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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
MAJ. CHURCH REPORTS ON CHEMICAL WARFARE IN FRANCE
On 15 November 1915, Maj. James R. Church was assigned as a military observer to France. His reports of French military and medical operations were some of the first to detail the effects of chemical weapons on soldiers during World War I and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service in 1918.
James Robb Church was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1866 and attended medical school at the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), where he graduated in 1888. He joined the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War as assistant surgeon for the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. He distinguished himself in Cuba in 1898 during the Battle of Las Guasimas when he “voluntarily and unaided carried several seriously wounded men from the firing line to a secure position in the rear, in each instance being subjected to a very heavy fire and great exposure and danger.” For this action, he received the Medal of Honor in 1906. After the war, Church remained in the Army Medical Corps, rising to the rank of major.
On 15 November 1915, Major Church was ordered to leave his station at Fort Crockett, Texas, and report for duty as a military observer to the French Army. He was instructed to gather intelligence on French hospitals, ambulance routes, and medical outposts. Church departed the United States for England on 15 January 1916 and then traveled by ferry to France, arriving in Paris on 29 January. He was immediately overwhelmed by his limited linguistic abilities and spent many days learning the particulars of Parisian French.
Church discovered the French Sanitary Services, the organizations in place for caring for the sick and wounded, had been significantly overhauled over the previous year to meet the needs of the war’s increasing casualties. Church indicated the problems facing the French health system between 1915–1916 represented a valuable opportunity to plan for American medical needs should the U.S. join the war effort. He wrote, “We must understand that it is not only the question of caring for the wounded man…Transportation, supply, records, construction, feeding, preventative medicine and many other things fall in line to make up the perplexing whole.” Church’s medical intelligence aided preparations for the implementation of the Army Medical Corps in Europe.
Between 1915–1917, chemical weapons were being used with increasing regularity on the battlefield by both the Allied and Central Powers. Church’s early reports highlighted the medical needs for treating soldiers exposed to poisonous gases and were some of the first American medical observations about the effects of chemical warfare on troops. Church and other military medical observers gathered intelligence on the various “gas services,” military sections implemented by the French, German, and British for directing the use of chemical warfare.
After the U.S. entered the war in April 1917, the War Department established the Gas Service and Chemical Service Sections of the U.S. Army. These sections merged in 1918 to create the Chemical Warfare Service. On the recommendations of Church and other observers, the new service was directed by a collaboration of high-ranking engineers, chemists, and medical personnel conducting research and development for battlefield and other military applications.
Major Church served during the latter part of the war as a surgeon with the American Expeditionary Forces. He compiled his military and medical observations into a book, "The Doctor’s Part: What Happens to the Wounded in War," published in 1918. He retired from the Army Medical Corps as a colonel and passed away in 1923.
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| Date Taken: | 11.08.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.08.2024 14:03 |
| Story ID: | 484977 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 25 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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