When the Tip of the Spear Is Broken

By Ms. Christy L. Lindberg

Article published on: December 1, 2023 in the 2023 Annual Edition of the Army Chemical Review

Read Time: < 12 mins

Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton

On the eve of World War II, as Germany and Japan were building their military strength, the U.S. Congress was gradually decreasing military appropriations. The all-time low strength of 495 officers and enlisted men in the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) revealed how ill-prepared the United States was for a global conflict. By December 1940, the size of the CWS had increased to 381 officers and 1,506 enlisted men. The events at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941 illustrated that prewar planning assessments were correct but that proper equipment and supplies were needed. The history of CWS activities in the Pacific Theater from 8 December 1941 to 6 May 1942 serves as “an excellent example of what can be accomplished when foresight, initiative, and wholehearted devotion to duty are applied to the many problems of modern warfare and illustrates how much can be accomplished with little.”1 The ingenuity and hard work of the CWS in the Philippine Islands stand out as some of the best examples of the Dragon Warrior ethos.

Following the establishment of the CWS as a permanent branch of the Army in 1920, CWS leaders accepted Army intelligence presumptions that the next anticipated conflict would be with Japan in the Far East. Accordingly, the CWS positioned its combat units, the “tip of the spear,” in strategic locations in the Pacific, notably the Panama Canal Zone and the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands. (The Philippine Islands had become a U.S. protectorate in 1898, following the Spanish-American War—when the Japanese viewed American naval and air installations as a threat to their dominance in the region.) The Hawaiian Islands are located 4,200 miles from Japan, making the Philippines the closest potential battlefield in the Pacific. Therefore, the very tip of the spear consisted of American forces on the Philippine Islands, approximately 1,800 miles from Japan.

The importance placed on the Philippines is reflected in the strength of the CWS Soldiers positioned there; roughly 20 percent of the total number of CWS personnel were stationed in the Philippines. Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Hamilton, who—prior to the onset of World War II—served on the War Department general staff in Washington, D.C., coordinated CWS activities in the Philippines. As a chemical officer in the U.S. Army Philippine Department, Hamilton supervised gas warfare preparations and the readiness of chemical supplies and equipment in the Far East Pacific Theater. Hamilton led the headquarters and support staff and directed all CWS units in the Philippines, including the 4th and 5th Separate Chemical Companies (weapons), which were tasked with dispensing chemical agents and smoke on the battlefield with primary weapons that rendered the World War I era 4-inch Stokes Mortars and 8-inch Livens Projectors outdated. The Chemical Weapons Depot of the Philippines Department, located in a storage warehouse near Bataan, stored bulk agents, gas masks, and decontamination and defensive equipment. The depot also performed missions similar to those of chemical laboratory companies, analyzing and evaluating enemy chemical warfare agents and determining the best methods for protection, identification, and decontamination operations. The 2d and 7th Companies (service, aviation) ventured into the emerging realm of aviation and were responsible for receiving, storing, preparing, loading, and arming apparatuses for employing smokescreens and dispersing chemical warfare agents.2 Finally, a CWS training cadre instructed Philippine Army personnel in chemical offensive and defensive operations. With the looming threat of war, Congress had started to pour money into the Army build-up; however, it was too late to aid operations in the Philippines.

Accounting for the time difference across the International Date Line, the 7 December attack on Pearl Harbor occurred simultaneously to the Japanese attacks in the Philippines on 8 December. The bulk of the U.S. Army Far East Air Force fields were destroyed by Japanese bombing attacks, and there was no longer a need for CWS air operations companies; thus, they were handed service rifles and attached to the 31st Infantry Regiment. This trend continued as the Japanese landed, unopposed, on northern Luzon on 10 December and then on southern Luzon 2 days later. As the Japanese marched (along two axes and without protective air power) on Manila, the bulk of the American naval fleet withdrew to Java, effectively cutting off American reinforcements and resupply.

In 1941, the Philippine Department consisted of 14 officers, 275 enlisted Soldiers, and 12 cadres for Philippine Scouts (a U.S. Army organization generally made up of Filipino and Filapino-American troops, which was in existence from 1901 to the end of World War II), whose chief mission was to prepare the U.S. Army for a potential Japanese attack using gas warfare. In preparation for a chemical attack, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton established a chemical warfare impregnation plant; from the spring of 1941, the plant conducted 24-hour operations, producing sufficient chemical protective clothing for U.S. troops. The plant remained in operation until 23 December 1941, when Japanese aircraft bombed it and destroyed the necessary equipment. In late January 1942, with the Japanese advance closing in on Manila, Colonel George F. Unmacht, Chief Chemical Officer, U.S. Army Forces, Far East, was ordered back to the United States to report on conditions in the Philippines. Traveling by submarine, Unmacht shepherded a collection of captured Japanese chemical warfare materiel for further study at the CWS Research and Development Department, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. With Unmacht’s departure, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton assumed his duties.

The prewar Chemical Weapons Depot stockpile contained 200,000 service gas masks and 80,000 training masks; by Christmas 1941, these had all been issued to the local civilian population and to the newly formed Philippine Army Division, which was preparing to defend the Philippine Islands. Without fear for his own safety, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton personally supervised the evacuation of chemical warfare supplies from Manila and Bataan to the island of Corregidor and directed the destruction of technical machinery and equipment to deny them to the enemy. All chemical supplies, including coveralls, hoods, socks, gloves, shoes, and leggings, were shipped out of the areas.

Spear (CWS), and Captain James McDonald Gallagher resting, with hands bound, during the Bataan Death March to Camp O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac, Philippines

In defense of the Philippines, the Chemical Department, CWS, developed field-expedient, hand-thrown incendiary devices (Molotov cocktails) at the Chemical Weapons Depot, filling salvaged beer and soda bottles with a mixture of kerosene, gasoline, and crude oil. The Molotov cocktails were issued to troops at Fort Drum, Fort Hughes, and Fort Mills, Philippines, in April 1942. Soon after the Japanese air raids began, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s CWS Soldiers needed to eliminate the threat of an accidental release of stockpiled toxic chemicals on Corregidor, which could result from Japanese aerial bombing. These chemical stockpiles amounted to six full and one empty 1-ton galvanized-iron chlorine containers; an unknown number of 150-pound chlorine, phosgene, and tear gas cylinders; and 100-pound bombs filled with mustard agent. Hamilton and his staff supervised the drainage and disposal of all these containers. The 1-ton containers of chlorine were drained and then disposed of by dumping them in the waters off Corregidor, the 150-pound toxic-gas cylinders were buried or dumped, and the 100-pound bombs of mustard agent were buried. The enemy never did discover these toxic materials disposed of by the CWS during the relentless air raids.

In addition, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton established an emergency chemical laboratory, where analyses and tests could be conducted on water and captured Japanese materials such as gas masks, landmine explosive charges, and flamethrowers. At times, blood sugar tests were conducted for the hospital. The amount of commercial high-test hypochlorite (HTH) required for effective purification of drinking water was also determined at the emergency chemical laboratory. Although the CWS originally furnished HTH for use in mustard agent decontamination, its alternative use for water purification undoubtedly saved many Soldiers from contracting dysentery and/or typhoid from contaminated water during the siege of Bataan and Corregidor. This same emergency chemical laboratory established emergency fill plants at Bataan and on Corregidor, where liquid bleach was manufactured to kill tropical vectors, such as mosquitoes, rats, lice, and flies, in hopes of reducing the spread of malaria and hemorrhagic fever.

CWS troops worked diligently to gather information about, and examples of, Japanese chemical warfare material, often while close to the enemy and while under fire. They acquired enemy gas masks and other protective equipment, medical items for treating gas wounds, smoke projectors and pots, chemical grenades filled with hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and flame throwers. Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton drafted detailed reports and boxed up samples of captured Japanese chemical warfare materials to be shipped back to Edgewood Arsenal for further testing. The samples that Hamilton exported back to the United States took up considerable space in the cramped submarines, revealing their importance with regard to military intelligence. These materials constituted the first examples of Japanese chemical warfare material captured, and they surely assisted in the intelligence analysis of enemy capabilities to wage chemical warfare against the Allied Forces operating in the Pacific.

Through Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s innovations, the Chemical Department drained the sulfur trioxide from 4-inch Stokes mortar rounds and converted the agent into sulphuric acid.3 This ingenuity was vital for continued charging of electrical storage batteries, which were essential for lighting, and for powering radios and vehicle batteries on Corregidor. Chemical laboratories that were established during this time also produced medical compounds to augment dwindling medical supplies, such as aspirin and antimalarial quinine. One of these laboratories was hit during an air raid, killing five CWS Soldiers who had voluntarily remained at the post. One of these men, Private First Class Henry George Gansz Jr., was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his bravery and dedication to duty.

The U.S. Army did not have reliable flamethrowers in the Philippine Islands when the war began, so CWS Soldiers on Corregidor developed improvised flamethrowers from chemical decontamination equipment. The CWS technicians also modified gas masks and decontamination equipment to make self-contained diving apparatuses for underwater recovery operations in Manila Bay and to modify Livens Projectors for use as antiaircraft weapons. Finally, the CWS technicians modified collective protective blowers and filters to ventilate the tunnels and bunkers on Corregidor, many of which were utilized as makeshift field hospitals to care for injured and sick troops or as quarters for Allied Forces.

On 9 April 1942, American and Filipino forces at Bataan were pinned down without food or ammunition; they surrendered to the Imperial Japanese forces and began the long march to captivity. A month later, on 7 May 1942—nearly 5 months after the first attacks—U.S. forces on Corregidor (which included Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton and the remaining CWS troops under his command) were also forced to surrender.

The men who had fought so valiantly and so long, waiting in vain for reinforcements and resupply, now faced years of imprisonment in makeshift prison camps, enduring ill treatment, torture, starvation, and a lack of medical treatment at the hands of their captors. As 1942 dragged into 1943 and then 1944, U.S. forces slowly, but inevitably, closed in to recapture the Philippines. The Japanese pulled the prisoners from the camps on the Philippines for shipment to forced labor camps in Japan and occupied China. Loaded on unmarked, overcrowded cargo ships nicknamed “Hellships” by their human cargo, the prisoners fared no better there. The ships became targets of the U.S. Navy—and many were sunk with no survivors. Released at the conclusion of the war, after 38 months of captivity, the prisoners began to make their way home and Family members began to learn about the fate of their loved ones. Left behind them, in shallow graves and watery depths, were more than one-third of the men who had surrendered in 1942.

Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton’s journal

Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, along with other high-ranking Allied officers who had been captured in Java, Singapore, and the Philippines, was held in Hoten Prison Camp in Manchuria until liberated by Russian forces on 24 October 1945. While his rank afforded him better treatment than many enlisted prisoners, he lost nearly half his body weight. Under the eyes of his guards, Hamilton painstakingly reconstructed, from memory, the names of the men who had served under him and their fates. In many cases, his journals provide the only information that exists concerning the deaths of these men, proving invaluable to military investigators and grieving Families across the United States. The effects of starvation during captivity eventually destroyed Hamilton’s health and led to his early death.

How did we lose the tip of the spear? Many of the lessons learned in the fight for the Philippines are still relevant today. There is no substitute for preparedness. In 1941, units were placed in an advance outpost without the proper equipment. Also, lost was the ability of the long-serving chemical officers and noncommissioned officers of the prewar Army to use their years of experience just when their expertise was needed most—to train and lead what would, by 1944, include 65,000 new members of the CWS. Still, these Soldiers demonstrated the American trait of improvisation, using their ingenuity and devotion to duty to hold out as long as possible. The United States was not prepared for the conflict in the Far East, and the lack of state-of-the art equipment and proper training and the inability to be resupplied and reinforced were enormous obstacles to overcome. Yet, what does this say about the CWS Soldiers in the Philippines? Did they complain, lose faith, and throw up their hands—or did they choose to take on additional responsibilities in place of, or in addition to, their primary mission? They were Soldiers first; they embodied the hallmark of American adaptability and flexibility. They saw a problem and found a solution. Making battery acid in laboratories, building ventilation systems in tunnels, and conducting battlefield reconnaissance for enemy equipment are just a few examples of how they demonstrated their devotion to duty.

Learning what the Japanese could use against the United States based on information derived from captured Japanese equipment was eventually of benefit to the development of U.S. technology, such as an improvised flamethrower ignition system. While the tip of the spear was broken in the Philippines in 1942, the dedicated men of the CWS exemplify the American fighting spirit—Never Give Up the Fight!

Notes