Intelligence
While Intelligence was for a long time under the Training or Technical Divisions, it finally assumed such importance that it was made a separate Division. It was so thoroughly organized that by the time of the Armistice the Chief of the Division could go anywhere among the United States forces down to companies and immediately locate the Gas Intelligence officer.
Intelligence Division. This work was started by Lieutenant Colonel Goss within a month after he reported in October, 1917. The Intelligence Division developed the publication of numerous occasional pamphlets and also a weekly gas bulletin. So extensive was the work of this Division that three mimeograph machines were kept constantly going. The weekly bulletin received very flattering notice from the British Assistant Chief of Gas Service in the Field. He stated that it contained a great deal of information he was unable to get from any other source.
Among other work undertaken by this Intelligence Division was the compilation of a History of the Chemical Warfare Service in France. This alone involved a lot of work. In order that this history might be truly representative, about three months before the Armistice both moving and still pictures were taken of actual battle conditions, as well as of numerous works along the Service of Supplies.
Without going into further detail it is sufficient to say that when the Armistice was signed there were available some 200 still pictures, and some 8,000 feet of moving picture films. Steps were immediately taken to have this work continued along definite lines to give a complete and continuous history of the Chemical Warfare Service in France in all its phases.
The intelligence work of the Gas Service, while parallel to a small extent with the General Intelligence Service of the A. E. F., had to spread to a far greater extent in order to get the technical details of research, manufacture, development, proving, and handling poisonous gases in the field. It included also obtaining information at the seats of Government of the Allies, as well as from the enemy and other foreign sources.
The most conspicuous intelligence work done along these lines was by Lieutenant Colonel J. E. Zanetti, who was made Chemical Warfare liaison officer with the French in October, 1917. He gathered together and forwarded through the Headquarters of the Chemical Warfare Service to the United States more information concerning foreign gases, and foreign methods of manufacturing and handling them, than was sent from all other sources combined. By his personality, energy and industry he obtained the complete confidence of the French and British. This confidence was of the utmost importance in enabling him to get information which could have been obtained in no other way. Suffice to say that in the 13 months he was liaison officer with the French during the war, he prepared over 750 reports, some of them very technical and of great length.
As a whole, the Intelligence Division was one of the most successful parts of the Chemical Warfare Service. Starting 2½ years after the British and French, the weekly bulletin and occasional papers sent out by the Chemical Warfare Service on chemical warfare matters came to be looked upon as the best available source for chemical warfare information, not alone by our own troops but also by the British.