Part 10

The new methods and devices in gas warfare which were developed by the great corps of scientists and laboratory experts attached to the American University Experiment Station were given practical trials at Lakehurst, where they were tested under conditions approximating as nearly as possible those of actual warfare. Here experiments were carried out to determine the value of gas-shells bursting in the air instead of by impact, the value of mixing toxic or lachrymatory gas with shrapnel, the value of 14-inch naval shell filled with a combination of high explosive and toxic substance, and the value of clouds of poison-smoke. Had the war continued, I imagine that the results of some of these experiments would have given the Germans the surprise of their lives.

Though the gas production of Edgewood Arsenal from August to November, 1918, increased from 450 to 675 tons a week, and though the filling-plant had a weekly capacity of nearly 1,000 tons, less than 100 tons of gas was actually filled into shell weekly. This unfortunate state of affairs was due to the failure of the Ordnance Department to supply enough, or nearly enough, shell and boosters to keep pace with the production of gas. In other words, there was far more gas than there were shell to put it in, and far more shell than there were boosters for them. During the early summer of 1918, large quantities of this surplus gas were shipped overseas and there loaded into shell, but later instructions were received to stop all shipments in bulk except a limited amount of chlorine. From that time on, the production of gas was limited by the number of shell and booster available, because it is impossible to store toxic-gases in any large quantities. In fact, at all times after the manufacture of poison-gases began in the United States, the supply of such materials was not only in excess of the supply of shell and booster, but the gas-plants could not be operated to their full capacity because there was no way of utilizing the maximum output.

Do you remember how often, during the months immediately following our entrance into the great conflict, one heard the assertion made that American inventive genius would eventually produce a weapon so dreadful, so potent, that it would end the war because flesh and blood would be unable to withstand it? It was asserted, with a wealth of circumstantial detail, that Mr. Edison had been locked up for weeks in his New Jersey laboratory perfecting a device for the wholesale slaughter of the Huns which would startle the world. But, as the war continued on its bloody course, the public faith in inventors gradually waned and the American people settled down to a realization that victory could be achieved only by man-power, munitions, and food. Yet the persons who talked so glibly of some startling discovery which would paralyze the efforts of the enemy and abruptly end the war little realized how near to the truth their imaginations led them—_for the government actually had in its possession the secret of a weapon so terrible that, had it been used, it would probably have ended the war_.

The story of how the secret came into the possession of the government is a curious one. Years ago a student of chemistry, then living in a foreign country, while carrying on a series of laboratory experiments, stumbled upon a chemical combination which almost cost him his life. It was a compound never before made, or, at least, never recorded. Later the chemist came to the United States, but it was not until he read of the use of toxic-gases by the Germans that he recalled his all but fatal experiment of many years before. He kept silence, however, until America’s entry into the war, when he imparted his formula to the government. The chemist’s assertions of what his compound could accomplish were at first received with considerable scepticism, but this scepticism abruptly disappeared when the reports from the Research Division of the Chemical Warfare Service at American University, where the formula was developed, were received. So appalling was its nature, indeed, that the War Department at first refused to permit the use of the weapon thus strangely placed in its hand on the ground that the nation using it would be guilty of inhumanity. But in July, 1918, following the wholesale use of mustard-gas against our troops by the Germans, the scruples of those in power disappeared and orders were given that quantity production of the new toxic material should immediately be begun.

This super-gas, as it has been termed, was known to the Chemical Warfare Service as G-34, though it was more commonly referred to as methyl, a name which was given it because it in no way suggested the true character of this newest and deadliest of poisons. It has also been dubbed “Lewisite” because it was developed from the original formula to a stage which made it practicable for military use by Professor W. Lee Lewis, chief of the Defense Department of the Research Division of the Chemical Warfare Service. Methyl, or Lewisite, is an oily, amber-colored liquid, with an odor which vaguely suggests that of the geranium. It is somewhat more volatile than mustard-gas, being comparable in that respect to benzol. Instead of being inoffensive at first contact, like mustard, it starts an acute pain which quickly becomes unendurable. A single drop spilled on the hand will penetrate to the blood, attacking first the kidneys, then the heart and lungs. It hardens the cell-tissues of the lungs and causes simultaneously strangulation and a weakening of the heart which result in speedy and violent death. If taken into the lungs by inhalation in any perceptible quantity it kills almost instantly, the victim dying in terrible agony. _It is estimated to be seventy-two times deadlier than mustard-gas._

The manufacture of methyl was carried on in an abandoned motor-car plant at Willoughby, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, the work being in charge of Colonel F. M. Dorsey, who, before the war, was a chemical engineer in the employ of the General Electric Company. Every step in the process of manufacture was enveloped in the most profound secrecy. Every workman who entered the stockade surrounding the plant did so under a voluntary agreement not to leave the eleven-acre space until the war was won, though this arrangement was later modified upon the men promising upon their honor not to divulge the nature of the product or even the existence of the plant. All mail was censored and even the use of the word Willoughby in correspondence was forbidden, letters for the officers and men connected with the plant being addressed to a lock-box in Cleveland. There was no recreation, the work was hard and danger was always present, the men working with their gas-masks constantly at the “alert” position. Though none of the masks designed for protection against chlorpicrin, phosgene, or mustard were of the slightest avail against methyl, the safety of the workers was ensured by specially designed masks and clothing. Had we used methyl against the Germans, however, it is extremely unlikely that they would have succeeded in devising a means of protection against it—at least in time to save themselves.

The methyl, as manufactured, was loaded into both shell and drums. The shell, of 155mm. calibre, contained about ten pounds of the liquid, which becomes a gas upon contact with the air; the drums, which held from 350 to 400 pounds each, were to be dropped from airplanes. It is estimated that half a hundred of these drums, judiciously distributed, would exterminate the entire population of Manhattan Island. When the Armistice was signed methyl was being produced at the rate of approximately ten tons a day and the plant at Willoughby was two months ahead of its schedule, orders having been given that 3,000 tons should be in France, ready for use, by March 1, 1919. It was well for Germany that she quit when she did. Had methyl been turned loose against the Huns, civilization would have had its revenge on the assassins of the _Lusitania_, on the fiends who ravaged France and raped Belgium.

Within forty-eight hours after the signing of the Armistice the work of dismantling the plant at Willoughby had begun, and ten weeks later its demolition was complete. A special train, running at night under heavy guard, carried the hundreds of tons of methyl which had already been produced, in iron containers, to Edgewood Arsenal, where it was transferred to a steamer, taken out to sea, and lowered into three miles of salt water. But the formulæ and processes for manufacture still exist, locked away in the great vaults of the War College in Washington, so, if the nation is ever again forced to take up arms, it has at hand the most terrible weapon ever devised for the purpose of wholesale slaughter.

Notwithstanding the fact that toxic-gases had been in almost constant use by the European belligerents for two years before the United States entered the conflict, the declaration of war found us totally unprepared to commence the manufacture of the gas-defense equipment with which every soldier going overseas must be provided. Such an article as a gas-mask had never been produced in this country, the sum total of American knowledge on the subject having been obtained from the masks brought back as souvenirs by war correspondents and displayed in shop-windows and from the pictures in the illustrated papers. Incredible as it may seem, in view of the enormously important rôle which gas was playing on the European battle-fields, only a single American army officer, Major L. P. Williamson of the Medical Corps, had studied the subject of gas defense, and he had done so on his own initiative. Thus it came about that within a few days after the declaration of war, the military authorities, confronted by the imperative necessity of providing our expeditionary forces with gas-defense equipment, were conducting a frantic search among the various scientific departments of the government to discover one possessing the necessary facilities for handling the problem. The Bureau of Chemistry did not have the personnel to carry on the work and the Department of Agriculture did not have the necessary apparatus, but the Bureau of Mines at Pittsburg possessed some experience in kindred problems arising from mine-rescue work, and it also had adequate facilities for handling the experimental work involved. It was, therefore, selected for the purpose. The research facilities at Pittsburg soon proved inadequate, however, and in the summer of 1917 there was taken over the American University Experiment Station, near Washington, where virtually all of the research work connected with the numerous branches of the Chemical Warfare Service was conducted. The Research Division, instead of being dismissed with passing mention, is deserving of a chapter to itself, the services which it performed in the development of gases, protective equipment, and manufacturing processes having been of enormous assistance in the prosecution of the war.

When, in May, 1917, the need arose for providing masks for the first contingent of the American Expeditionary Forces, the War Department appealed to the Bureau of Mines to provide 25,000 masks within three weeks. Emboldened by the valor of ignorance, the officials of the bureau jauntily undertook the task, making arrangements for the fabric to be produced by a rubber company at Akron, Ohio, and for the masks to be assembled at a factory in Brooklyn. Instead of producing 25,000 masks in three weeks, however, the best they could do was to produce 20,000 in two months. These were immediately shipped overseas. But the rubberized fabric of which they were made was easily penetrated by chlorpicrin vapor, therefore affording very little protection, and they were returned unused. “The only thing about them which is satisfactory,” General Pershing is said to have remarked, “is the strap around the neck.” But the experience thus gained opened the eyes of the authorities to the gravity of the problem, so that when, in July, 1917, the army itself took up the manufacture of gas-masks, it was with a more complete realization of the magnitude of the task by which it was confronted. One of the first steps taken by the War Department, upon assuming charge of mask production, was to give a colonel’s commission to Mr. Bradley Dewey, an officer of the American Can Company, and to place him in command of the Gas Defense Service, as it was then called, but which, upon the organization of the Chemical Warfare Service, became the Gas Defense Division. Thanks to the energy, resourcefulness, and business ability of Colonel Dewey, backed by the efficiency and enthusiasm of the great organization which he created, the American forces in France were protected against gas by masks which, as proved by actual field tests, _gave twenty times the protection afforded by those worn by the Germans_.

It is essential that a mask, or respirator, to use its correct name, should remove all traces of gas or smoke from the air before it reaches the eyes, nose, or mouth of the wearer. The principal features of the mask of the “Box Respirator” type, as used by the American forces throughout the war were:

(_a_) A canister of metal containing both neutralizing and absorptive chemicals and a smoke filter. The air to be breathed passes in through an inlet check valve and through chemicals and smoke filter.

(_b_) A flexible rubber-hose through which the purified air passes from the canister to the face-piece.

(_c_) A face-piece, effectively covering the eyes, cheeks, lower forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, provided with eye-pieces permitting vision and a harness to hold the face-piece in place.

(_d_) An exhalation valve which affords easy discharge of exhaled air and at the same time instantly closes upon inspiration.

(_e_) A knapsack slung from the neck or shoulder, in which the mask and canister are carried.

In the box respirator type, the inhaled air, passing through the canister and hose, went directly into the mouth through a rubber mouth-piece, which in this manner offered protection to the lungs in the event of the face-piece being damaged or not fitting. The mask was also provided with a spring and rubber clamp which closed the nostrils and compelled the wearer to breathe entirely through the mouth.

While the box respirator was in process of manufacture, much thought and effort was devoted to developing a mask which would combine with its safety and good vision a greater measure of comfort, it being particularly desired to eliminate the nose-clip and the mouth-piece, which are the box respirator’s most uncomfortable features. The starting-point in these attempts was the French Tissot mask, several modifications of which were put into production. The best mask of this type was designed, curiously enough, by a New York corset manufacturer, Major Waldemar Kops, whose name was given to his invention, which is known as the K.T. or Kops-Tissot mask. One hundred and eighty-nine thousand of the K.T. masks, which were radically different and far more comfortable than the box respirator type, had been manufactured when the Armistice was signed. The total number of masks produced by the Gas Defense Division was more than three and a half million.

The mask-makers were confronted at an early period with the problem of finding a charcoal of sufficient density to absorb the toxic fumes, the wood-charcoal which was used in most of the French and British masks being very far from satisfactory. After considerable experimentation it was discovered that a charcoal having sufficient absorptivity could be produced from the shell of the cocoanut, whereupon officers were despatched to the Hawaiian Islands and the British West Indies to arrange for large shipments of cocoanut-shells to the United States. The supply thus obtained proved entirely inadequate, however, whereupon the Chemical Warfare Service issued an appeal to the American public to save the shells of Brazil nuts, hickory-nuts, and walnuts, the pits of peaches, prunes, apricots, and cherries, and the seeds of dates, the collection of the pits and shells being undertaken by the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and kindred organizations. Placards and receptacles were put in public places throughout the country and almost immediately fruit-pits began to pour in by the ton, every family making it a point of honor to save its pits “for the boys fighting overseas,” as they proudly put it. There were numberless cases of old ladies who sent in by mail a few peach-pits which they had conscientiously saved and which they had cleaned as carefully as though they were jewels. As it required 7 pounds of pits and shells to make the charcoal for a single mask, 3,500 tons were used in the million masks which we sent overseas.

Because it was realized that the slightest flaw or imperfection in a finished mask might well mean the death in agony of an American soldier, an extremely rigid system of inspection was devised. It was discovered, for example, that all thread holes must be filled with gelatine, in order to prevent the gas from being carried through by the thread; that wrinkles in the band around the face and head permitted gas to leak inside the face-piece; that the mouth-piece must be reinforced with bushings so that the soldier would not bite it in the excitement of a gas attack and thereby cut off his own breath. Only the most painstaking and conscientious women—usually those having husbands or sons at the front—were chosen for the work of final inspection, and, even after they had examined each mask in every detail it was again inspected over a bright light in a dark booth for small pinholes which might have escaped the ordinary visual inspection. And, in order to make the inspectors doubly careful, they were frequently required to go into the gas-chambers wearing masks chosen at random from those they themselves had passed. To obtain absolute results as to the protection afforded by a mask, however, breathing tests in a gas-chamber had to be employed. This testing was done by enlisted men of the Gas Defense Division, who spent many hours each day testing masks and canisters in the gas-chambers, sometimes working in a concentration of phosgene as high as 1 per cent. Without hope of glory or promotion, without the lure of decorations, these men day after day, month after month, risked their lives in order that their fellows at the front might have a better chance to live. Though they wore silver instead of gold chevrons, they are as deserving of thanks and admiration as the men who broke the Hindenburg line or battled in the Forest of the Argonne.

Though the earlier gas-masks were manufactured in Brooklyn, and later in Philadelphia, the operations of the division expanded so rapidly that by November, 1917, it became evident that it was no longer practicable for a commercial organization to carry on the manufacture of this new and vitally important article of equipment in the quantities demanded by the new army programme, and it was consequently deemed advisable to establish a government-owned and controlled organization. In pursuance of this policy, the work of mask manufacture was transferred in November to Long Island City, the plant expanding in seven months from a floor space of 157,000 square feet to 1,000,000 square feet, or 23 acres. When the Armistice was signed the Gas Defense Division had a personnel of 274 officers, 2,353 enlisted men, and 13,000 civilians. Much of the work was done by women, and, as a traitor could have worked irreparable damage by tampering with the masks, the employees were selected only after the closest investigation by the Military Intelligence Division of their antecedents and affiliations. From the very outset the officers in charge of mask production conducted a campaign for efficiency based on patriotism. The walls of the factory were hung with copies of a poster depicting a soldier dying from gas as the result of a defective mask; it bore the grim and suggestive title “The Last Inspection.” Lectures and motion-pictures were used to emphasize the horrors of death by gas. And everywhere were placards bearing the admonition: “Remember that _your_ carelessness may cost the life of _your_ husband, _your_ son, _your_ brother.”

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It is not generally appreciated, I think, that gas warfare has tactics all its own. For example: In preparing for an infantry attack the Germans were accustomed to first concentrate all their guns on our batteries. After a brief but intensive bombardment of our artillery positions a portion of the German batteries would abruptly switch their fire onto our infantry, using, of course, a large proportion of gas-shell. Meanwhile the German infantry officers had been notified as to the kinds of gas their batteries were using, and where. Hence, when the German storming troops swept forward they did not wear masks, for their officers knew that a non-persistent gas had been used against the point which was to be attacked. Our troops, being ignorant of this, however, had donned their masks when the first gas-shell came over, and were, therefore, both fatigued and hampered when they were called upon to resist the assault.

And here is another example of gas tactics: Word having reached the French that the Germans were planning to attack a certain sector near Rheims, the troops holding this portion of the line were quietly withdrawn from the front trenches the night before the attack was to take place, a few autoriflemen being left to simulate a defense. Before the troops departed, however, they placed mustard-gas shells, which had been fitted by the artillery with electrically controlled fuses, in the dugouts. The French gunners had, meanwhile, ascertained to a foot the range of the trenches which were being evacuated. At daybreak came the expected German attack. As the helmeted figures came swarming across No Man’s Land in the dim light of early dawn the few remaining Frenchmen set off green rockets as a signal to the artillery and took to their heels. No sooner had the Germans occupied the evacuated trenches, therefore, than the French batteries turned loose on them a hurricane of steel, putting down a barrage which completely cut them off from their own lines. The Germans naturally sought shelter from this shell-storm in the deserted dugouts. At about the same moment a French artillery officer pressed his finger upon a button, an electric current leaped along a buried wire, the shells in the dugouts were blown asunder, liberating the poison-gas—and the Germans perished almost to a man.