Chemical Corps
The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against and using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. The Chemical Warfare Service was established on 28 June 1918, combining activities that until then had been dispersed among five separate agencies of the United States federal government. It was made a permanent branch of the Regular Army by the National Defense Act of 1920. In 1945, it was redesignated the Chemical Corps.
History
Origins
Discussion of the topic dates back to the American Civil War. A letter to the War Department dated 5 April 1862 from New York City resident John Doughty proposed the use of chlorine shells to drive the Confederate Army from its positions. Doughty included a detailed drawing of the shell with his letter. It is unknown how the military reacted to Doughty's proposal but the letter was unnoticed in a pile of old official documents until modern times. Another American, Forrest Shepherd, also proposed a chemical weapon attack against the Confederates. Shepherd's proposal involved hydrogen chloride, an attack that would have likely been non-lethal but may have succeeded in driving enemy soldiers from their positions. Shepherd was a well-known geologist at the time and his proposal was in the form of a letter directly to the White House.World War I
The earliest predecessors to the United States Army Chemical Corps owe their existence to changes of military technology early in World War I. By 1915, the combatants were using poison gases and chemical irritants on the battlefield. In that year, the United States War Department first became interested in providing individual soldiers with personal protection against chemical warfare and they tasked the Medical Department with developing the technology. Nevertheless, troops were neither supplied with masks nor trained for offensive gas warfare until the U.S. became involved in World War I in 1917.By 1917, the use of chemical weapons by both the Allied and Central Powers had become commonplace along the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts, occurring daily in some regions.
In 1917, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, directed the Bureau of Mines to assist the Army and Navy in creating a gas war program. Researchers at the Bureau of Mines had experience in developing gas masks for miners, drawing poisonous air through an activated carbon filter. After the Director of the Bureau of Mines, Van H. Manning, formally offered the bureau's service to the Military Committee of the National Research Council, the council appointed a Subcommittee on Noxious Gases. Manning recruited chemists from industry, universities, and government to help study mustard-gas poisoning, investigate and mass-produce new toxic chemicals, and develop gas-masks and other treatments.
File:Birthplace of Army Chemical Corps, American University.jpg|thumb|left|Plaque at American University in Washington, D.C. commemorating the formation of the Army Chemical Corps
A center for chemical weapons research was established at American University in Washington, D.C. to house researchers. The U.S. military paid to convert classrooms into laboratories. Within a year of setting up the center, the number of scientists and technicians employed there would increase from 272 to over 1,000. Industrial plants were established in nearby cities to synthesize toxic chemicals for use in research and armaments. Shells were filled with toxic gas in Edgewood, Maryland. Women were employed to produce gas masks in Long Island City.
On 5 July 1917 General John J. Pershing oversaw the creation of a new military unit dealing with gas, the Gas Service Section. The government recruited soldiers for it to be based at Camp American University, Washington, D.C. The predecessor to the 1st Gas Regiment was the 30th Engineer Regiment. The 30th was activated on 15 August 1917 at Camp American University A 17 October 1917 memorandum from the Adjutant General to the Chief of Engineers directed that the Gas Service Section consist of four majors, six captains, 10 first lieutenants and 15 second lieutenants. Additional War Department orders established a Chemical Service Section that included 47 commissioned officers and 95 enlisted personnel.
Before deploying to France in 1917 many of the soldiers in the 30th Engineer Regiment spent their time stateside in training that did not emphasize any chemical warfare skills; instead the training focused on drill, marching, guard duty, and inspections. Despite the conventional training, the public perceived the 30th as dealing mainly with "poisonous gas and hell fire". By the time those in the 30th Engineers arrived in France most of them knew nothing of chemical warfare and had no specialized equipment.
In 1918, the 30th Engineer Regiment was redesignated the First Gas Regiment and deployed to assist and support Army gas operations, both offensive and defensive.
Formation
On 28 June 1918, the Chemical Warfare Service was officially formed and encompassed the "Gas Service" and "Chemical Service" Sections. By 1 November 1918 the CWS included 1,654 commissioned officers and 18,027 enlisted personnel. Major General William L. Sibert served as the first director of the CWS on the day it was created, and he resigned in April 1920.In the interwar period, the Chemical Warfare Service maintained its arsenal despite public pressure and presidential wishes in favor of disarmament. Major General Amos Fries, the CWS chief from 1920–29, viewed chemical disarmament as a Communist plot. Through his instigation and lobbying, the CWS and its various Congressional, chemist, and chemical company allies were able to halt the U.S. Senate's ratification of the 1925 Geneva Protocol which forbade "first use" of chemical weapons. Even countries who had signed the Geneva Protocol still produced and stockpiled chemical weapons, since the Protocol did not prohibit retaliation in kind.
Roosevelt on renaming Service to Corps, 1937
In 1937, President Roosevelt opposed changing the name of the Service to Corps, stating:It is my thought that the major functions of the Chemical Warfare Service are those of a "Service" rather than a "Corps." It is desirable to designate as a Corps only those supply branches of the Army which are included in the line of the Army. To have changed the name to the "Chemical Service" would have been more in keeping with its functions than to designate it as the "Chemical Corps."
I have a far more important objection to this change of name. It has been and is the policy of this Government to do everything in its power to outlaw the use of chemicals in warfare. Such use is inhuman and contrary to what modern civilization should stand for.
I am doing everything in my power to discourage the use of gases and other chemicals in any war between nations. While, unfortunately, the defensive necessities of the United States call for study of the use of chemicals in warfare, I do not want the Government of the United States to do anything to aggrandize or make permanent any special bureau of the Army or the Navy engaged in these studies. I hope the time will come when the Chemical Warfare Service can be entirely abolished.
To dignify this Service by calling it the "Chemical Corps" is, in my judgment, contrary to a sound public policy.
World War II
The Chemical Warfare Service deployed and prepared gas weapons for use throughout the world during World War II. However, these weapons were never used in combat. Despite the lack of chemical warfare during the conflict, the CWS saw its funding and personnel increase substantially due to concerns that the Germans and Japanese had a formidable chemical weapons capability. By 1942 the CWS employed 60,000 soldiers and civilians and was appropriated $1 billion. The CWS completed a variety of non-chemical warfare related tasks and missions during the war including producing incendiaries for flame throwers, flame tanks and other weapons. Chemical soldiers were also involved in smoke generation missions. Chemical mortar battalions used the 4.2-inch chemical mortar to support armor and infantry units.During all parts of the war, use of chemical and biological weapons were extremely limited by both sides. Italy used mustard gas and phosgene during the short Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Germany employed chemical agents such as Zyklon B against Jews, political prisoners and other victims in extermination camps during the Holocaust, and Japan employed chemical and biological weapons in China. In 1943 a U.S. ship carrying a secret Chemical Warfare Service cargo of mustard gas as a precautionary retaliatory measure was sunk in an air raid in Italy, causing 83 deaths and about 600 hospitalized military victims plus a larger number of civilian casualties. In the event, neither chemical nor biological weapons were used on the battlefield by any combatant during World War II.
Though the political leadership of the United States remained decidedly against the use of chemical weapons, there were those within the military command structure who advocated the use of such weapons. Following the Battle of Tarawa, during which the U.S. forces suffered more than 3,400 casualties in three days, CWS chief Major General William N. Porter pushed superiors to approve the use of poison gas against Japan. "We have an overwhelming advantage in the use of gas. Properly used gas could shorten the war in the Pacific and prevent loss of many American lives," Porter said.
Popular support was not completely lacking. Some newspaper editorials supported the use of chemical weapons in the Pacific theater. The New York Daily News proclaimed in 1943, "We Should Gas Japan", and the Washington Times Herald wrote in 1944, "We Should Have Used Gas at Tarawa because "You Can Cook 'Em Better with Gas". Despite rising between 1944 and 1945, popular public opinion never rose above 40 percent in favor of the use of gas weapons.
Where there was support for Chemical Warfare was in V Amphibious Corps and X U.S. Army. Colonel George F. Unmacht became commander of the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, Pacific Ocean Area in 1943. Along with that he was the Hawaii Territorial Coordinator for Civilian Gas Defense and Joint service Pacific theater chief chemical warfare officer under Adm. Nimitz. Under his leadership the research, development, and production of flamethrowing tanks and napalm took place at Schofield Barracks. His crews of Seabees produced more flamethrowing tanks than commercial production in the States. The Army and Marine Corps felt the tanks saved many American troops on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Marines felt they were the best weapon they had in the taking of Iwo Jima.