=Purchase of Offensive Gas Supplies.= Realizing the difficulty that would probably be encountered in getting supplies at all times from the British and French, two requisitions for offensive gas supplies to be purchased from the British were submitted on September 8th and 10th respectively. It would seem proper to state here that investigation showed the British gas organization to be far superior to the French. Indeed, the latter practically had no organization. Consequently it was determined to purchase complete equipment for gas troops and for the defensive side of the service from the British and to make no attempt to produce new materials, methods or equipment until ample supplies of the standard equipment of the British were at hand or in process of manufacture or delivery. This was another exceedingly wise conclusion. No supplies of any kind were received from the United States for the next eight months, and then only masks and certain defensive supplies. Indeed, no cylinders, mortars, projectors or artillery shell containing gas were received from the United States until just before the Armistice, though gas had been available in the United States for months in large quantities, over 3,600 tons having been shipped in one ton containers to the English and French. The Ordnance material was what was lacking. =Obtaining Personnel.= On September. 8, Colonel R. W. Crawford was assigned to duty with the Gas Service. This matter of obtaining personnel became immediately, and continued for almost a year to be, one of the most serious difficulties facing the new Gas Service. The troubles here again were the same as those in respect to supplies. None of the old departments were especially interested in gas and hence none of them desired to let good officers be transferred. Officers were scarce in the early days in France in every department of the Service, consequently a new department with no organization in the United States and no precedents or opportunities for promotion made the obtaining of officers almost a matter of impossibility. Further than this, while the Engineer Department was at first supposed to furnish most of the officer personnel, it failed to do so, apparently looking upon the Gas Service as an unimportant matter when compared with the regular work of the Engineers. It was necessary to make direct application to the Chief of Staff to obtain Colonel Crawford and shortly thereafter to cable directly to the United States for officers. A year later enough officers were obtained but only after the organization of a separate Service in the United States.