TEST TUBE REPUBLIC: Chemical Weapons Tests in Panama and U.S. Responsibility

III. Storage of Chemical Agents and Munitions

        In 1930, when Major General Preston Brown was promoting chemical weapons for canal defense, the military kept a supply of 30 tons of persistent gas in Panama.

        By 1940, the United States had 84 tons of mustard gas, 10 tons of phosgene, 800 phosgene shells, 900 Livens projectors, 647 chemical cylinders, and 2,377 4.2 inch mustard-charged mortar rounds on hand in the Canal Zone.27   From July of that year until the following May, the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) acquired expanded space in Panama -- code named "Mercury" -- and received shipments of gas masks.28 The space included chemical munitions storage magazines in seven bases: Camp Paraiso, Fort Clayton, Corozal Post, Albrook Field, Howard Field, Rio Hato, France Field, and Fort Gulick. The chemical magazines ranged in size from 8 feet by 12 feet in Camp Paraiso, Clayton, Albrook, Gulick and Rio Hato, to a 30' by 45' magazine in France Field that included bombs.29

        Most chemical munitions before the San Jose Project was established, however, were stored at Cerro Tigre, where a monorail hoist had been installed to move munitions. Some of the munitions were kept outdoors. "At the upper end of the row of sheds, a set of mustard gas drums are placed in a niche in the side of the hill," wrote Lt. Col. Homer Saint-Guadens in the Spring of 1941. But Cerro Tigre was subject to earth slides, including one that had destroyed a magazine in 1935, prompting selection of a different site when storage areas for conventional ammunition were expanded in 1938.30

        Chemical munitions flown into San Jose Island were stored at Rio Hato. (See photo in Annex F.) "All air munitions intended for drop tests were stored in field dumps in the vicinity of the runway," according to an Army film made about the San Jose Project.31 In 1946, a chemical officer was sent to inspect the San Jose ammunition dump (i.e., storage area) in Rio Hato "following an inspection by a non-technical officer who painted a terrible picture of conditions."32

        Rio Hato, like San Jose Island, was evacuated in January 1948 after Panama rejected the Filos-Hines Agreement for continued use of those and a dozen other military sites.

        In the 1950s, chemical munitions continued to be stored at Cerro Tigre. Nerve agents tested from approximately 1964 to 1968 were also stored at Cerro Tigre.33

27 Acting Chief of Staff Colonel Wallace C. Philoon, "Chemical Annex to Panama Canal Defense Project," December 1, 1940, NARA, RG 338.
 
28 Brophy, Miles and Cochrane, op.cit., pp. 263, 265, 375.
 
29 Lt. Gen. Daniel Van Voorhis, to Adjutant General, August 1, 1941, in NARA, RG338, 290/40/17/3-6, Box 60.
 
30 "Camouflage problems in the Canal Zone: Report on a survey of camouflage requirements in the Canal Zone made on March 25-April 8," [1941], NARA, RG338, 290/40/16/7-18; Lt. Col. S.C. Godfrey, "Cerro Tigre Drainage Project," memo to Dept. Ordnance Officer, August 21, 1936, NARA, RG98, 471.88, Box 6; "Installation of Utilities at Cerro Tigre Ammunition Depot," March 17, 1938, from PCD Dept. Engineer to Ordnance Officer, Ibid.
 
311 U.S. Army Signal Corps, "The San Jose Project," film available in NARA, College Park, MD, circa 1945.
 
32 Officer of the Chemical Officer, Hq Panama Canal Department, to Lt. Col. J.C. Prentice, Office of the Chief, Chemical Corps, 10 December 1946, in NARA RG 338.
33 Interview with Roy Blades by the author, June 24, 1998.
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