Chapter 4: Theater Supply: Europe
Evolving the Theater CWS Supply System
European Theater—The Strategic and Logistical Pattern
The theater environment in which the Chemical Warfare Service, European Theater of Operations, performed its supply tasks was unusual in that the theater, after remaining uninvolved in ground combat for nearly a year, directed the largest combat effort of the war. While the Army Air Forces was on the offensive in several overseas areas and the Navy was strategically and tactically involved in the Pacific early in the war, the ETO ground forces in 1944 were still striving to build up launching places for assaults. In the Pacific the ground assaults began in August of 1942 and continued in November in North Africa. At the end of June 1943 General MacArthur launched his broad-scale offensive in the Southwest Pacific, and by early winter the ground forces were fighting in the middle Pacific atolls. The European theater, activated in June 1942, had theoretically been responsible for early operations in North Africa, but the whole theater organization had been primarily devoted, from the U.S. Army point of view, to the conversion of the British Isles into a vast supply base for the greatest ground offensive of the war. Two years, lacking a few days, elapsed between activation of the theater and the initiation of that offensive. During those two years the theater, and the Chemical Warfare Service within the theater, built up the most comprehensive overseas supply operation of the war. Under such circumstances it would seem axiomatic that theater control of the technical services would be more encompassing than in any other theater. The fact of the matter is that the CWS ETO was the most independent of all overseas CWS organizations. The CWS ETO developed a supply
system unlike any other in the European theater and unlike that of any other CWS organization in any theater, although some supply problems and their solutions were markedly similar to those of the CWS MTO.
The CWS ETO was the largest overseas organization of the service. The extent of CWS activity is shown by the fact that, at peak strength, the number of CWS officers and men in the theater was nearly twice as great as in any other theater or overseas area.1 The service supplied every individual in this, the theater with the greatest total strength, with complete gas warfare protection. And, although chemical mortars were in action almost a year longer in the North African—Mediterranean theater, the sixteen mortar battalions in the ETO expended nearly twice as much ammunition as did those in the Mediterranean.2 CWS ETO officers forecast the demands of this supply job in terms of procedures which must be developed almost immediately after establishment of a theater headquarters.
Supply Role of the Chief, CWS ETO
Soon after the activation of the theater and its special staff agencies, Captain LeRoy, acting chief of the Storage and Issue Section of the Supply Division, Office of the Chief, CWS ETO, laid the groundwork for the CWS ETO supply system. Introducing the medium which remained throughout the war as the principal means of disseminating supply instructions, CWS ETO supply circular letters, LeRoy, by authority of Colonel Montgomery, then Chief, CWS ETO, briefed chemical supply officers on their duties and responsibilities and on the theater chemical supply procedures. This initial supply circular letter indicated that the Chief, CWS ETO, would: (1) exercise technical control over CWS depots and chemical sections of general depots; (2) set chemical stock levels for the theater; (3) allocate credits to major theater commands;3 (4) distribute stocks arriving from the
ports of debarkation among the depots; (5) order interdepot transfers; (6) determine stock reporting and recording procedures; (7) receive requests for supplies and services required for depot operations when not available locally; and (8) provide policy for and control over chemical service operations. The depot commanders or chemical supply officers were charged with operating the depots, supervising service operations, securing transportation not otherwise provided, and reporting to the Chief, CWS ETO.4
The chemical supply officers of the chemical supply sections which had been established on 11 July 1942 in general depots at Ashchurch and Bristol in Gloucestershire, at Thatcham in Berkshire, and at Taunton in Somersetshire, and the commanding officers of chemical depots which had been activated on 15 July at Savernake Forest in Wiltshire and at Marston Magna in Somersetshire received these instructions, but lacked the means to comply. It was late in August before the 6th Chemical Depot Company and the 51st Chemical Impregnating Company, the only chemical service units in the theater, could provide sufficient men to carry out the operating instructions.5
Supply Status, July—December 1942
There was in any case not a large quantity of supply with which to operate. By the end of July, the total accumulation of all supplies in the theater amounted to only 181,979 long tons, and, judging from the CWS portion of total supply arriving in the theater during the first year, CWS stockages could hardly have exceeded 2,000 tons.6 The Io August 1942 ETO matériel status report indicates the CWS had received a smaller proportion-69 percent—of its authorized supplies than any other service in the theater. Detailed listings in the same report reveal that fewer than half the number of service gas masks authorized was available.7
By the end of September, the CWS ETO reported the supply prospects as encouraging, but the actual status of stocks had not improved. The average number of days of combat maintenance of all items was
24, but in view of the imbalance of stocks, ranging from 873 days for the gas alarm to zero days for vesicant detector crayon, the average was not significant. The significant fact was that even based on a troop strength of 217,123 then reported in the United Kingdom, there was a serious shortage of both individual and collective protection items, such as the gas mask and the portable decontaminating apparatus. This strength was slightly more than half the strength, 427,000, for which ETO planners set requirements in the same month. The real CWS supply level was estimated at 12 days for Class II (general supplies issued against established allowances) items and practically nil for all other classes. This real level was not more than one-sixth of the lowest authorized theater supply level computed on the 427,000 strength figure for 60 days of supply. The figure for the number of days of supply fluctuated from 60 to 90 days in the several versions of the theater plan formulated in the fall of 1942.8 The quantity of supply immediately available was critically low. Yet, the ETO was then primarily a planning theater, and CWS ETO officers took the long-range view that the immediate problem of supply shortages was important only insofar as the shortages reflected the need for planning to meet the ultimate goal—supplying the theater at full strength.
Major Hayes, Chief, Requirements Division, CWS ETO, stated in the October supply report to the War Department that the immediate supply shortage resulted from the necessity for filling initial shortages for all units and organizations in and arriving in the United Kingdom. Filling initial shortages depleted stocks much more rapidly than replacing normal consumption, and Major Hayes was anxious to know if plans should provide for the greater issue rate. If so, he pointed out, the CWS ETO planners would have to know the approximate extent of shortages among arriving troops. The CWS ETO was in a poor position to forecast issue requirements even if only normal replacement supply would be required. Planners did not know the theater priority for supply, nor did they know how much shipping tonnage would be allocated to CWS supply and how much of that allocation might be lost because of extensive enemy submarine warfare. Further, they had not been informed whether CWS ETO requisitions would be honored in the United States, and they had received no information on
the War Department ammunition supply policy. Apparently the failure to provide information extended even to their own theater headquarters. At the end of September, the CWS ETO was still planning on a 180-day level of supply for Class II instead of on the 90- to 60-day level mentioned above.9 Hayes urged the War Department to provide requirements information at once since, despite the lack of supplies, supply officers were convinced that the BOLERO and ROUNDUP build-ups would result in the theater having to handle vast quantities of materials within a few months.10
The CWS Credit System
Anticipating a greatly increased workload, CWS supply officers bent their efforts to turning out a comprehensive supply plan. The completed plan made the Chief, CWS ETO, as stated above, directly responsible for stating requirements and preparing theater requisitions on the United States and for supervising the receipt and storage of goods. In handling the third element of the supply system, distribution, LeRoy realized that the small number of men and the lack of available facilities meant that distribution would have to be decentralized for efficient operation. He accordingly based the distribution system on the allocation of supply credits. The allocation of supply credits to using units and organizations was an established War Department procedure which the CWS in the United States had incorporated into its supply manual.11 Credit allocations were made sporadically throughout the Army’s distribution system and in many cases, as in corps area distribution in the United States, these allocations were used early in the war to establish quota distributions for short supply items of lesser importance than controlled items.12
The CWS ETO anticipated a credit-employment trend in the United States by using the credit system to govern the issue of
controlled as well as less important items when, as early as 31 July 1942, they made all Class II non-controlled items and the majority of Class II controlled items subject to credit allocations. Theater requirements for Class IV (special supplies outside regular allowances) items were not firm enough to warrant credit allocations, but procedures were adopted to place ammunition (Class V) on credit in accordance with authorized training allowances whenever a sufficient supply became available.13 Total stocks of air chemical Class V were credited to the Eighth Air Force from the inception of the system.14 The CWS ETO thus inaugurated the only comprehensive credit distribution system to be used in the theater.
Although administrative arrangements for the CWS ETO issue system were complete by the end of July 1942, operating difficulties prevented more than token allotment of credits during the remainder of the year. The first of these difficulties arose because there was too small a staff at all levels of theater organization to manage the system. The great advantage in the credit issue system was that only one action, the allocation of credits, had to be performed at theater or SOS headquarters level; the responsibility for requesting allocations and for receiving issues from depots lay with major commands subordinate to the theater commander. Issuing allocations to minor commands would have involved theater headquarters in so much detail that the purpose of decentralizing supply operations would have been defeated. Throughout 1942, there were insufficient numbers of chemical supply management officers at the subordinate major command levels to handle the workload for their commands. The planned use of the new base section organizations for area distribution of chemical supplies to SOS units was likewise thwarted by the lack of chemical manpower.15 The expected major ground forces command comparable to Army Ground Forces in the United States was never organized in the theater, and no acceptable alternative coordinating command was available until the activation of an army group headquarters late in 1943. Although the Eighth Air Force became operational in August 1942 and although a bulk Class V credit was issued, the air force
headquarters, which served as the theater air command, was not well enough organized for the next several months to handle the issue accounting problems which would result from crediting other supplies.16
The burden placed on the supply system by the requirements for TORCH and the virtual suspension of the BOLERO build-up resulted in a diversion of the supply effort from the long-range goal. Shipments earmarked for TORCH began to replace BOLERO shipments in August. In the ensuing three months almost the entire theater supply effort was directed toward equipping units alerted for the TORCH operation and, for two months thereafter, to setting up maintenance shipments for North Africa. The seriousness of the supply situation was greatly aggravated. The CWS ETO participated in the TORCH effort by assuming the burden of detailed supply operations which included receiving unit requisitions from alerted units, extracting requisition items to the depots where stock was known to exist, and conducting unit “show down” inspections to determine if requisitions had been placed for basic equipment and if supplies had been received. To speed up and to simplify the actual details of requesting and handling materials, Captain LeRoy’s section devised a multi-carbon single control form which could be used as a requisition, tally sheet, packing slip, bill of lading, and notice of receipt. A Control Division, SOS, officer visiting in the ETO saw the CWS forms in Supply Division, CWS ETO, and took a number of them to Washington with him. About six months later ASF published a “War Department Shipping Document” which was similar to the CWS ETO form.17
Some conception of the magnitude of the TORCH supply tasks can be derived from the fact that 10,020 U.S. troops sailed as part of Eastern Task Force and 70,800 as part of Center Task Force in convoys originating in the United Kingdom. Many of these troops had to be equipped in part and almost all had to be inspected in the United Kingdom. Also, the War Department directed the European theater to set up twenty-two maintenance shipments of CWS supplies totaling 3,133 deadweight tons to be sent in twelve North African resupply
convoys between November 1942 and February 1943.18 Despite the amount of this work, or perhaps because of it, the headquarters supply officers were unaware of the inroads TORCH was making into BOLERO. The CWS ETO supply policy consequently remained unchanged and, indeed, supply officers found it possible to issue twenty credits for local supply during the second half of calendar year 1942.19
Logistical Data
While theater stocks were virtually exhausted when the ETO was finally relieved of responsibility for North Africa in February 1943, it was probably fortunate that there had been no change in CWS ETO supply policy. The Allied leaders agreed at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 to reinstate BOLERO and, at the TRIDENT Conference in Washington in May, they set targets for an approximately 1.5-million troop strength to be ready for a cross-Channel operation about I May 1944. The CWS system, which had been predicated on such a build-up, was therefore ready to go into more extensive operation when, about the middle of 1943, BOLERO moved from crawl to sprint. But, in the meantime, from November 1942 to May 1943, the theater staff, including the CWS, had not been idle. The theater and SOS general staffs drew up detailed plans of troop requirements to be used when the order to proceed with the build-up was received, and they decided how to allot forces for the air and supply effort and the eventual ground effort. The G-4, SOS, compiled basic logistical planning factors, such as required storage space per 1,000 men per 30 days’ maintenance and tonnage per day required to support given strengths. Colonel LeRoy, now chief of the Supply Division, CWS ETO, realized that these computations prepared at higher echelons would have little meaning for the CWS as long as they lacked basic logistical data for CWS items.20 The information which Hayes had urgently requested from the United States in October had not yet been received since it was not
then available in the United States. Preparations for the TORCH operation had made CWS ETO planners understand how essential such logistical data were for adequate supply planning. LeRoy accordingly embarked on an extensive project for the assembly of CWS logistical data.21
The job done by Colonel LeRoy and the members of the Supply Division on CWS logistical data was monumental. The work was begun in December 1942, and distribution of the initial portions took place in February and March 1943. In June 1943 the CWS ETO sent out a complete set of compiled tables for the guidance of all supply officers and of chemical officers at all echelons of command. The compilation was divided into four sections. The first section provided basic data, a list of all items for which the CWS had procurement, storage, and issue responsibilities together with correct nomenclatures, types of packaging, unit and package weights and cubages, storage and shipping factors, and a list of all British and American cargo vehicles and railway cars which showed weight and load limit and cargo measurement for each type. The second section set forth the basis for computing requirements, giving consolidated chemical supply listings from tables of basic allowances, tables of allowances, tables of organization and equipment, and lists of chemical expendable supplies. This section also listed the basis for issue of ammunition and gave established units of fire, days of supply, and replacement factors on specific items. In the third section the logistic requirements of each type of organization in the Army were analyzed in terms of initial issue of chemical matériel, and the weight and cubage of each item authorized were given together with total weights and cubages converted into total tonnage and shipping space needed. Such special logistic problems as the supply of impregnating materials and the proper calculation of payloads per aircraft for chemical or incendiary aerial bombardment were set forth in detail in the fourth section. The compilation closed with a detailed account of the use of these data in planning operations. This invaluable compilation was amended many times as required by changes in equipment and organization, and an extensive revision was issued, section by section, in 1944. It was the foundation of all CWS
ETO logistical planning throughout the war, even after the issuance of the CWS supply catalogs which covered some of the same area.22
The CWS ETO logistical data compilation served, on the one hand, as the basis for computing total theater chemical matériel requirements according to present or expected strengths, and on the other hand, as a source of shipment, storage, and distribution information, including a rapid means of calculating credit allocations once the matériel arrived in the theater. In March 1943 the decentralization of the supply distribution process was encouraged by extending the credit allocation plan to cover all classes of supply.23 While the basic credit system procedures were thus set, the CWS ETO was well aware of the fact that the system would be workable only when field elements were prepared for storage, issue, and accounting.
Storage and Issue
Storage and issue was one of the original CWS ETO problems. Supply authorities, as mentioned above, had a difficult time staffing the depots and depot sections. This problem was somewhat alleviated, at least in the management sphere, when supply officers arrived in September 1942 to replace the troop officers who had been managing the depots and depot sections. This benefit was almost immediately canceled out, however, by the transfer of some of these officers and most of the enlisted men to the North African forces then being assembled. The 6th Chemical Depot Company, the only such unit in the theater, also embarked for North Africa. The 5 1st Chemical Impregnating Company became the sole theater chemical service unit. The staff reduction was so drastic that the chemical section of the general depot at Taunton was left with one officer and no enlisted men, and the chemical section of the general depot at Thatcham with two officers and no enlisted men. The chemical section of the Ashchurch general depot had one officer and eleven enlisted men while the chemical section
in the Bristol general depot had two officers and six enlisted men.24 The heavy demands of the TORCH preparations could not have been met but for the help of British pioneer troops and civilians. The British could not provide manpower on a permanent basis since their own manpower shortages were severe and since they operated on a strict priority system. The labor problem was further complicated by a lack of facilities. Storage buildings provided were not well lighted, floors were rough and uneven, and in one of the designated locations the maximum safe floor load was so low as to preclude efficient storage operation. In another depot the chemical section was assigned space on the fifth floor of a building with only one small elevator. Only one depot possessed car-level loading platforms, and the lack of mechanized equipment and even roller conveyors meant that all lifting, loading, sorting, and stacking had to be performed manually. This bad situation was made worse by a lack of adequate communications between the SOS headquarters, the ports, and the depots and, until January 1943, the absence of maintenance facilities. The one chemical maintenance company in the theater was being used in depot operation, and the second company did not arrive until November 1943.25
The CWS ETO storage manpower situation reached a low in December of 1942. From the supply handling point of view it was fortunate that theater stocks were virtually exhausted and that few shipments were arriving. The 7th Chemical Depot Company arrived in the theater in December and by early January had been parceled out into detachments to operate the two chemical depots and four chemical sections of general depots which had been established six months earlier, and one general depot chemical section which had been established at Sudbury Egginton, Derby, Staffordshire, in December. At the time these detachments were sent out, a new chemical depot, soon to be converted into a chemical section of an ordnance depot, was activated at Cinder ford, Gloucestershire. Another general
depot chemical section was activated at Moneymore, Northern Ireland, before the end of January.26
While the Allied leaders had agreed in January to renew the BOLERO build-up, tonnage arrivals remained light for the first three months of 1943, the March incoming CWS shipments amounting to only 2 s long tons. The April figure suddenly shot up to 826 long tons of CWS supplies, and, after the official rescheduling of BOLERO targets in May, the June figure reached 4,004 long tons.27 Such a cargo inflow was certainly more than one depot company could handle, particularly since work had been increased by the establishment of another chemical depot in Sudbury, Suffolk, on 1 June 1943. On 1 July 1943, the handling situation was relieved by the arrival of the both Chemical Depot Company. The two companies were then able to operate with a maximum of five detachments each. Incoming tonnage rates soared, plummeting occasionally, but reaching more than 9,000 tons in September, more than 12,000 in December, and a peak of 34,604 tons in June 1944. The handling situation would have grown rapidly worse again but for the arrival of new units and a comprehensive depot installation plan which had been laid down in May 1943.28
The unit complement for the build-up period in the British Isles was rounded out during the last six months of 1943. One chemical depot company (aviation) arrived in July and two in August. The 65th Chemical Depot Company disembarked in England about 6 October, and the 761st Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) followed a few days later. Three chemical depot companies, the 9th, the 61st, and the 64th, completed the list in November. Meanwhile, the SOS depot plan brought about the establishment of chemical sections in general depots at Barry, Glamorganshire, in July, and at Hilsea, Hampshire, at Westbury, Wiltshire, and at Histon, Cambridgeshire, in November. Chemical ammunition depots were activated at Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire, and at Loton Deer Park, Alderbury, Shropshire, in November. From December 1943 until after the invasion of the Continent six months later, the CWS ETO, in 9 of the theater’s 18 general depots and in 6 of its 54 branch and ammunition depots, managed more than 700,000 square feet of closed storage space, more
Chemical warfare depot, Loton Deer Park, England
than one million square feet of open storage space, more than 50,000 square feet of shop space, and space for 68,400 long tons of ammunition.29 The CWS ETO stood fourth, approximately equal with the Engineers, among the technical services in operation of both closed and open space. The only service other than Ordnance and Engineers operating shop space and the only service other than Ordnance
operating ammunition storage space, the CWS ETO was a poor second in these two categories.30
Air Chemical Supply
After eighteen months of operations in the theater, the CWS ETO was at last in a position to handle supply adequately. Admirable procedures had been established; facilities and installations were satisfactory if not ideal; and sufficient manpower was available to implement the procedures and to staff the installations. Problems for the remaining six months of the build-up period, as well as for the major part of the subsequent operational period on the Continent, centered about the provision of specific items of supply and the operation of specific supply plans. The CWS ETO was not without experience in these problem areas. While most of the activities of the theater had been directed toward build-up, the CWS ETO had received its logistics baptism of fire in the preparations for the North African campaigns, and the steadily increasing combat activities of the Army Air Forces kept the theater in operational status throughout the build-up period. The CWS ETO was heavily involved in the Army Air Forces efforts for two reasons: (1) the CWS provided the incendiary and fire bombs which became major weapons for both bomber and fighter elements of the air arm; and (2) the greater part of the gas warfare retaliatory effort was to be concentrated in the air forces should the enemy initiate gas warfare.31
Founding the Air Chemical Supply System, ETO
CWS computations of air chemical munitions requirements for the European theater were begun in the United States before the activation of the theater organization. Colonel Kellogg initiated the requirements work immediately upon his assignment as Eighth Air Force chemical
officer and the organization of his chemical section in April 1942. Colonel Kellogg’s section, proceeding on inadequate data as to aircraft strength and capacity, submitted its requirements estimate for the second half of 1942 on 16 May, a few days before the Eighth Air Force headquarters moved to an overseas staging area. On reaching England in June, Colonel Kellogg realized that the probable inaccuracy of the May submission was not significant since there was little hope of acquiring any substantial stockage of munitions during 1942.32 He at once inaugurated a threefold program in the supply field. His objectives were: first, to secure matériel, such as gas defensive equipment, aerial incendiaries, toxics, and smoke munitions, from the United States, or, as an interim measure, from the British; second, to acquire or construct storage space for toxics and incendiaries; and third, to provide a firm basis for supply planning and requirements computations.33 While the air forces in the theater, like the Army Air Forces headquarters in the United States, were tending to become independent in matters of supply, the whole CWS organization in the theater was vitally involved in all the elements of the Eighth Air Force program because the theater CWS was charged with coordination of all theater chemical warfare policy, including liaison with the British. Also, the SOS section of the CWS ETO was already providing storage for air chemical supplies and had begun, as noted above, to work on air chemical logistical data.
The accomplishment of all phases of the Eighth Air Force chemical supply program was fraught with difficulties. The only incendiary bombs in production in the United States in this early period were the small 4-pound magnesium and steel case bombs. Most of the magnesium bombs were going to the British under lend-lease, and all production was slowed by the scarcity of magnesium. The steel case bomb was not an effective incendiary for use on many targets, and it was consequently rarely issued to the theaters of operations.
The M47 100-pound bomb with an incendiary filling was satisfactory, but it was late in 1942 before a successful filling could be produced in quantity.34 Quantity production of toxics was just beginning, and not even token shipments to the European theater were authorized until January 1943.35 Defensive equipment and service supplies were no more available to the air forces than they were to the ground and service forces, and all stockages in and destined for the European theater were subject to the demands of the North African campaigns. Existing demands on the British supply system had reached monumental proportions, but the British were in a position to be of some assistance to the chemical preparedness of the United States forces.
Air Toxic Supply
The United Kingdom had the capacity to produce toxics, but production had almost come to a standstill for lack of containers in which to store the finished product. The small British supply of corrosion-resistant steel, the ideal container material, was diverted to other high-priority purposes. While the chances of obtaining such steel were slightly better in the United States, rigorous shipping priorities forbade the shipment of empty containers.36 As to munitions for the delivery of toxics on the enemy, the United States had the M47 100-pound bomb which was considered to be satisfactory and which was available in limited quantities. The British had a 65-pound and a 30-pound bomb, but the Eighth Air Force was skeptical about their usefulness; furthermore, the bombs did not lend themselves to economical operational loading in American aircraft. Neither the United States nor Great Britain had a bomb cluster for toxics, but the British 250-pound bomb was considered acceptable pending the availability of larger bombs or clusters of smaller bombs. The British 500-pound bomb for filling with nonpersistent agents was considered so highly effective that air chemical officers requested a comparable American munition. Smoke tanks adaptable to aerial vesicant spray missions were the American 500-pound, available in small quantities but virtually obsolete because of the scarcity of aircraft on which it could be carried, the American
2,000 pound, which was not expected to be available in quantity for some time, and the British 400-pound Flying Cow, a bomb which sprayed smoke or toxics when released from an airplane. The British were able to manufacture the Flying Cow for the American Air Forces, and it was consequently scheduled to be the mainstay of the potential for spraying toxics from aircraft until a better munition should become available.37
In addition to supplying the Flying Cow and a small reserve of toxics, the British agreed to provide their 30-pound bomb with an incendiary fill, their 250-pound bomb with an oil incendiary fill, and about 6,500 of the 500-pound phosgene-filled bombs. Also, since the Eighth Air Force was occupying air stations established by the Royal Air Force (RAF) , Colonel Montgomery was able to get the RAF to leave their protective equipment and decontaminating facilities intact when vacating the stations. The British further agreed to manufacture some protective, warning, and detection supplies for the United States Army forces, including the air forces.38
While the total quantity of British chemical warfare materials furnished the United States Forces was small, and while only token deliveries were made in 1942, awareness of British capability and British reserves was nearly the only reassuring gleam in the dark chemical supply picture from July 1942 to July 1943. The entire gas warfare retaliatory potential depended on British resources for most of that period. CWS ETO officers measured the British contribution as much or more in terms of their willingness to cooperate and their readiness to provide technical and operating experience data as they did in their provision of supplies under reverse lend-lease.39
Through the provision of such technical advice as well as actual labor and materials, the British helped to solve the dilemma with respect to toxic storage. Late in 1941 and early in 1942, the British experimented with the storage of toxics in concrete tanks only to reject that method in the spring of 1942 because the toxics seeped through the concrete.
Almost immediately after the rejection, however, scientists of the Imperial Chemical Industries working for the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Aircraft Production hit upon a simple method of lead-lining the concrete tanks to provide a seepage-proof seal. The British quickly constructed a number of lead-lined tanks at three installations to store some of their own reserves, and they offered to build similar facilities for the U.S. Eighth Air Force. Working with the RAF, the Ministry of Supply, and the Imperial Chemical Industries under reverse lend-lease authorizations, Kellogg and Lt. Col. Albert H. Hooker, Chemical Officer, VIII Air Force Service Command, selected sites for advance chemical parks at Barnham, Suffolk, and at Melchbourne Park, near Kettering, Northamptonshire, and the Imperial Chemical Industries agreed to construct three 500-ton tanks at each location. Hard-standings and Romney huts were also built at each site for the storage of 4,000 tons of chemical ammunition and 6,000 tons of incendiaries. The VIII AFSC later installed American toxic and incendiary filling apparatus at both locations. The tanks at the Barnham site were completed and filled by the end of 1943 and, while the Melchbourne Park facility was not completed until the spring of 1944, 1,215 tons of toxics were in storage there in December 1943.40
Although the construction of the advance chemical parks represented a major achievement, Army Air Forces chemical officers never assumed, even at the outset, that these parks would solve the problems of storage space for air chemical supplies. For example, against the air park capacity of 3,000 tons of bulk toxics and 8,000 tons of chemical ammunition, the initial estimate of requirements for bulk persistent toxics alone was 34,000 tons.41 Furthermore, the air chemical officers were concerned not only with storage of reserve and normal station issue supplies but also with the daily munitions requirements of aerial operations. Combat operations requirements, principally of incendiary
bombs, had to be immediately available at each operational base from August 1942, when the Eighth Air Force initiated its famous raids on the Continent, until the end of the war in Europe. In the first month, 6.1 tons of incendiary bombs were expended.42 Despite the fact that Ordnance was officially charged with storage of toxic munitions and usually with the storage of incendiaries, air chemical officers found it almost as difficult, for the whole of the combat period, to find and maintain adequate storage space as it was to obtain munitions.
As supplies began rolling in, in the second half of 1943, air force storage facilities were soon filled. For example, while 18,875 mustard-filled 100-pound bombs were brought into SOS depots and 12,000 into air force depots between April and July 1943, 205,485 toxic-filled M47 bombs were in theater storage by the end of December.43 Despite the fact that all ammunition storage was an Ordnance function, SOS CWS and even RAF chemical ammunition depots initially assumed most of the load of air force chemical storage. Eventually so much of the air force storage backlog was in SOS depots that the chemical section of the ordnance ammunition depot at Cinderford became in fact, if not in name, a Ninth Air Force depot operated by air chemical service units.44 The largest SOS CWS ammunition storage facility, that at Loton Deer Park, was designed primarily for incendiary storage, secondarily for toxic storage, mostly of air force munitions, and only incidentally for the storage of ground forces ammunition.45
A comparison of ground and air forces toxic stockages in the theater is illuminating, both because it indicates the scope of the storage problems and because it states retaliatory capability in terms of munitions available. The level of ground forces toxic artillery ammunition, all of which was stored by Ordnance, increased only slightly from December 1943, at approximately 301,000 rounds, until March 1945
when the number of rounds stored nearly doubled. The February 1945 stockage of 308,352 rounds contained approximately 895.45 long tons of toxic filling while the March stockage of 568,225 rounds contained about 1,500 long tons. Nearly a million rounds in storage at the end of the war in Europe contained only about 650 long tons more filling than the March stockage because the type of shell acquired after March included a small payload. The stock of 4.2-inch chemical mortar toxic shell, also stored by Ordnance but of more direct concern to the CWS, was built up from approximately 26,000 rounds in December 1943 to more than 60,000 rounds in March 1944 and then, suddenly, to 137,732 rounds in February 1945. This peak stock, less than half of the 345,000-round peak authorization level, contained approximately 375 tons of toxics. Bulk persistent toxics which, except for the amount stored in the air chemical park tanks, were stored in ton containers and 55-gallon drums, rose from about 6,600 to 8,200 long tons from December 1943 to April 1945. In April 1945 aerial munitions stocks amounted to 306,963 100-pound bombs, 13,081 500-pound bombs, and 35,898 1,000-pound bombs with a total of approximately 16,785 long tons of toxic filling.46
The problem of toxic storage in England was finding, improving, and managing storage space. The difficulties encountered in other theaters, such as corroding and leaking munitions, were not experienced to any significant extent. General Waitt and chemical officers in the theater examined toxic munitions stocks in the theater at the end of the war in Europe. They found a small number of M47 bombs, about one percent, that were leaking persistent gas. A small percentage of the remainder were seriously corroded, and a large percentage slightly corroded. The leaking and seriously corroded bombs were destroyed while the rest were cleaned and painted and prepared for shipment out of the theater. A few of the 55-gallon drums were leaking and others needed cleaning and painting. The cleaning and painting process had been continuous during storage in the theater. No serious defects were found in other toxic munitions.47
Despite the problem of finding space for the storage of aerial toxic munitions, the level of supply mentioned above was by no means
over-generous. Though ground toxic munitions were available, they were considered only supplementary to the basic retaliation potential. The CWS ETO based its gas warfare retaliatory potential on the bomb stockage plus a large portion of the bulk gas intended to fill aerial munitions, and chemical planners reckoned this aerial supply as capable of supporting only 14 operational days of retaliatory gas warfare.48 Had the Germans resorted to gas warfare, the possible 2- or even 4-week duration of the initial operation would have been a short time in which to move additional supplies from the United States. Indeed, in May 1944 air planners estimated that 45 days would be required to move a stock of the principal toxic weapon, persistent-gas-filled M47 bombs, into the theater. At that time, less than a month before D-day, the theater command considered the threat of German initiation of gas warfare serious enough to order combat-ready toxic bomb loadings sent to operating air stations so that a retaliatory strike could be launched in a maximum of 24 hours.49 When the continental invasion produced no indications of the initiation of gas warfare, no new preparations for retaliation were made in the fall of 1944. On two subsequent occasions, in December 1944 and near the end of the war, theater planners feared that Germany might turn to gas warfare as a last-ditch defense of the homeland although Rowan believed there was little danger. Aside from the increase in toxic munitions stocks in the early months of 1945, no further aerial bombardment retaliatory preparations were made in response to the last-ditch threat.50
Incendiary Bombs
The CWS ETO was unable for most of 1942 to supply incendiary bombs.51 The British 30- and 250-pound incendiaries were therefore
adopted for American use, but the British were little more prepared than the Americans to provide supply in the quantities soon demanded. Kellogg obtained 10,000 American thin cased, 100-pound (M47) bomb bodies late in 1942 and had them filled with an incendiary mixture by air chemical service units in England. Just about the time this field improvisation was completed, a substantial supply of American 100-pound clusters of 4-pound magnesium bombs began to arrive. Just as the incendiary supply situation was beginning to look good, air chemical officers discovered that the 100-pound clusters were defective. They were forced to withdraw the clusters from issue.52
Beginning with successful incendiary raids on German industrial targets in occupied France during the summer of 1943, incendiary bomb expenditures, especially of the M47 bomb, then available from the United States, reached large proportions in the fall of 1943 and by December accounted for 40 percent of the total American bomb load.53 The Chemical Section, VIII AFSC, took extraordinary measures to meet operational demands. They routed incendiary shipments from the United States directly from the port of debarkation to the operational air stations. Short supply M126 fuzes for the M47 were airlifted from the United States. Still there were shortages and some of the tonnage expended included the alternative British oil-perspex-filled 250-pound bomb. At the end of December 1943, M47 stocks were double the tonnage expended in that month, and 1,424 tons of the new 500-pound aimable cluster, M17, had been received. Nearly 16,000 of the 100-pound clusters of 4-pound bombs, now capable of modification by a special fuze to permit cluster opening at an altitude safe to carrying aircraft, were on hand. Seven other clusters of small bombs and the British 250-pound bomb were also stocked in small quantities, in one case as low as six tons. By January 1944 the M17 cluster, which contained 110 4-pound magnesium bombs, had reached VIII Bomber Command stations, and within a week, on 11 January 1944, three groups of the 1st Bombardment Division dropped M17s on Wilhelmshaven. Although bombardiers had to learn its aiming
characteristics, the new cluster proved to be an accurate weapon of great power.54
The long awaited M76 500-pound bomb filled with incendiary gel arrived in the theater early in 1944, but operational results of this weapon, dubbed the Block Burner, were disappointing. While the M76 was used with moderate success against Berlin on 6 March 1944, subsequent operations proved that target opportunities for so large a bomb, which contained a low percentage of incendiary fuel with respect to total weight, were few in number. By September the Eighth Air Force had no plans for use of this munition, and a large portion of the stock was turned over to the Ninth Air Force whose tactical targets were more suitable.55
The 1944 and 1945 expenditures of incendiary bombs were spotty—the highest month of Eighth Air Force expenditure was October 1944 at 11,337.1 tons while the next month was the lowest at 566.4 tons. The monthly average expenditure for 1944 was nearly 5,200 tons and for 1945 nearly 6,400 tons, approximately one-seventh the monthly average of all Eighth Air Force bombs on target. The M 17 cluster comprised about 70 percent of the expenditure, and most of the remainder was the M47. Although on one occasion air chemical officers had to request that MI7 shipments be rushed, supply was normally excellent. The curtailed usage of M76 and M47 bombs resulted in stockages beyond the authorized theater 75-day level, and supply officers recommended, in the fall of 1944, that further shipments from the United States be halted. They did not propose that the theater overage be returned since variation in operations or types of targets available might again have meant a large demand.56
Fire Bombs
During the second half of 1944 the most pressing air chemical supply problem concerned the provision of another field expedient, the fire bomb. This bomb was a field improvised incendiary bomb fabricated from expendable, auxiliary, aircraft gasoline tanks. Air service units filled the tank with a mixture of gasoline and a thickener (usually napalm) and wired on an incendiary grenade or part of a magnesium bomb as an igniter. The fire bomb was an excellent tactical weapon to use against supply dumps, troop concentrations, convoys, and vehicles. Air chemical officers in the United Kingdom anticipated post-D-day use of fire bombs by the VIII and IX Fighter Commands. The Air Service Command, USSTAF, accordingly increased amounts and priorities on their orders for thickeners and other fire bomb components from the United States. By June of 1944 it was apparent that shipments would not be received in time to meet the demand, and air chemical officers conducted a theater-wide survey of thickener supply. They concluded that interim needs could be met, but with difficulty.57 Intensive fire bomb missions were inaugurated in July, and supplies proved adequate, particularly since the Ninth Air Force was using the M76 500-pound bomb on the same kind of mission.58 At the same time, USSTAF requested that SOS transfer 500,000 gallons of the ground forces flame thrower fuel, which was not being used in anticipated quantities, to the air forces.
By the first week in August, SOS had delivered 20,000 gallons of fuel to the air forces and had agreed to lend enough packaged dry napalm from SOS depots for mixing the remaining 30,000 gallons. Air Service Command delivered the entire loan of napalm to the Ninth Air Force and directed the Commanding General, Base Air Depot Area, to complete arrangements, already informally approved, to have the British mix some or most of this fuel. The IX Air Force
Service Command was to mix, using a borrowed Canadian mixing apparatus, any fuel that the British could not handle.59
Despite the SOS loan and the successful completion of arrangements for British mixing, the anticipated shortage became critical. USSTAF, during August 1944, reminded SOS that the 59 tons of napalm scheduled to arrive from the United States must be available by 25 August and that 64 additional tons already on order must be received by 16 September. Two more pleas for expedited delivery were sent before the first shipment arrived in two parts late in August and about the middle of September.60
About 70 percent of the first two shipments—the second had arrived early in October—was dispatched directly to a plant of the National Oil Refining Company, subsidiary of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in Swansea, Wales, which had been ready for processing since 21 August. The rest of those shipments were sent for field mixing by the air force service commands. The British plant mixed more than 375,000 gallons of fuel before the end of October and contracted to continue this job. In addition, a factory in the north of England contracted to supplement the American supply by providing 185,500 gallons of perspex mix fuel from September through November.61 The fuel supply in the mixing process plus the assured prospect of continuing deliveries from the United States should have removed the fire bomb supply problem from the critical list by the end of September, but plans were knocked awry during the month by startling statements of new requirements and by a distribution problem.
Eighth Air Force in September 1944 decided to drop fire bombs from heavy bombers on targets so well fortified as to have withstood high explosive bombardment. The air force initially requested 600,000 gallons of mixed fuel and in November increased that request to 1,000,000 gallons to be expended at the rate of 130,000 gallons per month. As an alternative to the availability of mixed fuel, the air force
requested 75 tons of dry napalm and a sufficient number of mixing units to handle it. USSTAF chemical officers reshuffled their planned distribution schedule and notified Eighth Air Force in tones of justifiable pique that, while its original request was out of the question, 60,000 gallons could be furnished at the end of September, an additional 30,000 gallons during October, and that attempts would be made to meet the 30,000-gallon requirement in November and December. At this point the air chemical officer in War Department Headquarters, Army Air Forces, cabled to ask if his headquarters could be of assistance in improving the fire bomb supply situation. USSTAF answered that the greatest possible assistance would be in insuring the delivery of too tons of dry napalm per month by setting up fast ship and air transportation in addition to that already allotted to USSTAF. This plea was renewed after Eighth Air Force increased its requests. Meanwhile, air chemical officers even canvassed the Twelfth Air Force in the Mediterranean area in the hope of securing thickener, but the Twelfth Air Force was itself then attempting to borrow thickened fuels from the Ninth. In December 1944 and in 1945 the problem was solved by the arrival of a sufficient supply of thickeners from the United States. About the same time, American mixing and transfer kits became available in quantity. AAF enlarged the table of equipment for chemical air operations companies to provide eight of these mixing and transfer kits for each unit, and USSTAF secured special kit allowances for the Eighth Air Force. Thus, field units could mix enough fuel to greatly augment the British capacity.62
The use of mixing and transfer units also helped to solve the distribution problem arising from the supply of fire bomb fuel. The nature of this problem was that the Ninth Air Force was already operating from the Continent by the time mixed fuels began to come off the processing lines in the United Kingdom, sometime in September.
Routing these fuels, packed for the most part in still scarce 55-gallon drums, through normal supply channels resulted in insupportable delays. The USSTAF Chemical Section accordingly arranged with COMZ ETO to transfer fuel distribution from the normal channels to Army Air Forces priority supply channels from the beachheads and ports forward. The change in channels resulted in special and rapid handling of fuel. Colonel Baum stationed “expediters,” chemical officers or air chemical units, at crucial points along the supply line to see that the fuel kept moving. The mixing and transfer kits also permitted the air chemical units attached directly to the operation groups to fill fire bombs on the spot, thus eliminating drum shortage complaints and relieving the overtaxed distribution system.63
By the beginning of 1945 air chemical supply was proceeding smoothly, and more than a month before the end of the war in Europe air chemical officers turned their attention to the disposition of supplies on hand. For the air forces as for all forces in the theater, D-day had been a momentous event, and the character of air forces operations had changed substantially because of the nature of D-day preparations and post-D-day requirements, but D-day was not a turning point in air chemical supply as it was in ground chemical supply. The turning points in air chemical supply were two: the first at the beginning of 1944 when the minimum required supply for toxic retaliation was at last reached and when incendiary supply was at last equal to operational demands, and the second at the beginning of 1945 when the availability of fire bomb material could be counted on to meet operational demands. Despite this difference in culmination of air and ground efforts, the problems of air and ground chemical supply were essentially alike. The foremost question was always how to compute requirements for toxics, a weapon which might not be used, or for incendiaries and fire bombs, weapons which had not previously been used. But the question which required greater expenditure of energy and ingenuity was how to meet the requirements once computed or presented by operational usage. The air chemical supply system answered both of these questions but neither answer was quick and easy. To consider ground chemical supply it is therefore necessary to return to the end
of 1943 when ground preparations for the scheduled spring continental operation became the dominating theater activity.
Ground Chemical Supply
The CWS ETO and all its sister services in the theater had been involved in preparations for D-day ever since the establishment of the theater headquarters in June 1942, for a build-up supporting the cross-Channel operation was the aim of the BOLERO plan under which they functioned. But, until the end of 1943, the problems of the build-up and of supply shortages were so grave as to obscure the main objective. In the fall of 1943 chemical supply was arriving in a sufficient quantity, as noted above, to make the assault on the Continent seem more feasible. Furthermore, in November and December 1943 the Allied Staffs were beginning to consider the precise nature and scope of OVERLORD, the forthcoming operation.64 The basic question facing the ground planners was tactical: how can a Normandy beachhead large enough to serve as a point of departure for continental operations be secured? This basic question quickly resolved itself into two logistical questions: (1) how many men could the Allied forces get across the Channel and on the beachhead; (2) how much build-up of matériel would be required to support them?
Plans and Planning Agencies
The answer to the basic tactical question from the American point of view was to mount an overwhelmingly superior force, which would mean using all the men in every combat-ready unit which could be assembled in the United Kingdom and which could be provided with transport to the Continent. The technical services in turn would have to accumulate sufficient matériel to support such a force. The CWS ETO portion of the matériel project involved three basic categories of supply: (1) individual and collective gas warfare protective and decontaminating items for the entire force; (2) weapons and ammunition for chemical mortar units plus flame and smoke weapons and equipment for all combat forces; (3) and special operational requirements such as smoke protection for the beachhead. The first job was
to secure statements of chemical requirements in each category from each of the responsible planning headquarters.
Activation of the planning headquarters had begun late in 1943. First United States Army was to be responsible for all supply operations until two weeks after D-day. Advance Section, Communications Zone, a mobile base section headquarters, was to take over for the next twenty-seven days. Forward Echelon, Communications Zone, was to assume control of supply operations in the remaining forty-nine days of the first three months on the far shore. It was assumed that Communications Zone, the redesignated SOS ETO, would be in operation on the Continent at the end of the third month. Major Hingle moved over from Supply Division, CWS ETO, in January to establish a supply division in the FECOMZ Chemical Section. Chemical sections of all these closely coordinated agencies immediately set to work on their requirements planning. Since initial issue of all regular supplies had already been made or materials credited to all units and organizations in or arriving in the United Kingdom, the requirements plans were for cross-Channel resupply.65
On 1 5 April FUSA began submitting requisitions for the materials in its chemical supply plan which had been the last of the major plans to be formulated.66 CWS Supply Division issued 375 shipping orders releasing 8,364 ship tons of Classes II and IV supplies and 12,072 ship tons of Class V supplies for movement over the beaches in the first 2—week phase. Three weeks later Third United States Army, the organization to which ADSEC was scheduled to render most of its support, submitted requisitions for chemical resupply in the ADSEC control phase. Materials requisitioned totaled 4,026 ship tons of Classes II and IV and 7,81 5 tons of ammunition. The CWS ETO discovered some shortages in filling these requisitions, but none were serious, and acceptable substitute items were available. FECOMZ phase requisitions required 400 shipping orders for 9,0S3 ship tons of protective items, weapons, and equipment, and 9,084 ship tons of ammunition. Again, some substitutions which FECOMZ considered satisfactory were made.67
While normal resupply was being set up, theater headquarters, anticipating unpredictable and unusual demands once the operation started, set up two procedures for rapid filling of spot needs. The “Red Ball Express”68 provided for a daily coaster service shipment of 200 long tons of urgently needed general cargo unobtainable from normal resupply. “Red Ball Express” shipments were to be called for and allocated by the senior commander ashore. The CWS ETO was called upon to provide a total of 90 ship tons during the 3-month operation of this measure. The “Green Light Supply” plan was evolved just a few days before D-day to meet extraordinary ammunition requirements, unavailable from normal resupply, at an estimated rate of boo long tons per day in the critical period from D plus 14 to D plus 41. CWS shipped 400 ship tons of ammunition through “Green Light.”69 Chemical resupply was thus expeditiously handled with minimum difficulty from the wholesale issue point of view, but the acquisition of some of the items and of services which went into the CWS resupply effort and the initial issue effort had not been easy.
Protective and Decontaminating Equipment
Since the service gas mask had been proved too bulky and too heavy during the North African campaigns, chemical officers in the ETO hoped that the CWS in the United States would be able to provide a promised lighter weight mask before their own campaigns began. Late in 1943 the new lightweight mask began to arrive and the CWS ETO embarked on the not inconsiderable task of exchanging the old masks in the hands of each individual in the theater for the new. Unit and organization and depot mask reserves were also exchanged. Chemical officers and gas officers at all echelons then examined the fit and adjustment of every mask in the possession of every individual and conducted gas chamber and wearing exercises and tests, even in the Supreme Headquarters. The tests and exercises sometimes turned up masks that did not fit and could not be adjusted to fit. Fortunately, the number of nonadjustable masks, a defect which OCCWS blamed on the molds used by one manufacturer in early production, was not great. These masks were called in and facepieces from the old masks were assembled to render them serviceable. Issue of the new masks
was completed in March 1944, and chemical maintenance companies examined, cleaned, and repaired salvageable old masks turned in to provide a secondary reserve and to build up an inventory of repair parts. Not long after the invasion, Colonel St. John, chemical adviser to G-3, SHAEF, wrote, “There are sufficient gas masks in the UK to cover the faces of all Europe and Asia.”70
The gas mask was the most important of the protective items, but, since chemical officers assumed that vesicant gases would be employed in far greater quantities than nonpersistent gases, protective clothing was also very important. Storage and issue of protective clothing was a responsibility of the Quartermaster Corps, but the CWS was charged with impregnating permeable clothing with gas-resistant chemicals. The CWS provided chemical processing companies to perform this service in the theaters. As noted above, the 51st Chemical Processing Company was one of the first two chemical service units in the European theater. Late in 1942 this company began to set up a large capacity impregnating facility, in fact a modified commercial dry-cleaning plant, in the factory of the Blythe Colour Works at Cresswell, Staffordshire. This “zone of the interior impregnating plant,” which crated weighed nearly 215 long tons and occupied more than 43,000 cubic feet, was intended to be the first of nearly a dozen such plants to be erected in the United Kingdom; but, when it was discovered that sites were unavailable and that requirements for water, waste disposal facilities, and power were more than the overburdened British economy could bear, the CWS ETO requested that the schedule be changed to provide the smaller “theater of operations” plant.71
By the end of 1943, ten more chemical processing companies had arrived in the United Kingdom, had been equipped with two theater of operations impregnating plants each, and had been installed, usually within or adjacent to quartermaster clothing depots. A number of
the plants utilized the new water emulsion impregnating process. The Quartermaster Corps had been able to obtain impregnated clothing from the United States to satisfy most of the theater’s planned needs, so that there was little initial impregnating work to do. By agreement between the theater quartermaster and the CWS, all but one of the processing companies were given laundry work. Most of the companies “kept a hand in” by doing re-impregnation on clothing which had been turned in and by doing initial impregnation of Navy uniforms. In January 1944 the theater commander assigned to the CWS ETO the responsibility of inspecting clothing in storage to determine how impregnation was holding up. Rowan delegated the inspection function to teams picked from the processing companies. The inspection operation further improved the technical proficiency of the companies and also served to identify lots of clothing needing re-impregnation.72
The theater quartermaster called in and reissued protective clothing for every individual in the theater at the same time that the distribution of the lightweight mask was in progress. The European theater was authorized an initial issue of double layer protection, that is, antigas impregnated underwear and socks, hood, combat uniform, gloves, and leggings, for every individual. In April 1944 the War Department authorized in addition to this initial issue a theater reserve (in the absence of gas warfare) of double layer protection for 35 percent of the theater force and one and one half layer, that is, antigas socks, drawers, and outer uniform plus hood, gloves, and leggings, for the remainder of the theater force.73 Thus, every soldier in the theater had available two complete sets of protective clothing except that 65 percent of the force would lack a second protective undershirt. The invasion plan called for every soldier to wear protective outer garments for the landing, to carry the gas mask, and to carry two cellophane protective covers, four eyeshields, one tube of eye ointment, one can of shoe impregnite, and one package of protective ointment. Most soldiers were also equipped with sleeve detectors (a brassard of gas detector paper) which the CWS had procured from the British.74
While most items of chemical protective, gas warning, and decontaminating equipment existed in ample supply by January 1944,
there were several shortages. One acute shortage was for gas alarms, and the CWS ETO through reverse lend-lease procured the British trench rattle as a substitute. Another more acute shortage was for the power-driven decontaminating apparatus. As in North Africa and Italy, the decontaminating apparatus was cherished by the Army Air Forces in the United Kingdom for its secondary uses, such as giving showers, hauling water, serving as fire-fighting equipment, and washing aircraft. The Army Air Forces found the skid-mounted M4 power-driven apparatus completely unsatisfactory for their needs, and the ground and service forces took an equally dim view of this immobile equipment. Consequently, the CWS ETO set its maintenance companies to work truck-mounting the M4 apparatus. The job was completed in the spring of 1944, and, while the M4 apparatus failed to meet Air Forces requirements even when mounted, the ground forces and service forces were willing to accept it. As of June 1944 the authorized theater level for the M3 and M4 apparatus was 1,336 while the supply was 1,298. In the absence of gas warfare, this shortage was not a serious matter, but it did present chemical officers with the problem of giving air forces and ground forces elements reasons for not supplying them with all the apparatus they wanted for secondary uses.75
Weapons, Ammunition, and Smoke Equipment
The availability of and requirement for chemical mortar battalions remained in doubt during the entire preparation period, and consequently no firm basis existed on which to compute weapons and ammunition requirements. Weapons supply and ammunition supply, in Colonel St. John’s opinion, were adequate, and he believed that the only serious preinvasion chemical shortage was in repair parts for the mortar. ETO chemical officers, aware of the spare parts problems in the Mediterranean area, attempted to improve their own situation by requesting supply from the United States. The CWS at home had not yet remedied the repair parts situation. The task was doubly difficult because ASF was attempting to standardize all repair parts requirements computations, and, owing to the uncertain weapons
requirement situation and the lack of expenditure experience in the ETO, CWS could furnish ASF with recommendations based only on roughly estimated data. But even had requirements recommendations been firm, it is doubtful that the supply system could have operated rapidly enough to furnish the ETO with stocks in the few months before the cross-Channel attack. Experience was to prove the limited supply of repair parts grossly inadequate.76
Other weapons and ammunition furnished by the CWS ETO to the combat forces included the flame thrower, smoke pots, and smoke grenades. The CWS ETO had acquired a sufficient supply of the portable flame throwers, and chemical units had mixed a substantial quantity of thickened fuel. No American tank-mounted flame thrower was available, but fuel had been mixed for use in British models on loan in limited numbers to the United States forces. Soon after the invasion, St. John reported critical shortages of both portable and mechanized flame throwers and of fuels as well as of mortars and mortar parts, but subsequent experience did not warrant the critical designation since flame throwers were not popular in Europe.77
Not enough smoke pots or grenades were available to meet anticipated requirements. British No. 24 smoke generators, similar to the American smoke pots, were procured as substitutes, and the British No. 79 grenade was procured as a substitute for the American M8 smoke grenade. The American mechanical smoke generator should also be included in this category although it was not technically classed as a weapon. The bulky semimobile M1 generator was available in sufficient quantity, but a supply of the newly produced, highly mobile M2 was considered essential for combat operations. The CWS in the United States sent new generators, some by airlift, just in time to be used in the invasion. Generator fuel was provided by the British.78
Special Requirements
ETO chemical officers, anticipating the need for concealing mounting areas in England and assault beaches in France, had long expected that the need for smoke materials would far exceed the normal demands
Conferring somewhere in England just before D-Day. (Left to right) Colonel Cunin, General Porter, Lt. Col. Thomas H. James, and Colonel St. John
of combat operations. They also anticipated a number of special demands for other CWS materials for use on the Continent. The fact that the Germans were to lose their air superiority by the time of the invasion, negating the need for smoke during the mounting and assault phases, could not have been counted on or, indeed, foreseen by these planners.
To take care of such special demands, the War Department set up a project system known as PROCO (projects for continental operation) soon after the 1943 reinstatement of BOLERO. PROCO was to be set up by the technical services in the theater. Each technical service was to state specific requirements for each project together with shipping weights and cubages and an extensive justification for the use of materials beyond regular authorizations. The justifications were to be reviewed by higher authority in the theater and by ASF and OPD in the United States. CWS ETO PROCO 1 requested 1,164,508 M1 smoke pots and 20,000 M4 smoke pots. The first project was submitted
on 20 July 1943, and on that and the following day nine other projects for decontaminating, impregnating, and gas-proofing materials and supply handling and maintenance equipment were dispatched.79
The first ten CWS projects initially called for 179,283 long tons, or 590,059 ship tons, of matériel, delivery for which was to be phased over a period of nearly a year. In view of the fact that this gross ship tonnage was more than ten times the CWS cubage eventually shipped to the Continent in the first ninety days, it is apparent that PROCO was no insignificant matter in the eyes of ETO chemical supply officers; indeed, PROCO must have been manna to the CWS officers who believed ETO supply inadequate for chemical warfare. PROCO as interpreted in the theater presented the first and last opportunity for the CWS in any theater of operations to prepare for gas, smoke, and flame warfare on a scale considered by many chemical officers as wise. CWS ETO in September 1941 accordingly submitted three more projects, one for flame thrower accessories and two for smoke materials, before any word had been received from the War Department on the fate of the first ten. On 22 October 1943 ASF directed shipment of those items which CWS ETO had scheduled for early theater delivery in projects one through ten, and theater officers assumed that the whole schedule would be followed. But, before this first shipment could be made theater hopes were shattered. On 3 November 1943 ASF withdrew all projects for review by the United States Chemical Warfare Committee (USCWC).80
ASF restored CWS PROCO after review by the USCWC and after much correspondence with the theater and the intercession of General Waitt, Assistant Chief Chemical Officer for Field Operations, but they restored only 40 percent of the original quantities. Project 12 for
smoke grenades was disapproved on the theory that increases in normal allowances would take care of the requirement. Projects 11 and 13 were approved after a 60-percent slash. ASF again directed shipment of the materials specified in these modified projects and six additional projects in February, March, and April of 1944. The CWS ETO had submitted Project 14 for smoke (WP) bombs in November 1943, and Project 16 for smoke grenades, Project 18 for gas mask parts, and Project 19 for flame thrower parts and accessories in February 1944 In March it submitted Project 23 for flame throwers and Project 20 for flame thrower pressure cylinders. ASF disapproved Project 17 for grenades and smoke pots to be used by the air forces, indicating that regular theater stocks would cover the requirement. It disapproved Project 15 for equipment to convert decontamination companies to smoke generator companies, and Project 22 for a combat reserve of smoke generators, on the ground that these materials also could be provided from theater stocks. Project 21 seems to have vanished from the record.81 The significant feature of the 1944 projects as opposed to the 1943 projects was that the 1944 projects were so limited in scope as to seem almost niggardly. Gone were the implications of vast and all-out preparations for gas, smoke, and flame warfare.
While the curtailed PROCO shipments did help out in the operational period, PROCO did not live up to theater expectations. The CWS ETO undoubtedly expected too much, and it is apparent in retrospect that theater chemical officers got along despite shortages. Materials which CWS ETO requested under the original PROCO would certainly have added to the theater gas warfare defensive potential since they would have provided for more collective protection and more decontamination. ETO combat forces would probably not have used smoke and flame in any greater quantities had more materials been available. That ASF after postwar analysis found it had guessed right with respect to requirements does not alter the fact that ASF
handling of PROCO violated the principle of theater requirements determination.
PROCO’s importance from a chemical point of view is that the history of the system demonstrated the lack of understanding and lack of adequate communication between the theater and War Department headquarters, and perhaps even between ASF and its technical services at home. Maj. Gen. LeRoy Lutes, Director for Planning and Operations, ASF, complained in May 1944 that theater officers had misunderstood and misapplied the concept of PROCO. He charged that the theater had failed to plan adequately in advance.82 General Lutes undoubtedly had grounds for complaint as far as theater strategic and tactical decisions were concerned, but the CWS ETO could hardly have begun requirements planning any earlier since CWS officers did begin planning in the month of theater activation, and CWS ETO could hardly have had less help in such planning from ASF. Specifically with respect to PROCO, the War Department allowed the theater to labor under a misapprehension of the PROCO concept from June until November 1943, and apparently the War Department concept was not understood by the CWS ETO until the reinstatement of the revised projects in February 1944. Almost a year elapsed between the system authorization and General Lutes’ statement of his complaints. It is not strange, therefore, that at the time of the Normandy assault the CWS ETO was a vigorously individualistic organization many of whose officers and enlisted men felt that they must meet their own needs without much help from the official logistics organization. The experience of these officers and enlisted men on the Continent was to confirm this belief.
On the Continent
The Landings
The 1st Platoon, 30th Chemical Decontamination Company, under the command of 1st Lt. Bernard Miller, landed on OMAHA Beach at H plus sixteen minutes. The platoon fought its way ashore with the first wave, providing grenade smoke screens to conceal infantry landings. Lieutenant Miller and six enlisted men were wounded or missing
in action. Sgt. John J. Cunningham assumed command of the platoon, which then pushed on, probing for land mines, giving aid to the wounded, fighting as infantrymen, and providing what smoke concealment it could. At 1300 the 3rd Platoon under 1st Lt. James W. Cassidy joined the 1st Platoon, and together they salvaged and put into working order a few of the M2 smoke generators which had been sunk on an incoming Dukw. On D plus one Capt. Milton M. Moore, company commander, arrived with the remainder of the company, and the entire unit launched more extensively into its special mission activity, gas reconnaissance. First Army, then commanding all American forces on the Continent, made few calls on the company’s secondary mission, provision of smoke concealment, but the company got smoke pots ashore and set up smoke lines in the vicinity of Colleville sur Mer. By the time a company over-strength had been landed, 14 June, the 30th Chemical Decontamination Company was in the supply and service business, setting up and working in supply dumps, furnishing showers, settling road dust, and fighting fires with power-driven decontaminating apparatus.83
The 2nd Platoon, 33rd Chemical Decontamination Company, went ashore on UTAH Beach at approximately H plus 3 (0930). Since resistance at first was light on UTAH, the 2nd Platoon at once established the first CWS beach dump of the invasion. By D plus 2 detachments of the company which had landed with elements of the 5 3 1st Engineer Shore Regiment were ordered to assemble under the command of Lt. Carroll W. Wright. The assembled 33rd Company expanded the original CWS dump into a CWS maintenance and supply dump which the unit operated until D plus 21. It handled about 5,000 tons of CWS Class II and IV supplies during this period. Like their colleagues on OMAHA Beach, the men of the 33rd also performed gas reconnaissance, provided showers, and fought fires.84
Headquarters Detachment, both Chemical Depot Company, Capt. George W. Brown, commanding, debarked on OMAHA on D plus 4 (10 June) and on the following day set up operations of a FUSA CWS dump at Mosles. The advance party of another detachment joined the 33rd Company on UTAH on the next day. The whole company was
at work operating FUSA dumps by 28 June.85 Meanwhile, Major Hingle, FECOMZ chemical supply chief, arrived on D plus 13 (19 June) in ADSEC headquarters, which had become operational three days earlier, to begin preparations for the FECOMZ assumption of supply control. He found Colonel Stubbs’s ADSEC Chemical Section, staffed by Major Bradley and six other officers, without enlisted men or the scheduled stock control team. Since the invasion had not been going as rapidly as planned, FUSA had not transferred supply control to ADSEC, and the ADSEC staff members on the Continent were assisting FUSA while preparing for their own operational role. Hingle also visited Colonel Coughlan, Chemical Officer, FUSA, and learned from his assistant for supply, Capt. J. R. Yankhauer, that chemical supply, unlike that of other services, had run into no very serious problems. The expenditure of chemical mortar shell was running greater than had been expected, and a greater proportion than expected, about 35 percent, was white phosphorus shell. Both combat and service troops made extensive use of dust respirators and eyeshields against dust, and Captain Yankhauer called upon the CWS in the United Kingdom for increased resupply of these items. He also requested that the quota be cut on smoke materials which were piling up.86
Hingle decided that principal CWS supply efforts on the Continent in the immediate future would need to be directed toward storage, maintenance, salvage, and service. While chemical supplies were arriving in good shape, except for a few inevitable instances of excessively rough handling, he did not believe that all stocks would stand up well under the expected ninety days’ open storage. Some chemical weapons and equipment, such as the chemical mortar and the power-driven decontaminating apparatus, were being employed at or beyond rated capacity. Flame throwers and gas masks were discarded by advancing troops. A number of men had their masks hit because the mask bulge in silhouette offered a sniper target. Some troops had ceased to wear gas protective clothing, and, while salvage was a quartermaster problem, the CWS was likely to be called upon for laundering garments as well as for re-impregnation. All these factors meant extensive repair and materials rehabilitation work, particularly since the
“I see Comp’ny E got th’ new style gas masks, Joe.”
demand for mortars was increasing and that for flame throwers was expected to increase.87 FUSA also insisted that the gas warfare protection level be maintained. While several gas warfare scares had all proved false, the Germans still might initiate gas warfare. Capt. John J. O’Brien, Acting Chemical Officer, 29th Infantry Division, who had been captured and had escaped, reported that the Germans would use any weapons in their possession, including gas, to stop the Allied advance. Since Allied progress at the time was halting and uncertain, enemy initiation of gas warfare would have been catastrophic. Hingle, accordingly, in order to accelerate rehabilitation of protective equipment which ADSEC was gathering up, asked FUSA to lend its chemical maintenance company to ADSEC, and accompanied Major Bradley in a search for shop space. He recommended to his chief, Colonel Charron, that chemical supply and service officers and men be sent to the Continent as soon as possible and that service troop build-up plans be closely followed up.88
Establishing the CWS Supply Base
Since FECOMZ never assumed control of supply operations on the Continent,89 Colonel Charron, in his FECOMZ capacity, did not have the opportunity to put Major Hingle’s recommendations into effect, but FECOMZ officers did assist ADSEC in its efforts and later opened the COMZ headquarters CWS section on the Continent. ADSEC gradually assumed responsibility for various supply installations after FUSA, while still retaining supply control, on 10 June designated an ADSEC area of operations. ADSEC retained the three FUSA supply dumps. The dump at Mosles it converted into a Class II and IV depot while the dump at Longueville behind OMAHA became a Class V depot and that at Audouville-la-Hubert behind UTAH became an all-classes depot. Audouville materials were soon transferred to a permanent installation at Montebourg, and both Audouville and Longueville were closed out by COMZ in October. The American lodgment on the Continent failed to grow as planned, but manpower increased almost on schedule, as Hingle had hoped, and tonnages, despite port and beachhead discharge difficulties,
accumulated at a rate in excess of the June–August needs. The ADSEC Chemical Section accordingly established an all-classes depot at Cherbourg, a II and IV depot at Villedieu, a II and IV depot and an ammunition depot at Le Mans, and at Rennes an all-classes depot, which COMZ split into a II and IV and an ammunition depot. The 65th and 7th Chemical Depot Companies and the 66th and 9th Chemical Base Depot Companies operated these installations while the 71 ith Chemical Maintenance Company set up a shop at Valognes, the site of the first continental COMZ headquarters.90
On D plus 20 St. John analyzed the chemical supply situation on the Continent. He noted critical shortages of mortars and mortar parts and expressed the belief that flame thrower supply would not meet demand. On the other hand, he took the view that some protection and decontamination materials were excess to all future needs while smoke materials, for which he expected demand to increase, were adequate for the time being.91 In reply to these observations, General Porter indicated that while the theater had reached or slightly exceeded supply authorizations in all categories mentioned except mortar spare parts, he could not concede that any of these excesses were significant. Porter believed that the parts need could be met by supplying an overage of complete mortars. The CWS had no outstanding unfilled orders from the theater, and General Porter was powerless to increase any allotment without a specific theater request approved through War Department channels.92 As in the case of NATO-MTO CWS supply, here was the rub. A supply crisis was coming in the ETO which would affect the CWS, although not as extensively as the other services, but the individuals most concerned could do little to forestall its arrival. Although the theater had top supply priority over all other theaters and although the theater commander was firmly committed to the policy of giving combat commanders everything they desired, the exigencies of transportation and War Department-controlled supply authorization procedures tended to block timely measures for preventing a crisis. Just how much of the ensuing supply crisis might be attributable to physical limitations in obtaining and moving supplies and how much to the complications of supply management in the
theater and in the United States is, from the CWS point of view, impossible to say.
The Supply Crisis
General Rowan, on D plus 44, pointed out even more vigorously than Colonel St. John the critical nature of mortar parts and ammunition supply. He suggested to General Waitt that the CWS plan to double its production quotas for those items. The last CWS ETO ammunition requisition, he wrote, had been cut in half, presumably by NYPE, and he had been unable to determine on what basis the cut was made.93 The CWS in the United States could not raise its production quotas until theater recommendations for increases in War Department allowances had been approved. Three weeks later Rowan paid a flying visit to his new office, which Charron had established in the Valognes COMZ headquarters. Rowan joined St. John for a tour of mortar units, field headquarters, and forward areas. He found the CWS supply situation still satisfactory on the whole, but he noted not only that the shortage of mortars, mortar parts, and ammunition was critical but also that some of the mortar battalion equipment needed replacement!94
As the combat forces broke out of the beachhead in July 1944 and headed toward Germany, all chemical sections in the combat organization became increasingly involved in supply.95 The chemical sections in the base sections became active, as ADSEC had already been, in the support of combat organizations, The 12th Army Group Chemical Section allotted supplies to the armies and kept Rowan’s office and sometimes the base section chemical officers informed as to long-range requirements and immediate needs.96 The 12th Army Group Chemical Section considered protective supply adequate throughout the European campaigns except for a brief period late in 1944 when “cold set” destroyed the usefulness of the synthetic rubber facepiece of the lightweight mask.97 The First and Third Army chemical officers likewise
considered protection adequate except in isolated circumstances.98 Dissent on the adequacy of protection came from base section chemical officers who felt that, in the early period on the Continent, the CWS distribution plan looked better on paper than it did in practice. The problem was that since supplies were so scattered about in dumps and since so much equipment, especially masks, had been abandoned by troops moving forward, it would have been a tremendous and perhaps impossible task to assemble, rehabilitate, and reissue protective equipment in event of need.99 Fortunately, no large-scale call for protective equipment was made until the following December by which time chemical service units had collected and refurbished protective equipment. Also, by December the distribution system was working well with the aid of a considerable amount of troubleshooting from most chemical officers in both COMZ and combat organizations.100
The CWS supply problems began to multiply with the September 1944 supply crisis. Most of these problems arose not because of the malfunctioning of the distribution system but because of a general shortage of supplies, equipment, and transportation. The CWS problem was increased by the flaws in certain chemical items, notably chemical mortar shell, spare parts, and protective materials.
Chemical Mortar Shell
The armies were moving rapidly forward in September when Rowan and the United Kingdom section of his office moved into the new COMZ headquarters in Paris. Supply of fast-moving items was by then on a hand-to-mouth basis. General Rowan personally visited the ports to expedite the distribution of chemical mortar shell which was finally arriving from the United States. Shortage of docking facilities frequently made it difficult to unload ships. But, when he could get shells ashore, he got the theater chief of ordnance to allot railway ammunition cars for his use and he had these cars included in priority supply trains. Usually no more than one day’s reserve of shell was available in forward areas.101
In November two barrel bursts of high explosive shell in chemical
mortars led to the assumption that some shell was defective.102 This assumption complicated the supply situation since no one knew how much of the available stocks was serviceable. But in the same month, when a shell shortage in southern France imperiled operations supplied by Southern Line of Communications (SOLOC), the CWS ETO released 50,000 shells to SOLOC in return for a December shipment scheduled for that area.103 Chemical mortar units in northern France had enough shells at the time to continue operations although rationing was frequently necessary. But rationing had been necessary from time to time since early in the Normandy campaign, and, while mortar men could have used more shell, the 20 rounds per weapon per day usually allotted against the official 25 to 30 rounds per day of supply was enough to keep them going. In December, 12th Army Group Chemical Section, the agency charged with shell allocation, requested 40 rounds per weapon per day for the next six months.104 Using the 40-round base for all the 10 battalions then in the theater and assuming 36 operational mortars per battalion as allotted under the tables of organization and equipment then going into effect, the 12th Army Group recommendation would have meant immediate supply of almost 15,000 shells per day. Computed on the basis of 15 battalions in the line in 1945 nearly 22,000 rounds per day would have been required.105 The 12th Army Group ammunition supply goal was never reached.
In January 1945, barrel and muzzle bursts reached epidemic proportions. During theater and OCCWS investigations of the problem, CWS ETO impounded lot after lot of shell until nearly the whole theater supply was impounded. Allotment per weapon sometimes fell from twenty to ten rounds per day. When spring weather came, faulty shell ceased to be a problem. Shell supply improved, but supply never equaled demand during the period of combat.106
Spare Parts
The parts situation also failed to improve during continental operations. According to Rowan the “lack of spare parts was the outstanding failure of the American Army supply system, and the CWS was just as bad as the rest of the technical services.”107 In early October, CWS ETO found it necessary to embargo all CWS spare parts issues except “Red Ball Express” shipments which were directed to chemical maintenance companies operating with the armies. Issue for levels of maintenance less than major overhaul was banned. Some items in need of repair, such as masks, dust respirators, and hand decontaminating apparatus, were exchanged for serviceable items in lieu of repair.108 Chemical maintenance companies repaired chemical mortars, flame throwers, and power-driven decontaminating apparatus on a “parts available” basis and exchange items were supplied, with the specific approval of the Supply Division, CWS ETO, when parts were not available but alternative end items were. The maintenance companies also fabricated parts whenever possible and some parts which would normally have been considered beyond repair were rebuilt. Late in 1944 orders were given to French firms for the manufacture of parts for mortars, smoke generators, then being heavily employed to produce tactical smoke concealment, and flame throwers. In January 1945, the CWS ETO engaged firms in Belgium and Luxembourg to manufacture mortar base plates, reinforcing plates, shock absorber slides, cup forks, tube caps, and base caps. As in the case of manufacture in Italy, many chemical officers preferred the parts manufactured in Europe to those shipped from the United States. In Europe greater skill and better equipment were available for small parts manufacture than in the war-burdened United States industry.109
The CWS spare parts team which surveyed the theater situation in 1945 found parts supply still inadequate, and General Waitt confirmed this finding in his visit to the theater at the end of the war.110
Protective Material
Although FUSA and FUSAG insisted on having each individual maintain his gas mask during the beachhead period, the breakthrough and rapid advance after the end of July brought a change in attitude. Many commanders and some chemical officers assumed there would be no further risk of gas warfare. Indeed, SHAEF itself seemed to assume that the risk of gas warfare was past and St. John, whose position in SHAEF was abolished in the fall, did not express disagreement.111 MacArthur and other members of the FUSAG/12th Army Group staff were concerned lest mistreatment and abandonment of the mask by individual soldiers drastically reduce the gas warfare defensive preparedness on the Continent. They consequently decided to act upon General Bradley’s suggestion that masks be withdrawn from individual soldiers on the organization commander’s option. One of St. John’s final acts in his SHAEF position was to make the army group decision SHAEF policy.
Rowan conceded, in September, that reduction in the theater protective clothing level was not inconsistent with the calculated risk policy. He further advised reducing the protective clothing reserve to two-layer protection for 50 percent rather than too percent of theater strength as he had earlier recommended.112 Commanders in most cases authorized the withdrawal of protective clothing and masks from individuals. The masks were theoretically available in unit supply trains. A number of chemical officers felt that calling masks back to regimental and even divisional trains was a hazardous policy, particularly since it was reasonable to expect the likelihood of gas warfare to increase as the German homeland was approached. In October when he succeeded MacArthur, who had been requested for a position in the United States, Colonel Powers strongly expressed his disapproval of the mask policy.113
Powers paid a call on the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, a prewar fellow staff officer. He expressed his misgivings concerning
protective policy to General Eisenhower and General Bradley, who happened to be visiting the supreme commander. General Eisenhower
indicated that he thought German initiation of gas warfare most unlikely, but he displayed some interest in the defensive situation.114 Although not immediately successful in his campaign to increase the availability of individual protection, Colonel Powers found he had strong support among the Army chemical officers. He recommended to the Chief of Staff, 12th Army Group, that the theater be requested to reverse the policy decision so that each individual soldier could again carry a mask.115
The 12th Army Group did request a change which was approved by SHAEF in December. Shortly thereafter the German counterattack in the Ardennes threatened the American advance and many commanders were given added incentive to insure individual gas protection since it appeared conceivable that the German forces might try to consolidate their initial success in the Battle of the Bulge by using gas. The reissue of masks caused a flurry throughout the CWS supply system. Some organizations could find no trace of their masks. Others discovered that many masks had become unserviceable because of frequent moves and poor storage conditions. One corps chemical officer finally managed to scrape up enough transportation to send several truckloads of masks forward, only to hear that both trucks and masks were destroyed or captured in the German advance. Spot issues to replace such losses caused temporary shortages, but fortunately the reserve was large enough so that demands could be met and reserves restocked from the United States on an emergency basis.116 St. John’s assertion that there were enough masks in the theater to cover all the faces of Europe and Asia proved to be even more overdrawn than he had intended.117 Some of Powers’ colleagues were critical of his action, contending that his lack of experience in the theater made him overzealous. The possibility exists, however, that the reissue of masks, which could hardly have been unknown to German intelligence, deterred the Germans from exploiting what would have been an excellent opportunity to turn the Bulge into a World War II Ypres.118
The maintenance load imposed by mask rehabilitation, particularly in view of occasional parts shortages, was very heavy. When “cold set”
(cold weather hardening) was discovered in reclaimed and synthetic rubber mask facepieces during the winter, the CWS ETO maintenance burden became greater than the maintenance units could handle.119 Since the facepieces hardened by “cold set” could not be properly fitted, CWS ETO contracted with eight French firms for the exchange of 400,000 faulty facepieces for the natural rubber face-piece from the old-style mask. At the same time another French firm initiated remanufacture of old-style gas mask carriers into 133,000 lightweight mask carriers.120 After considerable effort, the CWS ETO successfully met the challenge of bringing protective supply up to a highly effective level for the remainder of the war.
The CWS ETO Supply System—Final Form
Considering the many unexpected problems it ran into, the CWS ETO supply system changed amazingly little during the period of continental operation. The credit system continued to operate effectively although during the fall supply crisis it became necessary to delegate credit allocation for ammunition and certain critical supplies to 12th Army Group. Supply Division, CWS ETO, headed during the entire period on the Continent by Col. Frederick E. Powell, continued to allocate credits for normal Class II and IV supply. The supply pattern brought materials into CWS branch depots from the ports and beaches.121 CWS ETO established forty such depots under COMZ control in the advance across France and Germany. Supply Division or 12th Army Group allocated materials in depots to using organizations on credits or assigned them to reserve stocks. Credit allocation notices were forwarded to ADSEC or to Continental Advance Section (CONAD), to the regulating stations which distributed materials to combat echelons, to the depot commanders, and to the credited organizations. The using combat organizations in northern France and northern Germany then called forward from the depots through the regulating stations and ADSEC, or in southern France and Germany, through CONAD, such materials from their credited
stocks as they desired. The using organization, the regulating stations, and the advance section could always easily calculate the quantities of any item to be transported and the quantities remaining to the credit of any organization in the depots.122