Mission and Capabilities

The 22nd Chemical Battalion (CBRNE) is a unit of the U. S. Army Chemical Corps known as "America’s Guardians." As of March 2021 the battalion is stationed at Fort Bliss, TX. The battalion provides command, planning, integration, direction and execution of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive (CBRNE) missions. Hazard Response (HR) capability includes mounted and dismounted reconnaissance and surveillance supporting maneuver formations. HR also includes decontamination of personnel, equipment and mass casualty decontamination. Technical Escort (TE) is the capability to locate, identify, sample, render safe, package, transport and neutralize suspected WMD materials. The battalion also provides Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) services.22nd Chemical Battalion, Fort Bliss, TX, "Mission and Capabilities", Trifold, September 2020

Companies

As of March 2021 the 22nd Chemical Battalion is composed of six companies. + The Six Companies of the 22nd Chemical Battalion Company Function Nickname Motto Crest Headquarters and Headquarters Company Command "Shield" 10th Chemical Company (HR) Hazard Response "Enforcers" 44th Chemical Company (HR) Hazard Response "Dragons of Hell" 46th Chemical Company (TE) Tech Escort "Dirty" 734th Ordnance Company (EOD) Explosive Ordnance Disposal "Luchadores" 741st Ordnance Company (EOD) Explosive Ordnance Disposal "Matadors"

Formation The lineage of the 22nd Chemical Battalion begins with the introduction of chemical warfare in World War I. In 1917, as the American Expeditionary Force prepared to sail for Europe, American military leaders recognized the need for a specialized unit to employ and protect against chemical weapons on the battlefield.  To meet this need, the Army established the 30th Engineer Regiment (Gas and Flame).  On 26 November 1917, the Regiment was expanded to include C Company. It is with C Company / 30th Engineer Regiment that the 22nd Chemical Battalion's story begins.

30th Engineers On 26 February 1918, the soldiers of C Company boarded the USS Agamemnon, and on 10 March disembarked at Brest, France.  The company was billeted at Humes in Northeast France, where it was trained by Royal Engineers in the use of and defense against chemical weapons.

The basic weapon, the Livens projector, was an 8-inch drawn steel tube about 4 feet long with a cap welded on the lower end. This was buried in the ground with the open end protruding a foot or so. Then a package of propelling charge and ignition wiring was placed in the bottom of the tube and on top of that, a thin-walled bomb or "drum" containing high explosive or a chemical agent. Projectors were emplaced in banks numbering in the hundreds and fired simultaneously by electrical detonation. The result was a large amount of gas landing on an enemy position suddenly and without warning. The maximum range of the Livens projector was about 1000 yards which meant the digging in was often necessary in front of the Allied infantry lines. The soldiers, by now nick-named the "Hellfire Boys," had to carry the projectors, propellant, and bombs into position in No Man's Land, then dig them in within easy hearing distance of German machine guns, artillery fire, and patrols. It was not unusual for a "dig" to take place in the midst of a battle involving hundreds of troops attempting to destroy or to protect the emplacement of the projectors.Addison, James Thayer. The Story of the First Gas Regiment, (Google Books), Houghton Mifflin Co., 1919.

A complementary weapon to the Livens Projector was the 4-inch Stokes mortar which could be broken down into several pieces weighing less than 100 pounds each, making it easier to move and emplace. The mortar could easily be carried into position and set up for firing without the delay and noise of digging in. It could be fired at a maximum rate of 20 rounds per minute with about 7 pounds of payload per shell. The sustained rate of fire and payload enabled mortars to provide sustained chemical fires on an enemy position. The men learned to set up attacks in which initial fire from projectors produced casualties by catching the enemy before protective equipment could be donned. As the initial cloud dissipated the mortars took over the attack by maintaining a gas concentration for an indefinite period. This forced the enemy to "fight dirty", remaining in an increased protective posture that significantly degraded their effectiveness with conventional weapons during an Allied infantry attack.

On 7 April 1918, C Company entered the war in support of Allied operations during the Lorraine 1918 campaign. Today the 22D Chemical Battalion's colors carry the Lorraine 1918 streamer, an award which is not carried on the colors of the U.S. Army because no other American units participated.

On 8 July C Company fired the first chemical attack by American troops operating independently. Only part of the company conducted the 565 projector "dig" because poor liaison with the adjacent infantry units forced them to provide their own security. Because of defective ignition wiring only 464 of the projectors actually fired, a performance that would be regarded as highly unsatisfactory within a few weeks.

1st Gas Regiment

A few days later, on 13 July 1918, the 30th Engineer Regiment was re-designated as the 1st Gas Regiment. Under this designation, C Company used both Livens projectors and Stokes mortars in the campaigns of St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. Today the 22nd Chemical Battalion carries these streamers on its colors.

On 24 December the Regiment embarked and arrived in the US a month later, proceeding to Camp Kendrick, New Jersey where it was demobilized on 28 February 1919. C Company, 1st Gas Regiment had spent only a few short months supporting AEF combat operations in Europe, but the lessons it learned would shape the future of the newly established Gas Warfare Service, and of the future 22nd Chemical Battalion.

On 3 February 1920, the 1st Gas Regiment was reorganized and reactivated. It was part of a newly created but tiny Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) which comprised only the 1st Gas Regiment and a few separate service, laboratory, and depot companies. The regiment, including C Company, was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, MD. Among the major duties of the regiment was maintaining and securing the stocks of mustard, phosgene, and other chemical warfare agents that had been produced in great quantities but had not been shipped to Europe before the Armistice. In January 1926, C Company was re-stationed from Edgewood Arsenal to Corazol in the Panama Canal Department. LTC Druell, Timothy / LTC Harwell James / Eldredge, Walter J. Always Ready: The History of the 22nd Chemical Battalion from World War I to 2020 Dragonscribe,

1st Chemical Company

On 13 July 1927, C Company was reorganized and redesignated as the 1st Chemical Company and remained located at Corazol. No warfare agents were stored at Corazol, but there were stocks of other chemicals such as pesticides and chlorine for water purification.  Corazol station was a remote outpost. The isolation from the rest of the CWS gave rise to strong feelings of unit identity. This is why the unit insignia today bears a green stripe reminiscent of the canal crossing the Panamanian Isthmus.

At the start of WWII, the strategic significance of the Panama Canal became evident to American planners.  The Pentagon began to draw up plans to defend the Canal, including using Chemical Weapons against landing sites on both the Atlantic and Pacific shores.  To support these operations a new 4.2-inch chemical mortar was fielded to the 1st Chemical Company. Thereafter duties included munitions maintenance and field training focused on the defending the canal and maintaining the lines of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Theaters of Operations.

On 30 March 1943, the 1st Chemical Company was re-stationed to Camp Sibert, Alabama to support the CWS Replacement Training Center which had moved from Edgewood. Two factors soon took the company out of the training business. One was a change in the organizational structure at Camp Sibert and the other was the need for personnel in the newly formed Guard and Security Service, famous in later years as "Technical Escort." The 22nd CBRN Battalion would later inherit all of the traditions of Tech Escort but its official lineage is interrupted with the deactivation of the 1st Chemical Company on 29 May 1943.

The official lineage resumes 15 years later with the reactivation of the 1st Chemical Company on 10 March 1958, at Fort McClellan, Alabama where the Chemical Corps School was located. The company supported execution of the eight-week training course in chemical warfare.

22nd Chemical Company

On 19 May 1958, the 1st Chemical Company was re-designated as the 22nd Chemical Company. The 22nd transferred to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam on 1 May 1966. It was deactivated less than two months later on 20 July 1966. Into that short period was packed an intense program of direct support that spanned two campaigns, COUNTEROFFENSIVE and COUNTEROFFENSIVE PHASE 2, for which the 22nd Chemical Battalion now carries streamers on its colors.

The company arrived with a variety of capabilities. It could field mobile teams to inspect, service and repair protective masks and flamethrowers. It could seed enemy bunkers and tunnels with persistent teargas (CS). It could conduct aerial and ground-based defoliation operations. It operated mobile shower teams to provide showers for units in areas accessible to 2 ½ ton trucks. It could deploy insecticide sprays from vehicular mounted dispensers and could construct field flame expedients as part of position defenses.

Chemical soldiers were often tasked to rig field flame expedients (technically known as "fougasse" installations) as part of the defenses around US positions. These devices exploded gasoline or napalm from a buried drum and inflicted fatal burns over an area of several thousand square feet.One Soldier’s View of the Viet Nam War  http://www.perrybrake.com/Vietnam1.html Accessed 8 Mar 2021

Wide area defoliation missions were carried out by spray from a large, fixed wing aircraft with a chemical officer in a small airplane acting as spotter and controller. Limited area defoliation missions, such as roadside growth or underbrush around a defensive position were conducted at low altitude from helicopters. Chemical soldiers riding as crew would load their spraying apparatus and distribute the material as the pilot flew along the target areas. The soldiers returned from these missions drenched in the chemicals that were being disbursed. Agent Orange, which came in orange-striped barrels, interfered with growth hormones and caused trees to lose their leaves. In later years, Agent Orange was associated with a wide range of illnesses including severe birth defects. After deactivation at Cam Ranh Bay on 20 July 1966, the 22nd Chemical Company was inactive for 13 years. Then on 21 September 1979, it was reactivated in Drake Kaserne, Frankfurt, Germany and assigned to the 3rd Armored Division (3AD). This assignment lasted 13 years, until inactivation on 15 August 1992. The Cold War was still intense. Germany would be the central battleground in a conflict with the Russians, who were known to have chemical warfare capabilities. The 3AD conducted constant field exercises, many of them with German units. These required support from the 22nd in reconnaissance and decontamination. Mechanical smoke generation was still a chemical task, and the company's smoke platoon was kept busy screening movements and covering river crossings.