United States Chemical Warfare Committee

The strategic planning question was to be answered through the co-ordination of the Pacific area plans by the United States Chemical Warfare Committee. In General Porter s opinion the CWS would have been ready for gas warfare in the Pacific had it broken out in 1944 or 1945 No new duties were indicated for the CWS POA by the strategic plans. Unmacht continued his emphasis on gas warfare... 

While the United States Chemical Warfare Committee did not reach as high a position in the co-ordination of the combined Anglo-American gas warfare effort as perhaps many of its members desired, it nonetheless achieved a great deal, and probably all that was expected of it. After the usual initial controversies over mission, powers, and organization the USCWC settled down and became almost a model of co-operative effort, both with the U.S. services and with the British Inter-Service Committee... 

During the prewar years and on into the first few months of the war the Chief, CWS, was under the direct jurisdiction of the Chief of Staff. There was constant consultation between the General Staff and the CWS staff over matters of policy. In March 1942, under a major War Department reorganization, another echelon of command was placed between the supply arms and services and the General Staff. That echelon, commanded by General Somervell, was the Services of Supply, or as it was later called, the Army Service Forces. Chart 4) From that time until after the close of the war, policy matters were usually formulated after consultation between ASF staff officers and their opposite numbers in the CWS. At times War Department General and Special Staff officers had direct contact with CWS personnel, as in the case of the United States Chemical Warfare Committee, but such contact was the exception rather than the rule. ... 

In the fall of 1942, the Combined Chiefs of Staff set up the United States Chemical Warfare Committee (USCWC), headed by the Chief, CWS, to co-ordinate all chemical warfare activities. One of the objectives of the USCWC was to insure that all types of chemical warfiire materiel used by the British and Americans would be interchangeable. The... 

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