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

422 WORLD WAR II RESEARCH (1941-45)
available material which, when added in small amounts to concrete while it
was being mixed, would inhibit its gain in strength? It could not be too
effective or act too fast, lest the sabotage become evident to the builders.
The known inhibitors of concrete strength such as inorganic salts,
alkalis, and acids, and even organic materials like dextrose and syrups, failed
to meet the specifications. After considerable experimenting the answer
was found in common sugar. It was highly effective in a matter of weeks
when introduced in fractions of as little as 1 percent.'57 As it happend,
most of the coastal fortifications of the enemy were completed when the answer
came, and if the military had other uses for the knowledge, the Bureau
wasn't informed of them.
The growing importance of plastics that led to formation of the
Bureau's organic plastics section in 1935 made that section with its experience
the ultimate authority when war came. The War Production Board strongly
promoted new plastic products and industry turned them out for the armed
services, the Maritime Commission, and the Office of Civilian Defense.
Among new plastic products sent for testing were helmet liners, resinous
coatings used for protection of steel hardware, bayonet handles, Bureau.
designed binocular housings, bugles, canteens, clock housings, compass dials,
raincoats, food packaging, goggles, insect screening, shaving brushes, and
aircraft housings.
The original helmet liner, made of paper puip covered with fabric,
was far from durable, lost its shape after wetting, and had low resistance to
impact. A new liner, on which the Bureau worked with the Office of the
Quartermaster General, was constructed of cotton-fabric laminated phenolic
plastic, its production one of the first large-scale applications of the low.
pressure molding technique. The Bureau also made exhaustive tests of
Doron, a glass-fabric laminated plastic, as possible body armor. Some of
this personal armor was introduced in the Pacific theater late in the war,
after it had been shown superior fo an equal weight of steel or metal armor
in its ability to stop flak and the small arms fire of most Japanese infantry
weapons.158
Only the extreme range of qualities sought in textiles and fabrics
during the war attempted to compete with the proved versatility of plastics.
The armed services, so it seemed to one harassed investigator, wanted textiles
that were "infinitely strong and infinitely light, that gave perfect protection
against heat and cold and finally were digestible in case of emergency." 159
They wanted fabrics that would keep out a driving rain and yet let perspira.
NBS War Research, p. 96.
NBS War Research, pp. 119—120.
Ibid., pp. 122—123.