Chemical Service Section, National Army

Memo, CofS for TAG, i6 Oct 17, sub Gas Serv of Army. CWS 322,095/101-140. The section of this directive dealing with the establishment of the Chemical Service Section, National Army, also appears in War Department General Order 139, i November 1917. 

Chemical Service Section, National Army, War Department... 

As indicated earlier, the War Department set up a co-ordinating agency known as the Office of Gas Service in October 1917. This clearinghouse for chemical matters consisted of a director and representatives from the Ordnance and Medical Departments and from the Chemical Service Section of the National Army—a section established at the same time as the Gas Service with a principal mission of providing the AEF with a chemical laboratory. In February 1918 the Chemical Warfare Service and the Gas Division were joined in a move that failed to provide the administrative centralization and the prestige that could only come from the formation of an independent gas corps. This final step was taken bn 28 June 1918 with the creation of the Chemical Warfare Service, National Army, with Maj. Gen. William L. Sibert as director. 

There are several published volumes which discuss the origin and activities of the Chemical Warfare Service in World Wat I. These include Benedict Crowell, America s Munitions, i ij-i iS (Washington GPO, 1919) Amos A. Fries and Clarence J. West, Chemical Warfare (New York McGraw Hill, 1921) and Medical Aspects of Gas Warfare, Volume XIV of the series MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR (Washington GPO, 1926). Volumes XV and XVI of the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN THE WORLD WAR (Washington GPO, 1948), prepared by the Historical Division, Special Staff United States Army, contain data on the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). More valuable as a source of information is the official history of the Chemical Warfare Service, American Expeditionary Forces, a copy of which is on file in the Chemical Corps Historical Office. Especially useful in this history are the appendixes which ate copies of pertinent directives. On the organizational development of the Chemical Warfare Service in the zone of interior, the most fmitful sources of information are M. T. Bogert s and W. H. Walker s History of the Chemical Service Section, on file at the Technical Library, Army Chemical Center, Maryland, and the annual reports of the CWS for the years 1918, 1919, and 1920. The retired CWS files in the National Archives contain some important documents. 

With the activation of the new depots the CWS depot system consisted of five branch depots—Eastern (Edgewood), Gulf (Huntsville), Midwest (Pine Bluff), Indianapolis, and Deseret—and live chemical sections of Army Service Forces depots—Atlanta, Memphis, New Cumberland, San Antonio, and Utah. The missions of these installations varied considerably. The Indianapolis Depot became in effect (and eventually in name) a national control point for CWS spare parts. The other branch depots had in common a responsibility for reserve storage of CWS gen-... 

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