Abandoned Chemical Weapons in Papua New Guinea

During WWII, the US Army maintained a substantial stockpile of toxic chemical bombs in New Guinea. As elsewhere, some of these bombs were buried or dumped at sea; however, the New Guinea base is unique In that thousands of bombs were simply abandoned in their above-ground storage racks.

The Organizational History Reports for the 760th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) provide a detailed account of the unit's activities in the Pacific Theater. Their depot was located first at Charters Towers in Queensland, Australia. In December 1944, they moved their stockpile of mustard, phosgene, hydrogen cyanide and other toxic chemical bombs to the area around Oro Bay in what is now Papua New Guinea. The Company Commander, Capt. Edward Kenny, documented the unit's diligent work in keeping their munitions ready for use, despite the difficulties posed by thousands of leaking mustard-filled bombs and cyanogen-chloride bombs which sometimes exploded without warning. They completed their assigned mission, helping provide a real threat of "response in kind" if Japan had used chemical weapons in the South Pacific. Their secret work was successful. Japan never used chemical weapons against American, British or Australian forces as they had done earlier against Chinese soldiers and civilians, and the munitions maintained by the 760th were never used.

By June 1945, the Japanese had been pushed far to the north and there was no longer a need for a chemical warfare deterrent in the South Pacific. The soldiers of the 760th were reassigned to the very active job of handling Incendiary munitions at airbases from which B-29s could reach the Japanese home islands.

The remaining stockpile of chemical munitions in New Guinea included at least 20,000 mustard-filed bombs and a variety of other, more toxic bulk chemicals and bombs. In other locations such as Ondal in India (where my father served), these leftover chemical munitions were either buried or dumped at sea during the last half of 1945. At Oro Bay, the 760th was ordered to move north in June 1945, giving the Company no time to do anything except to abandon their stacks of toxic chemical bombs where they stood.

New Guinea conjures images of very difficult mountains and jungle terrain; but the area around Oro Bay, Embi Lakes and Dobodura is a plain, rising only about 100 m above sea level. It is now the site of numerous palm oil plantations, villages, churches and other human activities. The regional airport at Popondetta hardly compares to O'Hare or Calcutta, but it does have daily commercial flights to and from Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby.

The current status of the abandoned and buried US bombs is unclear; however, the Australian War Memorial shows photos taken in 1951 of bombs scattered about on the ground. Pacific Wrecks also provides an account from 1970 of 1000-pound phosgene-filled bombs lying on the surface. To my knowledge, no one has yet documented the status of the buried US bombs. It is clear, however, that even leaking mustard bombs can remain very hazardous for many decades.

Transcribed excerpts from the Organizational History Reports for the activities of the 760th in New Guinea are now available here. Hoosier Scientist also provides a full (but hard-to-read) copy of the reports, with many photographs.

Many activities of the US Chemical Warfare Service were kept secret until 2009. Is it time to make them part of America’s WWII story?

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