Chemical Warfare Research Establishment

Somewhat surprisingly, following the end of the First World War, the Allied governments almost immediately seemed to forget what they had learned during the war about being prepared for future chemical warfare. The first major concerns for the chemical warfare detachments of the Allied forces then were to ensure they survived demobilisation. In both Britain and the United States cases were presented for the need for a permanent chemical warfare research establishment. In 1920 A.A. Fries proclaimed ... 

The Geneva Protocol had laid down firm controls over the use of gas in war. But the use of chemical weapons, like tear gas, by domestic police forces was a matter purely for national governments. Both the United States and Britain had established factories to manufacture CN gas after the First World War, and the British were soon using the gas against rioters in the colonies. The weapon which replaced it, and was used in Vietnam, CS gas,55 provides a nearperfect example of the way in which British chemical warfare research, despite its commitment to purely defensive uses, came to be applied to war. 

During the course of the war, the role of experimental science moved from the periphery to the centre of the conflict. Although traditionally sceptical towards technical innovation and the involvement of civihans in war, the military establishment felt compelled to exploit civihan scientists for the war effort. Whereas the Royal Society had made Htde progress in persuading the War Office to use civilian expertise, Haldane and Baker s commission set a precedent in establishir the role of British scientists in chemical warfare research. Their war-related work ushered in a period of scientific innovation and reform which saw the employment of chemists and physiologists to conduct research into offensive and defensive aspects of chemical warfare. British scientists, many of them Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS), felt duty-bound and honoured to place their expertise at the service of the realm, and had little, if any, moral objections in developing new weapons of mass destruction. 

Although responsibility for chemical warfare research rested with different departments, British scientists did not follow this division of labour in practice instead, they established informal networks and channels of communication which allowed them to coordinate, as best they could, their work throughout the war, and advance their professional careers thereafter. Appreciating the potential limitations of being integrated into the military and ministerial hierarchy, scientists used some of the newly created departments and expert committees on chemical warfare for the exchange of information and avoidance of duplication, for example at the War Office, the Ministry of Munitions, the Royal Society, and the Medical Research Committee, the predecessor of the Medical Research Council (MRC), founded under Royal Charter in 1920. ... 

Close liaison between Porton s scientists and expert networks elsewhere in Britain and overseas, essential in maintaining a first-class research facility, was to be assured through the Chemical Warfare Committee, which was broadly representative of the wider scientific, military, and business community. To ensure the coordinated production of toxic agents, including those for testing purposes at Porton, the committee recommended the creation of a state-controlled factory for chemical warfare products at Sutton Oak, near St Helens in Lancashire, which later became the Chemical Defence Research Establishment. A representative of Porton liaised with members of the committee about planned field trials. It was this coordinated approach to chemical warfare through an external body of experts and stakeholders that other nations, the United States and Canada especially, began to emulate. 

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Mines had already assumed responsibility for conducting research on chemical warfare and had enlisted the assistance of many chemists throughout the country. The Bureau s program was well established when it was placed for administrative purposes under the NRC s committee on noxious gases. 

The Chemical Corps originally established the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) in 1918, motivated by the horrors of gas warfare that they witnessed during WW I. In 1922, it created a Medical Research Division. Its mission was to defend against chemical agents. 

Human experimentation appears to have been an integral part of the history of the U.S. Army chemical warfare (CW) research efforts until its suspension in 1975. On June 28, 1918, the President directed the establishment of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). 

All armies learned several lessons from this non-gas war. The phrase ffad Britain and the United States been prepared for war in 1936, there would not have been a war was taken as a self-evident truth.72 Certainly it was recognised that chemical warfare establishments, notably at Porton Down in the United Kingdom and Edgewood Arsenal in the United States, needed to be permanent organisations that concentrated on training, research and development, and chemical warfare preparedness. This lesson, from a slightly different angle, is reflected in the words of K.C. Royall, the US Under Secretary for War The better job you do, the less likely it is you will have to put to actual use the products of your work. 73... 

Lindherg, G., Runn, P., Winter, S., Falhnan, A. (1997). Basic information on lewisite - a chemical warfare agent with effects similar to mustard gas. Defense Research Establishment, Division of NBC Defense, Umea, Sweden. 

Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion (RSDL) has recently been approved for procurement by the U.S. military (F-Z-EM 2007). RSDL is currently marketed by E-Z-EM, Inc. and is a patented, broad spectrum, skin decontamination lotion that is used to remove or neutralize chemical threat agents and biological warfare agents such as trichothecene mycotoxin (T2 toxin), which can cause severe skin and eye irritation. RSDL was originally developed by the Canadian Defense Research Establishment and consists of 1.25 molar potassium 2,3-butanedione monoximate in poly-etheylene glycol monoethyl ethers with 10% w/v water (Sabourin et al. 2001 Lukey et al. 2004). 

This is just a random selection of the sort of work which was done in Britain. Similar research was being carried out throughout the world. Italy established a Servizio Chemico Militate in 1923 with an extensive proving ground in the north of the country. The main French chemical warfare installation was the Atelier de Pyrotechnie du Bouchet near Paris. The Japanese Navy began work on chemical weapons in 1923, and the Army followed suit in 1925. In Germany, despite the fact that Haber s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute had been closed down in 1919, limited defensive work continued, later to form the basis of Germany s offensive effort. And in 1924 the Military-Chemical Administration of the Red Army was established and Russian chemical troops were stationed at each provincial army headquarters. 

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