British Purchasing Commission

Then there was prime ammunition. Even as late as two years after the war started, the British Purchasing Commission tried to buy tetrazene prime ammunition in the United States, and failed because sale was prohibited by an arrangement made by a Farben subsidiary. 

In 1940 the British Purchasing Commission of the Ministry of Supply arranged with American Cyanamid for the erection of a 1625-ton/month plant at Welland, Canada. The application of American chemical engineering design teams made this a successful enterprise which was in full production by 1941 and its output by 1943 had been raised to 2300 tons/month. The production of cordite N using this picrite was investigated in the United States and Canada and led to the adoption of picrite propellants by the United States in 1944. 

Over a year before Pearl Harbor a CWS officer was serving on a standardization committee of the Army-Navy-British Purchasing Commission Joint Committee. See ist Ind, 30 Nov 40, on Ltr, Recorder, Army-Navy-British Purchasing Comm Jt Com to C CWS, 27 Nov 40, sub CWS Representative on Standardization Com of Army-Navy-British Purchasing Comm Jt Com. CWS 334.8/136-145. See also Memo, Recorder, Working Subcom in Standardization for Recorder, Jt Aircraft Com, 31 Mar 42, sub Special Subcom for Standardization of Aircraft Bombs. Jt Aircraft Com 334.8. 

Shortly before the United States entered the war, the Americans and British began to exchange information on chemical warfare through the U.S. Assistant Military Attache in London and representatives of the British Purchasing Commission in America. After American forces arrived in the British Isles in 1942, CWS personnel could visit British installations and learn at first hand what the British were doing. 

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