European theater

The effect of World War 11 was very drastically felt in the sugar industry. Raw materials, machine parts, and maintenance items needed to maintain sugar processing were diverted to the war industry. Many sugar industry experts were conscripted into the armed forces. In the European theater of war, factories and agriculture were destroyed. At the end of World War 11 sugar production barely totalled 19,162,000 t/yr. 

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. 

I was toying with two careers medicine and oceanography. My decision was narrowed after a day spent floating offshore of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at La Jolla. As the vessel lurched, rolled, and pitched, I was overtaken by seasickness, ready to swim ashore rather than suffer another minute afloat. Little did I know that I would be seaborne again in just a few years, first bound for the European theater, and then for my medical assignment in Japan. 

My transition to civilian life was greatly helped by my final six-month military assignment as a ward officer at Lovell General Hospital near Leominster, Massachusetts. I developed a close camaraderie with my patients, casualties of combat from the Pacific and European theaters. But even as I worked among the veterans, I was determined to proceed to pediatric training. 

WD Memo W-700-8-42, 10 Oct 42, sub Sup of Overseas Depts, Theatres, and Separate Bases. Stockages in the United States were likewise extremely limited. For example, the total mask stockage, including that in the continental United States, in late 19411 was 2,85j.foo. an amount almost a million less than the war-end stockage of the lightweight service mask in the European Theater of Operations alone. 

Rowan s staflf had completed most of the basic work on a comprehensive gas warfare plan for the European theater before the War Department letter requiring such a plan was received. Kellogg and his staff had prepared air force supply and storage estimates for the offensive portion of the plan. Late in 1942 LeRoy took a draft of the ETO plan to Washington where he discussed it in detail with General Porter s staff and exchanged information on theater and stateside preparations. Later OCCWS referred the draft plan to the chemical liaison officer on the OPD staff. But since the ETO plan was predicated on the vast expansion of the theater for a continental invasion, as yet uncertain, it could only be brought to an indefinite conclusion. 

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