Nerve Gas

About the Book

The book does more than recall events related to the author's work. It records the level of readiness of our country to face military challenges over the major part of the 20th century until the present. The lack of foresight from our leaders and their poor understanding of the airplane as a weapon got us in trouble before we entered World War II. A crippling economic depression had the nation in despair and was wrecking Europe when the American people united to equip our armed forces and won a victory that was almost lost.

During World War I poison gas was surprisingly used against our unprepared Army. That lesson prompted the manufacture of defensive equipment and such a large inventory of mustard gas, that gas warfare was not attempted by anyone in World War II. We added to that visible stockpile of chemical ammunition with nerve gas and now it is being eliminated. Our nation again will be as poorly prepared as at World War I.

The most recent transfer of Research and Development funds to support disposal of chemical weapons portends a risky course of action that will, hopefully, attract attention of responsible parties in charge of our security.

About the Author

After a decade of economic depression near the end of the 1930's, ominous sounds of war awakened American industry. Skilled tradesmen had disappeared in the ten year lapse and innovation was not needed when the country stood still. Even new technologies such as aviation had been neglected by the War Department who suddenly needed airplanes and sought entrepreneurs to build them. Mr. Puro was one of many college boys hired at the Glen L. Martin Company to learn drafting as the company was struggling to find experienced engineers to design airplanes from knowledge not yet fully available.

After two years he moved closer to home to work as a machine designer throughout the war for Triumph Explosives, Inc. at Elkton Maryland. The company was a leading supplier of anti-aircraft ammunition to equip Navy ships and also made a large variety of ammunition for other armed forces.

Mr. Puro considered those six years to be the training ground for his next thirty-two years as Ordnance Design Engineer with the U.S. Chemical Corps. He served in lead positions to meet requirements for special products in important military operations of that era.

The accident-free development of the national stockpile of Nerve Gas ammunition engineered by the Ground Munitions Branch under his supervision, is a hands-on story clarifying much misunderstanding about Nerve Agent weapons.