The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-13
STORY BEHIND
 GAS REPELLINC
 U. s. UNIFORMS
BY SAM SMITH Limited Press staff COFrcspOndenl)

Limited Press staff Correspondent
 Kansas City, Mo- Sept, lS,-(up) --"Ameriean troops wore protective clothing"
 Remember that one short line in the D-Day stories from Noromandy, North Africa, Sicily and ttalyS Probably not, because it received no conspicuous place ia the reports Of great happenings
 There Is Q story behind that Inc Of type of 90 years of laboratory plugginug between the two world wars by Q small group of officers Of the Army's chemical warfare service to neutrallEe the blister types Of gases,
 Because those men refused to quit ln the fact of apparently in- Surmountable odds and lack of funds, soldiers of this nation go into battle today wearing armor against such gases as mustard and LewiSite, It will throw off the bllS- tering vapors of those gases better than the old chain mall of the knights errant blunter the arrows of the longhowmen,
 Formula Guarded
 The formula is one of the most closely guarded of Uncle Sam's war secrets, Even details of the process itself are known to but Q few officers because facts of only passing interest Go Q layman might permit enemy chemists to narrow the field in Q search for the in- valuable compound,
 There are plants in this country today which treat regular Army issue clothing to Nrmor it against blister gases, One of them is within the compound of the Kansas City QuRrtermaster Depot, Other spe- eially constructed plants manufae- ture tho carefully guarded ehemi- cal which is the secret Of protee- tive clothing,
 Major J. R, Cooper, in charge of the plant here under NdministrN. tive supervision of Col, Clarence Blake, depot eomm0ndant and technical director of the industrial section of the chemical warfare service told today of those heart- breaking 20 years of work which, quite possibly, helped to eliminate to date gas warfare ln this eon- fllet.
 The chemical warfare service went Go work In an effort to neu- trallge blister gases late in the last war, when 7b per cent of the Nrtil- lery shells fired carried gases, he said,
 But, when peace returned, the nation wanted to forget war, Ap- proprlatlons in those gay le20S for research into gas warfare were few and small,
 Developed at Arsenal
 However, they kept working on this, as they received funds" he related, By l030-about 20 years after they started-they arrived at this process It was worked out under the direct supervision of the chemical warfare service at the EdRewood, N, J, arsenal"
 How many formulae were deVel- oped, then discarded, before the successful one was found remained untold, But the number was large,
 Tt WRs Q very difficult preb- lem" Major Cooper said, "The ehamieal had to nentralige the gas, It had Go stand laundering It could not cause deterioration and it could not injure the skin of the wearor,"
 All clothing, from underwear to the outer garments, from socks to and around gas masks, is impFeg- gloves and weolen hoods, fitting over mated, A soldier so Nrmored in his CT garments is safe from all forms of blister gases other than direct contact with them in heavy liquid form,
 Only Nation OS Equipped
 The American soldier is the only Raldier in tho world to have thnt protection Major Cooper said he doubted If the enemy could deter mine tho inpregnating chemical for many months after beginning a study of captured clothing, Even then, many more months would be required to manufacture 1t and tho equipment needed to produce the clothing
 The plants in this country went Into operation early in io42, only Q few weeks after we entered the war, Everything was ready, thanks to the men who never quit during those 20 years of research,
 Those plants eNn turn out pros teetive clothing for many thou sands of fighting men every day, The figure is surprisingly large,
 As you watch the bales of cloth Ing go through the sealed vats and the dryers and on out to fighting men, you remember the warnings of Allied leaders that we are ready should the enemy resort to gas warfare The bales represent one reason why we are rady,
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