Smoke Pots Being Set Off in the Argonne Forest

Smoke Pots Being Set Off in the Argonne Forest, near Beaucamp, Meuse, France, October 1918. 

The CWS used white phosphorus as a filling for shells, rockets, bombs, and grenades, all of which the armed forces employed extensively in World War II. Artillery and chemical mortar companies hurled shells to set fire to enemy held buildings and cane fields, to drive enemy soldiers from fortified positions, to unnerve enemy troops, to support infantry attacks, and to shield flame thrower operators. Naval vessels threw WP at shore installations on Saipan, Eniwetok, and other places to support amphibious assaults. The Army fired a sizable portion of the two and one-half million 2.36-inch rockets filled during the war to screen operations, to start fires, and to wound and unnerve the enemy. Airplanes dropped WP bombs on enemy installations to start fires or aid infantry. For infantrymen and 

The CWS produced a few hundred experimental 75-mm., 105-mm., and 155-mm. PWP shells in late 1944. The following year plants got into production and turned out 891,941 pounds of PWP. The service loaded this into mortar shells, recoilless mortar shells, bombs, and 3.5-inch and 4.5-inch rockets, but these appeared when the curtain was falling on the last act of the war and they were practically unknown to the fighting man.  

Smoke Screen Demonstration over the harbor, Palermo, Sicily. The screen was produced by mechanical moke generators and smoke pots in thirteen minutes. 

With types A, B, C, and E HC mixtures, the CWS had a range of smoke agents suitable for hand grenades, rifle grenades, artillery shells, rockets, bombs, and smoke pots. Shells, grenades, and bombs found employment during the war but by far the most widely used HC munition was the smoke pot. 

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