Each month we are highlighting a specific historical event that took place
here at Edgewood. This month we feature the World War 1 Shell Filling Plant
Number 1, which opened in April 1918.
Visit the ECBC History Page
July– “This Month in History” -- 1970:
The Vietnam War
(authored by Jeff Smart)
In
July 1970, Edgewood Arsenal was deeply involved in supporting the ongoing
Vietnam War. For the Weapons Development and Engineering Laboratories (WDEL),
riot control agents and dissemination devices were a major concern. The
riot control agent “CS” was in great demand, not only for clearing
enemy tunnels in Vietnam, but also for civil disturbances in the United
States. The M25 series CS grenades and the M674 CS cartridge (Handy Andy)
were in short supply. The ENSURE Program, a special program to move developmental
items quickly to the troops fighting in Vietnam, reported a need for a stand-off
CS rocket. Edgewood developers tested the XM99 2.75-inch CS rockets at Dugway
Proving Ground, UT. The XM33 Portable Riot Control Agent Disperser, a new
backpack sprayer similar to a flamethrower, was undergoing operational tests
at Fort Riley, KS. Because target personnel could pick up existing tear
gas grenades and throw them back at the thrower, Edgewood Arsenal was working
on the XM47 CS grenade that had a skittering effect that made it difficult
to pick up after functioning.
In 1970, WDEL was also working on a lethal chemical weapons program. Binary
chemical weapons that divided the lethal nerve agents into two less-than-lethal
chemicals were much safer to produce and store for long periods. The post
was in the process of developing 155mm and 8-inch binary chemical projectiles.
Recent restrictions on open air testing resulted in simulated tests so far,
but some processes like the effect of the binary reaction in the projectile,
could not be tested by simulants.
The Defense Development and Engineering Laboratories (DDEL) worked on
detectors, protective masks, and decontamination. Already, DDEL had developed
the M28 Riot Control Agent Mask for the war. One of DDEL’s experimental
detectors, however, was very unique. The concept that detectors could be
used to find enemy personnel hiding in jungle terrain led to the development
of the XM3 Personnel Detector. Research had determined there were 400 chemical
compounds emitted from the human body. In addition to human emissions, the
unit detected minute particles from fires, tobacco smoke, engine exhaust,
and other emissions that indicated human activity.
The
Vietnam War work at Edgewood Arsenal also attracted unwanted attention.
Throughout the month of July, protesters at the front gate [today it is
the Edgewood Gate] attempted to enter the post to plant a pine tree. On
July 8, about 50 protestors showed up. Colonel Paul R. Cerar, in his last
month as Edgewood Arsenal Commander, denied their request to enter the post
and warned the protesters that it was illegal to protest on post without
his permission. Over the next couple of days, 25 protesters were arrested.
Having to keep the front gate closed, however, also caused disruption to
the workforce. Finally on July 16 a compromise was achieved and the protesters
planted their small pine tree on Federal land, but outside the front gate.
Eventually, Edgewood accepted another pine tree and it was planted somewhere
on the post.
On July 21, Colonel William M. Home, Cerar’s temporary replacement,
issued a news release about the protesters and the role of Edgewood Arsenal
in the Vietnam War:
While the demonstrators were protesting against war and chemical warfare
in particular, they fail to realize the vital role Edgewood Arsenal plays
in preventing wars and maintaining peace.
The research and development performed at Edgewood Arsenal has enabled
the United States to maintain a limited offensive capability in order
to deter the use of chemical weapons by the threat of retaliation in kind.
In the field of chemical warfare, deterrence is the primary objective
of the United States. Largely because of our known capability to retaliate
in kind, gas warfare was not employed by the enemy during World War II,
or in any subsequent armed conflict in which the United States has been
involved.
Since the U.S. has pledged not to be the first to use lethal chemical
weapons, we must be fully aware of the capabilities of these weapons in
the hands of potential adversaries. It is important that Edgewood Arsenal
continue to conduct research and development in all phases of chemical
warfare, not only to provide necessary detection and protective equipment,
but to fully define and quantify the potential threat from these weapons
and the hazards involved if they are ever used against us.
By the end of the month, the tree planted outside the gate had disappeared.
Then the tree planted on post was run over by a lawn mower. In early August,
both trees were replaced. By then, Edgewood Arsenal had returned to normal
and was again hard at work supporting the war effort.
June– “This Month in History” -- 1950:
The Start of the Korean War
(authored by Jeff Smart)
North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, which launched the Korean
War (initially named the United Nations Police Force Operations in the Far
East). Seoul fell on June 28 and two days later, President Harry Truman
committed ground forces in support of the South Koreans.
The
war had an immediate impact locally. The Army Chemical Center, as the Edgewood
Area was called in 1950, was divided into two main areas: Production Plants
and the Technical Command (the laboratories). The Production Plants saw
an increase in demand for products. The items initially ordered included
flamethrowers, incendiary bombs, tear gas grenades, smoke pots, and M9 protective
masks, the standard infantry mask at the time. The Technical Command was
asked to provide a list of developmental items that could be expedited for
National Defense. After some thought, the list included items such as pulse-jet
smoke generators, liquid fuel contaminants, nerve agent and biological agent
bombs, production of GB nerve agent, nerve agent detectors, collective protection
systems for tanks, and radar and infrared screening agents. The cover letter
stated: “It is considered that acceleration of the entire program
is essential if there is any prospect that our opponents will resort to
the use of chemical, radiological or biological warfare.”
In
response to the growing crisis, Brigadier General Egbert F. Bullene, Post
Commander, upgraded the operational status and increased security at the
post. Duty Officers was assigned to the Headquarters [Building E1675 at
the time] 24 hours a day. All personnel entering or leaving the post were
required to present proper identification. All but one gate to the Production
Plants [the area around Building E5101] were closed, but there was a promise
that more gates would be opened when additional security personnel were
available. The wearing of civilian clothes by the military while on post
was banned, with only a few exceptions allowed. Military leaves were limited
to 24 hours.
The Army General Staff also made emergency plans in case the conflict
became a nuclear war. The Army Chemical Center was designated the alternate
headquarters for the Chemical Corps should the existing Headquarters in
Washington, D.C. (including all personnel and records) be destroyed without
warning and without prior declaration of war, hostilities, or national emergency.”
June 1950 was also the 30th Anniversary of the Chemical Corps [based upon
the date that the Chemical Warfare Service, the predecessor organization
of the Chemical Corps, was made permanent following its temporary status
during World War I]. On June 29, Major General Anthony C. McAuliffe, Chief
of the Chemical Corps, issued a memorandum for all troops and civilian personnel:
Since its creation in World War I, the Chemical Corps has always
fulfilled its mission of developing, manufacturing, procuring and
supplying weapons and equipment of chemical warfare to all the armed
services, and of preparing special chemical units for combat duty.
The Corps has good reason to be proud of its brilliant record of
achievement in World War II.
With the assignment of new missions in the fields of biological
warfare and radiological defense, the role of the Chemical Corps
becomes increasingly important to the security of the United States.
Those increased responsibilities make necessary the continuation
of the same high standard of loyalty and devotion to duty which has
always marked the personnel of this Corps.
In addition to the nuclear threat, on June 30 the possibility of the United
States being attacked by deadly chemical weapons hit the newsstands. The Washington
Post ran an article about a speech Colonel John R. Wood, Chief Medical
Officer at the Army Chemical Center, made in San Francisco to the American
Medical Association concerning the effects of nerve agents. The opening
paragraph stated: “The Nation’s doctors were officially warned
yesterday that enemies of this country may someday attack American populations
with paralyzing to deadly ‘nerve gases.’” According to
the article, “His talk on the nerve gases marked the first time an
Army official in service has openly discussed their existence.”
The Defense Department was also concerned about the rapidly growing fiscal
cost for improving National Defense. The conclusion, however, stated in
the Semi-Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense for the period ending
June 30, was:
The campaign in Korea and the preparations to meet the increased
threat to our security will raise this cost materially. It is a cost
we must bear as long as our peace and security are imperiled.
May – “This Month in History” -- Explosion
in Building E5158
At
approximately 1530 on May 25, 1945, a massive explosion blew apart the center
section of Building E5158, then known as Building 509. Twelve female workers
died as a result of the explosion and 57 other men and women were injured.
This was the worst accident in Edgewood Area’s history.
The building was constructed in 1918 and originally used as a shell dump
(warehouse) for chemical weapons. By World War II, its mission had changed
and it was used for assembling igniters for fire bombs, part of the Army’s
incendiary bomb program.
The men and women working in the building were one minute doing their job
and the next minute dead or injured. Martha Nowell, a munitions handler
in the building, described what she could remember of the terrible event:
“There was a lot of smoke; I could not see the entrance, everything
was all black. I knew the door and went to grab the side and then I fell
out. I do not remember falling but I must have fallen out. I was laying
outside by the lumber pile. I do not know how long and then I got up and
I noticed I was out in the open. I ran over a little way and as I went
over my head was afire and Mr. Loeblein came along and put it out and
I did not know it was burning.”
Henry
J. Loeblein, foreman spray painter, also helped Sarah Creswell, a munitions
operator, who was knocked to the ground by the blast and had a table land
on her. She helped two injured women out of the building. She then went
to help another but her hair started to burn, so she had to retreat.
Shortly after the explosion and once the fires were out and the casualties
removed, a board of officers was assigned to determine the cause. They interviewed
witnesses, took pictures of the damaged building, and collected a thick
investigative file. One of the initial concerns was that one or more of
the German prisoners held in the prisoner of war camp at Edgewood had sabotaged
the building, but that was eventually rejected as a possible cause. The
final report concluded: “That the immediate cause of the accident
cannot conclusively be established.” The officers speculated that
a safety wire had been removed from a fuze either by accident or through
carelessness, resulting in the explosion.
There were many heroes that fateful day in May. Some of those heroes were
rewarded with Exceptional Civilian Service and Heroism awards on February
5, 1946. Sarah Creswell was one of those who proudly received the award
from Brigadier General Ray L. Avery, the Post Commander.
April – “This
Month in History” -- World War I Shell Filling Plant
Number 1
|
World War I Shell Filling Plant Number 1 |
In April 1915 Germany initiated large scale chemical warfare in an effort
to break the Allied lines at Ypres, Belgium and win World War I. The attempt
failed, and soon both sides escalated the use of chemical weapons. Despite
the use of chemical weapons for almost two years by other countries, the
U.S. Army had no training, equipment, or weapons to fight a chemical war
when the United States entered the war in April 1917.
In October 1917, President Woodrow Wilson approved Gunpowder Neck as the
site for the Army’s first chemical weapons arsenal. This led to a
massive government construction project that quickly displaced the original
residents of the peninsula and tenant farmers.
Captain Edwin Chance, a Philadelphia civil engineer, designed the first
chemical shell plant built at Edgewood Arsenal, using current American bottling
practices as his guide for the plant design. Civilian construction crews
broke ground in November 1917 in what then was a wheat field and built the
facility during one of the coldest winters on record. The power plant of
Shell Filling Plant No. 1 was the first permanent building completed and
sections of the plant still stand today on Webster Road between Hoadley
and Fleming Roads.
Shell Filling Plant No. 1 became operational in April 1918, only five
months after it was started, and it consisted of four wings in an “X” pattern
with a central power house in the middle. The “X” design of
the plant was to avoid destruction of the entire plant should an accident
occur in one wing. One wing was designed to fill 155mm shells, one to fill
4.7 inch shells, and two to fill 75mm shells. Shells were brought into the
shell receiving room on narrow-gauge cars and were placed nose down on a
slow-moving motor-driven conveyor. Then, the shells passed through the cooling
room for 30 minutes and chilled to -5 degrees. Shells were then placed upright
on trucks in the filling room. The shells were filled similar to commercial
bottles and then they were closed. Within a short time, 75mm chemical filled
shells were filled and readied for shipping in the warehouses (called shell
dumps) across the street from the plant.
The plant had a capacity of 9,000 4.7 inch and 155mm shells per day and
15,000 75mm shells per day. Most of the 75mm shells were filled with a mixture
of chloropicrin and tin tetrachloride during WWI. The Army later completed
a second shell-filling plant, but was unable to complete a third before
the end of the WWI. The four shell filling wings of the Plant No. 1 were
torn down prior to WWII.
This year marks Edgewood’s 90th Anniversary. Since 1917, ECBC
has served as the Nation’s lead science and technology center for
the development of chemical and biological defense products and services.
From April 2007 to October 2007 we will be commemorating this 90-year
history with lectures, informational products and special events.
For more information regarding the 90th Anniversary Celebration activities
contact: Mary Doak: mary.doak@us.army.mil or
410-436-7231.
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