"In 1940, with Europe into its second great war, the federal government leased the field for use in its Cadet Pilot Training Program. The Army erected the barracks and the large hangar, and poured concrete for an aircraft tie-down ramp, a taxiway, and sidewalks. That was the physical state of the place when on March 9, 1943, the Army Chemical Warfare Service took formal possession of Detrick Field, annexed some of the surrounding farmland for field trials, and renamed it Camp Detrick. Personnel started arriving in April. They were not pilots or even, for the most part, military men. They were civilian biologists whose task was to mass-produce germ weapons. Their first order of business was to fill the British production order for "three kilo dried X.""