Edgewood Chemical Warfare Depot

In the March 25,1934, budget of the Chemical Warfare Service, there is a description of Project 22, the Edgewood Chemical Warfare Depot (Bush River Project) ... 

Originally the depots located at CWS arsenals had the same name as the arsenals, which led to confusion in the mails. In July 1943, therefore, the names of those depots were changed as follows Edgewood Chemical Warfare Depot to Eastern Chemical Warfare Depot, Huntsville Chemical Warfare Depot to Gulf Chemical Warfare Depot, and Pine Bluff Chemical Warfare Depot to Midwest Chemical Warfare Depot. The latter two depots were under the jurisdiction of the commanding officers of the arsenals to which they were attached. While not officially designated as a depot, a storage area at Rocky Mountain Arsenal was used to store items not shipped immediately to ports of embarkation. 

Not all of the bombs, however, remained in storage. On 24 Febmary 1942, the Eastern Chemical Warfare Depot at Edgewood Arsenal received orders to ship forty-eight 500-pound clusters of AN-M54 bombs to Benicia Arsenal, California, for reissue to Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle. The men who filled the order and handled the clusters had no idea of their ultimate destination. Shortly after noon on April 18 a B-25 bomber commanded by Doolittle roared over Tokyo and unloaded some of these... 

Greater emphasis on maintenance of materiel was a feature of the campaign to bring procurement and distribution into balance. In the period between the wars the quantity of chemical warfare supplies was extremely limited and consequently maintenance was not much of a problem. Most CW supplies were stored at the Edgewood Depot, which had access to the shops at the arsenal to do required maintenance. In the field the CW sections in division and company headquarters were responsible for first and second echelon maintenance while repair shops near the posts or at Ordnance Department depots carried on the higher echelon repairs. The CW sections normally consisted of one officer and several enlisted men. 

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