The Numbers of The Battalions
During World War II, 25 chemical mortar battalions were sent overseas:
- the 2nd and 3rd Battalions
- the 71st and 72nd Battalions
- the 80th to 100th Battalions
Seven additional Battalions (443rd, 483rd, 534th, 537th, 560th, 781st and 782nd) were also formed formed during the war, but were activated too late to serve overseas.
After World War II, the U. S. War Department transferred the operations and development of chemical mortars to the Ordnance Department, in this way making the mortar an official infantry weapon.
The 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion was the last of the chemical mortar battalions; and the only one to see combat after World War II. It was reactivated in 1949 and saw 1,008 days of combat during the Korean War. In January 1953, its combat personnel were transferred to the 461st Infantry Battalion (Heavy Mortar.)
Read more about this topic: Chemical Mortar Battalion
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“What culture lacks is the taste for anonymous, innumerable germination. Culture is smitten with counting and measuring; it feels out of place and uncomfortable with the innumerable; its efforts tend, on the contrary, to limit the numbers in all domains; it tries to count on its fingers.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)