80 years ago in January 1945, the 760th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) was settling into their new base near Oro Bay in New Guinea. It was a big adjustment from their previous station in Queensland, Australia where they at least had access to pubs and other relative luxuries. More importantly, they were confronting problems with over 22,000 100-pound M47A2 bombs filled with mustard agent that had also arrived from their Queensland depot. The 760th had a stock as well of 1000-pound T2 bombs (some filled with phosgene and others with hydrogen cyanide) which more deadly than the mustard bombs, but far less prone to leaks. The primary mission for the 760th remained what it had been since their arrival in Queensland in June 1943. It was their job to supply the U.S. Air Forces with munitions that might be needed for a “response in kind” if Japan were to initiate toxic chemical warfare in the South Pacific.

The Company’s personnel adapted quickly to the new reality of living in a moist tropical environment. They listened to lectures on malaria and scrub typhus and even started a garden that yielded its first harvest of radishes a few weeks later. Fighting continued in other parts of New Guinea (as it would until the end of WWII), but the area around Oro Bay was relatively safe and quite busy with nearly a dozen interconnected air strips. As described in their Organizational History Reports (OHRs), “The novelty of life in the verdant, tropical paradise of New Guinea, so attractively portrayed in Stateside travel posters, had painfully given way to the reality of monotonous swamps, heat, dust, mosquitoes and the boring duty of handling the toxic agents with little or no change in daily routine.”

The bombs’ journey from Queensland to Oro Bay had been more difficult than the soldiers’ short voyage. Dockworkers in Townsville were aware of previous problems handling Australian and American toxic munitions and refused to load the cargo, leaving the hazardous work to Australian Militia. Toxic munitions were then a relatively low priority, and both the ship loading American bombs and another that was simultaneously loading Australian bombs from Kangaroo Ordnance Depot had to pull out for a time to make way for more urgent cargos. During the loading, the harbor at Townsville contained “the entire theatre stock level of one hundred (100) lb. chemical bombs.” Unloading the bombs at Oro Bay was even more difficult, with 51 men of the Port Battalion requiring treatment for mustard burns. Movement of the bombs progressed more smoothly after trained toxic gas handlers from the 760th were called in to supervise the unloading.

That January near Oro Bay, the 760th proceeded to establish their depot and to check each of the 22,402 mustard bombs in their charge. During the month, they removed 1656 of the worst leakers and repaired most of them. They developed a procedure for emptying unrepairable leakers and discarding the casings into the ocean. The first ocean disposals were done 5 miles from shore, but one of the empty casings washed ashore on a beach “in the WAC area.” Responding to the demands of an angry Colonel, the 760th moved future disposals 10 miles out to sea.

Details about the 760th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) were kept secret in Air Force archives until 2009 when they were declassified with many other documents under a broad executive order by President Obama. These and other OHRs provide an important for the forthcoming book, Toxins and Fire, by Frederick Thomas. The original microfilm copies in the Air Force archives remain somewhat difficult to access, and Dr. Thomas is encouraging anyone interested to read and use the original source material by providing a link to an online copy at www.ToxinsandFire.com. Everyone interested in reading original reports written by some of the 66,000 men who served in the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service during World War II is encouraged to do so. Some parts of the archived material are difficult to read because a microfilm camera was misaligned while photographing the original paper documents.