Chapter 17: Industrial Demobilization
Preparations for Demobilization
As early as the spring of 1943 the Commanding General, ASF, at the direction of the Chief of Staff began to plan for demobilization. At that time, General Somervell set up a Special Planning Division in his headquarters to supervise demobilization planning. Because this type of planning was of vital concern to all major commands, the War Department in July 1943 transferred the Special Planning Division, whose chief was Brig. Gen. W. F. Tompkins, to the War Department General Staff.1 There it remained throughout the war.
After the transfer of the Special Planning Division, the Commanding General, ASF, set up a Special Committee on Materiel Demobilization Planning, headed by Brig. Gen. Theron D. Weaver, who later became Director of Demobilization, ASF. It was at the suggestion of General Weaver’s committee that the Chief, CWS, late in 1943, set up a Demobilization Planning Branch in the Control Division of his office. This branch was headed throughout the war by Col. Paul Sherrick. The Chief, CWS, appointed liaison officers on demobilization planning in the Industrial, Supply, Technical, and Field Requirements Divisions of his office and at the CWS installations. Because facilities loomed large in all CWS demobilization plans, he set up a separate demobilization unit in the Facilities and Requirements Branch, Industrial Division, OC CWS, in 1944.2
Demobilization planning fell into two general categories, the computation of special demobilization Army Supply Programs and the drawing up of specific plans for such activities as disposition of facilities, contract terminations, and property disposal. Both types of planning were carried on under a formula which provided for two separate periods of demobilization—Period I running from V-E Day to V-J Day and Period II for six months after the defeat of Japan. The Demobilization Planning Branch, OC CWS, was responsible for coordinating the compilation of the special Army Supply Programs, while the demobilization unit in the Industrial Division of the chief’s office and demobilization officers in the installation drew up plans for disposition of facilities, contract termination, and disposal of surplus property.
Demobilization planning got under way in the procurement districts following an indoctrination course in the chief’s office in January 1944. Selected senior officers from the districts attended this course, which covered the main aspects of demobilization. After returning to their home stations these officers were put in charge of demobilization planning activities for their respective districts. In April 1944 Readjustment Divisions were activated in all procurement districts to administer demobilization planning, contract termination, and property disposal. These divisions not only planned future contract termination and property disposal actions but also supervised current activities along those lines in the districts. Demobilization planning officers were also appointed in the arsenals, but their duties were confined chiefly to planning the disposition of CWS facilities.
On 27 October 1943 the ASF directed the technical services to submit by 20 December 1943, at least in skeleton form, plans for partial demobilization in Period I.3 Headquarters, ASF, furnished a guide in the form of a control chart listing operations considered necessary to accomplish demobilization objectives. These operations included the disposition of industrial facilities, the curtailment of industrial construction, and the disposition of supplies. After submitting the skeleton the CWS added flesh
and the product became the Chemical Warfare Service Materiel Demobilization Plan, Period I—Echelon of the Office of the Chief. This document went through several editions, the final one appearing under the date of 20 May 1944.
The Materiel Demobilization Plan for Period I included a statement of the demobilization objectives of the CWS, a list of governing policies, and an assignment of responsibilities of each element of the chiefs office in the period of demobilization. Objectives were listed as: (1) immediate termination of the maximum quantity of war production consistent with continuing requirements for the war with Japan and sound economic practice; (2) expeditious settlement of terminated contracts and prompt removal of government owned materiel and industrial equipment from plants of private contractors; (3) efficient disposition of excess Chemical Warfare Service property; and (4) retention in pilot production, standby or reserve, of such government owned facilities and equipment for the production of noncommercial items as might be necessary for continuing development of techniques and for the availability of adequate production capacity to insure future military security.4
The Materiel Demobilization Plan for Period I devoted ten pages to governing policies. These were listed under such headings as provision for gas warfare, research and development projects, restriction of contracts and purchase orders, and retention of arsenals and industrial facilities. As to gas warfare, the policy was promulgated that facilities would be disposed of only after due consideration of the possible initiation of that type of warfare. Planners decided that with the defeat of Germany all research and development projects would be reviewed to determine if they would be useful against Japan, if they could be completed within eighteen months, or if they were important as long-range developments. New contracts and purchase orders were not to be placed unless they were specifically found to be necessary for the defeat of Japan.
From the spring of 1944 until the spring of 1945 the chief’s office worked on still another demobilization plan, the one for Redeployment, Readjustment and Demobilization, Period I. This plan, published on 1 March 1945, listed the same objectives as those contained in the previous 20 May 1944 plan on materiel demobilization, only in much more detail. It listed not only the actions that the chief’s office would take in the demobilization period, but also those which the installations would take.
Five weeks before the surrender of Germany, all responsible officers in OC CWS and at the installations received a copy of this plan.5
After the defeat of Germany the Demobilization Planning Branch began to give serious consideration to plans for Period II. The surrender of Japan and the end of hostilities, coming early as they did, found the plan still in its infancy. The CWS, therefore, continued to operate under the plan for Period I, most of the features of which applied with equal force to Period II.
Disposition of Facilities
On 6 October 1943 the Chief, Control Division, OC CWS, suggested to General Porter that decisions be made on the following questions: (1) which of the CWS arsenals would be retained as peacetime installations; (2) which existing facilities were to be expanded—by the addition of a gas mask factory, for example, or of a 4.2-inch chemical mortar and shell line; and (3) what other government owned facilities should be retained as war reserve.6 The Chief, CWS, referred these questions to the commanding officers of the arsenals for study and reply.7
Among the policies laid down in the Materiel Demobilization Plan for Period I was that planners concerned with the matter should give due weight to the suitability of arsenals and plants for peacetime retention. Under the plan for Period I all four CWS arsenals were to be retained. Edgewood was to be the chief center for gas mask production and was also to be used for experimental and pilot-scale production of chemical agents, weapons, and defensive items. Huntsville’s primary mission would be to produce smoke materiel and its secondary mission to turn out chemical agents. Pine Bluff would be engaged exclusively in producing incendiary munitions, while Rocky Mountain’s primary mission would be the manufacture of chemical agents and weapons.
But facilities planning was not confined to a mere statement of policy. In line with the emphasis General Somervell was placing on the limitation of construction in 1944,8 the technical services were directed to draw up detailed plans for demobilizing facilities. These plans sought to co-
ordinate the requirements set forth in the Army Supply Program with the need for facilities. In September 1944 the CWS submitted its first facilities plan for Period I to the ASF, and in December a revised version.9
In 1945 the CWS began to pay an increasing amount of attention to plans for disposing of its facilities. In May the chief’s office directed that all CWS arsenals be surveyed to determine measures needed to implement the policies on the arsenals laid down in the 20 May 1944 Materiel Demobilization Plan. The survey board, headed by Col. Harry W. Spraker, scrutinized each arsenal and made recommendations as to what plants should be retained or placed on a standby basis. It also estimated the expenditure required to make permanent improvements at the various plants. This estimate totaled just under $47,000,000.10
At a 12 July 1945 conference of key ASF and CWS officers a formula was drawn up for disposing of all CWS facilities at the close of hostilities. Under this formula facilities fell into three categories: Class A, those that would be retained; Class B, those that could not be classified at the time; and Class C, those that could be put up for advance sale. In addition to the four CWS arsenals, the following plants were listed as Class A: Marshall, St. Louis, Owl 4X, Seattle, Columbus, Kansas City, and New Cumberland. There was no listing under Class B plants. The list of Class C plants included ten government owned plants and five CWS sponsored plants.11 In September the following plants were removed from the Class C category and placed in Class B: Midland, Lake Ontario Ordnance, Firelands, San Bernadino, and Turlock.
The Chief, CWS, advised the Commanding General, ASF, on 10 August, that the clothing renovating plants, which were operated by The Quartermaster General with CWS technical assistance, would continue to operate on a full time basis at the close of hostilities. The chlorine and mustard plants at Rocky Mountain and Pine Bluff Arsenals would continue on a reduced basis, as would the mustard plant at Edgewood. Fifty percent of the workers at the Edgewood Arsenal Machine Shop would be retained because they were doing work for the laboratories at the Chemical Warfare Center. Also scheduled for continued operation were the Vigo
Plant and the contract on the 4.2-inch chemical mortar shell at the Milwaukee Stamping Co. At certain other key industrial installations, according to plans, a cadre of 20 percent of the workers were to be kept to put equipment in standby condition. The following day, 11 August, the Chief, Industrial Division, directed the arsenals to cut back production of chemical agents and the procurement districts to end production of specified munitions.
At 1900 on 14 August the President officially announced the end of war. Within an hour General Porter’s headquarters was sending out detailed instructions to the arsenals and districts on cutting back production schedules. The period of full-scale demobilization had begun, a period characterized by drastic reduction of military and civilian rolls and by concentration on such activities as property disposal, processing and packaging of chemical items for reserve storage, putting plants in standby condition, and contract terminations. The arsenals reduced the number of workers much more drastically than did the procurement districts; by the end of 1945 about 90 percent of arsenal civilians were released as compared with about 50 percent of district workers.12 The procurement districts retained a larger percentage of their workers in order to carry out contract termination and property disposal activities.
Contract Terminations
As the war approached its end the CWS placed greater stress on terminating contracts. On 10 August the Chief, Industrial Division, OC CWS, directed the commanding officers of the procurement districts to prepare lists of all contracts to be terminated as well as books of telegrams on termination to be released to the Western Union the moment the war was over. This activity harkened back to a similar experience in World War I, when, as indicated, CWS contracts were terminated expeditiously.13 But this action was an exception to the general situation in the War Department. When hostilities were suddenly concluded in November 1918 the government found that its authority to settle many contracts was dubious, that there was definite need for a sound organization to carry out settlements, and that in many instances no criteria whatsoever had been established for effecting settlements. More than 3,000
of the 30,000 contracts terminated were later appealed to the U.S. Court of Claims and this litigation dragged out over an average period of three and a half years per contract. In a word, World War I experience demonstrated the need for such procedures as a uniform termination article, a uniform termination policy, statutory authority to effect negotiated settlements, and confirmation of the government’s right to carry out interim financing.14
During the emergency period preceding World War II, the War Department took its first significant step to improve contract settlement procedure when in October 1941 it made mandatory the inclusion of a termination article in all standard fixed-price contracts. It took a further step a year later when it introduced the principle of negotiated settlement into the termination process. A negotiated settlement represented a compromise between the claims and counterclaims of the government and the contractor with the aim of compensating the contractor equitably for the unfinished portion of his contract.15
The War Period
Termination of contracts was a factor in CWS procurement almost from its inception, but the first wave of terminations did not come until the M54 bomb program was cut back in the spring of 1942.16 Since the War Department had not yet compiled guidelines on termination procedures, CWS contracting officers suddenly found themselves facing such problems as how to reimburse the contractor for his inventories of raw materials, for his commitments to his suppliers, and for his work in process. Some contractors were already losing money; should these men be allowed profit on a partially completed job when they would have suffered loss on a completed job? In an effort to formulate answers to such questions the procurement district offices worked out procedures on contract termination based on accepted principles of law and accounting, and at least one district, New York, put these procedures in writing. When difficulties of interpretation arose the district offices communicated with the legal branch of the chief’s office for guidance. But not until
mid-1944 did the latter branch exert close supervision over termination activities throughout the CWS.17
From the summer of 1943 on, meanwhile, the War Department began concentrating on contract termination activities. In June a Contract Termination Branch was set up in the Purchases Division, ASF; in August a new termination section (PR 15) was added to War Department Procurement Regulations; and in November the Readjustment Division, ASF, was activated to deal with all matters relating to demobilization, including contract termination. Spurred on by both the Office of the Under Secretary of War and by Headquarters, ASF, the Chief, CWS, began to put greater emphasis on contract termination. Early in 1944, as indicated, he arranged for a course on contract termination and property disposal in his headquarters, and in April he directed that Readjustment Divisions be set up in the procurement districts. At the same time the Assistant Chief, CWS, for Materiel urged the commanding officers of the districts to keep in personal touch with contract termination matters and to provide for the training of future termination officers.18
The War Department was but one of six major procurement agencies in the government; consequently there was need for developing uniform termination procedures for all these agencies.19 At the request of the President, Bernard Baruch and John Hancock made a study of contract settlement and property disposal matters, which they embodied in their Report on War and Post-War Adjustment Policies (15 February 1944). Congress was meanwhile studying the need for new legislation and passed the Contract Settlement Act of 1944.20 This act, which pointed out the need for speed, equity, and finality in the settlement of terminated contracts, created an Office of Contract Settlement with a director empowered to prescribe policies, procedures, and standards on contract settlements.
The summer of 1944 saw more emphasis in the War Department on contract termination than ever before.21 After the passage of the Contract Settlement Act, Headquarters, ASF, urged the technical services to pay as much attention as possible to advance planning of termination settlements and to assist contractors in becoming familiar with the termination articles in their contracts. The services were to advise contractors to form termination sections in their organizations and to train personnel in operations involving the prompt settlement of claims and disposal of inventories. In the CWS the chiefs of the readjustment divisions in the procurement districts arranged one-day courses for contractors in the principal cities of the districts. The ASF also directed the technical services to obtain written termination plans for certain contractors.22 In August 1944, for example, the CWS was directed to obtain such plans from three contractors.23 With the issuance of the Joint Termination Regulations on 1 November termination officers were furnished an authentic guide for carrying out their duties.24 As of late December 1944 the termination planning program in the CWS was rated as among the most advanced in the ASF.25
The procedures which the CWS followed on contract terminations generally resembled those followed throughout the Army.26 At the procurement district level the chiefs of the readjustment divisions appointed “settlement teams” to carry out termination actions. Each team was headed by a negotiator, who was assisted by members qualified in property disposal, accounting, and engineering. The membership of a team remained unchanged only through the termination of a particular contract. Under the guidance of the negotiator the team took the necessary steps to effect settlement of the claim, complete plant clearance, and process the claim to final payment. In carrying out plant clearance the teams received invaluable assistance from the inspection offices of the procurement districts. Washington headquarters reviewed all termination actions in excess of $5,000. The Legal Branch reviewed all terminations for compliance with the
Joint Termination Regulations and other directives while the Fiscal Division checked the accounting methods followed in the termination action. Representatives of the chief’s office, moreover, reviewed all terminations of less than $5,000 on periodic visits to field installations.27
Postwar Activities
With V-J Day came an all-out effort to quickly terminate all war contracts. Both in the Washington headquarters and in the procurement district offices this objective became the first order of business. By August 1946 the CWS could report that there were only six contracts that had not yet been terminated.28 Three of these were with Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc., and Batavia Metal Products, Inc. The other three were with Pressurelube, Inc.
While the settlement of CWS contracts in the postwar period was carried out with speed, there is, unfortunately, good reason to suspect that administration of various aspects of the settlements left something to be desired. In November 1946 the Chief, Chemical Corps, appointed a Contract Settlement Review Team to assist all contracting officers to properly document all termination actions. The basic purpose behind the appointment of the team was protection of the contracting officers and the corps as a whole.29 Some of the disclosures brought about by the Senate committee investigating the Erie Basin and Batavia contracts had convinced the Chief, Chemical Corps, as well as his superiors in the War Department of the need for such a team. A civilian with considerable experience in Ordnance Department termination, Christian Van Heest, was selected to head the team. Van Heest was assisted by a group which varied in number from six to ten, several of whom had had previous termination experience in the Ordnance Department.30
Although the purpose behind its appointment did not include investigation of termination actions taken by contracting officers, the team could not help but draw certain conclusions relative to such actions.31 Among
other observations, it expressed the conviction that the government regulations on contract terminations were well thought out. Errors of omission and commission were not the result of faulty regulations but rather of poor administration of the regulations. Under the stress of war the War Department had not placed sufficient emphasis on training future contract termination officers. Relatively few CWS officers, for example, had been given the opportunity to attend the excellent course in contract terminations given at the Army Industrial College in 1944. At the close of the war, in consequence, hundreds of inexperienced officers were placed in termination positions. “Surprisingly enough, however,” the report says, “the majority of settlements made by the Chemical Corps appear to have been made with justice to the contractor and the government. It is with the minority that we are primarily concerned. While the number of termination settlements indicating excessive payments, or the use of questionable judgment, is comparatively small, the amounts involved are large and therefore a matter of concern in any future emergency.”
Among specific criticisms of the report was the comment that although the accountants, both military and civilian, were very well trained and efficient they should have cooperated more closely with engineers and the other technical experts with regard to the value of inventories. The report did not hold the accountants responsible for the situation but blamed it on those administering the program.
The report is critical of the manner in which inventories were disposed of by the CWS. In many instances contractors’ plants were cleared in thirty days instead of the allotted ninety days, a feat that would have been commendable had the action been properly carried out. Unfortunately, however, disposal officers often short-cut the regulations, with the result that the government acquired many items it later had to dispose of as scrap. The lack of documentation on disposition of inventories was very frustrating. In “hundreds of cases” the team was unable to find any evidence on the disposition of items.
Under provision of the Joint Termination Regulations, contract review boards were set up at the various CWS installations. In most instances these boards were entirely military and the officers who sat on them were of lower rank than the negotiating officer submitting the proposed settlement for review. “Ordinarily,” the report states, “such a review board would not be likely to question the acts of a superior officer.” The report recommended that in any future emergency the selection of members of
review boards be given closer attention; that at least two qualified civilians with business experience sit on each board and that no military member be below the rank of major.
In its final recommendation the report urged that contract terminations be studied in connection with the peacetime Industrial Mobilization Program, so that in any future emergency proper instruction might be given to prospective negotiators and property disposal officers.
The report of the Contract Settlement Review Team might have made several additional observations in its analysis of the situation in the CWS. One of the reasons for poor property records was that many CWS small contractors did not have facilities to set up necessary records when they undertook a contract. Later CWS termination offices had to attempt to reconstruct the property record back to the time the contract was awarded. The efficiency with which property records were administered, as well as with regard to other aspects of contract terminations, differed among CWS installations. Some had excellent staffs and closely supervised all aspects of termination activities; others did not have enough qualified people and operated in a rather haphazard manner.
At the root of the difficulty was the tendency to relegate contract termination activities to a secondary role while the war was in progress. Both at the chiefs office and at the installations the first objective was considered to be the procurement and supply of chemical munitions to the armed forces; in the light of the expanding overall chemical warfare procurement program this tendency was natural. An indication of the relatively minor importance assigned to contract terminations is the delay in activating a Readjustment Division in the Washington headquarters; not until October 1945 was that division established. Had such a division been set up under a competent chief (preferably a man with about fifteen years’ experience in contracting) at the time the Readjustment Divisions were activated in the procurement districts in 1944, the supervision of all CWS contract termination activities would have been greatly improved.32 As actually carried out, the supervision of various termination activities was divided among several elements of the chiefs office. In addition to the overall supervision of termination actions by the Legal Branch, the Fiscal Division supervised property accountability and the Property Disposal Branch all matters relating to the disposal of surplus property.
Property Disposal
Half a dozen years after the close of World War I, the CWS was still disposing of surplus property.33 With the passage of time additional materials, particularly chemicals, became surplus and these the CWS disposed of by transfer to other branches of the War Department or to civilian agencies.34 In 1937 several of the deteriorated buildings at Edge-wood Arsenal were sold as surplus.35
One effective means of speeding up production in the emergency period was through eliminating large reserves of outmoded property through prompt disposal.36 The First War Powers Act of 18 December 1941 provided for the sale of serviceable property to war contractors without going through the formality of declaring it surplus. Supported by this provision of the act and by rulings of the War Production Board, the War Department in October 1942 issued Procurement Regulation Number 7 on disposing of surplus and obsolete property. Under this regulation the CWS as an element of the Army carried on its disposal activities during the first half of the war. If the service found it impossible to sell excess property to war contractors, it drew up a list of the material which it circulated among other supply services of the Army and among elements of the Navy. If another service wanted all or part of the material it was transferred; if not it was declared surplus and reported to the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department. If the Treasury Department did not indicate an interest the CWS sent out invitations to private industry to bid on the surplus property.37
The war period naturally witnessed the accumulation of a considerable amount of excess property by the CWS. Among the causes of this development was the elimination of certain munitions such as the M54 bomb and lewisite. When these programs were discontinued the items were declared surplus, and in the case of lewisite the plants also.38 When a manufacturing program was eliminated the machinery in the plant
generally became surplus. Another cause for the accumulation of excess property was the practice of discarding old model items or old type materiel when a newer model or a newer type had been developed. Still another cause was the refusal of Russia to accept certain chemicals, particularly ammonium chloride, which the CWS had purchased and packed for lend-lease shipment.39 Basic, of course, was the fact that gas warfare did not eventuate, with the result that the armed forces did not expend its gas warfare ammunition. Since most CWS materiel, moreover, was not suitable for civilian use, the service faced a more difficult problem of disposal than did other elements of the Army.
By the spring of 1943 the property disposal situation was becoming serious enough to warrant the appointment of special officers to administer the program. In April the Chief, CWS, in accordance with a directive from the ASF made the .Chief of the Priorities and Allocation Branch, Industrial Division, in his headquarters, salvage and excess property officer in addition to his other duties. At the same time he directed the commanding officers of the installations to appoint property disposal officers. In May 1943 the ASF set up a Redistribution and Salvage Branch in its headquarters to supervise these activities in the technical services. The extent of CWS disposal activities by the end of 1943 is indicated by the value of sales and transfers of salvage and excess property for the last six months of 1943, which totaled $7,825,507.40
General English, Chief, Industrial Division, in General Porter’s office did not believe that the service was putting forth its best efforts in disposing of surplus property and in December 1943 he urged the installations to become more active in this matter.41 What was true of the CWS was evidently true of the ASF generally, for in the spring of 1944 General Somervell was quoted as saying that he “did not know of any situation in the Army Service Forces that was any worse than the disposal of surplus property.”42 One cause was the long period of time being consumed in disposing of inventory and industrial property, which was in turn leading to delays in contract settlements.43
There was a variety of reasons for the leisurely pace of industrial
property disposal, but in the judgment of an officer who had a number of years’ experience in production one seemed predominant. Col. Louis W. Munchmeyer, who directed the program in the Office of the Chief, CWS, in an address to members of the Industrial Division in the fall of 1944, blamed it on the human frailty of the typical production man who wanted “to hide a piece of equipment” for possible use if a similar piece should break down.44 That there was a great deal in what Colonel Munchmeyer said seems to be indicated by the fact that from early 1944 the ASF and other pertinent government agencies placed much emphasis on ferreting out industrial equipment that had been hidden away.
The Latter War Period
The Baruch-Hancock Report of February 1944 led to drastic reforms in the field of property disposal no less than in contract termination. The first result was establishment of a Surplus Property Administration in the Office of War Mobilization.45 The Surplus Property Administration arranged for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to act as a disposal agency in addition to the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation handled general purpose equipment, machine tools, and chemicals, while the Procurement Division, Treasury Department, was restricted to consumer-type property.
Another important outcome of the Baruch-Hancock Report was the enactment of the Surplus Property Act of 3 October 1944.46 This act created a Surplus Property Board of three members. Appointments to the new board were completed in January 1945 and the board’s regulations were made available to the ASF in April. In September the board was abolished and a single administrator appointed.47
While the CWS conducted its surplus property functions under the general supervision of Headquarters, ASF, it also had direct contacts with the Surplus Property Board and later the Surplus Property Administration.48 The Property Disposal Branch in the chief’s office formulated
procedures for CWS disposal activities based on the regulations and directives of the War Department and the top level government disposal agencies.49 These procedures were printed in a CWS Property Disposal Manual. The branch also carried on a training program for CWS property disposal workers through conferences and meetings, through correspondence, and through personal contacts.
It was the opinion of those who directed the wartime disposal program in the CWS that ASF administration of property disposal was of an excellent character. General Somervell’s headquarters laid down clear-cut instructions aimed at redistributing property on an equitable basis, and although these instructions were not always palatable to individual commanders, they were beneficial to the CWS and to the Army as a whole. The handling of surplus property by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was not looked upon with very much favor because of alleged delays of that agency in carrying out disposition.50
Among the most important of property disposal procedures was the compiling of complete descriptions of each individual item to be disposed of. It was not possible, for example, to sell a gas mask production line as such. Instead, a complete description of every item going into that line, such as motors and sewing machines, had to be made. After the description was drawn up it was circulated to likely military branches, such as the Ordnance Department or the Corps of Engineers. If these had no use for the item and it was less than $100 in value it could be sold to a war contractor. In September 1944 an innovation was introduced in that items for sale were disposed of through the service command, which had more facilities for effective sales. The items that were not sold were declared surplus to the Surplus Property Board and later the Surplus Property Administration.51
Major salvage projects in the CWS included the gas mask carrier and gas mask disassembly program and the protective ointment program. These projects got under way after General Porter received a letter from General Somervell late in 1944 stressing the critical manpower shortage and the
desirability of utilizing the labor of prisoners of war.52 The gas mask program, which was carried on at some half dozen points throughout the country, resulted in the salvaging of webbing, hardware, and minor components badly needed by both the CWS and the Quartermaster Corps.53 The protective ointment program consisted of the salvaging of approximately 27 million tubes of ointment which had been declared surplus to the War Department in early 1945.54 The ointment was removed from the tubes and stored in drums and the tubes and various packaging material was transferred to other services of the Army and to the Navy.
In the period July 1943 through July 1945 the CWS made available for disposal property valued at $143,051,000. (Table 10) Of this amount property valued at $126,910,000 was actually disposed of during the period.55
Table 10: CWS Property Disposal Activities, July 1943 through July 1945*
| Type and Action | Amount |
| Available for Disposal Total | $143,051,000 |
| Nonmilitary property | $85,195,000 |
| Military property | 37,095,000 |
| Contractor-inventory (including contractor owned) | 20,761,000 |
| Disposals Total | $126,910,000 |
| Transferred in CWS | $50,289,000 |
| Transferred in salvage | 33,105,000 |
| Transferred to other War Department components and Navy | 20,655,000 |
| Sold | 14,001,000 |
| Transferred to SPB disposal agencies | 8,860,000 |
* All figures in the tabulation are based on initial cost.
Source: Property Disposal Branch, OC CWS, compilation, CWS 314.7 Property Disposal File.
The end of fighting in the Pacific saw an immediate increase in CWS property disposal activities, as the following figures indicate. The total volume of all types of property (contractor-inventory, nonmilitary, and inventory) for the period January July 1945 amounted to $8,623,000; for the month of August 1945 alone the figure was $23,274,000. Table 11 lists the original dollar value of all CWS property disposed of during the calendar year 1945.
Table 11: CWS Property Available for Disposal, January–December 1945
| Period | Total | Contractor- Inventory | Nonmilitary | Military |
| Total | $159,042,000 | $54,572,000 | $47,587,000 | $56,883,000 |
| January-July | 8,623,000 | 255,000 | 3,905,000 | 4,463,000 |
| August | 23,274,000 | 936,000 | 7,186,000 | 15,152,000 |
| September | 31,044,000 | 15,078,000 | 9,883,000 | 6,083,000 |
| October | 41,700,000 | 18,995,000 | 8,171,000 | 14,534,000 |
| November | 35,282,000 | 15,342,000 | 15,386,000 | 4,554,000 |
| December | 19,119,000 | 3,966,000 | 3,056,000 | 12,097,000 |
Source: Rpt of Property Disposal Br, OC CWS, August-December 1945. CWS 314.7 Property Disposal File.
The Postwar Period
The War Department in the months immediately after the close of hostilities urged the technical services to “jar loose supplies of civilian-type items.”56 The CWS encountered little or no problem in disposing of materiel that had a civilian use. In addition to sales to private industry, the service disposed of a number of items by grants to schools and colleges through the U.S. Office of Education. These items included chemicals in small quantities, laboratory equipment, gas alarms, decontaminating apparatus, chemical mortar carts, 55-gallon drums, eyeshields, mechanical smoke generators, chemical agent detector kits, floating smoke pots, dust respirators, Vi-ton trailers, 1/4-ton tractors, and impregnating plants.57 But with the bulk of chemical warfare materiel it was different. After
setting aside certain quantities of munitions as war reserve, there were still vast quantities on hand.58
It was the materiel for which there was no civilian demand that created particular disposal problems. Such items as toxic agents, “goop,” and certain raw chemicals had very little or no commercial value.59 Shortly after the close of the war some toxic agents were dumped at sea, but the problem of disposing of surplus toxics was to persist for a number of years.60 Some “goop” was eventually disposed of by turning it over to state government agencies in the far west and to certain lumber companies who used it to destroy undesirable brush.61 Among the raw chemicals the CWS had difficulty in selling were ammonium chloride and arsenic trichloride. The former was used as a catalyst in the manufacture of lewisite and its chief commercial use was in preserving the greens on golf courses. But there were just not enough golf courses in the United States to absorb the quantity of ammonium chloride the CWS had on hand. Arsenic tri, chloride was also used in the production of lewisite, and after the CWS discontinued the manufacture of that agent in mid-1944 it declared 1,700,000 pounds of arsenic trichloride surplus to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. By March 1946 less than 250,000 pounds had been sold and the remainder was in storage at Pine Bluff.62 This situation pointed up a grave postwar problem facing the CWS: its depots and other storage facilities were bulging with items long since declared surplus.
Until early 1946 the CWS experienced little difficulty in administering its surplus property program. The procedure was for the service to notify the War Department periodically of the amount of surplus property on hand, but no great pressure was exerted to reduce these surpluses. In February 1946 War Department policy underwent a complete change.63 The new policy called for the disposition of all items for which there was
not a definite military need.64 Although this approach put a tremendous burden on the Property Disposal Branch of the chiefs office as well as on the installations, it did bring about greater disposition of surplus material.65
The task of the CWS property disposal officials was not made any lighter by the unfavorable publicity which the service was receiving in 1946. In July a Senate committee began its open hearings into the Gars-son contracts.66 That same month some 33 leaking German mustard gas bombs were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico about 60 miles off the coast of Alabama in 100 fathoms of water. Despite all evidence to the contrary and despite the fact that similar phenomena had occurred periodically in various regions throughout the world, the death of some fish off the coast of Florida was blamed on this action.67 In the fall of 1946 the service received more unfavorable publicity when some workmen suffered burns while unloading leaking shells from a munition ship at Mobile, Ala.68 As a result of all this notoriety the CWS was anything but the darling of the War Department at the time. But this predicament was not without its compensations. Under the circumstances the Chief, CWS, insisted that his subordinates cooperate fully with higher headquarters and be most scrupulous in carrying out property disposal transactions. It stands to the credit of the CWS that, unlike some other elements of the Army, no serious question was ever raised by higher authority as to the propriety of the service’s disposal actions.
To Be or Not To Be?
During the war the ASF not only assumed responsibility for supervising such technical service activities as disposition of facilities, contract termination, and property disposal; it also set up organizational and administrative standards for all elements under its jurisdiction, and General Somervell’s headquarters did not confine its concern for Army organization to the war period, but made plans for the postwar period as well. As
early as the summer of 1944 the Control Division, ASF, began working on such a plan. As finally evolved, this plan envisioned a setup consisting of a commanding general, ASF, assisted by a dozen staff officers, six of whom would also serve as chiefs of technical services. Each technical service would have functional rather than commodity responsibilities.69 For example, the Quartermaster Corps would return to its traditional Army function of distributing all Army supplies, the Medical Department to medicine, the Engineers to engineering, and the Ordnance Department to procuring everything for the Army. As the wartime Chief of Control Division, ASF, later expressed it, “In such a shift, the Chemical Warfare Service simply gets lost.”70 Under the ASF plan the functions of the CWS were to be transferred to the Ordnance Department.
Somervell’s recommendations were among those studied by a board of officers appointed by General George C. Marshall on 30 August 1945 to prepare a plan for the peacetime organization of the War Department.71 In the course of its study this board, whose chairman was Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, interviewed Under Secretary Patterson and Assistant Secretary Robert A. Lovett, and a number of high ranking officers, including Generals Eisenhower, McNarney, and Walter Bedell Smith. On 18 October the Patch board submitted its recommendation to the Chief of Staff A new board, headed by Lt. Gen. William M. Simpson, was then appointed to consider suggested adjustments to the Patch board recommendations. On 28 December the Simpson board submitted its report, which differed in only minor details from the Patch board report.72
General Porter was one of the officers interviewed by the Patch board. When Porter appeared before the board on 13 September he carried in his hand a note he had received from Under Secretary Patterson two days before. This note was a reply to a 7 September letter from Porter to Patterson, written at the latter’s request. This letter had listed arguments in favor of an independent chemical service. Patterson’s note, which Porter read at the start of his testimony, included the following statements:
You make a strong case for the continuance of the Chemical Warfare Service. It is a convincing case so far as I am concerned. The record made by the Chemical Warfare Service has been a notable one. I know of no move to merge your service with any other service, having heard nothing more than casual talk on the subject.73
In Porter’s 7 September letter to Patterson—wherein he made “the strong case for the continuance of the Chemical Warfare Service”—he indicated in the opening paragraph that about ten days before the two men had discussed the future of the CWS when they met on an airplane.74 Porter at that time was cognizant of the plans of the ASF to combine the CWS with the Ordnance Department.75 In the course of the conversation Patterson had asked the Chief, CWS, to send him something in writing justifying the continuance of a separate chemical service.
“First and foremost” among the reasons which Porter propounded was the need of an agency for coordinating chemical research, as well as biological and physical research. The CWS was the only War Department agency in existence prepared to carry out this mission. It would be very unwise, Porter felt, to subordinate such a vital activity to an element of the War Department already saddled with a huge supply and service mission. It would be particularly unfortunate in the light of the ever increasing importance of research and development to warfare.
The second reason which the Chief, CWS, presented was that since the application of research and development to warfare was relatively new, these activities should not be confined by the “shackles of existing weapons and channels of thought” nor should they be relegated to a secondary position in some technical service.
A distinction between the kind of research and development performed by the Ordnance Department and that carried out by the CWS constituted Porter’s third point. Whereas Ordnance research, development, and procurement followed fairly well defined patterns, based essentially on commercial and industrial commodities, those of the CWS were largely noncommercial. Ordnance, moreover, had no concern whatever with medical or biological research.
Porter’s “fourth vital point” was predicated on the proposition that selling new ideas was always a difficult task:
Absent a protagonistic approach [he stated], new ideas are often suppressed, or, at best, impeded and delayed. That the history of suppression is not theoretical is borne out by the history of the 4.2 mortar; this war would not have had the mortar—with its brilliant record—but for the advocacy of the Chemical Warfare Service. , . . I need not multiply incidents—you know the conflict within our own armed forces and those of our allies on high explosives versus incendiaries, and how effective a weapon incendiaries have proven to be, and how the development of smoke and flame has progressed only because of the singleness of interest of the Chemical Warfare Service.
These were Porter’s four principal reasons for the continuation of the CWS. As he himself indicated, they centered around the research and development mission. To these four Porter added five additional reasons for a separate organization. These were that the CWS had a combat and field staff mission related to its research mission, that the size of the CWS was just about right for carrying the chemical and biological activities of the armed forces, that the storage and shipment of chemical munitions required special handling, that the CWS was unique in military circles in having experience in the production of defense as well as offensive munitions, and that if the CWS were eliminated it would not be feasible to simply transfer its activities to the Ordnance Department because certain of these activities were more akin to the missions of other elements of the Army, such as the Quartermaster Corps, the Medical Department, and the Corps of Engineers. Although General Porter did not point out the fact, distribution of responsibilities would have meant a reversion to the situation that had existed in World War I before the establishment of the CWS.
In his testimony before the Patch board, Porter, in answer to specific questions, went into more details on certain items, especially the biological warfare activities of the CWS. But essentially his arguments were those embodied in his letter to the Under Secretary of War.
The duties of the Chief, CWS, as defined in the National Defense Act included not only the development, procurement, and issue of smoke and incendiary materials and toxic agents, but also the organization, equipment, training, and operations of special gas troops, and such other duties as the President might from time to time prescribe. This list of duties indicates that the CWS was not only a service branch of the Army but also a fighting branch or arm in that it was responsible for the training of special troops and for their employment in battle.
The Chiefs of the Chemical Warfare Service never interpreted their role as being confined solely to development and procurement of materiel. They believed that the special weapons which the service developed and
procured should be tried out by special troops for whose training the CWS was responsible. Only on the basis of such experience, they felt, could sound training doctrine be formulated. General Porter, no less than his predecessors, was imbued with this concept; he saw the CWS as an organization with balanced and interacting responsibilities for research and development, supply, training, and combat employment of chemical munitions. For that reason it would have been inconceivable for General Porter to have subscribed to any such shifting of CWS responsibilities as the Army Service Forces suggested in 1945. That the General Staff was convinced of the validity of Porter’s thesis seems obvious from its decision to maintain the organizational integrity of the Chemical Warfare Service.