Smoke Shields a Paratroop Drop, New Guinea

By way of explanation for the rather shoddy smoke operation, the Fifth Air Force chemical officer cited insufficient notice of the impending mission and the lack of opportunity for the wing chemical officer to participate in the operation s logistical planning. Whatever the fault, the fact remained that not only was smoke for the mission inadequate but no planes were in reserve to patch up the screen once it got spotty.  

Smoke was needed to conceal the troopers from the observation of Japanese forces suspected to be in positions in the wooded hills four miles to the southeast of the airstrip. Three B-2 5 s, each equipped with a single tank, laid down an intervening screen. The Ei tank, developed in the Southwest Pacific by the V Air Force Service Command, 

All of the air screening operations in the Pacific were carried out unhampered by enemy opposition, certainly a factor which contributed to their over-all success. But this much can be garnered from the Pacific experience given proper planning, an adequate amount of smoke correctly placed, and good weather conditions, smoke delivered by air could add great insurance to the success of any airborne operation. 

On lo July 1943 American, British, and Canadian forces landed on the southern and eastern coasts of Sicily, and in the ensuing 3 8-day campaign the 4.2-inch chemical mortar met its first test in combat. This CWS weapon, still untried in battle nineteen months after the entry of the United States into the war, by 1945 was to become an important part of the Army s arsenal. 

2-inch mortar was the culmination of attempts to improve the 4-inch British Stokes Brandt (SB) mortar. With American-made SB mortars and with shell and propellants purchased from the British after World War I, the CWS sought to obtain increased range, accuracy, and mobility. By 1924, experiments under the direction of Capt. Lewis M. McBride (later colonel) produced the rifled 4.2-inch chemical mortar with a range of over 2,000 yards, and by the end of World War II this distance had been doubled.  

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