Training
Training in Gas Defense. In the latter part of October seventeen young engineer officers, who had just arrived in France, were assigned to the Gas Service and were promptly sent to British Gas Schools for training in mask inspection, salvage and repair and in training men to wear masks and take other necessary precautions against gas in the field. It was also necessary at this time to establish gas training in the First Division, and Captain Boothby was assigned to that work.
Fig. 9.—Destroying Mustard Gas on the Battle Field.
It is important to note that the Gas Service had to begin operations immediately upon its organization although it had almost no facilities of any kind to work with. At one and the same time it was necessary to decide upon the kinds of masks to be used and then to obtain them; to decide upon methods of training troops in gas defense and start at once to do it; to decide upon gases to be used and manufactured in the United States and then obtain and send the necessary data and finally to decide what weapons gas troops were to use and to purchase those weapons, since none of them existed in the United States. Worse still no one in the United States was taking any interest in them.
New Mask. About November 1, Major Karl Connell of the Medical Department, National Guard of New York, reported for duty in response to a cablegram that had been sent asking for him by name. It was intended to send him to a British School to learn the art of teaching gas defense. However, learning after a short talk with him that he had been interested in making masks for administering anæsthesia, there was at once turned over to him samples of all the masks in use by both the Allies and the Germans, with a view to getting his ideas for a new mask. Within two or three hours he suggested a new mask having a metal face piece with sponge rubber against the face and with a canister to be carried on the back of the head.
At that early date it was realized that a new mask must be invented which would be far more comfortable and give better vision than the British respirators adopted for use. Connell, thirty-six hours after reporting, had so far developed his idea that he was sent to Paris to make the first model, which he succeeded in doing in about three weeks. This first mask was good enough to risk testing in a high concentration of chlorine and while it leaked to some extent it indicated that the idea was sound. The problem then was to perfect the mask and determine how it could be produced commercially on the large scale necessary to equip an army.
Since the British at this time and practically throughout the war were much ahead of the French in all phases of gas warfare, Connell was sent to London. There he succeeded in getting additional models in such shape that one of them was sent to the United States during the first few days of January, 1918. Connell’s work and experiments were continued so successfully that after a model had been submitted to the General Staff, as well as to General Pershing himself, one thousand were ordered to be made early in May with a view to an extensive field test preparatory to their adoption for general use in the United States Army.
In this connection, during November, 1917, a letter was written to the United States stating that while the Gas Service in France insisted on the manufacture of British respirators exactly as the British were making them, they desired to have experiments pushed on a more comfortable mask to meet the future needs of the Army.
The following four principles were set down in that letter: (a) That the mask must give protection and that experience had shown that suitable protection could only be obtained by drawing the air through a box filled with chemicals and charcoal. (b) That there must be clear vision and that experience to date indicated that the Tissot method of bringing the inspired air over the eyepieces was by far the best, (c) That the mask must be as comfortable as compatible with reasonable protection, and that this meant the mouthpiece and noseclip must be omitted. (d) That the mask must be as nearly fool proof as it could be made. That is, it should be of quick and accurate adjustment, in the dark or in the trenches, and be difficult to disarrange or injure once in position.
Gas Training and Battle of Picardy Plains. On March 21, 1918, as is known to everyone, the Germans began their great drive from Cambrai across the Picardy Plains to Amiens. While the battle was expected it came as a complete surprise so far as the tactics used, and the extent and force of the attack, were concerned. Lieutenant Colonel G. N. Lewis, who had been sent about March 1 to British Gas Schools, and had been assigned to one of the schools run by the Canadians, was thus just on the edge of the attack. This gave him an opportunity to actually observe some of that attack and to learn from eye-witnesses a great deal more. The school, of course, was abandoned hurriedly and the students ordered back to their stations. Lewis submitted two brief reports covering facts bearing on the use of gas and smoke by the Germans. These reports exhibited such a grasp of gas and smoke battle tactics that he was immediately ordered to headquarters as assistant on the Defense side of gas work, that is, on training in gas defense. Up to that time no one had been able to organize the Defensive side of gas work in the way it was felt it must be organized if it were to prove a thorough success. A month later he was put at the head of the Gas Defense Section, and in two months he had put the Defense Division on a sound basis. He was then ordered to the United States to help organize Gas Defense Training there.
Fig. 10.—Close Burst of a Gas Shell.
The 6th Marines in the Sommediene Sector
near Verdun, April 30, 1918.
Cabled Report on Picardy Battle. Based partly on Colonel Lewis’s written and oral reports, and also on information contained in Intelligence dispatches and the newspapers, a cablegram of more than 300 words was drafted reciting the main features of the battle so far as they pertained to the use of gas. This cablegram ended with the statement that “the above illustrates the tremendous importance of comfort in a mask” and that “the future mask must omit the mouthpiece and noseclip.”
Keeping the General Staff Informed of Work. In the early part of May, 1918, the Americans arrived in the vicinity of Montdidier, south of Amiens, on the most threatened point of the western front. It was on May 18, 1918, that the Americans attacked, took, and held against several counter-attacks the town of Cantigny. Shortly afterward they were very heavily shelled with mustard gas and suffered in one night nearly 900 casualties. Investigation showed that these casualties were due to a number of causes more or less usual, but also to the fact that the men had to wear the mask 12 to 15 hours if they were to escape being gassed. Such long wearing of the British mask with its mouthpiece and noseclip is practically an impossibility and scores became gassed simply through exhaustion and inability to wear the mask.
An inspector from General Headquarters in reporting on supplies and equipment in the First Division, stated that one of the most urgent needs was a more comfortable mask. The First Division suggested a mask on the principles of the new French mask which was then becoming known and which omitted the mouthpiece and noseclip. The efforts of the American Gas Service in France to perfect a mask without a mouthpiece and noseclip were so well known and so much appreciated that they did not even call upon the Gas Service for remark. The assistant to the Chief of Staff who drew up the memorandum to the Chief simply said the matter was being attended to by the Gas Service. This illustrates the value of keeping the General Staff thoroughly informed of what is being done to meet the needs of the troops on the firing line.
Then, as always, it was urged that a reasonably good mask was far more desirable than the delay necessary to get a more perfect one. Based on these experiences with mask development, the authors are convinced that the whole tendency of workers in general, in laboratories far from the front, is to over-estimate the value of perfect protection based on laboratory standards. It is difficult for laboratory workers to realize that battle conditions always require a compromise between perfection and getting something in time for the battle. It was early evident to the Gas Service in France that we were losing, and would continue to lose, vastly more men through removal of masks of the British type, due to discomfort and exhaustion, than we would from a more comfortable but less perfect mask. In other words when protection becomes so much of a burden that the average man cannot or will not stand it, it is high time to find out what men will stand, and then supply it even at the expense of occasional casualties. Protection in battle is always relative. The only perfect protection is to stay at home on the farm. The man who cannot balance protection against legitimate risks has no business passing on arms, equipment or tactics to be used at the Front.
As early as September, 1917, gas training was begun in the First Division at Condrecourt. This training school became the First Corps School. Later a school was established at Langres known as the Army Gas School while two others known as the Second and Third Corps Gas Schools were established elsewhere. The first program of training for troops in France provided for a total period of three months. Of this, two days were allowed the Gas Service. Later this was reduced to six hours, notwithstanding a vigorous protest by the Gas Service. However, following the first gas attacks against the Americans with German projectors in March, 1918, followed a little later by extensive attacks with mustard gas, the A. E. F. Gas Defense School was established at the Experimental Field. Arrangements were made for the accommodation of 200 officers for a six-day course. The number instructed actually averaged about 150, due to the feeling among Division Commanders that they could not spare quite so many officers as were required to furnish 200 per week.
This school was conducted under the Commandant of Hanlon Field, Lieutenant Colonel Hildebrand, by Captain Bush of the British Service. This Gas Defense School became one of the most efficient schools in the A. E. F., and was developing methods of teaching that were highly successful in protecting troops in the field.
Failure of German Gas. The losses of the Americans from German gas attacks fluctuated through rather wide limits. There were times in the early days during training when this reached 65 per cent of the total casualties. There were other times in battle, when due to extremely severe losses from machine gun fire in attacks, that the proportion of gas losses to all other forms of casualties was very small. On the whole the casualties from gas reached 27.3 of all casualties. This small percentage was due solely to the fact that when the Americans made their big attacks at San Mihiel and the Argonne, the German supply of gas had run very low. This was particularly true of the supply of mustard gas.
Fig. 11.—German Gas Alarms.
Fries was at the front visiting the Headquarters of the First Army and the Headquarters of the 1st, 3d, and 5th Corps from two days before the beginning of the battle of the Argonne to four days afterwards. He watched reports of the battle on the morning of the attack at the Army Headquarters and later at the 1st, 5th and 3d Corps headquarters in the order named. No reports of any gas casualties were received. This situation continued throughout the day. It was so remarkable that he told the Chief of Staff he could attribute the German failure to use gas to only one of two possible conditions; first, the enemy was out of gas; second, he was preparing some master stroke. The first proved to be the case as examination after the Armistice of German shell dumps captured during the advance revealed less than 1 per cent of mustard gas shell. Even under these circumstances the Germans caused quite a large number of gas casualties during the later stages of the fighting in the Argonne-Meuse sector.
Evidently the Germans, immediately after the opening of the attack, or more probably some days before, began to gather together all available mustard gas and other gases along the entire western battle front, and ship them to the American sector. This conclusion seems justified because the enemy never had a better chance to use gas effectively than he did the first three or four days of the Argonne fight, and knowing this fact he certainly would never have failed to use the gas if it had been available. Had he possessed 50 per cent of his artillery shell in the shape of mustard gas, our losses in the Argonne-Meuse fight would have been at least 100,000 more than it was. Indeed, it is more than possible we would never have succeeded in taking Sedan and Mezieres in the fall of 1918.
Officers’ Training Camp. The first lot of about 100 officers were sent to France in July, 1918, with only a few days’ training, and in some cases with no training at all. Accordingly, arrangements were made to train these men in the duties of the soldier in the ranks, and then as officers. Their training in gas defense and offense followed a month of strenuous work along the above mentioned lines.
This camp was established near Hanlon (Experimental) Field, at a little town called Choignes. The work as laid out included squad and company training for the ordinary soldier, each officer taking turns in commanding the company at drill. They were given work in map reading as well as office and company administration.
This little command was a model of cleanliness and military discipline, and attracted most favorable comment from staff officers on duty at General Headquarters less than two miles distant. Just before the Armistice arrangements were made to transfer this work to Chignon, about 25 miles southeast of Tours, where ample buildings and grounds were available to carry out not alone training of officers but of soldiers along the various lines of work they would encounter, from the handling of a squad, to being Chief Gas Officer of a Division.
Educating the Army in the Use of Gas. As has been remarked before, the Medical Department in starting the manufacture of gas masks and other defensive appliances, and the Bureau of Mines in starting researches into poisonous gases as well as defensive materials, were the only official bodies who early interested themselves in gas warfare. Due to this early work of the Bureau of Mines and the Medical Department in starting mask manufacture as well as training in the wearing of gas masks, the defensive side of gas warfare became known throughout the army very far in advance of the offensive side. On the other hand, since the Ordnance Department, which was at first charged with the manufacture of poisonous gases, made practically no move for months, the offensive use of gas did not become known among United States troops until after they landed in France.
Moreover, no gas shell was allowed to be fired by the artillery in practice even in France, so that all the training in gas the artillery could get until it went into the line was defensive, with lectures on the offensive.
The work of raising gas troops was not begun until the late fall of 1917 and as their work is highly technical and dangerous, they were not ready to begin active work on the American front until June, 1918.
By that time the army was getting pretty well drilled in gas defense and despite care in that respect were getting into a frame of mind almost hostile to the use of gas by our own troops. Among certain staff officers, as well as some commanders of fighting units, this hostility was outspoken and almost violent.
Much the hardest, most trying and most skillful work required of Chemical Warfare Service officers was to persuade such Staffs and Commanders that gas was useful and get them to permit of a demonstration on their front. Repeatedly Chemical Warfare Service officers on Division staffs were told by officers in the field that they had nothing to do with gas in offense, that they were simply defensive officers. And yet no one else knew anything about the use of gas. Gradually, however, by constantly keeping before the General Staff and others the results of gas attacks by the Germans, by the British, by the French, and by ourselves, headway was made toward getting our Armies to use gas effectively in offense.
But so slow was this work that it was necessary to train men particularly how to appeal to officers and commanders on the subject. Indeed the following phrase, used first by Colonel Mayo-Smith, became a watchword throughout the Service in the latter part of the war—“Chemical Warfare Service officers have got to go out and sell gas to the Army.” In other words we had to adopt much the same means of making gas known that the manufacturer of a new article adopts to make a thing manufactured by him known to the public.
Fig. 12.—A Typical Shell Dump near the Front.
This work was exceedingly trying, requiring great skill, great patience and above all a most thorough knowledge of the subject. As illustrating some of these difficulties, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (Operations) of a certain American Corps refused to consider a recommendation to use gas on a certain point in the battle of the Argonne unless the gas officer would state in writing that if the gas was so used it could not possibly result in the casualty of a single American soldier. Such an attitude was perfectly absurd.
The Infantry always expects some losses from our own high explosive when following a barrage, and though realizing the tremendous value of gas, this staff officer refused to use it without an absolute guarantee in writing that it could not possibly injure a single American soldier. Another argument often used was that a gas attack brought retaliatory fire on the front where the gas was used. Such objectors were narrow enough not to realize that the mere fact of heavy retaliation indicated the success of the gas on the enemy for everyone knows an enemy does not retaliate against a thing which does not worry him.
But on the other hand, when the value of gas troops had become fully known, the requests for them were so great that a single platoon had to be assigned to brigades, and sometimes even to whole Divisions. Thus it fell to the Lieutenants commanding these platoons to confer with Division Commanders and Staffs, to recommend how, when and where to use gas, and do so in a manner which would impress the Commanding General and the Staff sufficiently to allow them to undertake the job. That no case of failure has been reported is evidence of the splendid ability of these officers on duty with the gas troops. Efficiency in the big American battles was demanded to an extent unheard of in peace, and had any one of these officers made a considerable failure, it certainly would have been reported and Fries would have heard of it.
Equally hard, and in many cases even more so, was the work of the gas officers on Division, Corps and Army Staffs, who handled the training in Divisions, and who also were required to recommend the use of gas troops, the use of gas in artillery shell and in grenades, and the use of smoke by the infantry in attack. However, the success of the Chemical Warfare Service in the field with these Staff officers was just as great as with the Regiment.
To the everlasting credit of those Staff Officers and the Officers of the Gas Regiment from Colonel Atkisson down, both Staff Gas officers and officers of the Gas Regiment worked together in the fullest harmony with the single object of defeating the Germans.