Col. Harry Lebkicher. The facts were that Huntsville Arsenal handled only chemical warfare, never biological warfare operations, and that Colonel Lebkicher was not a biologist and never had an assignment in BW—he was commanding officer of the Chicago Chemical Warfare Procurement District.33
Japanese activities were better organized and more comprehensive than
those of Germany. Japan appears to have started biological warfare studies as early as 1936, with the principal wartime research centered in a Defense Intelligence Institute, near Harbin in Manchuria, where 2,500 people were employed at the peak of operations. The institute developed munitions for glanders and anthrax. Allied intelligence seems to have been accurate in its accounts of a Japanese bacillus bomb, its name literally translated as “disease frozen germs,” and experiments seem to have been made, as reported, in the dissemination of typhoid, diphtheria, and cholera. The Japanese denied, however, that the more than 9,000 paper balloons they constructed, of which a number, more than thirty feet in diameter and capable of lifting sixty-five pounds, sailed across the Pacific to the west coast and Canada early in 1945, were intended for BW attack. The Japanese claimed that the balloons, which actually contained explosive and incendiary material, had been sent in reprisal for the Doolittle raid.34
Defense Against Biological Attack
The CWS and SGO investigated special physical, chemical, and medical measures to protect the armed forces and civilian population against biological warfare. In this effort, basic defensive measures were first developed to safeguard the thousands of workers engaged in the Special Projects Division laboratories. Techniques had to be devised for detecting, sampling, screening, and identifying a great variety of living organisms and their toxic products. Equipment had to be designed, constructed, and installed to handle processes never before carried out. Protective clothing, masks, and equipment had to be developed for use in the laboratories, plant areas, and field test stations. Many of these primary steps in defense on behalf of SPD employees were taken to provide the basis for the development of protective measures for the soldier in combat should biological warfare become an actuality.35
Detection and Identification of Biological Agents
In war an unusual outbreak of disease would probably be the first indication that BW agents were being employed. Troops would immediately need a sampling device to detect organisms. The CWS therefore devised
a sampling kit to detect biological agents in the field. It contained cotton impinger and liquid impinger apparatus for air sampling; cotton swabs, syringes, and pipettes for material sampling; and means of refrigerating the materials collected. Contaminated air and materials collected by these devices would then be taken to the field or base laboratory for identification.36
As in standard hospital practice, identification of micro-organisms could sometimes be made by direct or microscopic examination of sample organisms which were grown on agar plates, but the most reliable detection test for most biological agents involved animal inoculation and response. By inoculating animals scientists could detect most pathogenic organisms and their toxins. Examination by smear would then be possible, using the exudate from wounds or lesions or with sputum, feces, blood, or urine. This evidence could then be corroborated by means of blood chemistry analysis, blood cell counts, and urinalysis. As the infection declined or recovery was effected, detection would also become possible through the appearance and identification of antibodies in the blood. These could be demonstrated by agglutination reactions, toxin neutralization, or virus neutralization. With proper identification thus made, countermeasures against the particular agent or agents become possible.
Biological and Chemical Protection
During the war, Camp Detrick and university laboratories investigated biological, chemical, and mechanical means of protecting troops against potential biological warfare agents. While soap and water afforded elementary protection in uncomplicated circumstances, the agents and vehicles in biological warfare would have required somewhat more complex protection. At Camp Detrick biological protection against micro-organisms included the use of vaccines, toxoids, and immune sera, as well as penicillin and streptomycin. Disinfectants and antiseptics, standard CWS decontaminating agents, and the new chemotherapeutic agents like the sulfa drugs provided chemical protection. Mechanical and physical protection was possible with special leakproof masks and protective clothing which would exclude organisms, and the employment of heat (as in incineration or the use of the autoclave), desiccation, starvation, sunlight, osmotic pressure, and filtration for the removal, inhibition, or destruction of organisms. The CWS considered it feasible to protect large groups of
people by special adaptation of the gasproof shelter and collective protector, through the maintenance of strict sanitary discipline, the application of public health principles, and by means of immunization.
While no immunological protection was possible in gas warfare, considerable protection could be conferred in biological warfare by protective equipment and through increased body resistance. Since the best means of increasing resistance to specific disease organisms was by immunization through the administration of vaccines, the CWS devoted a major part of the BW program to the development and production of new vaccines and toxoids. Before World War II, scientists had prepared vaccines for use against such diseases as smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, diphtheria, tetanus, plague, typhus fever, and influenza. Of these typhoid, diphtheria, tetanus, smallpox, and yellow fever vaccines appear to have been exceptionally effective but the others had limited value against the diseases as they occurred naturally, and would probably have had considerably less protective value against an attack employing high concentrations of the disease agent.37
Among the accomplishments in biological protection made public after the war may be mentioned new influenza vaccines and the development of effective toxoids against Types A and B botulinum toxin. For the protection of livestock and domestic fowl—exceedingly vulnerable targets in the event of biological warfare—researchers discovered means for mass production of highly effective vaccines for rinderpest, an animal disease, and for Newcastle disease and fowl plague, domestic fowl diseases.38
In addition to the vaccines, a new means of biological protection for the individual was made possible by the recently developed antibiotic agents referred to above. While usually employed in treatment, they could also be used prophylactically for short periods of time and, it was believed, they might have an advantage over vaccines in conferring protection immediately after administration. On the basis of wartime studies, there was evidence that penicillin might be effective in treating human anthrax and that streptomycin was effective in treating tularemia.
In the realm of chemical protection, it appeared that the chemotherapeutic agent, sulfadiazine, might be one of the principal means of attacking the organisms causing glanders and melioidosis once they invaded the body. Other substances providing varying degrees of chemical protection were found among the common antiseptics and disinfectants. The chemical which most nearly met the conditions of an ideal germicide for military and civilian purposes was ordinary calcium hypochlorite, or bleach, the same material used for neutralizing mustard gas. It was effective against almost all micro-organisms. Its action was rapid, large quantities were available, it was not hazardous to use, it was easily inactivated, and it could be used in a variety of apparatus. Similarly, decontaminating agent, noncorrosive, or DANC, another demustardizing agent, was effective in BW for disinfecting the metal surfaces of equipment and instruments. Methyl bromide, found in the standard Quartermaster delousing kit, proved an effective sterilizer, and carboxide, the Navy fumigating agent, sterilized both clothing and equipment. Formaldehyde when dispersed with steam under pressure in enclosed spaces also made a good decontaminating agent, and the CWS M2 smoke generator and commercial spray apparatus could be used to vaporize a formalin-water mixture for the sterilization of air. Finally, certain glycols in the form of aerosol mists were satisfactory for use with the standard collective protector installed in a modified gasproof shelter.
Protective Masks and Clothing
Where, under combat conditions, there was danger of biological warfare and no way of knowing what micro-organisms an enemy might use, the individual soldier would, as in gas warfare, have to rely on his mask and special protective clothing. One of the most pressing problems of CWS research, therefore, was to devise truly effective leakproof combat and service masks.
A minute degree of leakage could be tolerated in the standard mask under gas attack. But biological agents are not molecular particles like war gases. They are suspensions of solids in the air, and a few disease microorganisms entering the facepiece might produce a casualty. The mask for biological warfare, therefore, had to be at least an estimated 1,000,000 times more efficient than the standard service gas mask.39
Technicians attained near zero leakage by modifying the M5 combat mask and adding to it a special leakproof headpiece made of butyl coated airplane cloth. This impermeable headpiece, covering the entire head and the facepiece of the mask except for the eyepieces and canister, reduced peripheral leakage of the mask facepiece and provided a dead air space around the outlet valve of the mask, thus affording a high degree of protection at that point. The slight positive pressure exerted within the headpiece by the trapped exhaled air made entry of air impossible except through the canister. The weight of this BW mask, including facepiece, headpiece, canister, and carrier was 3.2 pounds, making it a practicable as well as highly effective unit of protection in the event of BW combat. Further development resulted in a leakproof service mask weighing 2.3 pounds, with a headpiece of butyl coated nylon, improved eyelenses permitting better vision, and with the canister fitted inside the headpiece. Although both of these combat and service masks were considered satisfactory, improvements were still being made by V-J Day.40
The special protective clothing designed for laboratory workers at Camp Detrick was- not considered practicable for combat troops. Almost complete physical protection was achieved with the impermeable coverall made of wind-resistant, water-repellent Oxford cotton cloth. But this very impermeability, because it prevented the perspiration from escaping, also put limits on the length of time it could be worn and the degree of strenuous exercise possible. For particularly hazardous laboratory operations, a special ventilated suit was designed which provided absolute protection. This was a one-piece garment of two layers of nylon cloth bonded together with neoprene, and with gloves and shoes of rubber cemented to the fabric. Air introduced into the back of the suit by hose enabled the wearer to work in the attire.
For combat troops, the standard two-piece, permeable, herringbone twill uniform, when treated by the CWS aqueous impregnating process, was considered the best available protective clothing which could be worn in comfort. Tests indicated that the suit would probably exclude half the number of organisms to which the body would be exposed without the clothing. The addition of special ankle-length underwear under the suit increased the degree of protection, probably raising the exclusion of organisms to almost 90 percent,41 provided that sleeves of the uniform were
tied tightly at the wrists, pants legs fastened to the ankles or stuffed inside combat shoes, and all other openings carefully secured.
The CC-2 impregnite used in protective clothing, researchers found, had considerable sporocidal properties. The standard aqueous impregnation process appeared to give the most powerful bactericidal and sporocidal properties to the clothing, although relatively high atmospheric humidity was required for the most efficient action. On the other hand, M5 anti-mustard ointment was found to have negligible bactericidal and sporocidal properties when applied as skin protection. Instead, gloves of Oxford cotton cloth seemed reasonably efficient for the purpose, and, for prolonged wearing, more comfortable than medical rubber gloves.42
The Achievement in Biological Warfare Research
A brief resume of this country’s BW achievements, published on 3 January 1946 and based on a comprehensive report by Mr. Merck to the Secretary of War, was the first War Department release informing the general public of the fact that the Army and Navy had been engaged in the study of biological warfare.43 Among the accomplishments of the BW research and development reported then and later were: (1) fundamental contributions had been made regarding nutrition and conditions of growth of micro-organisms, as well as safe procedures for their quantity production; (2) methods had been developed for accurate detection of small numbers of minute quantities of micro-organisms; (3) many contributions were made to the knowledge of control of airborne diseases; (4) significant contributions had been made to the knowledge concerning the development of immunity against certain infectious diseases of humans and animals; (5) important advances were achieved in the treatment of certain infectious diseases of humans and animals; (6) important information had been secured on the production and control of certain diseases in plants and on the effectiveness of over 1,000 different chemical agents on a variety of plant life.
Between October 1945 and June 1947 the CWS published a total of 156 scientific and technical papers based upon wartime research and development at Camp Detrick and presented 28 other papers at scientific meetings.
George W. Merck, Special Consultant to the Secretary of War, visiting Camp Detrick, Maryland. Col. Joseph D. Sears, left.
In evaluating the magnitude of American BW achievement it should be remembered that the United States began operations with British and Canadian experience to draw on and with the added advantages over these allies of almost unlimited funds and personnel and with the finest facilities obtainable. There was also some justice in the remark reported by the chief of technical operations at Camp Detrick, after a visit to his British counterpart in 1944, that there was “a certain amount of duplication of effort in the several countries; that we in the States [did] not take full account of their fundamental studies and ... attacked de novo problems which they had solved satisfactorily.”44
It could not, perhaps, have been otherwise. Despite its kinship with public health medicine and preventive medicine, biological warfare research and development, on the scale undertaken in World War II, was literally something new under the sun. Both the United States and its allies had to work by empirical methods, without precedent, and with all possible haste. America had to prepare to defend itself, and to have an offensive weapon for retaliation.
A series of implications drawn from American experience in BW research was reported in 1946 in a public document prepared by former officials of the United States Biological Warfare Committee.45 There it was asserted that the development of agents for biological warfare was possible in many countries, large and small, without vast expenditures of money or the construction of large-scale production facilities. It was quite
probable that research directed toward enhancing the virulence of known pathogens would result in the production of varieties much more virulent than those already known. Finally, unlike other fields, it would be extremely difficult to control research and development work in biological warfare.
Biological agents, like toxic agents, were not used in the war, but the money spent by the United States on BW, like that spent on CW, was not thrown away. Rather, the expenditures should be viewed in the light of the harm that might have come to an unprepared America through a sneak BW attack.