Chapter 3: CWS Administration and Supply: Mediterranean
The Chemical Warfare Service, like the rest of the Army, matriculated in the logistics school of the North African campaigns. The Army had directly participated in the global supply effort for eight months before the planning for North Africa got under way, but this was the first Army participation in an Allied logistics operation of great magnitude. Supply of any considerable force at any time during the war was far from a simple matter, but probably no other logistics operation of the war was surrounded by so many complicating circumstances as this initial venture. Planning got under way late. Allied forces strategy for a landing originally projected for October 1942 and finally for November did not assume a clear pattern until 5 September 1942. The Allied commander-designate, General Eisenhower, set up his planning headquarters, AFHQ, in England, though the source of the bulk of materials was the United States, and a major combat force under Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., was to sail directly from the United States for the assault. The Navy had determined that an acute shortage of cargo ships, the grave threat of submarine warfare, and the shortage of escorts made small, fast-moving, infrequent convoys a necessity; thus, the quantities of materials and the numbers of men to be shipped were severely limited and the intervals between deliveries were lengthened. Few troops had received enough training to be considered ready for operations, and elsewhere in the Army, as in the CWS, few production lines were furnishing equipment, especially new equipment, in desired amounts. Furthermore, the administrative mechanisms were not yet working properly.
Jurisdictional boundaries between the Army Service Forces and the two other major War Department commands, Army Ground Forces and Army Air Forces, had not been clearly delineated. Strategic or tactical alterations time and again upset logistical plans. Details of port operation and organization still had to be fixed, and coordination among the ports, the technical services, and the Services of Supply headquarters was to be developed through the North African experience. General Eisenhower later wrote that the operation was “... in conflict with all operational and logistical methods laid down in textbooks. ...”1
General Eisenhower called in Colonel Shadle one day in the middle of August 1942 and told him that he was appointed Chemical Warfare Officer, AFHQ.2 This appointment to a supreme allied headquarters placed Shadle in a position that no CWS officer had ever been in before; the headquarters of Marshall Ferdinand Foch, the only pertinent World War I example, had no special staff. General Eisenhower created AFHQ from a number of military concepts both current and new to comply with his basic directive. AFHQ was, first, an instrument for coordinating Allied strategic plans and operations and a combined command for ground, sea, and air forces. It was next a theater headquarters or at least it was designed to contain the nucleus of a theater headquarters in that it had a full general and special staff oriented to the direction of American Army activities in a theater of operations. It was, third, a tactical and operational headquarters approximating that of a field army with initial supervision of three corps. It was, fourth and least, the parent organization for a communications zone headquarters whose operating elements, the base section headquarters, were being formed as adjuncts of the corps headquarters.3
Shadle and an officer assistant immediately set about making general chemical plans for the scheduled invasion, known as Operation TORCH. On 15 September 1942, Shadle’s section was officially organized as the Chemical Warfare Section, AFHQ. Lt. Col. Ian A. Marriott, British Army, was appointed deputy and one of the two American officers assigned became executive officer. One British major, three American enlisted men, and two British enlisted men completed the staff. While
the section was intended to serve both AFHQ and the planned American theater Headquarters, North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA) , the manpower allotment, as authorized by the AFHQ chief of staff, was sufficient only to form two divisions, one Administration, the other Technical and Intelligence. Despite the lack of a supply or logistics division, the AFHQ Chemical Section, in its NATOUSA role, was assigned staff responsibility for chemical matériel through the entire overseas span from requirements to salvage.4
Since at this time national policy and the toxic supply capability of the Army forbade the employment, even in retaliation, of war gases, Shadle and his staff made no gas warfare offensive plan.5 They were also unable to make any nongas warfare offensive plans involving the use of chemical mortar units or the new portable flame throwers as neither units nor weapons were yet ready. Brig. Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, AFHQ assistant chief of staff, G-3, suggested to Shadle that artificial smoke protection would be valuable in view of German air superiority over the Mediterranean and North Africa. Shadle accordingly requested smoke pots both from the United States and from the British and drew up tactical smoke plans. The CWS in the United States could furnish only the prewar training allowance of one pot per twenty soldiers, a ratio which Shadle viewed as entirely inadequate. A part of the smoke deficit was made up by the supply of British pots and another part by the inclusion of some new mechanical smoke generators and a. smoke generator unit in the forces to arrive from the United States. Still, Shadle considered preparedness for smoke operations to be below the desirable standard.6
In the absence of gas warfare supplies, and with inadequate nongas warfare supply, the principal responsibility of the AFHQ and NATOUSA Chemical Sections was to provide for gas warfare protection, and the prime corollary task was the computation of protective matériel and service requirements for all forces expected to be in North Africa. Time was too short and the AFHQ staff section too small to accomplish this prime task without aid. Consequently, all
the existing and forming chemical sections in the European theater, the Office of the Chief, CWS, in the United States, and the Chemical Section of General Patton’s newly organized Western Task Force (WTF) headquarters in the United States pitched into the job, not only of estimating requirements, but also of actually supplying staff sections, materials, and troops. The OCCWS participated in these activities through liaison provided by ASF and OPD with the overseas staffs and with the WTF headquarters which was at first divided between Washington’s Munitions Building and Indiantown Gap Military Reservation and was later consolidated at Fort George G. Meade, Md.7 All echelons began planning before the character of the TORCH operation had definitely been determined.
In the United Kingdom, Maj. Gen. Mark W. Clark’s II Corps Headquarters, in which Col. Walter P. Burn was chemical officer, assumed most of the planning burden for what was to become Center Task Force (CTF), an American force scheduled to make an assault on and in the vicinity of Oran, Algeria. The Office of the Chief Chemical Warfare Officer, European theater, transferred one officer and four enlisted men into II Corps headquarters in September 1942. During September, October, and November, the remainder of the planning period, a number of CWS ETO officers and men were transferred into or detailed for service with the forming Mediterranean Base Section (MBS) and Twelfth Air Force headquarters in which supply matters were being coordinated with II Corps.8 Maj. Herbert F. Croen, Jr., scheduled to be acting chief of the MBS Chemical Section, remained for some time with the CWS ETO to assist in the task of apportioning available chemical resources in England for TORCH. Although SOS ETO had been advised that all TORCH troops arriving from the United States to assemble in the United Kingdom would be fully equipped, the CWS ETO discovered that units and organizations inspected on
disembarkation reported critical shortages of chemical equipment, especially protective equipment.9
The European theater BOLERO build-up was brought to a sudden halt.10 The CWS ETO diverted chemical equipment and supplies from BOLERO reserves and from ordinary issues to fill shortages for TORCH organizations and units. These organizations and units made requisition directly upon the CWS ETO for chemical supply, and the CWS in turn extracted requisitions to depots. Shortage of time, shortage of materials, and the fact that establishment of the depots had just begun did not permit the operation of the normal supply pattern under which a designated depot would receive requisitions from and make issues to all units in its geographical area. Since the impromptu supply arrangements were unlikely to cover all cases of critical shortage, the CWS ETO also undertook a program of inspecting the chemical readiness of units about to be shipped to North Africa in order to remedy needs which had been overlooked.11
In the United States, OCCWS and the Chemical Section, WTF, computed requirements and determined shortages, as did the CWS ETO, by checking tables of basic allowances (TBA’s) and tables of organization and equipment (TOEs) against unit and organization requisitions and against inventories of materials in the hands of troops. While the supply of troops scheduled for the assault was being completed, OCCWS and the various chemical sections of organizations scheduled for TORCH also computed the reserves necessary to maintain supply when forces were operating in the combat zone. The level of supply reserves in terms of days of supply was set by agreement among War Department agencies, AFHQ, and ETO headquarters, and OCCWS arrived at estimated expenditure rates in order to translate day of supply into actual quantities of materials.12 Since no conclusive expenditure data were available, these estimates were at best educated guesses, but problems arising from lack of experience did not become apparent in the planning and early operational period. The CWS was able to supply gas warfare protective items, which made up the largest
Colonel Barker
portion of the requirements list, in sufficient quantities to meet demands.13 Problems arose in providing commanders’ special requirements, in providing service troops, and in limiting both troops and supplies to available shipping space.
In connection with commanders’ special requirements, Col. Maurice E. Barker, WTF chemical officer, declared that General Patton would have “included a regiment of wizards” if such an inclusion would have given promise of help on the far shore.14 Regiments of wizards were in short supply, but each service conducted a search for any special equipment or special allowances of ordinary supplies which might be valuable in the operation. One OCCWS contribution was the recently developed mechanical smoke generator which was not available in time for shipment to the forces assembling in England but was included in WTF.15 WTF also requested and received special allowances of incendiary hand grenades so that six grenades could be placed in every vehicle of the force and be used for destroying the vehicle in event of capture.16 Army Service Forces made a special allotment of chemical land mines for Maj. Gen. Ernest N. Harmon’s Subtask Force
BLACKSTONE, an element of WTF, and in answer to Shadle’s request, ordered 16,000 smoke pots and 11,300 incendiary grenades shipped to England for early delivery to CTF.17 While the number of smoke pots was inadequate from Shadle’s point of view, the shipment at least denoted the firm intention of providing smoke cover for the debarkation ports. This port concealment operation was one the CWS had not previously attempted.
Port defenses required the provision of chemical troops not only for smoke generator operation and for manning pot lines but also for supply, service, and maintenance of smoke units and their equipment. Very early in North African planning, before the operation had even acquired a code name, and before even chemical officers realized how large the smoke mission might be, the OCCWS decided that no chemical troops would be required in the initial phase of the operation and recommended that two chemical composite companies and three decontamination companies be landed only after beachheads were firmly established. The OCCWS also suggested that four impregnating companies should be considered as later additions to the force then contemplated while requirements for depot units and smoke generator units should be determined by the field commander on the basis of the tactical and logistical situation.18
These OCCWS troop recommendations and suggestions established the minimum chemical service requirement according to doctrine then current, and reflected the idea that gas warfare protection would be needed until forces started moving inland. Even this minimum service could not be provided until long after the beachheads were established. Lack of shipping space and lack of troops who could complete training and be prepared for overseas shipment in a short time caused a drastic alteration of plans. Commanders of the troops mounting in England, assuming that reserve stocks of chemical supplies would not arrive in the combat zone before service troops could be made available to handle them, and agreeing with the view that gas warfare would not start early, accepted a schedule under which chemical service troops were not provided in the initial phases of the operation. The possibility
of enemy initiation of gas warfare before arrival of chemical service troops was accepted as a calculated risk. Even had commanders requested such troops, few were available; the 6th Chemical Depot Company was the only chemical service unit available in England. The planners scheduled this company to arrive in the CTF area about one month after the initial landings. CTF planners also requested that a smoke generator company be scheduled to arrive as soon as possible from the United States. General Patton and his chief of staff, Col. Hobart R. Gay, wanted both service and smoke generator troops in the initial phase. WTF plans provided, because of superior resources in the United States and because General Patton deemed it a logistic necessity, for building up both reserve and operating stockages, including chemical, to a 90-day level as soon as troops and supplies could be landed. Colonel Barker decided to take along in the earliest echelon one platoon of a decontamination company, since such a unit could provide decontamination services in event of gas warfare, could initially handle chemical supply, and could use its decontaminating equipment to clean and disinfect buildings to be occupied by WTF headquarters and troops. He also obtained a smoke generator company to embark on the initial resupply convoy in order that smoke cover might be provided in port areas as soon as supplies began to be landed in quantity. Colonel Barker devised a plan under which the smoke generator company could provide convoy smoke cover using deck-mounted generators from its own organizational equipment.19
Planning completed, or at least terminated, the assault and assault support convoys, late in October and early in November, sailed from Hampton Roads, Va., and England’s Mersey ports. The first convoy from England entered the Strait of Gibraltar on 5 November 1942.
The WTF convoy moved into assault position off the Moroccan coast a day later. On 8 November the three task forces struck and war in the Atlantic area began for the United States ground forces.20 The token chemical sections and units still at sea on the support convoys probably had but little comprehension of the magnitude of the logistics operation in which they were about to participate.
Chemical Supply—The Beachhead Phase
Chemical supply experience in the North African and Mediterranean Theaters of Operations passed through several phases, each illustrative of a development in both the theater supply system and the chemical supply system. The terms theater supply system and chemical supply system are employed advisedly, because the theater system and each technical service system tended to develop independently although both were dependent to a considerable degree upon the War Department system. But that War Department system was only eight months old at the time of the landings in North Africa, and, as it was never able completely to overcome the traditional autonomy of the technical services in the United States, so was it even less able to exert its influence On the theater technical services through the intermediary of the theater organization.
The theaters themselves had developed no consistent policy of supply organization. It was, for example, more than two years after the initial landings before the North African theater corrected a “serious flaw in the structure of organization,” the assignment of base sections to NATOUSA rather than SOS NATOUSA headquarters.21 War Department and theater attempts at supply system evaluation and coordination were consequently sporadic. With an almost overwhelming amount of logistical work to be done in an unfamiliar and difficult set of circumstances and in the apparent absence of specific and consistent guidance from the major commands, each supply officer in the theater, whether of high or low echelon, pitched in to do the job as he saw it, creating his own policy in the process. Such ad hoc procedures inevitably resulted in the establishment of several systems, and, as the Mediterranean theater assistant chief of staff, G-4, later pointed out
with some asperity, each theater chief of technical service developed his own supply system.22
The period of the landings and the two months thereafter represent the initial phase in the establishment of the theater CWS supply system. During this phase the confusion and frustration of the lower echelon chemical supply officers led to measures for coordination at theater technical service level.
Western Task Force
Maj. Bruce T. Humphreville, Colonel Barker’s assistant, who had won a coin toss with his chief for the honor, and four of the chemical section’s enlisted men went in with the first wave of the WTF landing at Fedala and in the process lost all their personal equipment except the clothing they were wearing and their weapons. Colonel Barker, Capt. James J. Heffner, and the remainder of the WTF CWS contingent arrived in the D+5 (11–13 November 1942) support convoy outside the wreckage-strewn harbor of Casablanca, French Morocco, but the lack of facilities ashore kept them from landing. A few hours before debarkation at Casablanca on 19 November 1942, Colonel Barker informed the men of the decontamination platoon through their commanding officer, 1st Lt. Robert D. Myers, that they were to operate the task force chemical depot while the 78th Chemical Smoke Generator Company, which was to arrive with the D+20 convoy, worked with the Navy and the antiaircraft regiment on port air defense. Depot operation proved to be more of a job than the sixty days of chemical supply carried on the D+5 convoy and the thirty days from the assault convoy would seem to indicate. The principal difficulty was the lack of operating equipment and vehicles. The first platoon unit equipment was never unloaded from the transport, at least not at Casablanca, since the support convoy turned back after discharging only half its load. Unit transportation was scheduled to arrive on a later convoy. Most of the equipment and transportation of the task force chemical section had been lost when three transport ships were torpedoed and burned off the Moroccan port of Fedala. Chemical supplies were widely scattered throughout the Casablanca-Fedala area, even as far away as Safi (120 miles from Casablanca) ,
in an all-services, all-classes23 jumble which became only the more confused with each incoming shipload.24
Barker and Humphreville had fortunately been furnished money belts well stuffed with worn French francs, mostly in large notes. They bought a Ford truck and a Renault sedan, rented a tile factory for a depot, and hired some local labor. In Barker’s opinion the money was the most valuable commodity they took ashore. The first platoon moved into a part of the tile factory, borrowed some quartermaster trucks, and proceeded to collect, transport, sort, stack, and inventory chemical supplies, most of which were located by a bicycle-mounted squad that regularly patrolled the docks. Barker’s own WTF Chemical Section, except for two men, worked with them. The bulk of the supply, Class II protective items, was stored in the factory warehouses. Class V items, mostly incendiary and smoke grenades and fog oil, were stored in an open courtyard adjacent to the factory. On 21 December Colonel Barker reported the local supply position stabilized with about 3,000 tons of all supplies in storage. The chemical supply plan was entirely of chemical section creation. WTF headquarters, while it had not interposed objections, had offered no help and no direction to the chemical procedures. Each of the other technical services represented had likewise set up its own procedures and was operating according to its own policy.25
Center Task Force
Chemical officers with CTF—Colonel Burn, task force (II Corps) chemical officer, Major Croen, acting chemical officer of Mediterranean Base Section, and Colonel Elliott, chemical officer of Twelfth Air Force and XII Air Force Service Command—landed near Oran from the assault and assault support convoys (11–21 November 1942) to find
a supply situation as bad as the one first experienced at Casablanca.26 Although the lack of service units and materials had enabled the planners to schedule only twenty-seven tons of Classes II and IV and only nineteen tons of ammunition for these convoys, the landing organizations had strewn poorly marked supplies of all shapes and sizes throughout the beachhead area. The chemical officers found that to distinguish between maintenance supplies and the 60-day reserve, which organizations and units were scheduled to retain as their property, was virtually impossible. Even when the organization property was identified, the combat commanders understandably asked to be relieved of the burden of caring for it.27
Colonel Burn, his 3 officers and 7 men, established a chemical depot in a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of Oran, Algeria, in which they handled more than 70 tons of Classes II and IV in less than a month with the help of local labor and a detail of engineer troops. Burn vigorously stated his need for chemical service troops and suggested that service troops be assigned to the leading elements of any future operation.28 Croen and his section, which eventually numbered 8 officers and 17 men, established themselves in Oran where Mediterranean Base Section became operative under the supervision of II Corps on 11 November 1942, the day on which the first echelon landed. The MBS Chemical Section concentrated on setting up chemical storage and supply operations. The base section group took over the slaughterhouse depot and began gathering such chemical supplies as Burn and his men had been unable to locate or unable to move. Knowing that British smoke pots were subject to spontaneous combustion when wet, Croen made an extra effort to collect them with the idea of establishing several small ammunition dumps at some distance from the city. The sites had been prepared and most of the pots collected in the slaughter-house courtyard awaiting the availability of transportation, when one of the pots ignited. The courtyard, which had been the only storage
point, became an inferno minutes after the first pot flared. Most of the other supplies were saved, and the slaughterhouse was sufficiently isolated so that no other damage was done, but the new AFHQ head-
quarters in Algiers had to await resupply before effective smoke concealment could be provided. The lesson of this unfortunate accident was that specialist service troops and transportation are needed early in any operation. After the arrival of the 6th Chemical Depot Company with the base section third echelon on 6 December to take over the job of establishing chemical depots and depot sections, the service problem was considerably eased.29
Since there was no transportation available, members of Elliott’s section hiked several miles to their designated area near La Sénia, Algeria, on the day of their landing. They bivouacked in a sea of mud and returned the next day to the port area to begin collecting supplies. Whenever any form of transportation could be begged or borrowed or whenever space could be obtained on any truck going in the right direction, they shipped supplies to La Sénia. Since they had no materials-handling equipment, no shelter and no depot setup, the only virtue in sending the material to La Sénia was that it could be sorted, identified, and piled in some sort of order. They hired local workers whenever possible, sometimes paying them from personal funds or by bartering personal possessions. Arrangements had been made in planning for the Twelfth Air Force to draw chemical supply from II Corps stocks while that organization controlled supply and subsequently from the base section. II Corps was unable to meet the air force’s demands, and when the responsibility passed to the base section, that headquarters was forced to restrict the air force share to 25 percent of available supplies. MBS early became the focal point of supply for the Tunisia Campaign, and, in view of the fact that its original maintenance level was half that of WTF, a quota issue policy was the only answer to an increasingly perilous stock situation. Air force’s chemical officers approved the quota imposition because they understood that their requisitions would otherwise have exhausted base section supplies. Under these conditions, the Chemical Section, XII AFSC, was six months in building up to a 30-day balanced supply.30
Shadle, his 2 British colleagues, 1 other American officer, and 2 American enlisted men arrived in the theater in early December. As
Shadle indicated to the Chief, CWS, 2 officers could not thoroughly perform the multifarious duties demanded of the American (NATOUSA) complement of the Allied Force Headquarters, but they devoted as much time as possible to “one of the biggest jobs” they had, the supply of troops. Shadle examined operations in MBS and noted that, despite great obstacles, Croen was doing “a ‘bang-up’ job.” Then, accompanied by Elliott, he visited WTF, which had not yet received the designated base section complement from the United States, and discussed chemical matters with Barker. Shadle found the whole theater force prepared to provide individual protection against gas warfare, and he found the CWS capable of meeting its supply responsibilities of the moment, but offensive preparedness was only in the early planning stage while almost the entire theater chemical supply organization and process remained to be developed.31
Chemical Supply—Theater Organization Phase
Colonel Shadle’s first task in the second phase of North African logistics development, after the task force service groups were absorbed in and supplanted by Atlantic Base Section (WTF) and Mediterranean Base Section (CTF) under AFHQ on 30 December 1942, was to decide upon an issue policy and to make corresponding storage and handling arrangements.32 In theory, the base section chemical sections would simply have ordered their depots to fill table of equipment or table of allowance shortages for any organization or unit according to unit or organization requisition, but continental theory failed to cover the rough facts of life on the far shore. Many tables of allowances and tables of organization and equipment were incomplete, and the chemical sections were unacquainted with many others which had recently been revised or introduced. Even had information concerning new tables been provided in the theater, it would have been of no help. The North African logistics arrangements had been made with the old tables in mind and implemented with matériel available; therefore, chemical section depots lacked the quantity and variety of equipment demanded. Furthermore, many units arrived without basic equipment or with unusual demands for equipment to suit special operational
needs. Shortages developed, but the chemical supply officers’ immediate concern was the determination of the extent of these shortages and the forecasting of future demands on the issue system. Colonel Shadle; Col. Siegfried P. Coblentz, Chemical Officer, Atlantic Base Section, who had arrived with part of his section in Casablanca on Christmas Eve, 1942; Colonel Johnson, who arrived in February 1943 to become Chemical Officer, MBS; and Colonel Barker, who became Chemical Officer, Fifth United States Army, when it was activated at Oujda, Morocco, on 5 January 1943-all found that the principal obstacle to the determination of an issue policy was lack of information on current and forecast demand and on supply allowances.33
As an interim measure pending the establishment of an issue policy, Shadle adopted a compilation of chemical logistics data prepared by Colonel Barker on the basis of his experience.34 This compilation was intended to serve as a guide in estimating issue, storage, and handling requirements, but the chemical officers were aware of the fact that it was far from definitive. They exhorted their colleagues in the United States to supply them with such information as the number of troops scheduled for the theater, the current descriptions of items and packaging in shipments, and the new development of material and techniques. Barker particularly requested a compact compilation of logistics data for field use which would be so handy and so valuable that it could compete for space in personal baggage with such essential items as candy bars and toilet paper. General Waitt, Assistant Chief, CWS, for Field Operations, promised that a pocket-size supply and issue catalog would be forthcoming, but no War Department approval for such a publication was ever secured.35
OCCWS found it difficult to provide information to the theater chemical officers. Both Porter and Waitt tried to include all information possible in personal letters. The personal letter method was un-
orthodox, but it was effective for some kinds of information particularly since the small number of regular CWS officers were so well acquainted with one another that there was little chance that personal letters would be misunderstood. When Porter and Loucks came to North Africa in April 1943 after their sojourn in the European theater, Porter appraised the information problem as being the most serious matter facing the chemical officers overseas. He accordingly directed the establishment of a liaison officer position for each theater in his own office.36 These liaison officers were assembled in a theaters division operating under Waitt. Waitt inaugurated a special series of “Theater of Operations Letters” in May to let all principal overseas chemical officers know what was going on in the United States and in other theaters. Waitt almost immediately ran into a stumbling block. ASF wished to clear all information sent to the theaters and even wanted to control the content of technical channels communications. The CWS and the other technical services were forbidden to reproduce or even make extracts from official publications. Waitt deemed it necessary to continue technical channels communications which, as he later expressed it, “short-circuited ASF.”37 The use of theater of operations letters continued, but they were carefully oriented to technical, mostly research and development and intelligence, matters. Waitt’s listing of official publications must have been frustrating to North African chemical officers since assembling a set of such publications was not possible at the time.38 Indeed, Waitt and his liaison officers in the United States were frustrated at being unable to furnish all the information required in any form the chemical officers overseas might want it. Waitt felt that most of the information desired was eventually supplied, even if by means almost clandestine.39 But the problem of the moment early in 1943 was information on which to base an issue policy and that need was not met at the time. During the second phase of NATOUSA CWS development, for approximately the first six months of 1943, each of the base section chemical officers decided what
allowances of matériel to make as each instance of demand on the chemical supply system arose.40
Theater Chemical Section Organization
The fact that base section chemical officers had to make their own interim policy decisions demonstrates that Shadle had a communications problem of his own. During the first two months ashore, no communications system was operating well enough across the 1,500-mile range of the North African campaign to permit a comprehensive assessment of the situation. Personal visits provided the only feasible solution to this problem. Shadle visited the field elements, as he had done soon after arriving in North Africa, whenever he could, and field officers, in turn, visited him and each other. As a means of control these visits were too infrequent and too brief to be effective, but they at least kept chemical officers informed on the activities of their colleagues. In February 1943 the War Department drew new boundaries and created the North African Theater of Operations. While Americans in AFHQ had long assumed that this theater was to be activated, there was officially no theater organization in North Africa. The theater organization in charge was the ETO in recognition of General Eisenhower’s dual role as AFHQ and European theater commander. Upon the official creation of a new theater, Eisenhower designated the American element of AFHQ as the NATOUSA headquarters without physically separating the Allied and American elements. Shadle then added to his own office two American-staffed divisions, one for operations and training, the other for supply and requirements.41
Neither of these new divisions had any operating function comparable to that of Supply Division in the European theater. Again, distance prevented direct control. Barker was handling training in the Fifth Army headquarters, and supply operations were still handled by the base section and combat organization chemical officers. A supply coordinating and operating agency was in the process of activation. The Services of Supply, NATOUSA, had been organized, and Maj. Arthur C. Rogers, assisted by one enlisted man, opened the chemical section on 25 February 1943.42 Col. Lewis F. Acker served as Chemical
Officer, SOS NATOUSA, during the month of March, but he could accomplish little beyond arranging section organization since supply supervision channels were not yet in operation. In any case, early SOS lines of authority were not clear, manpower was not allotted in sufficient numbers for the task at hand, and existing regulations failed to cover the functions or the procedures of the organization. During April, with a section enlarged to three officers and twelve enlisted men, Maj. Alfred J. P. Wilson, acting chemical officer, began to assume the responsibilities of requirements computation and supervision of supply status reporting. Shadle pointed out to Wilson and to Col. Alfred L. Rockwood, who became SOS NATOUSA chemical officer in May, that chemical supply policy was the province of the theater chief of service. Shadle exercised his policy control through his Supply and Requirements Division which was assigned the additional duty of compiling and reporting statistical data on supply levels and on handling of chemical warfare supplies in the theater. In practice, the function of Shadle’s office became more one of review than of control since nearly every operational act involved policy decisions, and the SOS headquarters at Oran was too far removed from AFHQ and NATOUSA organizations in Algiers to permit concomitant review.43 The control-review situation was, however, not the only complication. The base sections continued to report to NATOUSA rather than to SOS, and base section chemical officers sometimes looked to Shadle’s office for coordination of activities. Further, as in the European theater, many chemical problems continued to be handled through informal, personal contact outside the established channels of authority. Maj. Gen. Thomas B. Larkin, SOS NATOUSA commander, once asked Shadle to handle a chemical staffing problem in SOS. When Shadle pointed out that the SOS, a separate command, was outside his area, Larkin disagreed and reasserted that Shadle as theater chief chemical officer should deal with the matter.44 Shadle did provide a solution to this problem and in so doing set his own precedent for an authority crossing a command line. Subsequently,
Shadle, or members of his immediate staff, did informally handle a number of other problems outside the theater headquarters.
While problems of control did arise and while the CWS of AFHQ and NATOUSA was tending to be a separate service as in the European theater, Shadle did not view his control problem as being as serious as Rowan’s. Shadle was in a better prestige position than Rowan since his position on the AFHQ and NATOUSA staffs was not complicated by an SOS jurisdiction over the technical services. Also, while Rowan from the end of 1942 to the end of 1943 was left largely without the support of ranking, experienced chemical officers, Shadle had experienced, aggressive, ranking chemical officers in almost every field position.45 He could count on the field officers to perform their own liaison with field elements and to direct field CWS activities. Shadle did have a matter of some personal embarrassment in this connection—both Rockwood and Barker were his seniors in rank and the seniority rule for appointment to top positions had been almost inflexible in the Army prior to World War II. Shadle did not view seniority as being of great importance in his own case; only on one occasion did a senior officer point out his junior status.46 On the whole, the autonomy of the field chemical sections and the rank represented there worked in the favor of the NATOUSA CWS and its chief.
Shadle concentrated on the staff relationships within his own headquarters and he consulted with or worked with the AFHQ and NATOUSA assistant chiefs of staff whenever chemical warfare matters were under consideration. He informed Waitt that his advice was sought and accepted by these officers.47 This is not to say that there were no stresses and strains in CWS administration in North Africa. At the time of the organization of NATOUSA, Shadle praised the work of his American and British subordinates, but privately complained to Porter that Rowan and Montgomery had prevented his acquisition of more experienced officers. How the European theater officers could have blocked him he did not make clear since his own headquarters allotment prevented an increase in his immediate staff and
since most of the senior ETO CWS officers had moved into North African field commands.48 By the time of Porter’s and Louck’s visit to North Africa in April, the CWS NATOUSA had apparently adjusted to the staffing situation since the visiting officers did not mention it in their letters reporting North African troubles. The pressing problem at the moment was that the chemical supply situation as a whole in North Africa had deteriorated to a “dangerously low position.”49
Chemical Supply Situation: Spring 1943
The serious threat to the North African theater’s chemical warfare potential in April was the result of failure to obtain sufficient material from the zone of interior to raise the theater stock level and to balance it. As in the case of issue, the acquisition and balancing of theater stocks was, in theory, a simple matter. Theater levels were determined by the War Department on the advice of the theater commander. The ports of embarkation then automatically furnished food, fuel, and spare parts according to theater strength and number of vehicles in use. The theater requisitioned shipments in supply Classes II and IV to bring stocks up to desired levels. Ammunition was to be furnished according to War Department allotment.50 But again, as task force experience demonstrated, theory rode high in the clouds while fact plodded the Tunisian sands. In the first place, the War Department instructions were issued at the time that planning for the North African operation was at its peak; even if the official publication was immediately and widely circulated, it is doubtful that supply officers would have had the time to give it much consideration. In the second place, the War Department for some time in effect suspended its own procedures, supplying Class II and IV supplies automatically rather than on requisitions based on actual consumption rates in the theater. The New York Port of Embarkation (NYPE) could not adjust quantities or kinds of supply until there was a considerable easing of the problems of shipping space and supply documentation.51 The
theater staff found over-all supply documentation virtually impossible: there was no common reporting form, and, if there had been, the situation was too fluid and communication too poor for assembling data, particularly from the combat units.
The base section chemical officers assumed the burden of evaluating chemical supply status on the receiving end because no one else possessed as much chemical information. They then submitted requisitions for shortages to the United States (NYPE) , but some of these were edited or rejected by the port of embarkation because of noncompliance with the WD overseas supply procedures memorandum. Even in cases when the material was shipped, the port required a 90-day processing and shipping period. The base section chemical officers pleaded with the OCCWS to expedite supply, particularly items such as FS smoke, colored smoke, white phosphorus and thermite grenades, stocks of which were entirely depleted. General Waitt replied that he was unable to influence the requisitioning and shipping situation which was entirely governed by ASF and higher headquarters.52
The North African chemical officers could do little but wait and hope that shipments would be forthcoming from the United States. Their hopes were met, quantitatively at least, during the next month. Shipments received during May increased stocks so that 80 percent of major ground forces items were stocked in levels above the authorized forty-five days. The air force’s chemical supply position also improved although not as much as the ground force supply. The Chemical Section, Eastern Base Section, established by Capt. Carl E. Grant in February, was authorized to allot 50 percent of its stocks to the XII Air Force Service Command. Balancing stocks among the base sections continued to be a problem until at least the fall of 1943, since congested ports and inadequate railroad facilities rendered inter-depot transfers extremely difficult.53
Qualitatively, the supply picture was not so bright. Most of the items reported stocked at or exceeding authorized levels were protective items. The level of individual gas protection had been high and had
remained so although the quantity of individual protective items in the resupply system was low in April. The collective protection potential,54 on the other hand, was lower than that for individual protection: the SOS Chemical Section reported shortages of the common decontaminating agent, bleach (chloride of lime) , of the power-driven decontaminating apparatus, and of the collective protector.55 These shortages of protective supplies were important given the assumption that gas warfare could be initiated at any time, but the supply of gas warfare items to be used offensively should gas warfare retaliation be necessary was even more important. Supply of the nongas warfare chemical munitions such as incendiary bombs and high explosive mortar shell was highly important also.
At the end of May, Shadle expressed his satisfaction with the chemical offensive potential and ammunition status in the North African theater. His view seems to have been overly optimistic since smoke pots, tear gas, and HC smoke grenades were the only ammunition items available in sufficient supply. All the chemical supply officers reported urgent requests for unavailable white phosphorus grenades. The Twelfth Air Force reported limited quantities of ANM50A1 4-pound incendiary bombs, a few M52 500-pound incendiary bomb clusters, and a considerable number of M54 100-pound incendiary bomb clusters. There was no other chemical ammunition in the theater although the New York port had promised that 120 days’ supply of high explosive and smoke shell was en route for the three chemical mortar battalions which had recently arrived in the theater. Aside from a small amount of artillery shell stored by Ordnance, no toxics were available in the theater and none was scheduled to arrive until the fall of 1943. The March theater plan for gas warfare, the first such plan, was based on meeting possible enemy gas attack with this plainly inadequate supply of artillery shell. The new War Department policy for retaliation in event of enemy initiation of gas warfare called for the use of aerial munitions as the principal gas weapons. Shadle’s satisfaction with the toxic supply status can be explained by the fact that he did not
consider the lack of aerial munitions to be a critical problem. He believed that the Axis Powers were in no position to initiate gas warfare in North Africa, a correct estimate, as it happens, for subsequent investigation proved that there were no German toxic munitions in North Africa. Still, in terms of War Department policy and authorized theater levels, the North African theater was critically short of offensive chemical munitions.56
Field conditions produced a further complication in the supply problem which was not unanticipated among chemical officers but which was not provided for by the War Department. Troops in the field are ingenious at adapting supplies to their own purposes. While the use of the gas mask carrier as a carry-all was frowned upon because it meant loss of the mask, chemical officers overlooked or unofficially encouraged secondary use of other gas warfare supplies in a nongas warfare situation. An acetate eyeshield had been developed by the British to provide readily available individual protection against liquid vesicant droplets in the absence of the gas mask. The United States forces in North Africa had been supplied with these eyeshields before the War Department declared them obsolete. North African troops used eyeshields in lieu of sunglasses and as protection against swirling dust and sand. Constant demand nearly exhausted the supply and, since there was no resupply channel for obsolete items, created a problem for which chemical officers saw only one solution. The War Department had to be convinced that gas warfare items such as the eyeshield could be used in a nongas warfare situation so that a resupply channel such as existed for other items could be provided. Antigas shoe impregnite could be used as “canned heat,” as could the chemical fire starter, and, when applied to tents, shoe impregnite proved an excellent waterproofing substance and served as a base for sand camouflage. Antigas covers could also be used as a waterproof covering for shelter tents, and antigas curtains, when obtainable, served as ground sheets, tarpaulins, and foxhole covers. The decontaminating
apparatuses could be used for insecticide spraying, carrying water, fighting fires, and giving showers. CWS nongas warfare supply turned out to be a considerably more active business than had been intended, particularly since CWS officers could not allow the secondary uses of chemical items to lower the gas protective potential.57
As the second phase of the chemical supply operation in the North African theater drew to a close in June, the weapons and ammunition status took a turn for the worse. Supplies earmarked for the Sicilian operation were withdrawn without the prospect of immediate replacement. The process of chemical supply planning for the assault on Sicily had begun in March when Major Humphreville, newly designated Chemical Officer, Seventh Army, sent the supply unit of his section to Oran to plan with the Chemical Section, SOS NATOUSA.58 Since logistic data were not available, the Chemical Section, MBS, supplied estimated data which the SOS and Seventh Army sections used to compute requirements. The SOS Chemical Section submitted requisitions to the zone of interior for assault matériel requirements and for maintenance stocks which were to be built up to a 30-day level as soon as depot operations in Sicily were practicable. The SOS section computed requirements on a regular table of allowance and maintenance factor basis, relying on estimates in cases when information was lacking.59 This system presented no problems in Class II supply except for spare parts for which maintenance factors were unavailable. Any determination of spare parts usage rate was purely guesswork, and, even had estimates been accurate, spare parts stocks both in the theater and the ZI were wholly inadequate to meet the demand. The SOS supply officers found that the great drain on theater reserves came in the Class IV and special equipment categories. Major Humphreville requested special allotments of grenades and flame throwers and, in view of the constant need for smoke concealment in
the North African ports, 100,000 smoke pots for emergency use in the Sicilian ports.60
Major Wilson, then acting chief of the SOS Chemical Section, protested this smoke pot allotment to the SOS commander, General Larkin, for two reasons: (1) regardless of requirements, a lack of shipping dictated a space allotment plan for Sicilian cargo, and most of the CWS space would be filled with smoke pots; (2) filling the Seventh Army demand for smoke pots would exhaust theater stocks and would require special shipments from the United States. General Larkin agreed to revise the Seventh Army requisition to a smaller amount, but General Patton, now Seventh Army commander designate, appealed directly to General Eisenhower. Reasoning from the point of view which thereafter governed supply policy for both the North African and European theaters—that the combat commander should have anything he wanted—General Eisenhower insisted on the supply of the original smoke pot requisition.61
In this particular instance Major Wilson was probably right. But, in retrospect, this incident and the supply operations which it represents assume more significance than the immediate problems imply, for this operation marks the bifurcation of the chemical supply system. Henceforth, one element of the chemical supply system was oriented, despite doctrine to the contrary, to an impetus from the front.62 This element of the system was primarily devoted to meeting the demands and special requirements of the combat forces, especially for new equipment, such as the lightweight mechanical smoke generator, or equipment used in new missions, such as the 4.2-inch chemical mortar.63
Impetus from the front meant that line organizations determined their own requirements for materials, determined how those materials should be used, and what the procedures of the supply system which provided them should be. It must be noted that under the impetus from the rear theory the line organizations had also always determined their own requirements, but the point of difference is that they selected their requirements from a list provided by and with procedures ordained by supply organizations, whereas under impetus from the front they drew up their own lists and established their own procedures. The other element, which retained the impetus from the rear orientation, was concentrated on the development of gas warfare offensive and defensive potential. Although the two elements of the chemical supply system overlapped and although they were both handled by the whole CWS organization in the theater, base and field chemical sections became increasingly concerned with the immediate nongas warfare support of combat forces and their routine preparedness for gas warfare defense. The impetus from the front pattern imposed great strains on the supply system. War Department long-range supply planning and even the planning of the SOS in the theater was frequently scrapped or greatly amended when combat forces demanded a 6-month supply of an item for a 30-day operation or when a standard item of supply was rejected. This pattern also called for many improvisations. Many front-line organization chemical officers gave reality and immediacy to Fries’s concept of the closest possible connection between research and the fighting line by carrying on a certain amount of research and even manufacture in the combat zone. Initially, the CWS in the theater used the same supply channels and procedures for both elements of the system, but as the Joint and Combined Chiefs of Staff and their subsidiary committees assumed more direct control of gas warfare policy,64 the impetus of supply for the preparedness mission moved even farther to the rear than formerly.
Chemical Supply and Administration—Development of the Theater Chemical System
The accommodation of the existing system of impetus from the rear to the new demands of the unofficial system of impetus from the
front characterized the third phase of chemical supply in North Africa. This phase in the theater CWS supply and administrative system, in contrast to the second phase, was marked by the availability of an increasing amount of supply information to chemical supply officers. This development had its inception in the establishment, mentioned above, of a statistical reporting function in Shadle’s office. It gathered momentum from the activities of each supply officer in the field and from the operation of the SOS Chemical Section and from the improved communications throughout the theater. In April, for example, Major Wilson invited the chemical supply officers to a conference in which they arrived at a common understanding of procedures and where they received the latest information available to SOS NATOUSA.65 At the end of May the theater “went on” the matériel status report, which was a War Department prescribed report prepared in the ports of embarkation to show the zone of interior, in-transit, and theater status of certain controlled and critical items. Since only about one-quarter of the 200 stock chemical items in North Africa was included, the immediate impact on theater chemical supply was not great, but the matériel status report and its supporting perpetual inventory in the ports of embarkation required more exact reporting of theater on-hand and expenditure data—data which became part of a more extensive accounting and reporting system.66
The base sections had begun to report stock status to the theater and SOS chemical sections in April under the increased reporting requirement. However, their reports were little more comprehensive than the earlier informal reports until June, when comprehensive reports from ABS and MBS and a partial report from Eastern Base Section permitted the theater and SOS chemical sections to compile the first full-scale stock status report. Even then, quantity in the hands of troops was known for only one item, the eyeshield, which had been reported 500,000 short. The theater chemical section assumed
that supply of all other items in the hands of troops equaled authorization since no other complaints had been received.67
The SOS Chemical Section requested, in July, that the Commanding General, NATOUSA, require troop units and organizations to submit full reports of chemical materials in their hands.68 These reports began to arrive in August, and the chemical supply officers thereafter calculated the status of theater supply much more realistically. The improvement in calculating supply status again raised the question of the adequacy of requirements and logistical data computations. ‘While the CWS supply catalogs, which contained detailed information on requirements, allowances, spare parts, and item nomenclature, were not available until January 1944, chemical supply officers assembled such data from other sources in 1943.69
The Army Service Forces manual, Logistical Planning and Reference Data, arrived in the theater in May 1943. Although the ASF manual primarily dealt with transportation of supplies, it did present some helpful examples of requirements computations.70 Such information as the ASF manual provided was useful, both in the headquarters and to the supply officers in the field, but it met only part of the need. To satisfy the whole need, Colonel Coblentz, Chemical Officer, ABS, made his own compilation of logistical data.71 In July he obtained OCCWS Circular No. 1, issued on 20 June 1943 as a predecessor to CWS supply catalogs. Although the OCCWS circular contained the latest War Department information, Colonel Coblentz’ experience in the theater led him to reproduce a table of maintenance factors prepared by the CWS ETO. The European theater was not engaged in
ground combat, but, from the point of view of the chemical supply officer, the data compiled by the CWS ETO was the best and most realistic then available. Accordingly, the NATO Chemical Section relayed through the OCCWS a request for a complete set of the CWS logistical tables prepared by CWS ETO. In August CWS ETO forwarded to NATO a complete set of its tables plus a description of the computing processes and a listing of pertinent authorities. But, shortly after this material was received the situation in NATO changed. A 26 October note on the ETO letter of transmittal indicated that Colonel Shadle consigned the ETO material to the dead file “as ETOUSA logistics [are] not necessarily applicable here.”72
It seems probable that Colonel Shadle meant that the ETO data had been useful only until the North African theater had revised and adapted the information to its own use. Theater officers quickly learned a lesson which the War Department seemed to have great difficulty in understanding—that the procedures of one theater were not necessarily applicable to the conditions of another. The theater and SOS chemical sections, having learned this lesson, were consequently in the process of adapting and revising all logistical data to fit the experience of the Tunisian, Sicilian, and early Italian campaigns. Many theater supply officers continued to believe that the War Department supply authorities were unresponsive to their needs, but their logistics analyses led them to request adjustments in the War Department governing directives. For example, the theater CWS suggested, as early as July, a revision in some War Department maintenance factors. As such suggestions demonstrated, chemical supply officers were becoming more sophisticated in the handling of their system, and, as a consequence, the system was becoming more standardized internally; yet, at the same time, it was becoming more individual since its logistical data, the basis for its operation, was compiled and controlled within the system.73
By the end of August, Colonel Coblentz, then chemical officer
designate of Peninsular Base Section, which was organizing within Atlantic Base Section for supply operation in Italy, had assembled enough information to compile a detailed set of chemical supply instructions covering definitions, organization methods, reporting forms, distribution, and storage operating data.74 This compilation is evidence of a significant improvement in procedures, and it is noteworthy that these procedures and the reports which controlled them were largely of theater CWS origin.
At the same time individual performance was improving as the chemical supply officers gained confidence in themselves and their system. Colonel Shadle had advised General Porter in May that “... everything pertaining to supply knowledge is deficient. Our officers are simply not trained in supply work and staff procedure.” Major Wilson agreed.75 But in November Colonel Shadle wrote to General Porter, “All of the officers over here ... are doing a splendid job.”76 The change had been wrought by extensive on-the-job supply training afforded by actual supply experience and by such compilations, both official and unofficial, as Colonel Coblentz had prepared. As Colonel Shadle also declared, “... we now know what we are talking about and what is needed. ...”77 In other words, the field elements of the chemical supply system, with the exception of that portion applying to the Army Air Forces, were well established during the fall of 1943. In October Colonel Maling’s Twelfth Air Force Chemical Section still lacked a basis for requirements computation both for incendiary bombs and toxics. Such information by War Department decision could emanate only from Army Air Forces headquarters in Washington.78
At the same time that the supply level was improving during 1943, the supply handling situation was also improving. The SOS Chemical Section increased its operating responsibilities with the addition of such duties as those assigned in June of editing, consolidating, and
forwarding to the zone of interior base section chemical requisitions. Rockwood’s section increased to seven officers, a warrant officer, and thirteen enlisted men and women organized into Administration, Supply, Control, and Technical Divisions.79 These divisions supervised base section requisitioning, inventorying, and reporting activities on what SOS termed “a sort of individual project” basis. The lines of supervision were by no means direct or consistent since SOS still did not have command control of base sections.80
The base section chemical officers and those in the air forces continued to develop their own systems of operation. Each chemical officer received a different type of assistance from his own command organization. In Coblentz’ opinion, base section headquarters’ attempts to help created “nothing more than a bottleneck,” because the base section staff knew no more than the chemical officers about supply procedures, and because the staff officers lacked such chemical information as the chemical officers compiled for themselves or got from their colleagues in the United States and in the theater.81 The base sections did designate storage locations and did provide some coordination among the services. Chemical sections improved storage and handling at these locations with the help of a number of service units.82 By the end of February 1943, the Twelfth Air Force had received its complement of four chemical air service companies.83
CWS Staff and Functions, AFHQ and NATOUSA
During 1943 Shadle’s office acquired several new functions, in addition to those authorized when the AFHQ Chemical Section was first established. (Chart 6) An analysis of actual performance of these functions demonstrates what role the CWS NATO had come to play.84
Chart 6: Organization of Chemical Warfare Section, Allied Force Headquarters, and Headquarters, North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, November 1943
Source: Adapted from: History of AFHQ, pt II, pp. 203, 223-24, 241, 512, History of COMZ, NATOUSA-MTOUSA, pts III and IV.
The principal function was to advise the commander in chief (AFHQ and theater commander) and his staff on chemical matters. This was a standard special staff function which involved, for the CWS, gas warfare planning and any other matters which might require theater supervision. In the absence of gas warfare, performance under this function became a routine matter of concurring or advising on theater personnel, operation, and supply.
Another function was to plan the use and allotment of chemical troop units, and in 1943 the scope of this planning was extended to the procurement and supervision of all CWS personnel in the theater. Performance under these functions was advisory since Shadle had no command responsibilities. The advisory capacity was severely limited by theater quotas on both personnel and units, and by the requests of individual field commanders for personnel and units—requests which usually overrode staff advice. Shadle’s Chemical Section managed to get enough service units even when training in the United States could not keep pace with worldwide demand. Combat units were eventually obtained on about the same basis on which they were furnished other theaters, three battalions per authorized army during peak combat activity.85 With respect to officers, Shadle experienced difficulties similar to Rowan’s—the theater received a number of CWS casual officers who frequently were badly handled by the replacement system. It was practically impossible to find vacancies for all arriving officers, and it was absolutely impossible to determine their qualifications so as to channel officers to duties for which they were fitted.86
The principal mission of the theater CWS in the event of gas warfare was to supervise “chemical operations, gas-proofing, decontaminations, and filling of chemical munitions in the Theater,”87 as well as chemical training. This mission resulted in the establishment of review activities rather than of supervisory controls since, in a nongas warfare situation and under the organization of the theater, actual supervision devolved upon the base section and field army chemical officers and their subordinates. The theater chemical section usually learned of chemical operations after their accomplishment. Shadle did use field reports of experience to supplement War Department directives with theater
directives on operation, and he did make his office serve as a clearinghouse for operational information, but these activities were too remote to be classed as supervision. In unusual cases either the theater or the SOS Chemical Section followed up on compliance with directives or solutions to problems, but the staff was not large enough to make this an invariable practice.88 Functions added in the operational sphere during 1943 were planning and advising on the smoke protection of port areas and distributing technical information on area smoke screens. While the theater chemical section became more directly involved in the direction and appraisal of smoke operations, these functions, too, were usually performed by working with field chemical officers who had prime supervisory responsibilities.
Two functions, intelligence and cooperation with the theater surgeon, were primarily liaison and reporting functions. Intelligence was initially handled by the British complement of the AFHQ Chemical Section, and the British continued to play a large part in this activity after it became a joint enterprise. One officer, Lt. Col. Henry I. Stubblefield, was added to the section for medical liaison and to plan protection against the possibility of biological warfare.
Three of the remaining original functions covered the supervision of supply from requirements to distribution. Since the theater section was not staffed to handle supply supervision, since the theater chemical section had no opportunity to inaugurate a basic supply plan like that used in the ETO, and since theater organization in effect decentralized supply operations to such a degree that field chemical officers in fact instituted their own supply plans, the 1943 assignment of functions provided that the theater chemical section should “merely” procure “logistical and statistical data on chemical warfare supplies in the theater.”89 Shadle spent most of his own time dealing with supply matters. He was proud of his accomplishments, and he was commended by British as well as American authorities for performance in this area.90 From Shadle’s own point of view, he and his AFHQ section performed exactly those functions which should have been theirs in the light of tradition and of theater conditions. He saw no need, as chief chemical officers in other theaters did, for enlarging his planning
Colonel Shadle and Staff in Algiers, Fall of 1943
responsibilities, or for attempting to influence combat operations, or for striving to exercise control of the theater CWS through technical channels. He felt that he appropriately operated most of the time through command channels. He later pointed out that his position as a staff officer in a supreme headquarters, AFHQ, made it possible for him to operate differently from Rowan, who did not occupy such a position.91
By the end of 1943, Shadle’s AFHQ section was authorized 5 American officers, 3 more than authorized at the time of the invasion, and 3 British officers, one more than in the previous year. Enlisted strength had grown from 2 to 4 Americans, but the number of British soldiers had remained at 2.92 Lt. Col. Lloyd E. Fellenz, a Regular Army officer and a smoke expert, had arrived to become executive officer.93 Lt. Col. Ian A. Marriott had returned to London to be replaced by Lt. Col. G. des C. Chamier as British deputy.
Theater and CWS Reorganizations
When, early in 1944, General Eisenhower left the North African theater to take command in Europe, the character of the North African organization was changed slightly to accommodate to a British supreme commander and to new responsibilities. The theater at last corrected what from a staff point of view had been a serious error in the original organization.94 The Communications Zone, which had been inseparable from the theater organization except in the person of its commander, Maj. Gen. Everett S. Hughes, also deputy theater commander, was combined with the theater SOS, and the new command was given those theater functions which pertained to the COMZ. At the same time, the remaining American responsibilities were restricted to administration—all control of combat operations passing to AFHQ or the combat organizations. The result was essentially the creation of a tricommand organization like that of the War Department.95
Shadle’s office maintained its staff and its AFHQ-theater position, but the functions of control of COMZ personnel and units, COMZ training and gas warfare defense, and all allocation and issue of supply passed to the SOS Chemical Section. Colonel Maling moved from Twelfth Air Force to assume Rockwood’s position as chief of this section which was augmented by the addition of one colonel, three majors, and a captain.96
The COMZ Chemical Section then assumed control of the “impetus from the rear” supply system and took over some of the administrative functions which had been the province of AFHQ, and of NATOUSA, then renamed Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTOUSA) . Shadle, who became a brigadier general on the same day that Rowan received his promotion, maintained his section as a clearinghouse for chemical information and did a considerable amount of troubleshooting in the field of both CWS supply systems. But the work of the theater headquarters chemical section was declining while that in the European theater section was as great or greater than it had been.97 One reason for this was the growing emphasis in MTOUSA on combat organization and function rather than theater organization. Another reason
was Shadle’s view of his own function. Since he emphasized the staff role and since, ideally, staff work declines when administrative systems are functioning smoothly, it was appropriate that the work of his own section would decline. The administrative systems were, for the most part functioning smoothly by the middle of 1944, or, at least, the problems which had beset the systems had become less important.
If gas warfare had ever been a threat in the Mediterranean area, it would have been at the time of the assault landings. Shadle had been proved right in his estimate that there was little threat in the North African landings. In the Sicilian landings small stores of enemy toxics were found, but their placement and manner of storage indicated that there was no intention of using them.98 For the landings on the Italian mainland, Allied intelligence officers feared that toxics would be employed by the enemy, and as a result retaliatory stocks were brought in too soon. A tragic gassing of Allied forces in the harbor of Bari, Italy, occurred when enemy action breached a ship carrying Allied gas.99 No clear signs of German intent were found when troops broke through into the Italian mainland. The prolonged struggle along the Rapido and the Winter Line would have given the Germans an excellent tactical opportunity to use gas, but again no evidence turned up that they had considered the employment of toxics.100 The principal CWS mission, preparedness for gas warfare, therefore lost weight in the Mediterranean theater, and the part of the COMZ Chemical Section mission which related to gas warfare supply became of little importance. The whole of the COMZ organization declined in importance late in 1944, possibly because the impetus from the front system had its own de facto communications zone. In the opinion of the chemical officer, Peninsular Base Section—which supported Fifth Army—was a communications zone itself.101 His opinion was confirmed by an organizational change in November 1944 under which COMZ was discontinued and its functions delegated to Peninsular Base Section.102
Still another reason for the decline of the theater headquarters CWS sections was that the intelligence activity, largely managed by the British, had never assumed much importance in the American group. Furthermore, since facilities were lacking for a technical activity and since liaison with the British on technical matters was carried on by the European theater CWS, there was no need for a large technical organization in NATOUSA-MTOUSA. The theater chemical laboratory company did not experience, as did chemical laboratory companies in most other theaters, frequent calls for development work.
A recurrent theme of the CWS effort in the Mediterranean area was that the service’s most important experience here was supply experience. The CWS MTO supply system entered its fourth phase in the winter of 1943–44. During this phase, which eventually included most of the period prior to victory in Europe, the bifurcation of the supply system was most marked. Ground chemical supply officers brought nearly all of their attention to bear on item troubleshooting which had been a part, but only a subsidiary part, of their concern since the initial landings. As they became more and more concerned with the immediate needs of the combat forces it became more apparent that to wait for instructions and supplies to filter down through the complicated system from the zone of interior was not always possible. The local arrangement, the informal agreement, and the field expedient became the order of the day. The officers in the field evolved new techniques and used supplies and equipment where and when they were needed, regardless of the original intention or function. Whenever it was possible they manufactured supplies or adapted equipment to their immediate needs. They tended to suspect the motives of every rear area organization, even that of their own theater. One base section chemical officer bitterly remarked, perhaps with some exaggeration, that it was easier to manufacture spare parts than it was to “argue SOS [NATOUSA] out of them.”103
The basic problem was that the War Department’s impetus from the rear supply system was not sufficiently responsive to the immediate needs generated by changing conditions in the field. Yet even the suggestion that an impetus from the front policy was being employed
was enough to call forth official investigators.104 Despite this official disapproval, CWS and other ground supply officers in MTO accomplished their supply tasks.
For example, Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark’s Fifth Army set up its own system. Ammunition supply points (ASPs) were set up close to the front for each corps plus one ASP for troops not attached to corps. Each supply point contained a chemical, an ordnance, and an engineer section manned by service troops of the appropriate branch but commanded by the Ordnance Department representative. Combat troops drew what they needed from the ASP after certifying that the amount drawn plus that on hand would not exceed the basic authorized load for their organization. Supply points for other classes of supply were so located that each combat organization could form one convoy to bring up all its supplies. Late every afternoon, Colonel Barker’s assistants visited each supply point and reported back to him an estimate of stock status. Barker consulted operational plans furnished him by the Army staff and calculated necessary levels in each ASP. He then telephoned Coblentz in base section headquarters at Naples to tell him what supplies were needed at what points and depots. CWS officers and men waiting in trucks loaded with supplies, which usually had been sorted, cleaned, reboxed, and marked in the base section depots, received Coblentz’ instructions and departed to replenish all Army ASPs and depots before daylight. As the Army moved forward, the base section took over and expanded forward area depots established by Fifth Army so that there would be no change in the distance through which immediate supply action need take place.105
Coblentz and his section, plagued by continual shortages of manpower and equipment, by what he considered to be a lack of understanding of combat needs on the part of all echelons to the rear, and by the continual necessity of refurbishing or even making wanted items, found themselves hard put to keep up with Fifth Army needs.106
Theater Chemical Supply Problems
The first of the troubleshooting problems the CWS dealt with in the Mediterranean area was that of item overages and shortages. The second was the fact that the condition of some material on reaching the theater was such that extensive repair, renovation, or adaptation was required—this was the maintenance problem. There were many other troubleshooting problems, but, examples of the overages and shortages and of maintenance problems not only demonstrate solutions but also show how the practice of impetus from the front operated.
Overages and Shortages
The problem of item overages and shortages resulted from several causes. Overages were brought about by oversupply from the United States or by failure to deplete stocks as anticipated. Shortages were caused by breakdown of faulty or damaged materials, by failure to unload ships because of lack of facilities, by failure to estimate needs, or by enemy destruction of ships or depots. One major cause of overages was automatic supply. The New York Port of Embarkation continued automatic supply or materiel status report supply, which was virtually automatic, on many items. Consequently, by the end of July 1943, the stocks of three items, noncorrosive decontaminating agent, protective ointment, and shoe impregnite ranged from 125 percent to 143 percent of authorization. Before the end of the year the overages on some of these items reached nearly 200 percent of authorization. Although the SOS Chemical Section cabled the port of embarkation canceling requisitions and requesting discontinuance of automatic supply on the grounds that the storage and transportation expenditures exceeded the value of stocks, stock continued to accumulate. In desperation, theater chemical officers appealed to General Somervell during one of his trips to the theater, but it was 1944 before shipments began to decline. The first three items remained in excess stockage until disposal procedures were instituted late in 1944. Shadle, claiming that the Arabs sometimes pilfered shoe impregnite for use as a butter substitute, suggested that one solution for the problem of excesses was to encourage this practice.107
Other overages in the stocks of canisters for collective protectors, diaphragm gas masks, and dust respirators resulted from changes in the basis of issue. In the absence of gas warfare, replacement stocks of collective protector canisters were not sent forward, and, since there was no expenditure, excess stocks accumulated in depots. The diaphragm gas mask, equipped for voice transmission, proved to be cumbersome and not much more efficient for voice transmission than the service mask with M8 outlet valve. The basis of issue was therefore eventually changed from 30 percent of issue requirements for gas masks of all kinds to issue to artillery and Signal Corps units only. But meanwhile shipments of diaphragm masks continued to arrive at the rate set by estimate, resulting in excess stocks. Although the troop demand for dust respirators in North Africa was heavy, individuals in the field found that they were principally used by drivers of vehicles and that other soldiers were so weighted down with equipment that the respirator could not conveniently be carried. Respirators were therefore issued in substantially reduced numbers on a per-vehicle rather than per-person basis. The new issue policy led to overages in depots. Excess stocks of the diaphragm mask were returned to the United States after issue of the new lightweight service mask, which began late in 1943, was complete. Excess stocks of the collective protector canister and dust respirator were held in the theater until late in the war since it was considered possible that the theater commander might again have to change the basis of issue if events took a different turn.108
While theater chemical supply officers found the problems presented by overages annoying, as the overages tended to create inefficiency in the supply system, the problem of shortages threatened, on several occasions, to destroy part of the CWS effectiveness in the theater. The first serious shortages after the stabilization of the supply system were holdovers from the pre-stabilization period. The CWS in the United States was unable to initiate production of the M15 white phosphorus grenades until July 1943 and was unable to supply the theaters during that year.109 The M8 HC smoke grenade was substituted in the North
African theater, but Seventh Army chemical officers reported that the M8 grenade was not effective in the Sicily Campaign because it produced an insufficient volume of smoke and because it lacked the antipersonnel effect of the white phosphorus grenade. The M8 grenade was nevertheless again substituted for the white phosphorus grenade early in the Italian campaign as there was still no theater stock of the M15. The theater CWS acquired some white phosphorus grenades in the fall of 1943, and a sufficient stock was built up by December 1943. Although a total of 269,639 white phosphorus grenades was used in combat in the theater by the end of the war, this munition would probably have been more extensively employed had combat soldiers become acquainted with it during the initial campaigns.110
Another, and even more critical item was the 4.2-inch chemical mortar, with spare parts and ammunition. After twenty days of fighting in Sicily, where the chemical mortar battalions saw their first extensive action and where they proved themselves invaluable and practically indispensable in a close support role, the theater had only one complete mortar and about a dozen barrels and base plates in depot stock.111 Since the mortar was already being used considerably more than had been intended, barrels wore out rapidly—so rapidly in fact that a dozen replacement barrels did not begin to satisfy the demand. The really critical need, however, was not for the barrel, nor even for the base plate, which broke at the excessive ranges demanded of the weapon, but for elevating screws and recoil springs, which were not even listed among spare parts available. In August CWS supply officers listed no mortars or mortar parts whatever. In September they received stocks although still insufficient to meet demands; and the SOS Chemical Section noted that Shadle had requested 120 days’ reserve of mortars, comparable to the reserve for ammunition rather than that for other Class II weapons. The need for parts was so great that mortars received in working condition were broken down for this purpose.112
In October the North African CWS again had no mortars. In
November the War Department increased the maintenance factor from 7 percent to 12½ percent, but experience in Italy outmoded the new factor before it was received.113 By the end of 1943 General Porter had personally intervened to secure air shipment of 12 mortars and a few critical mortar parts to the theater. In all, late in 1943 and early in 1944, 172 mortars were scheduled to arrive by air or by convoy to relieve the situation in which depot stocks were nil and there was an actual shortage of 16 mortars in the operating battalions. Also in November 1943, the first serious theater-wide shortage of 4.2-inch mortar ammunition was reported. Despite the mortar shipments and the 40,000 rounds of HE mortar shell en route to the theater, supply proved to be insufficient.114
In February 1944 Rockwood diagnosed the difficulty as a lack of systematization in mortar supply and repair and the failure of the CWS in the United States to observe existing directives with respect to spare parts and replacement.115 His analysis undoubtedly covered at least part of the problem, but the CWS in the zone of interior could not supply the parts it did not have. The CWS inaugurated its first comprehensive procurement plan for spare parts in 1944, and it was not until late 1944 and early 1945 that the products of this plan became available in quantity through an integrated spare parts operation.116 The CWS also made herculean efforts to supply ammunition, and, while theater problems of maintenance and distribution, as will be indicated below, and occasional lags in delivery to the theater caused critical local situations and ammunition rationing, the over-all supply met the demand in 1944 and 1945.117 Rationing of ammunition also became necessary at Anzio in January of 1944 because of the large
number of ammunition dumps destroyed by enemy action. Fifth Army chemical officers improvised ammunition protection by bulldozing earth over stacked ammunition boxes.118 The parts situation on the other hand became so critical that Barker, acting in the spirit of General Clark’s instruction to give the combat commanders what they wanted even if it was necessary to manufacture the material, in December 1943 joined the Fifth Army ordnance officer in reestablishing operations at the Italian Capua arsenal.
At Capua a composite Fifth Army chemical group and nearly 1,000 Italian workmen under the direction of 1st Lt. Anthony Notorangelo cast and machined mortar and smoke generator parts. The “Capua” mortar slide, cast from Italian navy bronze taken from the Naples harbor, was considered superior to the stateside product, as was the “Capua” integrally cast barrel cap and firing pin. For some time in 1944 more than half of the mortar and smoke generator maintenance supplies used were made in Italy at Capua and in chemical service unit shops at Florence and Leghorn. After Fifth Army moved on, Peninsular Base Section assumed the job of operating the CWS half of Capua arsenal with Lieutenant Notorangelo remaining in charge.119
In August of 1944, the Army Service Forces promised an adequate stock of spare parts within the next six months.120 Also in August the theater formulated, and in September put into practice, an individual CWS NATOUSA spare parts policy, concentrating supply and control of spare parts in Peninsular and Delta Base Sections.121 But, as the investigations of a CWS spare parts team from December 1944 to February 1945 demonstrated, the Mediterranean theater CWS never reached the goal of adequate parts stockage.122
Despite these handicaps, the chemical mortar battalions in the North African—Mediterranean theater reported only one instance when mortar fire was actually curtailed because of the shortage of weapons, parts, or ammunition.123 That there was only one such instance, in this case
an ammunition shortage, is a testimonial to the ingenuity and energy of theater chemical officers who manufactured parts, as at Capua, and arranged for welding teams to repair broken weapons right in the front-line mortar positions.124 Thus the most serious supply threat to CWS operations in the theater was met.
There were shortages besides those of weapons and ammunition, but none so critical. An example of such shortages was the power-driven decontaminating apparatus, which was diverted from its gas warfare role to water carrying, fire fighting, and providing showers.125 It was this type of apparatus that was used to provide all the water for the city of Naples during the first ten days after Allied forces took the city because the Germans had cut off the water supply and the Army engineers were unable to re-establish service immediately. The high-pressure pump on the apparatus was also used to open sewage drains which had dried up and become clogged because of the lack of water. The apparatus, using a chloride of lime mixture spray, was also used to disinfect and delouse buildings subsequently used as hospitals and barracks.126
The Twelfth Air Force considered the provision of showers for combat pilots returning from missions essential to morale and efficiency, but only in rare cases was it able to acquire engineer or quartermaster shower facilities. Consequently, the power-driven decontaminating apparatus became the most jealously guarded item of chemical equipment allotted to the air force. Stocks of the truck-mounted M3Ar apparatus were low when supply status was first reported in May 1943, and by the end of July the air forces were forty short. Accounting for these had been transferred to the matériel status report, indicating that supply was automatic. Despite automatic supply, the total theater stockage in November was only about 80 percent of authorization and demand had increased so much in the Twelfth Air Force that the AFSC chemical officer maintained a waiting list for issues. At one time the Commanding General, XII AFSC, personally assumed responsibility for distribution within his command. The AFSC chemical
Decontamination Unit Functioning As A Shower
officer secured copies of ship manifests from SOS and base section chemical officers so that he could have someone on hand to claim the air force allotment as soon as the ship carrying the cargo docked. Since the apparatus was also one of the items which presented almost insuperable maintenance problems, supply was frequently complicated by a large number of apparatus deadlined for repairs. In the month before V—E Day the theater at last reached its quota of apparatus.127
Maintenance Problems
Chemical maintenance officers, like many others, got their first real experience and learned their first logistics lessons in the Mediterranean area. For one thing, the Mediterranean campaigns were among the earliest of World War II, and in many instances the latest refinements in equipment and matériel did not arrive there until after the peak of combat activity. Then, too, adverse conditions, such as the damp climate and rough terrain in Italy, made faults and defects far more serious than they would have been elsewhere. Maintenance problems
had their greatest impact in the forward areas where weapons, equipment, and ammunition saw the heaviest use and where, by the time they reached these positions, they had been heavily exposed to weather and rough handling. Again chemical officers were forced to reorient their thinking—repair, renovation, and rebuilding of matériel and equipment had to take place wherever feasible and wherever needed rather than, as planned, in some rear area shop. Again, improvisation was the order of the day.
Theater chemical officers found maintenance and repair of the power-driven decontaminating apparatus only one of their extremely difficult maintenance problems. In the case of the apparatus the prime difficulty was caused by the fact that four different manufacturers produced the equipment, essentially a truck-mounted orchard sprayer.128 Each manufacturer produced an item according to his own specifications with the result that four stocks of spare parts had to be maintained and that operating instructions varied according to the product used. This situation was further complicated by the fact that another apparatus mounted on skids rather than on a truck was also supplied to the theater. The skid-mounted apparatus early proved unsatisfactory because shortage of trucks made it immobile and mobility was of great importance either for primary or secondary missions. Depending on the local situation, maintenance and repair of the apparatus was performed by using units or by chemical and ordnance maintenance companies. Although the spare parts problem was largely solved by the end of 1944, theater distribution of parts remained difficult. The SOS (COMZ) Chemical Section sometimes found itself in the peculiar situation of dealing with an overage of spare parts, especially small items such as nuts and bolts, interchangeable among apparatus, while field units failed in attempts to acquire an adequate supply of the more critical parts which were not interchangeable.129
While the problem of maintaining the decontaminating apparatus was tied in with the problem of shortages, maintenance of 4.2-inch mortar shell and its propellant charges—in many ways the most critical theater maintenance problem—was complicated by problems of ammunition shortages, provision of service troops, packing and packaging, and poor condition of supplies and equipment. Experience in the maintenance of mortar shell is illustrative of similar experience with M 1 and M4 smoke pots, grenades, bombs and clusters, and gas masks. From the outset of the Sicily Campaign, the Seventh Army Chemical Section discovered chemical mortar shells in need of reconditioning. The shells were corroded as a result of becoming wet while poorly packaged. The 12th Chemical Maintenance Company, which was attached to Seventh Army for the campaign, was assigned the responsibility of renovating and repacking shells in addition to its supply and mortar repair duties.130 In the campaign on the Italian mainland the situation was worse. Shell cartridges and fuzes proved to be defective, shells needed cleaning, and, as Barker reported, “the powder came in wet and got wetter.”131 Barker set up a drying operation for propellant charges at the army supply point, and Coblentz started another at the base section. Both used blowers from collective protectors to force air through a heater fabricated from a 55-gallon drum. The charges were hung on wooden rods in a box through which the hot air passed. After the charges were thoroughly dry, the maintenance crews replaced them in their original “ice cream” cartons and then packed the cartons in German shell containers which were sealed to be opened only at the mortar position. German containers were so prized that Fifth Army Chemical Section made it a regular practice to scavenge the battlefield for these items on the heels of the retreating enemy.132 The drying operation was carried on at Naples in a series of caves which the Germans had used for ammunition storage. A serious fire, later attributed to an unknown store of German ammunition, broke out in the caves and the fire and the explosions which followed destroyed so many rounds of mortar shell, so many smoke pots, incendiary grenades, gas masks, and other chemical supplies that Fifth Army was short until resupply could be effected. Coblentz resumed
propellant drying operations on the new supply with an improved steam coil dryer.133
The number of bad fuzes which caused premature shell explosions plagued both CWS and Ordnance throughout the war. During the winter of 1943–44, Barker was forced to set up a line near San Pietro, Italy, to disassemble all chemical mortar shell fuzes and check and clean the components. Coblentz later established a similar line at Naples.134
Meanwhile, the OCCWS made strenuous efforts to improve the ammunition and the packing and packaging.135 A new cartridge was provided. On 1 August 1943 ASF adopted a new method of packing in which two unassembled rounds coated with cosmoline or a corrosion preventative and with noses covered by vinylite sacks were packed in a stained wooden box.136 Propellant charges and cartridges were packed in sealed waterproof tin cans. A final packing method was developed for all shipments after 1 February 1944 whereby the assembled round was sealed in a laminated fiber cylinder before being packed in the box.137 These packing methods lessened theater problems with respect to newly received shell except when shipping damage resulted in leaking containers or when shell was reclaimed or repacked in the theater.138
The 76 officers and 575 enlisted men of the CWS in North Africa by the end of December 1942 knew their mission—to prepare for the eventuality of gas warfare, to provide artificial smoke concealment, and to support combat troops with chemical weapons and equipment—but few of these men could have had much conception of what the mission involved or how they were to accomplish it.”‘ They had no toxics and no means to use them. The mechanical smoke generator was a new
item unfamiliar to most men of the CWS. The 4.2-inch chemical mortar had not yet been officially recognized as a weapon which could fire high explosives, and, in any case, there were neither mortar units nor mortars in North Africa at the time. Some of the officers who had come from England and a few from the United States were acquainted with incendiary bombs, but not even all of these few had seen such bombs or knew of the existence of the portable flame thrower. Organizationally, the man who was soon to be theater chief chemical officer then occupied a supreme headquarters position, as AFHQ chemical officer, which was unlike any position ever held by or planned for any chemical officer. No field army chemical section had been organized overseas since World War I. Supply procedures, still in the process of formulation late in 1942, were known but vaguely if at all.
In this situation it is not strange that not only did an autonomous CWS develop in the Mediterranean area but also that each element of it developed its own independence. Such independence was encouraged by Shadle who believed in the importance of his staff function and preferred to give strong field elements their head. The organizational situation was, in turn, excellent seed ground for the development of two chemical supply systems, one oriented toward impetus from the front and the other toward impetus from the rear.
In the final analysis, the CWS in the North African—Mediterranean theater accomplished its tasks and that accomplishment was largely the product of great independence of spirit and a great willingness of chemical officers and men at all levels to improvise and innovate—to adapt the procedures and the equipment and the organization as each new situation demanded.