One-Page Letter Establishing the U.S. Chemical Weapons Stance, 1917

JF Ptak Science Books LLC    Post 981

 

On 21 December 1917, thee years into the beginning of World War I and eight months after America entered the war, Willis R. Whitney composed this one-page letter composing the American response to the use of poison gas in warfare.  Whitney was head of one the great research laboratories in America—run by General Electric, the GE Lab—and was one of the leaders of the U.S. Navy‘s Naval Review Board (along with Thomas Edison and Hudson Maxim, among others), and wrote to Josephus Daniels, who was at the time the U.S. Secretary of the Navy.  [Image below clickable. The item is also available for purchase via our blog bookstore.]

Whitney was a chemist, a former instructor at MIT, and a Ph.D. under Ostwald, a brilliant, “bearish” intellect in many fields, an innovator, and a leader, a tactician.  He summarized the state of affairs, and communicated quickly and with clarity and without hesitation what he thought must be done, and how America should respond to the German chemical threat. 

The Germans had first used chemical weapons (shells containing xylyl bromide) against Russian troops in Bolimow, Poland.  It was the first foray into a section of the war that caused more than one million casualties and 85,000 deaths.  It would be another three months for the first full-scale use of a chemical weapon—in the form of chlorine gas—in the Second Battle of Ypres.  But the time Whitney sent his letter, chemical warfare had been a deeply-established weapon.

Whitney recommends that the U.S. begin production; that several plants be established to produce the chemicals, and to get on the matter immediately, suggesting a man to head the work.  As it turns out the work didn’t begin in earnest for a number of months later, the first large quantities becoming available just after the signing of the Armistice.

{I should note that I purchased this letter--rather, Whitney's carbon copy of the letter--many years ago from the estate of  a Navy historian.  I am pretty sure that it has never been published before.]