Chemical Warfare Service mission training

In 1923 the War Department modified the CWS training mission. Training of the noncombdtant branches of the Army "other than the Chemical Warfare Service was ordered confined to defensive aspects. Training of the combatant arms was to include the "use of smoke, incendiary materials, and nontoxic gases. Training of CWS persoimel was to be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the National Defense Act, that is, it was to cover both the offensive and defensive aspects. ... 

War Department directives provided that chemical warfare training should cover the fields of smoke, incendiary, and gas yet the primary concern of the CWS prior to World War II was unquestionably with gas. Since the service had been created by Congress as an answer to the military threat of toxic chemicals, the status of the CWS as an independent technical service could scarcely have been justified if it were not prepared to cope with this major menace. Fear of gas was largely fear of the unknown, and its antidote was, in large measure, to acquaint troops with toxic agents and how to counteract them. To impart such understanding was the primary training responsibility of the Chemical Warfare Service and the point of departure for the whole CWS mission. 

The CWS protective mobilization plan contemplated that training of other components at the Chemical Warfare School would be discontinued upon mobilization, when the school would reorganize for its primary mission of training CWS troops. Two types of courses were specified in the new setup successive thirty-day refresher classes of seventy-five officers, and a series of classes for enlisted specialists (meteorologists). This program would have proven inadequate, even had it been followed. Yet there was no evident inclination in 1940 to extend the school training of CWS officers. In recommending to the War Department the courses to be conducted at the school between i July 1940 and 30 June 1941, the CWS proposed only six courses, none of them specifically for preparation of Chemical Warfare Service officers for active duty. ... 

Supervision of training in defense against gas warfare remained the principal mission of the Chemical Warfare Service so far as training the Army in chemical warfare was concerned. Next came the supervision of training in the use of smoke. This was followed, in order of priority, by training in the use of the flame thrower and defense against the employment of incendiaries. 

Nor was the distinction between plan and reality confined to the training activities of the Chemical Warfare Service. After responsibility for the development, procurement, and storage of incendiary bombs was transferred from the Ordnance Department in the fall of 1941, the CWS undertook a program for which no peacetime plans had been drawn, a program that developed into one of the most important wartime efforts. The assignment of the biological warfare mission to the CWS shortly before the outbreak of war led to large-scale research and development in this new field of endeavor. 

This volume, the second in a series of three devoted to the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) in World War II, now the Chemical Corps, covers research, development, procurement, and distribution of chemical warfare materiel. It traces the history of these activities from the World War I period, when the CWS was activated to supervise the offensive and defensive aspects of gas warfare throughout the Army, until the end of World War II. The first volume in the series, Organizing for War, discusses the development of the CWS organization and mission as well as personnel management and military training. The third volume, entitled Chemicals in Combat, will deal with chemical warfare activities in the theaters of operations. 

Mission. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense is the nation s lead laboratory for research to advance the medical prevention and treatment of chemical warfare casualties. The Institute also has a clinical training mission and conducts the Medical Management of Chemical Casualties Course for health care providers from all armed services. 

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