The Chemical Warfare Service, in Three Volumes: Organizing for War; From Laboratory to Field; Chemicals in Combat (United States Army in World War II: The Technical Services, Chemical Warfare Service Volumes 1-3)

Complete in three volumes. Part of a larger set that is an overarching history of the United States in World War II. xix, 498; xviii, 498; xvii, 697 pp. Green cloth, gilt titles. Includes 27 tables, 21 charts, 127 illustrations, 8 maps, 2 appendixes, bibliographical notes, glossaries, and indexes. "When the United States entered World War I, the Army had to prepare to use and cope with poisonous gas, which the Germans had introduced as a weapon on the battlefield of Ypres in April 1915. At first the responsibilities of gas warfare were divided among the Medical Department, the Ordnance Department, the Corps of Engineers, and the Signal Corps, with help from the Bureau of Mines, which conducted research on poisonous gases. In June 1918 the War Department created a Chemical Warfare Service to take over these responsibilities and in 1920 gave it the additional mission of developing other devices of chemical warfare such as smoke, incendiaries, and the 4.2-inch mortor. The three volumes on this service cover this little-known subject from an administrative and tactical standpoint during World War II." Includes discussions of why gas was not used during WWII, the manufacturing of gas masks, and the development and production of portable mechanized flamethrowers. (United States Army in World War II Reader's Guide, pp. 101-4).