Part 10

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_.

[Illustration: MAN AND HORSE COMPLETELY PROTECTED AGAINST POISONOUS GAS.

In addition to the mask, the man is wearing an anti-mustard gas suit, gloves, and boots. The horse is provided with boots and a gas mask.]

[Illustration: TYPES OF GAS MASKS USED BY AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN ARMIES.

U. S. Navy Mask (obsolete). U. S. Navy Mask. U. S. C. E. Respirator. U. S. R. F. H. Respirator. U. S. H. T. Respirator. U. S. H. T. Respirator. U. S. Model 1919 Respirator.

British Black Veil Mask. British P. H. Helmet. British Box Respirator. French M. 2 Mask. French Tissot Art. Mask. French A. R. S. Mask.

German Late-type Mask. Russian Mask. Italian Mask. British Motor-Corps Mask. U. S. Rear Area Emergency Respirator. U. S. Connell Mask.]

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.

[Illustration: 1,500 TONS OF PEACH-PITS USED FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CHARCOAL FOR USE IN GAS MASKS.

The result of the appeal of the Gas Defense Division for nutshells and fruit-pits.]

[Illustration: TESTING RESPIRATORS OUTSIDE THE GAS CHAMBER.]

[Illustration: TESTING GAS MASKS INSIDE THE GAS CHAMBER.]

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.

[Illustration: ADVANCING UNDER GAS.

This photograph was not taken in real action but at the Army Gas School in France.]

[Illustration: TRAINING FOR GAS WARFARE.

Troops wearing gas masks charging in open order in practice at Long Island City.]

[Illustration: CUTTING THEIR WAY THROUGH BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS WHILE TRAINING WITH GAS MASKS.]

As the result of the experiments at American University, Lakehurst, and Edgewood, and the experiences of our troops in the field, several new gases of incredible deadliness were invented as well as numerous new methods of using them, many of which would certainly have been utilized had the war continued. But the League of Nations being still confined to paper, and universal disarmament being still in the distant future, it is as well, I feel, not to particularize about them. It is enough to say that, thanks to the work of the Chemical Warfare Service, there are stored away in the vaults of the War Department certain plans and formulas which, in the event of another war—which God forbid!—would give us a weapon of undreamed-of potency and terror. Speaking from first-hand knowledge, I can assure any potential enemies of the United States that the chemical warfare which we are prepared to wage should the necessity ever arise again would make our recent gas activities, vast as they were, seem like a joke.

IV

THE “Q. M. C.”

Some years ago there was exhibited at the Grand Salon in Paris an immense mural painting, intended, if I remember rightly, for one of the walls of the Panthéon. I think it was by Détaille, but of that I am not certain nor does it matter. The canvas, which reached from floor to ceiling, was of such vast dimensions that the gallery, huge as it is, did not permit of a satisfactory perspective; it was characterized, moreover, by such a wealth of detail that one might look at it from dawn to dusk and yet not grasp it all. So in attempting to depict, even in the sketchiest fashion, the operations and activities of the Quartermaster Corps, I find myself embarrassed by the same limitations. The composition is too vast for proper perspective, too rich in variety and detail to be grasped by the imagination. The best that I can hope to do, therefore, in the limited space at my disposal, is to hurry you along, like the guides who used to conduct visitors through the galleries of the Vatican in an hour, pointing out a picturesque feature here and calling your attention to something of interest there—touching only on the high spots, as it were.

To begin with, let me give you some conception of the subject’s magnitude and importance. The total cost of the war to the United States, plus the estimate of the amount which would be required to carry it on to July 1, 1919, was approximately $16,500,000,000, while the total expenditures and estimates of the Quartermaster Corps for the same period were something over $8,500,000,000. Thus it will be seen that _the expenditures and requirements of the Quartermaster Corps comprised more than half of the total expenditures and requirements of the entire army_. The purchases which it made were remarkable not only for their unprecedented volume but for their amazing variety. It supplied the armies of the United States with practically everything they required, save only ordnance, its purchases running all the way from coal to needles, from lemon-drops to rolling kitchens, from sheet-music to beef and mutton on the hoof. At one time it constituted the entire wool trade of the United States, if not, indeed, of the whole Western Hemisphere, for it optioned every pound of wool in sight and sent its agents out with orders to buy up the excess wool of the earth. It purchased enough cotton goods to make a sheet which would cover the District of Columbia four times over. It controlled the leather trade of the nation. It operated the largest shirt-factory in existence. It developed the most highly specialized shoe ever made, purchased 33,000,000 pairs of them, carried them in 120 sizes, and opened schools to teach its officers the science of shoe-fitting. By enlisting the co-operation of a score of universities it established a great correspondence school for the education of quartermaster officers. It had other schools, a whole system of them, where training was given in cooking, baking, butchery, and coffee-roasting. It purchased every stock of rubber boots and rain-coats in the United States. It established and operated farms and truck-gardens at the various camps and cantonments. By organizing a Salvage Service for the reclamation of articles which would otherwise have been thrown away it saved 151,000,000 of the taxpayers’ dollars. The army needed horses and mules—thousands and thousands of them—whereupon the Quartermaster Corps gave commissions to half a hundred of America’s best-known sportsmen and gentlemen riders and sent them to the West, to Spain, to the Argentine, to purchase animals. General Pershing cabled that he wanted sheet-music for the 390 bands of the A. E. F., whereupon the Quartermaster Corps, not being itself musically inclined, looked about for a man who was. It was discovered that the most successful composer of popular music in America had enlisted in the Coast Guard, but the Quartermaster Corps borrowed him, told him to select the sort of music that he thought the boys in France would like, and send it to Pershing. He did. It cheered up the army overseas and cost the government $50,000. It was cheap at the price. The Quartermaster Corps educated manufacturers in the production of articles strange to their experience, and in some cases it developed entirely new industries. It was a shipmaster, a wool-grower, a coal-operator, a clothier, a builder of vehicles, a school-teacher, a reformer of labor conditions, an inventor of new products, and an originator of new methods. To the miners of Pennsylvania, quarrying coal in the low-roofed galleries by the light of their flickering lamps, to the fruit-pickers in the sun-drenched orchards of Hood River and the Santa Clara, to the pallid clothing-workers, bending over their machines in the stifling sweat-shops of the New York Ghetto, to the great manufacturers of New England, and to the beef barons of the Middle West, “Quartermaster Corps, United States Army,” was a phrase to conjure with.

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In those casual, comfortable, easy-going days before the Great War startled us out of our national complacency, when the work of the army consisted in garrisoning many small and widely scattered posts and in doing police duty on the Canal Zone or in “the Islands,” the Quartermaster Corps, the “Q. M.,” as it was familiarly called, occupied much the same relation to our little military establishment that a “general store” does to a village. By this I mean that it supplied most of the army’s wants. It was charged, to put it briefly, with clothing, feeding, housing, and paying the army, supplying it with horses, harness, vehicles, and, in short, virtually everything else save only the actual tools of war. It also manned and operated the steamers of the Army Transport Service, was charged with the movement of troops on land, and had jurisdiction to a large extent over motor transportation, especially the movement of supplies. Though its business methods were as antiquated as the quill pen and the copying-press, like the mules which drew its wagons it jogged unconcernedly along. If the colonel’s wife needed some shelves in her kitchen she sent for the quartermaster and they were put up with neatness and despatch. When the junior officers at a post wanted to attend a dance in town the quartermaster could always be depended upon to provide a conveyance. The quartermaster ran the post exchanges and canteens. If there was a delay in the delivery of the winter’s coal, if the bread was poorly baked, if the milk was sour, if the men’s shoes did not fit, if there was a leak in a barracks roof, if a horse developed a spavin, if the pay-checks were not received on time, it was the quartermaster who had to take the blame. He was all things to all men, and if he did not do all things as well as they might have been done, it was not his fault so much as the fault of the antiquated and cumbersome system in which he had been trained.