Chemical Laboratory Companies

March the 41st Chemical Laboratory Company, the fid Chemical Composite Company, the remainder of the 21st Chemical Decontamination Company, and the fid and fyd Chemical Processing Companies in May and the 24th and 2jth Chemical Decontamination Companies in June 194. See Brophy and Fisher, Organizing for War, app. H, and see below, ch. VII. 

Still another reason for the decline of the theater headquarters CWS sections was that the intelligence activity, largely managed by the British, had never assumed much importance in the American group. Furthermore, since facilities were lacking for a technical activity and since liaison with the British on technical matters was carried on by the European theater CWS, there was no need for a large technical organization in NATOUSA—MTOUSA. The theater chemical laboratory company did not experience, as did chemical laboratory companies in most other theaters, frequent calls for development work. 

In Brisbane the company settled down to work as a unit of Base Section 3, U.S. Army Forces in Australia. By the end of February the laboratory equipment had been set up in permanent quarters and organized technical work was under way. At first a substantial number of laboratory personnel were detailed for general duty with base section headquarters, but these demands slackened after the first few months and by midyear the company was able to pursue its mission at approximately full strength. It had become in the interim the 42d Chemical Laboratory Company by redesignation effective April 12, 1942, and had moved to new quarters in buildings formerly occupied by a Brisbane hospital. ... 

The 43d Chemical Laboratory Company, activated at Edgewood Arsenal on 26 August 1942, was ordered to Hawaii in December of 1943. Upon its arrival it was assigned to theater headquarters (Central Pacific Area) and stationed at Schofield Barracks, where the theater chemical officer, Colonel Unmacht, had laboratory facilities (manned by 8th Chemical Depot Company personnel) already in operation. The 43d took over the existing laboratory functions, added its own equipment, and set to work. The immediate tasks were predominantly within the intelligence portion of the mission—the study and descrip-... 

Of the specialist courses for enlisted men, only two were integrated with chemical unit training. The seven-week Laboratory Course was highly technical officers as well as enlisted men were trained for duty with chemical laboratory companies. The Special Mortar Operations Course trained small groups of enlisted specialists for assignment to the chemical battalions mobilized in 1943 and 1944. The remainder of the enlisted courses conducted at the Chemical Warfare School were primarily for the instruction of those outside the Chemical Warfare Service. 

Activation of the 23, 24 and 25 units was roncurrerti with the disbandment of the 46 Chemical Laboratory Company, 27 May 44. 

In addition to the laboratory facilities in the United States the CWS had field laboratories in operation overseas. The chemical laboratory companies and laboratory sections of chemical service companies, whose mission was the surveillance of CWS materiel and examination of enemy agents and equipment, were initially supplied with a field laboratory designated as model Ml, standardized in 1936 and in service until the latter part of 1943. Its 21,000 pounds of equipment, comprising 88 footlockers, 20 boxes, and 15 crates of laboratory materials, as well as a truck-mounted machine shop, had to be transported on seven 1 VS-ton trucks. Edgewood manufactured eleven Ml laboratories before the model was discarded in 1943. 

In 1942 the CWS issued five trailer vans to the First Chemical Laboratory Company which installed its laboratory equipment in them. The company found that the vans lacked sufficient interior space for the work, they were unwieldly to transport on railroads, they were difficult to conceal from enemy observation in the field, and they were hard to handle on poor roads. After several months the service dropped the idea of putting field laboratories on wheels. ... 

---