Chief, Chemical Corps

Cochrane RC. Biological Warfare Research in the United States. Office of Chief, Chemical Corps Historical Section, Plans, Training and Intelligence Division 1947. Draft. 

Waitt AH. Chief, Chemical Corps, to Director of Plans and Operations, General Staff, US Army. Gas Warfare Policy. Washington, DC Chemical Corps. 2 May 1949. Memorandum. 

It is not certain why tetanus was relegated to this group, considering the criteria chosen. Rexmond C. Cochrane, History of the Chemical Warfare Service in World War II, Vol. II Biological Warfare Research in the United States (Fort Detrick, MD Historical Section, Plans, Training and Intelligence Division, Office of Chief, Chemical Corps November 1947) passim. 

While the settlement of CWS contracts in the postwar period was carried out with speed, there is, unfortunately, good reason to suspect that administration of various aspects of the settlements left something to be desired. In November 1946 the Chief, Chemical Corps, appointed a Contract Settlement Review Team to assist all contracting officers to properly document all termination actions. The basic purpose behind the appointment of the team was protection of the contracting officers and the corps as a whole. Some of the disclosures brought about by the Senate committee investigating the Erie Basin and Batavia contracts had convinced the Chief, Chemical Corps, as well as his superiors in the War Department of the need for such a team. A civilian with considerable experience in Ordnance Department termination, Christian Van Heest, was selected to head the team. Van Heest was assisted by a group which varied in number from six to ten, several of whom had had previous termination experience in the Ordnance Department. ... 

The Commander of the Chemical Corps Research and Engineering Command, die Chief Chemical Officer, and the Surgeon General forwarded a plan developed by die Chemical Corps, listing seven investi tive studies in progress. After its approval, ftiey downgraded the original Secretary of Defense s memorandum to Confidential. ... 

In 1958, Van Sim requested 200 volunteers, to help study the effects of psychochemicals on military tasks. Although the Chief of the Chemical Corps Chief approved this request, the Secretary of the Army apparently had no direct role in the approval. This omission established two precedents (1) a class of chemical agents ( psychochemicals ) could be studied without specificity and (2) an approval could be valid without written endorsement by the Secretary of the Army. 

After 1962, still more rules were adopted to insure ironclad control from the top. The Surgeon General and Chief of the Chemical Corps were added to the decisionmaking hierarchy. Committees and Review Boards replaced individual reviewers. The Army Investigational Drug Review Board provides an insfructive example. 

The report cites examples of studies that failed to comply with Army Chief of Staff Memorandum 385. In one incident, LSD was given covertly to the former commander of the Chemical Corps Research and Development Command. When asked what he knew about the use of LSD in the volunteer program, he said he had volunteered to take part in the chemical research program himself and had taken the regular physical and psychiatric examinations to make sure he was okay. He said, I agreed that I would take the drug, but when it was to be administered would be up to the medical investigator. ... 

In June 1950, with the onset of the Korean War, the American Chemical Corps participated in its first military action since 1918. The Corps quickly implemented an increased procurement programme to supply the army with a chemical capability and defensive equipment. The new chief of the corps concluded that the need for such an ability was the number one lesson learned from the Second World War It required the experiences of World War II to demonstrate that the most important basic factor in a nation s military strength is its war production potential and ability to convert smoothly and quickly its industry, manpower and other economic resources. 27 Within a short time, however, the army s... 

Oschsner, H., History of German Chemical Warfare in World War II, Historical Office of the Chief of the US Chemical Corps (1949). 

Roy Pineci, Chief Acct. Officer/VP/Controller B. Chuck Anderson, Pres., Occidental Chemical Corp. 

FIGURE 1.7 German Tabun bombs discovered after the defeat of Germany in 1945 Office of the Chief of Chemical Corps (1947), The History of Captured Enemy Toxic Munitions in the American Zone European Theater, May 1945 to June 1947. 

Taken from a Summary Report on B W Investigations submitted to the Chief of the US Chemical Corps in Washington on 12 December 1947. Released in 1981 under the Freedom of Information Act. 

The Chemical Corps ended the Korean War in a much stronger position than it faced after the end of World War II. The corps reduced its units and manpower somewhat, and terminated many of its procurement contracts in the months following the 1953 armistice. Still, Major General Egbert F. Bullene, the new Chief Chemical Officer summed up the feeling of the corps about the Korean War and the Cold War in general Today, thanks to Joe Stalin, we are back in business. 125(p8)... 

The initial plan was to contract with private industry for a 10-ton per day production plant. A later decision put the plant at the inactivated Dana Heavy Water Plant of the Atomic Energy Commission at Newport, Indiana, within the Wabash River Ordnance Works. A patent dispute that resulted in a restraining order by the Chief Justice of the United States and problems with contractors visiting the new site delayed construction. Finally in 1959, Food Machinery and Chemical Company, the low bidder, got the contract and construction was planned for 1960. Shortly after the approval, the Chemical Corps supplemented the contract to provide for a VX weapon-filling plant.129130... 

Quotation Cochrane RC. The 3rd Division at Chateau Thierry July 1918. In US Army Chemical Corps Historical Studies Gas Warfare in World War I. Washington, DC Office of the Chief Chemical Officer, US Army Chemical Corps Historical Office 1959 90. Study 14. Photograph Reprinted from Gilchrist HL. A Comparative Study of World War Casualties From Gas and Other Weapons. Edgewood Arsenal, Md Chemical Warfare School 1928 facing page 20. 

Office of the Chief Chemical Officer. The 92nd Division in the Marbache Sector. Washington, DC US Army Chemical Corps Historical Office 1918. 

Seventeenth report of the CDRD, 31 March 1937, PRO, WO 33/1484. See also Minutes of 221 Meeting of the CID, 25 February 1927 Ninth report of the CWRD, 31 March 1929 and Offensive Gas Warfare Methods , Enclosure 45A, 7 September 1936, PRO, CAB 2/5 WO 33/1204 WO 32/3663. See also H. Ochsner, History of German Chemical Warfare in World War II Part I the Military Aspect (Historical Office of the Chief of the Chemical Corps, 1949) p. 15. 

Waitt Interv, i] May 1. General Waitt, postwar Chief, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, successor to the CWS, counts himself among the Fries-trained officers who strongly believed in the necessity for a unitary CWS organization,... 

Getting chemical mortar battalions for the European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, proved to be a complicated and difficult problem. Colonel Rowan, chief chemical officer in the theater, had recommended a total of 24 battalions for the theater troop list, a figure based upon the formula of 2 battalions per corps (i8) and 2 additional battalions per army (6). His commander approved this recommendation, including the figure in the over-all troop list, which was forwarded to Washington early in 1943. ... 

Military Branch, Federal Records Center, General Services Administration, Region No. 3, Alexandria, Virginia— Files of the Office, Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service. These jfiles are cited by using the prefix CWS in the file number. CWS 314.7 and CWS 319.1, properly a part of this collection, are temporarily in the custody of the Office of the Historian, U.S. Army Edgewood Arsenal (formerly U.S. Army Chemical Corps Historical Office), and will be transferred to official archives. 

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