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The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against and using chemical weapon, biological agent, radiological, and nuclear weapon (CBRN) 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.
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.
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 (Gas and Flame). The 30th was activated on 15 August 1917 at Camp American UniversityEldredge, Walter J. Finding My Father's War: A Baby Boomer and the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion in World War II, ( Google Books), PageFree Publishing, Inc., 2004, p. 246, (). 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.United States Army: Office of the Judge Advocate General. Military Laws of the United States (Army), ( Google Books), U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921, p. 399. 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 (Gas and Flame) 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.Addison, James Thayer. The Story of the First Gas Regiment, ( Internet Archive), Houghton Mifflin Co., 1919, pp. 1–11. 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.Lengel, Edward G. To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 ( Google Books), Macmillan, 2008, p. 77–78, ().
In 1918, the 30th Engineer Regiment (Gas and Flame) was redesignated the First Gas Regiment and deployed to assist and support Army gas operations, both offensive and defensive.
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.
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.
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.Cox, Brian M. " Torald Sollmann’s Studies of Mustard Gas", ( PDF), Molecular Interventions, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Vol. 7, Issue 3 pp.124–28, June 2007, accessed 16 October 2008. 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.Vandyke, Lewis L. " United States Chemical Policy: Response Considerations", (Dissertation), 7 June 1991, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, accessed 16 October 2008.
Where there was support for Chemical Warfare was in V Amphibious Corps and X U.S. Army. Colonel George F. Unmacht (US Army) 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 Chester Nimitz. Under his leadership the research, development, and production of flamethrowing tanks and napalm took place at Schofield Barracks. His crews of 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.CHAPTER XV, The Flame Thrower in the Pacific: Marianas to Okinawa, WWII Chemical in Combat, Dec 2001, p. 558 [17] The Marines felt they were the best weapon they had in the taking of Iwo Jima.
From the end of World War II through the Korean War, the U.S. Army, the Chemical Corps and the U.S. Air Force made great strides in their biological warfare programs, especially concerning delivery systems.Croddy, Eric C. and Hart, C. Perez-Armendariz J., Chemical and Biological Warfare, ( Google Books), Springer, 2002, pp. 30–31, (), accessed 24 October 2008. During the Korean War (1950–53) chemical soldiers had to again man the 4.2 inch chemical mortar for smoke and high explosive munitions delivery. During the war, the Pine Bluff Arsenal was opened and used for BW production, and research facilities were expanded at Fort Detrick. North Korea, the Soviet Union and China leveled accusations at the United States claiming the U.S. used biological agents during the Korean War; an assertion the U.S. government denied.
After the end of the Korean War, the Army decided to strip the Chemical Corps of the 4.2 inch mortar system and made that an infantry weapon, given its utility against Chinese mortars.
From 1952 until 1999 the Chemical Corps School was located at Fort McClellan.
U.S. Army Chemical Corps Information and Liaison Office, Europe (CCILO–E) was established and located in Frankfurt, Germany. During November and December 1961 two CCIA officers visited the Far East on an intelligence collection trip. This visit led to a recommendation by CCIA to establish an information and liaison office in Tokyo patterned on the Frankfurt agency. The Chief Chemical Officer and Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACS/I) approved the recommendation and foresaw an activation date in financial year 1964. Two CCIA staff members again toured selected U.S. intelligence agencies in Japan, Korea, Okinawa Island, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong in the third quarter of financial year 1962. The purposes were to establish liaison with the Chemical Corps personnel, to reemphasize the importance of CBR intelligence, and to provide on the spot guidance and discuss the establishment of a U.S. Army Chemical Corps Information and Liaison Office in Tokyo.
The Chemical Corps continued to support U.S. forces through the use of incendiary weapons, such as napalm, and riot control measures, among other missions. As the war progressed into the late 1960s, public sentiment against the Chemical Corps increased because of the Army's continued use of herbicides, criticized in the press as being against the Geneva Protocol; napalm; and riot control agents.
Besides supplying flame weapons, and preparing for any eventuality of weapons of mass destruction, the Vietnam-era Chemical Corps also developed "people sniffers", a type of personnel detector. Major Herb Thornton led chemical soldiers, who became known as tunnel rats and developed techniques for clearing enemy tunnels in Vietnam.Lillie, Stanley H. " Chief of Chemical", ( PDF ) Army Chemical Review, July–December 2005, accessed 16 October 2008. In March 1968, the Dugway sheep incident was one of several key events which increased the growing public furor against the corps. An open air spraying of VX was blamed for killing over 4,000 sheep near the US Dugway Proving Ground. The Army eventually settled the case and paid the ranchers. Meanwhile, another incident involving Operation CHASE (Cut Holes and Sink 'Em) was exposed, which sought to dump chemical weapons off of the Florida coast, spurring concerns over the damage to the ocean environment and risk of chemical munitions washing up on shore.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the chemical warfare capabilities of the United States began to decline due to, in part, a decline in public opinion concerning the corps. The corps continued to be plagued with bad press and mishaps. A 1969 incident, in which 23 soldiers and one Japanese civilian were exposed to sarin on the island of Okinawa Island, while cleaning sarin-filled bombs, created international concern while revealing the presence of chemical munitions in Southeast Asia.Bowman, Tom. " Fort Detrick: From Biowarfare To Biodefense", NPR, 1 August 2008, accessed 10 October 2008. Also in 1969, President Richard Nixon reaffirmed a no first-use policy on chemical weapons as well as renouncing the use of biological weapons (BW). When the U.S. BW program ended in 1969, it had developed seven standardized biological weapons in the form of agents that cause anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever, VEE, and botulism. In addition, Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B was produced as an incapacitating agent.
During the summer of 1972, Nixon nominated General Creighton Abrams for the post of Army Chief of Staff. Upon assuming that position, Abrams and others began to address the reformation of the Army in the wake of Vietnam. Abrams investigated the possibility of merging Chemical Corps into other Army branches. An ad hoc committee, designed to study possibilities, recommended that the Chemical Corps' smoke and flame mission be integrated into the Engineer Corps and the chemical operations be integrated into the Ordnance Corps. The groups recommendations were accepted in December 1972 and the United States Army Chemical Corps was officially disbanded, but not formally disestablished, by the Army on 11 January 1973.Mauroni, Al. " The US Army Chemical Corps: Past, Present, and Future ", Army Historical Foundation. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
To formally disestablish the corps, the U.S. Congress had to approve the move, because it had officially established the Chemical Corps in 1946. Congress chose to table action on the fate of the Chemical Corps, leaving it in limbo for several years. Recruitment and career advancement was halted and the Chemical School at Fort McClellan was shut down and moved to Aberdeen Proving Grounds.*Mauroni, Albert J. Chemical-Biological Defense: U.S. Military Policies and Decisions in the Gulf War, ( Google Books), Praeger, Westport, Connecticut: 1998, pages 2–3, ().
Secretary of the Army Martin R. Hoffmann rescinded the 1972 recommendations, and in 1976 Army Chief of Staff General Bernard W. Rogers ordered the resumption of Chemical Corps officer commissioning. However, the U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Anniston, Alabama did not reopen until 1980.
Though Saddam Hussein had renounced the use of chemical weapons in 1989, many did not believe he would really honor that during a conflict with the United States and the broader coalition forces. As American troops headed to the desert, analysts speculated about their vulnerability to CB attack. Although the location of Hussein's chemical munitions was unknown, their existence was never doubted.
Gulf War I was fought without the Iraqi Army unleashing chemical or biological munitions; Eric R. Taylor, of the CATO Institute, maintained that the effective, U.S. threat of nuclear retaliation halted Hussein from employing his chemical weapons. The locations of many of Iraq's chemical stockpiles were never uncovered and there is widespread speculation that U.S. troops were exposed to chemical munitions while destroying weapons caches, particularly near the Khamisiyah storage site.DCI Persian Gulf War Illnesses Task Force. " Khamisiyah: A Historical Perspective on Related Intelligence", 9 April 1997, accessed 12 October 2008. After the war, analysis suggested the chemical defense capabilities of U.S. forces were woefully inadequate during and after the conflict. In addition, some experts, such as Jonathan B. Tucker, suggest that the Iraqis did indeed employ chemical weapons during the war.Tucker, Jonathan B. " Evidence Iraq Used Chemical Weapons During the 1991 Persian Gulf War", The Nonproliferation Review, Spring/Summer 1997, accessed 12 October 2008.
A 1996 United States Government Accountability Office report concluded that U.S. troops remained highly vulnerable to attack from both chemical and biological agents. The report blamed the U.S. Department of Defense for failure to address shortcoming identified five years earlier during combat in the Persian Gulf War. These shortcomings included inadequate training, a lack of decontamination kits and other equipment, and vaccine shortages." Chemical and Biological Defense: Emphasis Remains Insufficient to Resolve Continuing Problems ", United States General Accounting Office, via Federation of American Scientists, 12 March 1996, accessed 12 October 2008.
The school trains officers and enlisted personnel in CBRN warfare and defense with a mission is "To protect the force and allow the Army to fight and win against a CBRN threat. Develop doctrine, equipment and training for CBRN defense which serve as a deterrent to any adversary possessing weapons of mass destruction. Provide the Army with the combat multipliers of smoke, obscurant, and flame capabilities."
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