"The United States began producing chemical weapons late in the conflict. they established the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) and first participated in a chemical weapons attack with the British October 13, 1918. One of the casualties of that attack was a young infantryman named Adolf Hitler. The gas inflicted such pain that Hitler had to be evacuated to Germany. The attack may have saved countless lives because it cemented in Hitler a lifelong hate of chemical weapons which influenced many policies in the second World War.
The beginning of modern chemical warfare unequivocally begins in the German search for new Pesticides in the 1920s and 1930s. With the loss of territory after World War I and Germany's desire to lessen its reliance on food importation, the German leadership emphasized the need for new Insecticides to increase production. Chemist Gerhard Schrader was tasked with finding new non-flammable, non-harmful Insecticides to elimante the treat from the bool weavil (Tucker, 2006). Schrader synthesized a series of "organophosphates" - organic molecules with a central Phosphorous atom and four atoms extending off of it. Schrader made the [organophosphates more potent by adding cyanide. These molecules had undesirable side effects on the chemist including blurred vision, dilated pupils, and eventually became sever enough to warrant hospitalization (Tucker, 2006).
As Schrader continued work on this cyanide-containing compound, the unpleasant side effects continued to manifest themselves at the slightest whiff of the vapor. Further toxicological testing on mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, apes, and others reveled a frighteningly high level of toxicity to this new [insecticide] tentatively named Le-100 (Le as an abbreviation for Leverkusen, the German city where it was synthesized). Very small amounts led to vomiting, bronchial tube constriction, diarrhea, paralysis of breathing muscles, and eventual death. This made Le-100 far too toxic to use as a commercial insecticide, but the findings were passed on to the German government's War Office.
A good number of people in the War Department felt that chemical weapons were a viable military weapon. Gas had recently been used with good results by the Italians in their march on Ethiopia and its Emperor Haile Selassie (Tucker, 2006). The German government took over production of Le-100, renaming it Tabun, an invented word with no particular meaning. The field testing of Tabun were successful and it was shortly declared the German chemical weapon of choice. The German authorities designated the somewhat reluctant [IG Faber] to build a plant capable of producing 1,000-2,000 metric tons of Tabun per month (Tucker, 2006).
As Tabun was entering widescale production, Schrader had returned to his laboratory at the German Army's Gas Protection Lab (he had been moved from Leverkusen here after he synthesized Tabun) and was working on a new set of Insecticides using [flourine] rather than cyanide. During the latter part of 1938, Schrader synthesized a compound that proved to be 5-10 times more lethal than Tabun and would name it Sarin, which was an acronym for the four scientists most closely associated with the compound - S chrader, A mbrose, R udiger, and L IN de (Tucker, 2006).
World War II
Hitler's aversion to chemical weapons continued throughout the second World War. Against the wishes of many of his high commanders, Hitler wanted to use chemical weapons only in retaliation against a similar attack. However, he continued to push the German military to produce and stockpile weapons to ensure German superiority should the Allies commence chemical warfare (Tucker, 2006).
The Germans had a large head start on production, though they were not entirely convinced of this. Otto Ambros, a leading German chemist who had been instrumental in synthesizing Sarin, believed that the Allies had independently discovered some sort of nerve agent because of similar insecticidal research they were conducting prior to the war. Even if the Allies did not have it, Ambros felt that "in the event that Germany were to use this special gas, other countries would not only be able to imitate it quickly but could produce it in considerably larger quantities" (Tucker, 2006). The immense production capabilities of the Allies and the fact that they had immense stockpiles of artillery and bombs with mustard and Phosgene in which to retaliate with provided a sufficient deterrent to the German use of chemical weapons.
The Allies did not in fact have anything near the lethality of Tabun or Sarin. The closest compound the Allies could produce was DFP which could, at high doses, produce unconsciousness. The US Office of Scientific Research and Development and universities throughout the States synthesized over 200 Organophosphates including many with [flourine] yet none approached the toxicity of Tabun or Sarin (Tucker, 2006). The British scientists at Porton Down discovered Tabun in 1944 after the army raided a building holding German munitions. They extracted the liquid, analyzed it, and tested it on laboratory rabbits amazed at its lethality.
The only deliberate use of gas in World War II was extensive Mustard Gas use by the Japanese during their 1937 invasion of Manchuria. Some studies have claimed that more than 2,000 separate incidences of poison gas use in that campaign, though that number very well could be inflated (Hutchinson, 2006). Numerous instances are recorded that either side in the European theater, the Allies or the Axis, were on the verge of using gas at some point but retreated."
