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Contact Info
Home Town Cottage Hill
Last Address Washington, D.C.
Date of Passing Jan 18, 1941
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Brigadier General Carl Rogers Darnall discovered the value of using compressed liquefied chlorine gas to purify water for use by troops in the field. His invention in 1910 of mechanical liquid chlorine purifier (chlorinator) is now used throughout the world. This monumental discovery was later applied to municipal water supplies. It is impossible to estimate the influence that a pure water supply has had on public health. It is safe to say that more lives have been saved and more sickness prevented by Darnall's contribution to sanitary water than by any other single achievement in medicine.
Born on his father's farm in the Cottage Hill community near McKinney, in Collin County, Texas, on Christmas Day 1867, Carl Darnall was the eldest of the seven children of Reverend Joseph Rogers Darnall, minister of the Christian Church, and Mary Ellen (Thomas) Darnall. He attended the Carlton College in Bonham, Texas, and graduated from Transylvania University, Kentucky, and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received his medical degree in 1890. After a few years of private practice, Dr. Darnall entered the military service as an assistant surgeon in 1896. He was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps, and his first assignments were to stations in Texas – Fort Clark at Brackettville, and Fort McIntosh at Laredo.
During the Spanish-American War, Darnall served in Cuba. Later, he served as an operating surgeon and pathologist aboard the hospital ship Relief in the Philippines and commanded the hospital at Iloilo. He was one of the few medical officers that accompanied the Allied Forces during the Boxer Rebellion in China.
In 1902, he returned to Washington, D.C., and served as secretary of the faculty and instructor for sanitary chemistry and operative surgery at the Army Medical School. It was while professor of chemistry that he discovered the value of liquid chlorine in purifying water. Darnall also devised and patented a water filter that was used by the Army for many years.
During World War I, Lieutenant Colonel Darnall's talents for business and organization were recognized and he was assigned to the Finance and Supply Division in the Office of The Surgeon General. After the war, he served as department surgeon in Hawaii.
In 1925, he returned to the Office of The Surgeon General as executive officer. In November 1929, he was promoted to brigadier general and became the Commanding General of the Army Medical Center. He held this post until he retired in 1931.
Darnall died January 18, 1941. Six days earlier, his devoted wife, Annie Estella, died at the family home in Washington. He left three sons, Joseph Rogers, William Major, and Carl Robert, all of who served in some capacity in the Army.
General Darnall was the author of a number of papers on professional subjects in chemistry and surgery. He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Medical Association, and a member of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States. He was a veteran of the Military Order of the Carabao, member of the Army and Navy Club of Washington, and Founder Member of the Army and Navy Country Club. Darnall received the Distinguished Service Medal for his organizing, developing and administering medical supplies in World War I.
World War I
From Month/Year
April / 1917
To Month/Year
November / 1918
Description The United States of America declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917. The U.S. was an independent power and did not officially join the Allies. It closely cooperated with them militarily but acted alone in diplomacy. The U.S. made its major contributions in terms of supplies, raw material and money, starting in 1917. American soldiers under General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), arrived in large numbers on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. They played a major role until victory was achieved on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to Great Britain and the other Allied powers. During the war, the U.S mobilized over 4 million military personnel and suffered 110,000 deaths, including 43,000 due to the influenza pandemic. The war saw a dramatic expansion of the United States government in an effort to harness the war effort and a significant increase in the size of the U.S. military. After a slow start in mobilising the economy and labour force, by spring 1918 the nation was poised to play a role in the conflict. Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, the war represented the climax of the Progressive Era as it sought to bring reform and democracy to the world,[citation needed] although there was substantial public opposition to United States entry into the war.
Although the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, it did not initially declare war on the other Central Powers, a state of affairs that Woodrow Wilson described as an "embarrassing obstacle" in his State of the Union speech.[26] Congress declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on December 17, 1917, but never made declarations of war against the other Central Powers, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire or the various Co-belligerents allied with the central powers, thus the United States remained uninvolved in the military campaigns in central, eastern and southern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
The United States as late as 1917 maintained only a small army, smaller than thirteen of the nations and empires already active in the war. After the passage of the Selective Service Act in 1917, it drafted 2.8 million men into military service. By the summer of 1918 about a million U.S. soldiers had arrived in France, about half of whom eventually saw front-line service; by the Armistice of November 11 approximately 10,000 fresh soldiers were arriving in France daily. In 1917 Congress gave U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans when they were drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones Act. In the end Germany miscalculated the United States' influence on the outcome of the conflict, believing it would be many more months before U.S. troops would arrive and overestimating the effectiveness of U-boats in slowing the American buildup.
The United States Navy sent a battleship group to Scapa Flow to join with the British Grand Fleet, destroyers to Queenstown, Ireland and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of Marines were also dispatched to France. The British and French wanted U.S. units used to reinforce their troops already on the battle lines and not to waste scarce shipping on bringing over supplies. The U.S. rejected the first proposition and accepted the second. General John J. Pershing, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, refused to break up U.S. units to serve as mere reinforcements for British Empire and French units. As an exception, he did allow African-American combat regiments to fight in French divisions. The Harlem Hellfighters fought as part of the French 16th Division, earning a unit Croix de Guerre for their actions at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, and Séchault.
Impact of US forces on the war
On the battlefields of France in spring 1918, the war-weary Allied armies enthusiastically welcomed the fresh American troops. They arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, at a time when the Germans were unable to replace their losses. After British Empire, French and Portuguese forces had defeated and turned back the powerful final German offensive (Spring Offensive of March to July, 1918), the Americans played a role in the Allied final offensive (Hundred Days Offensive of August to November). However, many American commanders used the same flawed tactics which the British, French, Germans and others had abandoned early in the war, and so many American offensives were not particularly effective. Pershing continued to commit troops to these full- frontal attacks, resulting in high casualties against experienced veteran German and Austrian-Hungarian units. Nevertheless, the infusion of new and fresh U.S. troops greatly strengthened the Allies' strategic position and boosted morale. The Allies achieved victory over Germany on November 11, 1918 after German morale had collapsed both at home and on the battlefield.