Field Intelligence Army, Technical

Field Intelligence Army, Technical Field Service... 

Seven Chemical Warfare Service laboratory companies saw service overseas between 1941 and 1945. The essential mission of the laboratory company in the field was to analyze and evaluate enemy chemical materiel and to maintain technical surveillance over CWS supplies. These functions made it a major source of technical intelligence, both as to enemy capabilities for chemical warfare and the storage life of CWS ammunition and protective items. At first conceived of as a more or less mobile entity capable of following an army in the field, it was in practice treated as a semifixed installation of a theater communications zone, a status better suited to its more than ten tons of laboratory equipment. 

---