Edgewood Arsenal established

Recognizing our earlier naivete, the War Department established the Chemical Corps in 1922, centered at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. Over the next forty years, the U.S. escaped a repetition of the chemical atrocities of the First World War. Ironically, it was mostly Hitler s personal phobia of chemical retaliation that saved us from the thousands of tons of nerve agents already synthesized and stockpiled by the Nazis. 

The issue of the use of human volunteers was considered by the Armed Forces Medical Policy Council during the early 1950 s. The Council concluded that essential data could not be obtained unless human volunteers were used, and the use of humans in medical research was authorized. By 1954, the Chemical Corps (formerly CWS) had established a framework within which to conduct human experimentation, but it lacked an adequate pool of volunteers. In 1955, it was decided that the most practical source of volunteers would be enlisted men stationed at Army installations in the vicinity of Edgewood Arsenal. 

Edgewood Arsenal was designated as the Army s commodity center for all chemical weapons and defense equipment research and development. In this category, the Arsenal s former administrative control over the hiological laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md, was relinquished and Fort Detrick was established as a separate commodity center for biological weapons and defense research and development... 

A report on an Edgewood Arsenal study on the toxicology of RDX and HMX solns in di-methylsulfoxide, cyclohexanone and acetone states that a study of the toxicology of the expls RDX and HMX in acet, cyclohexanone, and pure and technical grade dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) was initiated to establish whether there is any danger to plant personnel that handle such mixts. The report contains a review of the existing literature on each expl and on each solvent. It also describes tests that were conducted to establish the intravenous toxicity of the expls in DMSO, skin potential, and the ocular effects of the expls in each solvent. All of these tests were conducted on animals (Ref 77)... 

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... 

The production and storage needs of a rapidly growing military establishment could not be met by Edgewood Arsenal alone. The CWS quickly con-... 

Assisting the Chief, CWS, were an Advisory Committee of fifteen civilian authorities in chemistry and chemical engineering, a CWS Technical Committee, and a Chemical Warfare Board. The Advisory Committee, which was unofficial in capacity, was set up in the American Chemical Society in 1920. The members of the committee met periodically with CWS scientists and administrators to discuss policies and problems of research and development. The CWS Technical Committee, also set up in 1920, came into existence as the result of a need for co-ordination among interested branches of the armed forces in the development and standardization of chemical warfare items.On the Technical Committee sat representatives of CWS and of the following Field Artillery, Coast Artillery, Infantry, Air Corps, Cavalry, General Staff, National Guard Bureau, and the Assistant Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments. The Chemical Warfare Board was established at Edgewood Arsenal in 1923 to study and co-ordinate technical developments with tactical doctrine and methods. 

A special cadre training company was established at the Edgewood Arsenal RTC in June 1942. Since some eight hundred cadremen had already... 

Improvement of the Edgewood plant began in 1942 when the Technical Division carried out experiments that increased the efficiency of the process at an annual savings of 65,000. In 1944 the division established a pilot plant for further improvement of the process. The plant at Edge-wood served as model for a plant of thirty tons capacity a day that the CWS erected at the Huntsville Arsenal and began operating in... 

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