The U.S. Army’s final Sarin (GB) nerve agent-filled M55 chemical rocket was destroyed on July 7 at the Blue Grass Army Depot, Kentucky. It was the last crumb of the more than 30,000 tons of chemical weapons agents on-hand in U.S. arsenals in 1986 when Congress pulled the plug on using the category of weapons, then later pivoted to destroying it.
Operators pose with the last GB nerve agent rocket as it is loaded for destruction at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant on July 7, 2023. The destruction of this munition marked the completion of the destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile. U.S. Army photo.
The rocket was the last “of more than 100,000 mustard agent and nerve agent-filled projectiles and nerve agent-filled rockets” destroyed at BGAD since 2019, including 51,000 M55s.
In addition, a team of companies in Colorado wrapped up the destruction of more than 780,000 mustard agent-filled 155mm and 203mm projectiles at U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot on June 22.
“This is a momentous day for the U.S. chemical demilitarization program,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth. “After years of design, construction, testing, and operations, these obsolete weapons have been safely eliminated. The Army is proud to have played a key role in making this demilitarization possible.”
1917 Beginnings
With the Germans, British, French, and Russians all neck deep in the active use of chemical weapons when the U.S. entered the Great War in 1917, General Pershing established the Gas Service to supervise chemical warfare activity in the AEF on 3 September. Back home, The Committee on Noxious Gases National Research Council was formed in early 1917 with a mixture of Army Medical Department and U.S. Bureau of Mines personnel.
A large-scale production plant at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland was established that eventually produced chlorine (CL), chloropicrin (PS), mustard (H), and phosgene (CG) filled in assorted 75mm, 155-mm, 4.7-inch, and Livens projectiles.
Edgewood Arsenal produced more than 935 tons of CG and 711 tons of H by 1918. Meanwhile, contractors made an additional 150 tons of Lewisite and 681 of CG.
The first U.S.-made and filled shell was tested in April 1918 although none of the US-manufactured chemical-filled rounds would reach Europe prior to the end of the conflict. Fundamentally, this means that no “warshot” lethal American CW has ever (officially) been used in battle.
However, the Army did have a unit that got its hands in the war.
The first dedicated Army unit trained to use chemical weapons was constituted on 15 August 1917 in the Regular Army as the two-battalion 30th Engineer (Gas and Flame) Battalion (later Regiment) under the command of Col. Earl J. Atkisson.
Sent to France, it would deliver phosgene via British-supplied Livens projectors to German lines on the Western Front, assisting British gas troops in their use as early as March 1918 suffering their first casualty, Pvt. William K. Neal of Company B was killed at Cite St. Pierre by a German shell.
Their first all-American gas attack was against the “Boche” at Bois de Jury in the Toul Sector on the early morning of 18 June 1918. The unit was supported by 100 loaned French Tirailleurs Sénégalais, who helped emplace its hundreds of projectors.
Livens projectors: simple 8-inch steel tubes fitted with a 28-pound baseplate and single 65-pound projectile (filled with 30 pounds of agent) and electrically fired. The 30th Engineers would use as many as 900 of these at a time, typically in 20-tube batteries set well back behind the lines to prevent enemy observation. Once fired, they had to be dug up and reset before firing again as their azimuth would be screwed. The range was out to 1850 yards, depending on the angle. The Army kept these around well into WWII.
Soon the 30th would be converted and redesignated 13 July 1918 as the 1st Gas Regiment and by that time was using British-supplied 4-inch Stokes mortars to deliver not only gas, but also thermite, and high-explosive shells and earned the nickname “The Hell Fire” battalion.
Demobilized on 28 February 1919, at Camp Kendrick, New Jersey, the 1st Gas earned campaign ribbons for Lys, Aisne-Marne, St. Mihel, Meuse-Argonne, Flanders 1918, and Lorraine 1918. They suffered 39 killed or died of wounds between 21 March and 10 November 1918. Today, the 2nd Chemical Battalion, which remained an offensive combat unit until 1958, carried the lineage of the old Hell Fire Boys
It wasn’t until 28 June 1918 that the Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) was established, with seven main departments. By the end of the conflict, it would contain 1,680 officers and 20,518 enlisted, albeit most involved in chemical warfare defense.
WWII stockpiles
Between 1940 and 1945, the CWS produced roughly 146,000 tons of chemical agents at locations throughout the United States. These included:
- 500,000 4.2-inch mortar shells, 25,000 AN-M78 500-pound bombs, 63,000 AN-M79 1,000-pound bombs, and 31,000 7.5-inch aerial rockets filled with CG.
- Hydrogen Cyanide (AC) was used to fill 5000 1,000-pound bombs.
- Some 25 million pounds of Cyanogen chloride (CK) procured by the CWS in WWII went into 33,347 M78 500-pound bombs, each holding 165 pounds of agent, and 55,851 M79 1000-pound bombs, each holding 332 pounds.
- Mustard gas, the American favorite for decades, filled no less than 2 million gallon-sized land mines as well as “540,746 4.2-inch mortar shells were filled and stored. For the artillery, 1,360,338 75-mm. Mk 64, 1,983,945 105-mm. M60, 784,836 155-mm. Mk 2A1, 290,810 155-mm. M110, and smaller quantities of other shells, were readied…The service procured 594,216 M70 and M70A1 115-pound bombs, developed by the Ordnance Department, and 539,727 M47A1 and M47A2 100-pound bombs.” The service also procured 92,337 M10 30-gallon airplane spray tanks. “A plane flying at an altitude of 100 feet and carrying four of these tanks could spray mustard over an area 75 to 80 yards wide and 600 to 700 yards long.”
Cold War
On August 2, 1946, the CWS became the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, which is still around today (despite the efforts of Creighton Abrams). Post-Korea, the Army looked to field more modern CW weapons including the 115mm M55 chemical rocket, capable of carrying 10 pounds of Sarin (GB) or Venomous Agent X (VX) nerve gas to 6 miles, as well as the M23 landmine and assorted modernized 105mm, 155mm, and 203mm artillery shells.
Along with the new TMU-28/B VX spray tank and MC-1 and MK94 GB bombs.
Meanwhile, much of the WWII mustard gas, with the exception of 155mm shells, were burned or deep-sixed off the coast. The NOAA chart for the Mississippi Sound and Florida panhandle has listed “mustard gas” dumps all my life.
Fielding an offensive BW program until 1969, the U.S. stopped production of new chemical weapons the same year and later de facto halted the ready availability of CW to the service in 1986 then soon began to destroy those still on hand.
By 2012, the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity completed the destruction of nearly 90 percent of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile, then stored at six U.S. Army installations across the U.S. and on Johnston Atoll in the Pacific, closing all but Pueblo and BGAD.
That figure hit 100 percent last week.
“Following the elimination of the U.S. stockpile, the facilities will be closed in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and mutual agreements between the Secretary of the Army and the governors of Colorado and Kentucky.”
For a deeper dive, check out this 519-page official circa 1988 history of the Chemical Warfare Service branch.