Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

172 THE WAR YEARS (1917-19)
it was called on to (1) furnish scientific and technical information and
recommendations, (2) undertake specific research, (3) develop and stand-
ardize tests and test procedures, (4) standardize materials and equipment,
and (5) make new as well as routine precision measurements.
The first direct contact of the Bureau with the war in Europe occurred
in the spring and summer of 1917 when members of the Bureau went
abroad with a scientific mission "to obtain information concerning applica.
tions of science to warfare and the part to be played by scientific men in
the war." 29 That same spring British and French scientific missions arrived
in this country and visited the Bureau, bringing with them new military
equipment, products of their laboratory research and battlefield experience.
The disclosures of both missions were jolting, for they indicated a range
of research abroad of which we were entirely ignorant and a superiority in
certain technologies of which we were wholly unaware. Particularly im-
pressive were some of the French steels and semi-steels and the developments
of French radio apparatus.'°
Chemicals and steel, forging the weapons of the battle in France, were
primary concerns of the Bureau throughout the war. Germany's preeminent
dye industry, on which our textile industry depended for 90 percent of its
dyestuffs, also made her dominant in explosives, for out of the same coal tar
derivatives that built the aniline industry came the phenol for picric acid,
the toluol for TNT, and the ammonia for ammonium nitrate.3' This coun-
try's negligible dye industry made us almost wholly dependent on the coking
industry for our supply of toluol. When war came that supply was already
earmarked for the Allies and other sources had to be speedily developed.
In the spring of 1917, at the instigation of the National Research Council,
Bureau representatives met with American Gas Institute officials and with
Federal, State, and city authorities to study procedures for the recovery of
toluol from city gas supplies, as the British were doing, and to determine the
adjustments necessary in standards of gas service.32
29 NBS M46, "The War Work of the Bureau of Standards" (1921), pp. 11, 172. Hereafter
cited as "War Work."
'° The steel in the French 240-mm. trench mortar, for example, was much better than
that in the same mortar made in this country. The French also made a satisfactory
processed cast iron (semi-steel) shell that American industry was unable to duplicate
until the Bureau established criteria its production. See "War Work," pp. 195—196.
For the radio equipment of the Allies, see radio section, below. On the other hand,
the Bureau discounted the new stainless steel made by the English and even after
the war continued to believe it had only limited usefulness. See letter, SWS to
Chief of Construction, Navy Department, Dec. 21, 1921 and attached correspondence
(NBS Box 12, IMH).
Letter, Secretary of Commerce Redfield to SWS, Feb. 22, 1915 (NBS Box 3, AG).
See Benedict Crowell, America's Munitions, 1917—18 (Washington, D.C., 1919), pp.
107—108.