Army Photographer Wearing Service Gas Mask

Army Photographer Wearing Service Gas Mask tvith M.1A2 face-piece, Camp Robinson, Arkansas, January 1942. 

Because there was urgent demand for the new fully molded facepieces, the CWS provided only three sizes of molds for its manufacturers. These molds were based on fitting tests on a limited number of workers at Edgewood Arsenal. Variation in the manufacturers molds made it possible to fit 90 percent of the troops with the so-called universal size, and large and small sizes were provided for special cases. Their wearability was confirmed in tests on more than a thousand soldiers at Camp Edwards, Mass. Difficulties in tooling for the production of these facepieces precluded further changes. 

The chief gas mask problem, the CWS felt, was not the faceblank but better absorbents and filters for the canister. The possibility of meeting with new Axis toxic agents and the development of war gases by the United 

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