America's Munitions 1917-1918

by Benedict Crowell; United States. War Department

Prior to the entry of America in the war our overseas observers had been collecting information bearing upon gas warfare, referring the facts so obtained to the Ordnance Department in Washington, where the information was turned over to Lieut. Col. E. J. W. Ragsdale, who was then in charge of the Trench Warfare Section.

In the early days of our belligerency it was seen that we should need a plant for filling artillery shell with toxic gases. The Government in the fall of 1917 bought a large tract of land near Aberdeen, Md., to be an artillery proving ground. Approximately 3,400 acres of this reservation, about one-tenth of it in area, was set aside as the site for the gas shell-filling plant. This reservation was known as Edgewood, and the plant erected on the site was called the Edgewood Arsenal. Work started on the construction of the arsenal on November 1, 1917.

None of the toxic gases in use in Europe, except chlorine and small amounts of phosgene, had ever been commercially prepared in the United States. It was the original intention to interest existing chemical firms in the manufacture of these gases; but there were many difficulties in the way of such a project, not the least of which was the ruling of the Director General of Railways that such products as poison gas be transported only on special trains.

Also we discovered that the private chemical companies were loath to undertake such manufacture. The exhaustive investigations necessary before quantity methods of manufacture could be devised would be uncertain and expensive. There would be great danger to the lives of those employed in such work. Many of the private concerns were already crowded with war work. Finally, the new plant equipment which must be set up would be worth nothing when the war ended, since the manufacture of such gases would be limited to the period of hostilities. These and other considerations explain the reluctance of the commercial chemical industry to undertake the production of war gases.

Consequently the Government was forced to adopt the plan of building various chemical plants at the Edgewood Arsenal in connection with the filling plant. By December 1, 1917, it had been decided to build at Edgewood a chlorpicrin plant and a phosgene plant. The contracts were immediately let, and the work was pushed through the rigorous winter of 1917-18.

In March, 1918, the Edgewood project was taken from the Trench Warfare Section of the Ordnance Department and made an independent division under the command of Col. Wm. H. Walker. In June, 1918, the Chemical Warfare Service was organized, and the Edgewood Arsenal was transferred to it. Gen. W. L. Sibert, Director of the Gas Service, took charge of the activities of the arsenal in May prior to the official transfer.

Chlorine, the raw material for the manufacture of which is common salt, was one of the principal materials required in the gas-production program. Although chlorine was a standard product in the United States prior to the war, it was soon seen that we had an inadequate commercial supply to meet the requirements of our proposed gas offensive. Chlorine was used not only by itself, but it was also the active agent in the manufacture of nearly all the other toxic gases which we required. Consequently we decided to build a Government chlorine plant with two 50-ton units, giving a daily capacity of 100 tons of liquid chlorine. The ground for this plant at Edgewood was broken on May 11, 1918, and the actual production of chlorine begun on September 1.

In July, 1917, the Germans introduced the so-called mustard gas. It was immediately realized that for certain purposes of fighting this chemical was the most effective product so far employed, and a large number of Government experts here at once concentrated their energies in developing methods for its manufacture on a large scale. Not only were the uniformed experimenters busy at the Gas Service's American University Camp, at Washington, D. C., but experimental units were established at the plant of the Dow Chemical Co., at Midland, Mich., at the plant of Zinsser & Co., Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y., and at the Government plant which had been started by the Trench Warfare Section, at Cleveland, Ohio.

Eventually it was decided to erect a large plant at Edgewood for the manufacture of mustard gas. Not until April, 1918, however, did we feel that we possessed sufficient knowledge and information to justify the construction of a mustard-gas plant on a large scale. France and England also were long in working out satisfactory methods of mustard-gas production. We began to make mustard in June, and continued with rapidly increasing output until the signing of the armistice.