Willis J. Turner U S Army Arsenal Badge Number 59512

In 1942, my father walked off his maternal grandmother's farm,

near Grady, Arkansas where he was a tenant farmer subsequent

to a "dispute" with her following the spring planting. He

temporarily left behind my mother and I, saying he was "going

to town to find work" and would "be back" for us.

He journeyed to Pine Bluff in the adjacent county, the county

seat of Jefferson County, a distance of about  twenty-

four miles, paritally by foot and hitch- hiking. There, he took

up residence with his Uncle Jonas on Mulberry Street, his

maternal grandmother's oldest son, and soon found employment

at the Pine Bluff US Army Arsenal as a laborer "laying rail-

road tires."

My mother and I soon joined him and my mother later became

employed at the Arsenal, commonly referred to as "The

Bombing Plant," during the war years as women were needed

in the work force on the bomb assembly production lines due

to the shortage of men during World War II.

One day in 1942, my father, a big strapping man, over
six feet, was approached by his foreman with the

command to follow him. The foreman took him him to

an area he immediately identified as the "Yellow Gas" Area.

He told my father to go in there to work. My father's reply

was, " No Sir, I ain't going in there to work." My father was then

taken to the foreman's office and commanded to sit

outside and think about it. About two hours later, the foreman

approached him again but my father would not change his

mind. Consequently, my father was ordered off the base

an escorted by the "MP," Military Police. In their haste, they

neglected to retrieve his picture identification badge.

Footnotes:  US Army Badge Number 59512 was donated to

the  National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center

at Wilberforce, Ohio.

"Yellow gas," was a common term for a chemical warfare agent,

dichlorodiethyl sulfide, which was produced at the Pine Bluff

Arsenal. The Pine Bluff Arsenal was a toxicological center of

the United States Army.

The dispute between my father and his grandmother was over

her lack of recommendation to Mr. Gocio, local merchant,

to supply him credit.

him credit.