CHEMICAL WARFARE MATERIALS
The armistice and the order to begin demobilization played havoc for a time with the Chemical Warfare Service, for the first assumption was that the use of poisonous gases in warfare had originated and been developed in, and would end with, the World War. On November 29, 1918, the Director of the Chemical Warfare Service received an official notice that “the amount of such [chemical warfare] equipment for the needs of the Army after the passing of the present emergency will be zero.” The gas-mask production division of the Chemical Warfare Service was a highly organized and highly efficient body, and so rapidly did it work after the armistice that it succeeded in dismantling its gas-mask manufacturing plants and selling almost all the machinery before Congress blocked the plan and, with new legislation, made the Chemical Warfare Service a permanent branch of the regular military establishment. The gas production division of the Service, however, was not so precipitate, and it retained the facilities acquired during the war for the production of poison gases and chemicals.
The Gas Defense Division, which produced the gas masks and other defensive equipment, largely did its own manufacturing; but it contracted extensively for the materials used in the manufacture. On the day of the armistice its outstanding contracts amounted to $5,000,000. By the end of the year 1918, or less than eight weeks later, these contracts had been reduced by terminations to about $150,000. The sales of surplus materials brought in about $8,000,000. The termination of the production of gas masks at the two great plants on Long Island was guided entirely by the best interests of the thousands of employees, not one of whom was discharged until one of the official employment agencies had found a place for him in commercial life. In six months the demobilization of this branch of the Chemical Warfare Service was complete.
So far as the employees were concerned, the demobilization of the gas-making industry was not a difficult problem. All the plants were owned by the Government, and most of the operatives were enlisted men in uniform. Moreover, for nearly a month before the armistice there had been almost a complete suspension of the manufacture of war gas, due to a shortage of shell to be filled with gas.
The War Department’s equipment for making gas consisted of the Edgewood Arsenal and a number of subsidiary plants located in various parts of the country. The Edgewood Arsenal was retained, at first in stand-by condition, with all machinery cleaned and oiled, all outdoor equipment housed in safe storage, and all surfaces subject to deterioration painted. The subsidiary plants, buildings, and equipment, were sold, principally to manufacturers of chemicals and dyes. The sales were conducted by the auction method, and the Government received good prices.
Even some of the experts in the Chemical Warfare Service accepted the common, but, as it proved, erroneous, opinion after the armistice that the great quantities of war gases accumulated by this nation and others during the war would be a dangerous menace as long as they were in storage, and that they would have to be destroyed, presumably by being dumped into the sea. These poisons were supposed to be so corrosive in their action that no metal containers would hold them long. Since large quantities of the war gases on hand after the armistice were loaded into steel shell, it was assumed that these shell and their contents would be a dead loss, except, perhaps, for some slight salvage value.
Events after the armistice seemed to strengthen this impression. Leakage, for instance, was undoubtedly occurring in the gas shell stored in our shell dumps in France; and it was dangerous for unmasked men to work around some of these dumps. An even more convincing demonstration of the instability of loaded gas projectiles was given accidentally at Edgewood Arsenal after the armistice. Among the war stocks there declared surplus was one consignment of 500,000 hand grenades loaded with stannic chloride, a smoke-producing chemical. These had been returned from France, and they were undoubtedly in poor condition. On the voyage from France the chemical had begun to eat holes through the metal of the grenades, and several thousand of the grenades had had to be thrown overboard. The Chemical Warfare Service sold these grenades to a chemical company. When a locomotive backed down to couple to the cars containing the grenades, the slight jar exploded fully half the missiles, and nobody could go near that sidetrack for two or three days.
This incident apparently showed the impermanency of war gases. Actually it demonstrated the impermanency only of stannic chloride, which is highly corrosive to metal; and stannic chloride, in the quantities produced, was a relatively unimportant war chemical. Nevertheless, in the fear that other more highly toxic gases would also corrode and eat through their containers, the Chemical Warfare Service dumped into the ocean some twenty tons of phosgene and a large quantity of mustard-gas shell. This was probably sheer waste, as it proved, because subsequent experimentation established the fact that the most deadly of the war gases could be safely stored for years if all water moisture were driven from the chemicals themselves and all air exhausted from the containers, leaving only the pure chemicals in contact with the metal of the containers. Corrosion was found to be due to the presence of moisture within the containers.
Nearly 1,400 tons of phosgene, chlorpicrin, mustard, and other deadly gases made during the war are now stored at Edgewood; and to-day, nearly three years after the armistice, their containers are still in almost perfect condition. It is estimated that they will not deteriorate in storage for at least ten years, a fact indicating that poison gases are as durable in storage as smokeless powder. There are also stored at Edgewood large quantities of loaded gas shell manufactured during the war. These are frequently inspected and tested, and the tests show that they are keeping well. The experts now estimate that loaded gas shell will exist in good condition as long as a battleship can give service, from the time of commissioning the ship to the time when it is declared obsolete.
Other reserves of chemical warfare equipment now stored at Edgewood include 51,000 Livens projectors, 88 trench mortars, 3,000,000 unfilled gas shell, and 700,000 unfilled hand grenades. There are also in storage over 2,000,000 gas masks and 1,000 tons of activated charcoal for use as a gas absorbent in the mask canisters. The masks are stored in hermetically sealed boxes, a method of preservation which, it is hoped, will protect the rubberized fabric from deterioration for years to come. Other stored supplies include protective suits, protective ointment, and gas alarm devices.