I’ve read that during the Pacific campaign, island hopping against heavily fortified Japanese positions, Marine commanders wanted to use poison gas against them but were vetoed by FDR who insisted on a ‘no first use’ policy.
My question is this - if FDR had given the OK, would it have have made any difference? Which chemical weapons would they have used and how effective would it have been in places like Tarawa and Iwo Jima?
The gas used would probably have been mustard gas. The only gas event of which I have heard in WWII was an inadvertent gassing of U.S. troops with mustard gas from a U.S. freighter, bombed at Anzio, carrying a “just in case” supply.
I have no idea how effective it would have been. Delivering it to caves would have presented many problems both in delivery and sustaining sufficient quantity to be effective. I have no idea how well the Japanese were equipped with gas masks and protective clothing. (Flamethrowers were used in ways similar to gas in that, for certain sizes of caves, the burning napalm sucked up all the oxygen, asphyxiating the Japanese troops far enough back to avoid the flames, but they demonstrated the problems with delivery.)
Gas would not have been effective at Tarawa, (unless it was simply used to blanket the entire island of Betio prior to the invasion à la WWI tactics in violation of anti-gas conventions). The terrain and bunkers, there, unlike the caves on Iwo Jima, did not provide the sort of conditions where gas would be useful.
For a very in-depth answer to the OP, and the source for most of what I’m going to write in this post, I highly recommend reading Volumes 2 and 3 of the histories of the Chemical Warfare Service of the U.S. Army, part of the subseries focusing on The Technical Service of the U.S. Army, which is itself found within the series, The United States Army in World War 2. They are available freely online—Volume 2, From Laboratory to Field, Volume 3, Chemicals in Combat—and are fairly gigantic .pdfs.
The question, ‘Why wasn’t toxic gas used in WW2,’ is (sort-of) answered by the authors starting at page 652 of Volume 3. In their words,
The tl;dr version is that:
[ul]
[li]As noted, Roosevelt was vehemently opposed to any use of toxic gasses. While this might explain why gas wasn’t used at Iwo (which was invaded on February 19th and declared secured March 16th), it doesn’t explain why gas wasn’t used towards the end of the Okinawa campaign. Especially once assaulting the Shuri Line began on April 8th and 9th, and continued through the fall of Shuri Castle on May 31st. [/li][li]The very senior military decision makers had personal experience or close contact with those who had experienced toxic gas use in WW1, and didn’t think gasses were all that helpful then and wouldn’t be now[/li][li]Nobody that was going to be listened to in the Pacific Theater of Operations thought it’d be useful, except in a retaliatory sense, until after Iwo and Okinawa. Mentioned at page 83 in Volume 1, Organizing For War, is an ad hoc subcommittee from the Joint Staff Planners and Joint Logistics Committee, along with CWS officers, who were very enthusiastic about the perceived effectiveness of offensive war gasses against the IJA. Like tripling production of them right now because they were going to use so much of it from now on. In retaliatory operations, of course. I can’t find the minutes that are cited JLC 143/3 and USCWC 121/6, which go into detail.[/li][/ul]
As the authors wrote,
My own observations from my reading of those volumes is that:
(1) Gas PPE—especially protective clothing—was in relatively short supply, was difficult to maintain in a tropical climate, and was perceived as being insufficient to protect troops from accidental/incidental exposure to persistent blister agents such as dichloroethyl sulfide, or chemical mustard. Persistent blister agents strike me too as a poor choice for use on something that you hope to occupy afterwards. Then again, Lewisite was available. Anyway, the PPE was thought to be effective enough, and the Japanese were perceived as having enough of it, that toxic gas use could not achieve a victory quick and decisive enough to justify its use. Postwar, the authors note that Japanese offensive and defensive chemical warfare capabilities were much less than those of the U.S.
(2) The primary methods for deploying toxic gasses—the 4.2 inch mortar and aerial bombing with 1000 and 2000 pound phosgene bombs and cyanogen chloride bombs—were being utilized elsewhere. The 4.2 inch mortar in particular was prized in both the ETO and PTO for being able to quickly fire a wide variety of heavy ordnance, including HE and smoke. Interestingly, much of the CWS histories deal with the manufacture and use of smoke and incendiary munitions, activities that were largely within their responsibilities.
(3) There just wasn’t that much of the stuff available. Since neither the U.S/Britain, nor Japan had used any toxic gasses yet against each other, a large production ramp-up like e.g., Liberty Ships, hadn’t occurred for toxic gasses. Regarding Iwo Jima and required quantities of toxic gas, the authors mention in Volume 3 that, “…toxic munitions supplies in POA [Pacific Ocean Areas] equal to an attack on an area the size of Iwo Jima and in SWPA [SouthWest Pacific Areas] to but five days’ operation.” [652] That’s one attack, without any re-application of chemical agents. At page 269 of Volume 3, they mention stockpiles of mustard-filled bombs (which, again, aren’t what likely would be used at a target like Iwo) in July 1944 constituting:
Finally, IMHO, all bets change with the death of Roosevelt and the staggering casualty totals from the Iwo and Okinawa invasions. Had the atomic bombs not brought about unconditional surrender, we’d have used chemicals on D-Day for Olympic. See, Norman Polmar & Thomas B. Allen, The Most Deadly Plan, Proceedings, January 1998.
Forgot to add this to my already too long post, but Polmar and Allen’s article discusses a proposal by the then-head of the Chemical Warfare Service, MG William N. Porter, A Study of the Possible Use of Toxic Gas in Operation Olympic. I can’t find the proposal online, probably for good reason. It is horrific, if the anecdote, A Dirty Little Secret, from a purported relative of a colleague of Porter’s is correct. The website, http://www.maproom.com/journals/jsecret.htm, has been down since 2008, but is accessible via the Wayback Machine. (I’d quote it here in its entirety—it’s short—but I’m unclear about the SDMB’s policy on such things.)
Anyway, large parts of it are demonstrably incorrect: the CWS was not founded after the Battle of Tarawa, phosgene is not a blister agent, and cyanide does not unduly break down respiratory filters. (But cyanogen chloride is known to bypass primitive PPE filters more readily than other blood agents, which is probably what he meant.)
Still, the specter of “75,000 tons of gas bombs per month,” with 5 million dead, is sufficiently horrifying to cause me to ignore the specific errors.
From what I’ve read about WWI, gas just wasn’t as effective as hoped. It could be used effectively at some tasks like area denial but for widespread annihilation, it just fell short.
Having said that, even an “ineffective” attack could still reduce the enemy. Gas has the virtue of being able to attack “around corners” and penetrate caves and hardened defenses. Without a substantial buildup of stock, I can imagine military planners using it on very specific targets in Olympic. Coastal anti-ship artillery sites, inland artillery positions, or known troop mustering positions might be considered important enough to merit a one-time dousing on D-day. Just enough to help the boys get off the beach.
Of course the most effective use of gas is against unprepared targets, in areas where your own troops are not likely to be exposed by accident, where you’d like to deny the area to the enemy but aren’t planning on occupying it yourself anytime soon. So strategic bombing against civilian targets. But you might as well just drop conventional bombs. Or, you know, nukes.
WWI gas attacks weren’t always effective as hoped because the user couldn’t control the wind. Harry Truman had been an artillery officer during the War To End All Wars and would have been familiar with it’s effectiveness and dangers. So would many other Americans.
FDR refused to use gas as a weapon, except maybe in retaliation for it’s use against Allied troops. There is no reason to believe Truman would have reversed FDR’s policy.
An effective threat to use gas would require a supply of gas weaponry. While plans to use gas would have been drawn up by the various militaries that had supplies of gas, that doesn’t mean that gas warfare would have been given a green light.
With steady trade winds, gas attacks would have been more effective during the Pacific island hopping campaigns. Disperse the gas upwind from cave mouths, bunkers, and above ground fortification, and let the wind carry the gas to the enemy. Then send in troops capture any survivors.
If FDR had OK’d the use of gas in the Pacific, I assume there would have been far fewer American casualties, and the Allies should have advanced more quickly on Japan. The invasion of Japan may have taken place before the Atom bombs were ready for use.
I thank you for the replies, especially Gray Ghost for finding those pdfs.
One thing I’ve read from this book is that it was such a divisive issue at the time; that in a June 1945 poll asking if it was justified to use gas if it would save American lives, only 40% responded yes. Proponents of it - including Marshall to my surprise - predicted that if they wanted to use gas they’d have to do so in in face of public opinion against it.
I know we’ve talked about the Germans not using chemical warfare before, it does seem even more odd that the Japanese never did when they were happy to employ kamikazes and experiment with biological warfare in China. Was it the fear of U.S. chemical retaliation or was it an issue of stockpiling it to use against American troop concentrations when they invaded Japan proper?
Not directly related but interestingly enough the Germans were the first to develop nerve gas accidentally discovering it during the development of pesticides but according to what I have read Hitler did not use it against enemy troops because he assumed that the Americans also had discovered nerve gas which they had not. I wonder what, if any difference that would have made if they used it, probably not much due to the difficulty in deploying gas in warfare effectively.
Regarding general opposition to it, there were two separate thoughts, (often held by the same person). There were those, including Truman and Hitler, who had experience with gas in WWI and considered it too horrible to use. There were also those who had studied its use in WWI and recognized that it was not in any way well suited to the battlefield.
As I noted in my first post, the only way that it would have been effective at Tarawa would have been to place the fleet upwind, saturate the island, then wait until the residue was manageable to go in after the survivors. On Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the caves would have protected most of the defending troops unless a method could have been developed to feed it into those caves.
Gas is not an easily targeted weapon. Wind both dissipates it and shifts it back into the faces of the attacking troops. Afterward, its residue can be a further hazard to the attackers.
Gray Ghost summed it up the best. The only thing I could add is that I’ve read that the Japanese military, who did use gas & biological weapons against the Chinese and Russians, had an absolute ‘no first use’ policy on using it against Americans. Not for ethical reasons, but because their scientists told them that the terrain and weather patterns of the Japanese mainland could have made poison gas use very effective, with limited defense against it.
Hitler thought gas was too horrible to use? That sounds a bit incongruous.
It it, I admit, a disputed point. He was urged by Bormann and Goering to use it, but never authorized it. He was gassed in WWI. Speculation tends to take two paths: that he was revolted by the idea; that he was argued out of it by aides arguing that the Allies would retaliate in kind. Since retaliation also evokes the memory of its use, I have tended to fall on the emotional reaction side of the fence.
Since we have no statement from Hitler explaining his decision, I am guessing.
He gassed Jews with utter coldness, but wouldn’t gas enemy soldiers. What the fuck is wrong with humans?
In the case of Hitler, aside from his general tendencies to be a monster, he did not regard Jews as human.
Also, he knew they couldn’t retaliate by gassing him.
The Jews couldn’t gas the Germans back; the Brits, Soviets, and Americans could. ‘It’s no fun when the rabbit has the gun.’ Plus, the Germans imputed their level of CW expertise to those enemies, including discovering nerve agents like Tabun and Sarin. Akin to the overestimation of Japanese CW capabilities by the US, that I mentioned above in the thread.
Finally, another thought that comes to mind—I haven’t seen it anywhere else at least—is that chemical warfare agents of the era were really good for defense. They slow operations down and persistent agents deny areas for the enemy to maneuver. Kind of how minefields were often used. Good if you’re retreating and need time to get your shit together and help nudge the enemy to attack in a direction that you can at least start to look for him. Not so good in the attack, especially if your enemy can just retreat to the next set of camouflaged trenchlines and fortifications. And you have to advance over your own ‘slime’, in an climate environment where persistent agents would last a lot longer than the hot wet climate of a Tarawa, Palau, or Iwo Jima. If I can guess about Hitler’s motivations, it’d be that he was a damned sight more interested in attacking than defending. EDIT: what I hadnt read elsewhere was that Hitler’s bias towards attacking and hatred for retreats may have helped fuel his antipathy and or disinterest in thinking about whether chemical weapons might be useful for Germany.
As an aside, the authors of the histories cited above mention that chemical agents used by the Japanese would have made things much more challenging for the Allies in those island assaults. Imagine trying to advance up a beach under fire, when the beach is laced with a persistent blister agent? Which, being an oil applied over the ground, stays put where you sprayed it unlike the oft-cited hilarity that occurs when the wind shifts and starts blowing toxic gas back over your troops. Jeez, Iwo was bad enough as it was…
But I don’t think it’d be terribly difficult for the Allies to have taken Iwo and Okinawa much more effectively than they did, by utilizing a mix of cyanogen chloride (primarily as a lachrymator, to induce the defenders to shed their PPE) and heavier-than-air phosgene, which per the histories, formed a low, ground-hugging fog when delivered by the USAAF’s 1000 lb bomb. Sounds like it’d be effective against deep bunkers and trenches, provided the Allies could source and deliver enough agent. Oh, and run the risk of being demonized by the Japanese for having used chemical weapons first, to the extent that they are angry enough to not surrender after Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
Humans? Who claims Hitler was human?
FYI - Bullies like being bullies when their victims can’t fight back. Bullies don’t like being punched in the nose.
An apropos Bill Mauldin cartoon: http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af346/GarandPlan/carbine%20parts/BMauldin.jpg
Slight nitpick - napalm wasn’t used until 1944, and when fire was used as a means of asphyxiation in caves this size it was usually because flamethrowers had failed, even when napalm was available later in the war. Usually just plain gasoline or a mixture of gasoline and oil was used. Betio:
Manila(warning, pdf file):
Biak:
