Service Unit Training in Retrospect

No justification is needed for the staflF policy of initiating the chemical service units program in 1942. To have delayed further the activation of chemical troops would have been dangerous in that it could easily have encouraged the Axis powers, especially Germany, to initiate gas warfare. The only postwar question that might be raised is whether there was actual need of so many units.  

The role of the Chemical Warfare School, like that of all service schools, was to present essential instruction which could not be given advantageously within units or in local schools. The World War II military directive governing the school divided such instruction into two clearly defined categories (i) the training of CWS personnel for branch duties, and (2) the instruction of officers of other arms and services of Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard in tactics and technique of chemical warfare and in protection against chemical attack.  

The importance of the Chemical Warfare School training of branch personnel was emphasized by the fact that chemical officers and enlisted men were, with few exceptions, widely scattered in such small elements as to preclude effective general training at local levels. Excellent schools were conducted at Camp Sibert and at the several CWS arsenals, yet this instruction was for the most part directly related to tasks immediately at hand. It remained for the Edgewood school to attend to the broader aspects of the individual s military education. 

Before the war the Chemical Warfare School had not been actively engaged in the training of CWS personnel as such. As a result, when full mobilization began, the school had not developed and tested a series of courses for this purpose. More than two years elapsed after the declaration of war before a clear-cut solution to the problem of school training of CWS officers was reached. Meanwhile, many courses were instituted, employed for a time, and then discontinued. In this respect the experience of the Chemical Warfare School paralleled that of the newly established ground forces schools which, in contrast to the older schools of the statutory branches, offered a diversity of special courses. 

After the Army reorganization of March 1942, administrative control 

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