Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called

Project 112 Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapon experimentation project conducted by the United States Department of Defense from 1962 to 1973. The project started under John F. Kennedy's administration, and was authorized by his Secretary ...

, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with

chemical agents A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as ...

or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.

History

Project SHAD was part of a larger effort by the Department of Defense called

. Project 112 was a

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

and

biological weapons A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterrorism ...

research, development, and testing project conducted by the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

and

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

handled by the

Deseret Test Center The Deseret Test Center was a U.S. Army operated command in charge for testing chemical and biological weapons during the 1960s. The Deseret was headquartered at Fort Douglas, Utah, a former U.S. Army base. History Progress toward standardizin ...

and

United States Army Chemical Materials Agency The United States Army Chemical Materials Activity (CMA) is a separate reporting activity of the United States Army Materiel Command (AMC). Its role is to enhance national security by securely storing the remaining U.S. chemical warfare materie ...

from 1962 to 1973. The project started under

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

's administration, and was authorized by his Secretary of Defense

Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the Lis ...

, as part of a total review of the US military. The name of the project refers to its number in the 150 review process.

Mission

The Shipboard Hazard and Defense Project (SHAD) was a series of tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense during the 1960s to determine how well service members aboard military ships could detect and respond to chemical and biological attacks. Dee Dodson Morris of the Army Chemical Corps who coordinated the ongoing investigation, says, "The SHAD tests were intended to show how vulnerable Navy ships were to chemical or biological warfare agents. The objective was to learn how chemical or biological warfare agents would disperse throughout a ship, and to use that information to develop procedures to protect crewmembers and decontaminate ships." DoD investigators note that over a hundred tests were planned but the lack of test results may indicate that many tests were never actually executed. 134 tests were planned initially, but reportedly, only 46 tests were actually completed.

Declassification

Public Law 107–314 required the identification and release of not only Project 112 information to the United States Veterans Administration, but also that of any other projects or tests where a veteran might have been exposed to a chemical or biological warfare agent, and directed the secretary of defense to work with veterans and veterans service organizations to identify the other projects or tests conducted by the Department of Defense that may have exposed members of the Armed Forces to chemical or biological agents. In 2000, the Department of Defense began the process of declassifying records about the project. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, approximately 6,000 U.S. Service members were believed to be involved in conducting the tests. In 2002, the Department of Defense began publishin
a list of fact sheets for each of the tests

Identification

Although many of the roughly 5,500 veterans who took part were aware of the tests, some were involved without their knowledge. Certain issues surrounding the test program were not resolved by the passage of the law and the Department of Defense was accused of continuing to withhold documents on Cold War chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting veterans as "human samplers" after reporting to Congress it had released all medically relevant information. A

Government Accounting Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...

May 2004 report, ''Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD Needs to Continue to Collect and Provide Information on Tests and Potentially Exposed Personnel'' indicates that almost all participants who were identified from Project 112 — 94 percent — were from ship-based tests of Project SHAD that comprised only about one-third of the total number of tests conducted.

Medical Studies

Jack Alderson, a retired Navy officer who commanded the Army tugboats, told

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

that he believes the Pentagon used him and other service members to test weapons, and that those tests included agents, vaccines, and decontamination products which have led to serious medical problems, including cancer. Secrecy agreements can now be ignored by veterans in order to pursue healthcare concerns within the Department of Veterans Affairs. The V.A. has offered screening programs for veterans who believe they were involved in DoD sponsored tests during their service. The

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...

has commissioned studies of Project SHAD participants. The first, ''Long-Term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense)'', was released in 2007, and found "no clear evidence that specific long-term health effects are associated with participation in Project SHAD." The second, ''Shipboard Hazard and Defense II (SHAD II)'', by the IoM's Medical Follow-up Agency (MFUA), began in 2012, and, as of April 2014, was ongoing.Institute of Medicine of the National Academies ''Shipboard Hazard and Defense II (SHAD II)''
/ref>

Locations of SHAD tests

fro
SHAD Fact Sheets
*

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

*Pacific Ocean off

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, CA *Pacific Ocean, from San Diego, CA to

Balboa, Panama Balboa is a district of Panama City, located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. History The town of Balboa, founded by the United States during the construction of the Panama Canal, was named after Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the Spani ...

*Ft. Sherman,

Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terr ...

Eniwetok Atoll Enewetak Atoll (; also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; mh, Ānewetak, , or , ; known to the Japanese as Brown Atoll or Brown Island; ja, ブラウン環礁) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with it ...

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...

Baker Island Baker Island, formerly known as New Nantucket, is an uninhabited atoll just north of the Equator in the central Pacific Ocean about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is H ...

Island of Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii ) is the largest island in the United States, located in the state of Hawaii. It is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, a chain of volcanic islands in the North Pacific Ocean. With an area of , it has 63% of th ...

*Pacific Ocean near the Island of Oahu, Hawaii *Pacific Ocean, west of Oahu, Hawaii *Pacific Ocean southwest of Oahu, HI *

Oahu, HI Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...

and surrounding waters *Pacific Ocean, off Oahu, HI & surrounding water & airspace *Pacific Ocean near

Johnston Island Johnston Atoll is an unincorporated territory of the United States, currently administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Johnston Atoll is a National Wildlife Refuge and part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine Natio ...

Eglin Air Force Base Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base in the western Florida Panhandle, located about southwest of Valparaiso in Okaloosa County. The host unit at Eglin is the 96th Test Wing (formerly the 96th Air Base Wing). The ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

off

Newfoundland, Canada Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Ships and air units involved

Ships

* USS Berkeley (DDG-15) * USS Carbonero (SS-337) * USS Carpenter (DD-825) * USS Fechteler (DD-870) *

USS Fort Snelling (LSD-30) USS ''Fort Snelling'' (LSD-30) was a of the United States Navy. She was named for Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, for many years the northernmost military post in the land of the Sioux and Chippewa. S ...

USS George Eastman (YAG-39) USS ''George Eastman'' (YAG-39), a "Liberty-type" cargo ship, was laid down under Maritime Commission contract on 24 March 1943 by Permanente Metals Corp., Yard 2, Richmond, California; launched on 20 April 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Ann Troutman; a ...

USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40) ''Granville S. Hall'' was a Liberty ship named after Granville S. Hall. She was built at the J.A. Jones Construction, Panama City, Florida, and launched in 1944, to serve as a civilian cargo ship. In 1953 she was acquired by the United States Nav ...

* USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833) * USS Hoel (DDG-13) * USS Moctobi (ATF-105) * USS Navarro (APA-215) * USS Okanogan (APA-220) * USS Power (DD-839) * USNS Samuel Phillips Lee (T-AGS 31) *

USNS Silas Bent (T-AGS-26) USNS ''Silas Bent'' (T-AGS-26) was a ''Silas Bent'' class survey ship acquired by the United States Navy in 1964 and delivered to the Military Sealift Command in 1965. ''Silas Bent'' spent her career in the Pacific Ocean performing oceanographi ...

* USS Tioga County (LST-1158) *

USS Tiru (SS-416) USS ''Tiru'' (SS-416), a , was a vessel of the United States Navy named for the tiru, a member of the lizardfish family. ''Tiru''—laid down on 17 April 1944 at Vallejo, California, by the Mare Island Navy Yard—remained uncompleted for three ...

* USS Wexford County (LST-1168) * US Navy Lighter Barge (YFN-811) * US Army Large Tug LT-2080 * US Army Large Tug LT-2081 * US Army Large Tug LT-2085 * US Army Large Tug LT-2086 * US Army Large Tug LT-2087 * US Army Large Tug LT-2088

Air units

* Meteorological Research Service (contractor) C-47 * US Navy Airborne Early Warning Barrier Squadron Pacific (AEWBarRonpac) Lockheed

WV-2 WV2 or WV-2 may refer to: * Lockheed WV-2 Warning Star, a surveillance aircraft * West Virginia's 2nd congressional district * West Virginia Route 2 * WorldView-2, a commercial Earth observation satellite * WV2, a postcode district in Wolverhampton ...

EC-121 Warning Star The Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star was an American airborne early warning and control radar surveillance aircraft operational in the 1950s in both the United States Navy (USN) and United States Air Force (USAF). The military version of the Lo ...

* US Navy Patrol Squadron Four (

VP-4 Patrol Squadron Four (VP-4) is a U.S. Navy land-based patrol squadron based at the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Oak Harbor, Washington, which is tasked to undertake maritime patrol, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and intelligence, surveillance ...

) (PATRON Four), Fleet Air Wing Four (

Lockheed P-2 Neptune The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and ...

) * US Navy Patrol Squadron Six (

VP-6 VP-6 was a long-lived Patrol Squadron of the U.S. Navy, nicknamed the ''Blue Sharks''. Originally established as Bombing Squadron VB-146 on 15 July 1943, it was redesignated Patrol Bombing Squadron VPB-146 on 1 October 1944, redesignated VP-146 on ...

) (PATRON SIX), Fleet Air Wing Two (Lockheed P-2 Neptune) * US Navy VU-1 Utility Squadron One, re-designated VC-1 Composite Squadron One on July 1, 1965. (

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a single-seat subsonic carrier-capable light attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s. The delta-winged, single turbojet engined Skyhawk was designed a ...

) * USMC

Marine Aircraft Group 13 Marine Aircraft Group 13 is a United States Marine Corps aviation unit based at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma that is currently composed of one McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II squadron, three Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II squadrons, an ...

, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and B ...

, A-4 (Skyhawk), Sikorsky H-34 Seahorse * USMC Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 161 (HMM 161), Marine Aircraft Group 16 (MAG-16), 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (3rd MAW) Sikorsky H-34 Seahorse * US Air Force 4533rd Tactical Test Squadron, US Air Force 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing (F-4E Phantom II)

Notes

References

* United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Personnel, "The Department of Defense's inquiry into Project 112/Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD) tests: hearing before the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventh Congress, second session, October 10, 2002," United States Congress, S. hrg. 107–810 (2003), 1–39. * United States. Congress. House. Report, "Health care for veterans of Project 112/Project SHAD Act of 2003: report (to accompany H.R. 2433)," United States Congress, Report/108th Congress, 1st session, House of Representatives, 108–213, 1–19. * United States. Congress. House. Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Subcommittee on Health, "Military operations aspects of SHAD and Project 112: hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, second session, October 9, 2002", 107th Congress, 2nd session, 107–43, 1–19. * "Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD)" from

External links

Columbia Journalism Review, Laurels November/December 2000

* http://archive.vva.org/TheVeteran/2002_01/hazardous.htm
Project SHAD
at the

United States Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

, includes pocket guides and Q&A
Vietnam Veterans of America

GAO

The Chemical-Biological Warfare Exposures Site, Official Web site of Force Health Protection & Readiness Policy & Programs

Project 112/SHAD - Shipboard Hazard and Defense, Official Web site of Force Health Protection & Readiness Policy & Programs

Declassified documents

''OSD & Joint Staff FOIA Requester Service Center''
PROJECT SHAD -- AUTUMN GOLD, May 1964

PROJECT SHAD -- BIG JACK

PROJECT SHAD -- NIGHT TRAIN, December 1964
{{Authority control SHAD SHAD SHAD SHAD Human subject research in the United States