Annex Building, Chemical Warfare School, Brisbane

Annex Building, Chemical Warfare School, Brisbane, Australia 

In order to meet the technical portion of his functions, Copthorne had set up a Technical Advisory Board to maintain scientific liaison with the British, the Australians, and within the U.S. forces, and to advise the laboratories. Also, several of Copthorne s subordinates had begun munitions testing. Two of them, Capt. Richard H. Cone and Lt. James W. Parker were killed in an air accident while carrying out experiments to determine whether incendiary bombs could be improvised from training bombs, using gasoline thickened with crude rubber as a filling.  

Sandell and his sergeants spent a few days in the Port Moresby area locating the chemical equipment which the regiments had discarded on landing. Most of the equipment was in a deplorable state, having been scattered in odd piles about Port Moresby and exposed to the elements. The gas masks, approximately 5,000, had been collected and put under cover. USASOS had established a forward base at Port Moresby, but the base chemical officer, inexperienced and recuperating from malaria, had been unable to locate either the labor or the materials 

Captain Sandell was killed in action on December 1942, and Dasman became a victim of malaria. King carried on at the front until the division was relieved late in January 1943. The initiative and resourcefulness of Sandell and his men fitted in well with the concept of the CWS developed by Fries and Porter. 

Copthorne likewise continued to be much concerned with the tactical problems of preparedness, but he believed that his position in USASOS prevented him from acting adequately in the tactical and planning field. In February 1943 he and his section moved up to the newly reconstituted U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, a headquarters somewhat comparable to the army theater headquarters in Europe and North Africa. He took with him to Brisbane Lt. Col. John C. Morgan, 

---