New York Procurement District

The representative of the Chemical Commodity Division reported to the chief of that division whose headquarters were in the New York procurement district. This division was set up in August 1944 to centralize the administration of procurement of chemicals. For details see Brophy, Miles, and Cochrane, From Laboratory to Field. 

Intervs, Hist Off with Cols Almon N. Bowes and A. J. L. Wilson, 27 Nov 56. Colonels Bowes and Wilson were officers in the New York Procurement District in World War II. 

While procurement was kept at a minimum there were no restrictions on procurement planning. The Procurement Planning Division of the Chief s office was responsible for drawing up and submitting its portion of industrial mobilization plans to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War. Early in 1924 procurement district offices were activated in New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco. ... 

Although the President did not put the Industrial Mobilization Plan of 1939 into operation, the plan was nevertheless followed rather closely in War Department procurement activities for the Army at large. So far as the CWS was concerned, it had a much mote restriacd application. In the general scramble for contracts by all elements of the armed forces and by foreign governments after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, many allocated plants were lost to the CWS. In only one chemical warfare procurement district. New York, were contracts awarded on a considerable scale to previously allocated manufacturers. This situation was probably due to the fact that the majority of the contracts in the New York district were for certain raw chemicals for which there was no keen competition. In other districts, it was the exception rather than the rule for a previously allocated plant to be awarded a contract. ... 

Mr. Allen, who was also the civilian chief of the New York Chemical Procurement District, had suggested that the district advisory committee be designated the Chemical Advisory Committee to the Army and Navy Munitions Board. This suggestion was adopted and from early 1939 until after the close of World War II the committee, whose members were leading representatives of the chemical industry, met monthly in Washington or New York. Liaison officers from the Army and Navy Munitions Board, the Ordnance Department, and the CWS attended the meetings. A representative from the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense and, later, one from the War Production Board, were often in attendance. ... 

The CWS procured over 40,000 M4 vapor detector kits for detection of toxic agents in 1942 through contracts in the New York and Chicago procurement districts. No unusual problems arose in the procurement of this relatively simple item. In mid-1943, as indicated elsewhere, the M4... 

NYCWPD New York Chemical Warfare Procurement District... 

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