This chapter should not be closed without reference to the Liaison
Service that was established between the United States and her Allies,
especially England.
During the early days no one in the States was familiar with the
details of gas warfare. At the request of the Medical Corps, upon the
urgent representations of the Gas Service, A.E.F., Captain (now Major)
H. W. Dudley was sent to this country (Sept., 1917) to assist in the
development and manufacture of gas masks. For some time he was the
Court of Appeal on nearly all technical points regarding matters of
defense. Dudley’s continual insistence on the need for maintaining the
highest possible standard of factory inspection was one of the factors
resulting in the excellent construction of the American Mask. In March,
1918, Lieut. Col. Dewey and Captain Dudley made a trip to England
and France, during which the idea of a liaison between the defense
organizations of the two countries originated. Dudley was transferred
to the Engineers, promoted and placed in charge of the Liaison service.
While the time until the Armistice was too short to really test the
idea, enough was accomplished to show the extreme desirability of some
such arrangement.
Probably the best known liaison officer from the British was Colonel
S. J. M. Auld, also sent upon the urgent representations of the Gas
Service, A.E.F. He arrived in this country about the middle of October,
1917, in charge of 28 officers and 28 non-commissioned officers, who
were to act as advisers in training and many other military subjects
besides gas warfare. Since Auld had had personal experience with gas
warfare as then practiced at the front, his advice was welcomed most
heartily by all the different branches of the Army then handling gas
warfare. On questions of general policy Auld was practically the sole
foreign adviser. The matter of gas training was transferred from the
Medical Corps to the Engineers, and was greatly assisted by four
pamphlets on Gas Warfare issued by the War College, which were prepared
by Major Auld with the assistance of Captain Walton and Lieut. Bohnson.
Later Auld gave the American public a very clear idea of gas warfare
in his series of articles appearing in the Saturday Evening Post, and
re-written as “Gas and Flame.”
Major H. R. LeSueur, who was at Porton previous to his arrival in this
country in December, 1917, rendered valuable aid in establishing the
Experimental Proving Ground and in its later operations.
Towards the close of the war the British War Office had drawn up a
scheme for a Gas Mission, which was to correlate all the gas activities
of England and America. This was never carried through because of the
signing of the Armistice.
The French representatives, M. Grignard, Capt. Hanker and Lt. Engel
furnished valuable information as to French methods, but they were
handicapped by the fact that French manufacturers did not disclose
their trade secrets even to their own Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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