Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
The Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) deployed and prepared gas weapons for use throughout the world during World War II. However, these weapons were never used in combat. Despite the lack of chemical warfare during the conflict, the CWS saw its funding and personnel increase substantially due to concerns that the Germans and Japanese had a formidable chemical weapons capability. By 1942 the CWS employed 60,000 soldiers and civilians and was appropriated $1 billion. The CWS completed a variety of non-chemical warfare related tasks and missions during the war including producing incendiaries for flame throwers, flame tanks and other weapons. Chemical soldiers were also involved in smoke generation missions. Chemical mortar battalions used the 4.2 inch chemical mortar to support armor and infantry units. Use of chemical and biological weapons were extremely limited, by both sides, during all parts of the war. Italy used mustard gas and phosgene during the short Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Germany employed chemical agents such as Zyklon B against Jews, political prisoners and other victims in extermination camps during the Holocaust, and Japan employed chemical and biological weapons in China. In 1943 a U.S. ship carrying a secret Chemical Warfare Service cargo of mustard gas as a precautionary retaliatory measure was sunk in an air raid in Italy, causing 83 deaths and about 600 hospitalized military victims plus a larger number of civilian casualties. Generally speaking, World War II was conducted (1939–1945) without use of chemical or biological weapons on the conventional battlefield, and certainly not on the scale of the use of poison gas during World War I.
The Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) deployed and prepared gas weapons for use throughout the world during World War II. However, these weapons were never used in combat. Despite the lack of chemical warfare during the conflict, the CWS saw its funding and personnel increase substantially due to concerns that the Germans and Japanese had a formidable chemical weapons capability. By 1942 the CWS employed 60,000 soldiers and civilians and was appropriated $1 billion. The CWS completed a variety of non-chemical warfare related tasks and missions during the war including producing incendiaries for flame throwers, flame tanks and other weapons. Chemical soldiers were also involved in smoke generation missions. Chemical mortar battalions used the 4.2 inch chemical mortar to support armor and infantry units. Use of chemical and biological weapons were extremely limited, by both sides, during all parts of the war. Italy used mustard gas and phosgene during the short Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Germany employed chemical agents such as Zyklon B against Jews, political prisoners and other victims in extermination camps during the Holocaust, and Japan employed chemical and biological weapons in China. In 1943 a U.S. ship carrying a secret Chemical Warfare Service cargo of mustard gas as a precautionary retaliatory measure was sunk in an air raid in Italy, causing 83 deaths and about 600 hospitalized military victims plus a larger number of civilian casualties. Generally speaking, World War II was conducted (1939–1945) without use of chemical or biological weapons on the conventional battlefield, and certainly not on the scale of the use of poison gas during World War I.
