German Mustard Gas Escaped in Memphis
By Joe V Lowry and William “Chip” Campbell
Between June 14 and July 17, 1946, 154 railroad cars came through Mississippi, Memphis and Shelby County, and into Arkansas, headed to Pine Bluff Arsenal. The cargo? A toxic, volatile chemical weapon, mustard gas bombs left by the German army after World War II ended[1].
The 3,800 pounds of German mustard gas bombs began their journey May 1 across the Atlantic to the U.S. from Antwerp, Belgium, on the Francis Lightfoot Lee liberty ship.
The bombs had been confiscated from the German army and were enroute to one of three U.S. locations approved for destruction of chemical weapons — Pine Bluff, Huntsville, Ala., and the Edgewood chemical weapons depot in Maryland.
The risks of shipping the gas bombs across the Atlantic and then through three states were known. It wasn’t far into the journey when the danger became real.
Some of the cargo began to leak, severely burning 23 of the ship’s longshoremen. The men were taken to a hospital in Mobile, Ala., after the ship reached the naval shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., on July 4.
The ship’s leaking containers were removed from the ship and on June 16, a 3-square-mile area was isolated as the containers were offloaded by military personnel wearing gas masks and chemical suits. The containers were transported to Horn Island[2], 10 miles southwest of Pascagoula, to be loaded onto eight rail cars. The island had been closed to all public access from 1943 to 1945, when the U.S. Army conducted biological weapons testing there.
Military escort soldiers accompanied the containers of mustard gas on the journey to the Pine Bluff Arsenal on July 15.
Several bombs started leaking near Amory, Miss., as the train headed toward Memphis.
Seven people, including a railroad conductor, a brakeman, one soldier and a worker were transported to two Memphis Hospitals[3][i]. A five-person decontamination team flew in from Edgewood, Md., to clean the box car that was pulled off the track and placed on a spur track under heavy guard two miles from Amory in Bigbee, Miss.
“This product was powerful even when diluted,” the McComb Miss., Enterprise Journal said later. “One part liquid in 14 million parts of air was sufficient to make any person a gas casualty with eye inflammation in a few hours.”
The leaking bomb from Amory was destroyed, burned and buried at Bigbee. Meanwhile, some of the remaining cars began to leak. Eight were on their way to Memphis.
Members of the Memphis Military Police company were equipped with proper clothing and gas masks and sent to guard the cars.
“German Gas Escapes Here” headlined Page 1 of the July 15 Memphis Press Scimitar. The paper identified leak locations as the Missouri Pacific Sargent yard at Bellevue and Heistan Place and the Frisco yard east of Airways and west of LaBelle.
It took specially trained teams from Edgewood three days to decontaminate the 10 miles of track that began at Shelby Drive at the Frisco Railroad and ran to the Missouri Pacific.
Contamination affected several streets the Frisco track crossed[4]: Perkins, Winchester, Democrat, Getwell, Pendleton, LaBelle, Airways, Castalia, Rozelle, Willett, and McLemore.
More leaks — the heaviest — happened in the Missouri Pacific yards, the most heavily populated area on the way to Pine Bluff.
The cars were pushed back to Castalia Street and into the north field of the Memphis Defense Depot (bordered by Hays, East Person, Rozelle and Dunn) for destruction in specially dug trenches.
A special solution of bicarbonate of soda and lime under high pressure was used to decontaminate the tracks. It took three days to remove the oily mixture.
The state of Tennessee, the city of Memphis and Shelby County — despite knowing the potential danger of shipping mustard gas through the area — made no preparations for possible leaks, containment and decontamination. Other locations along the route were prepared: In Mississippi, the bombs were taken to unpopulated Horn Island,10 miles from Pascagoula in the Gulf of Mexico for destruction so the smoke would not injure civilians.
The Jackson (Miss.) Advocate on Sept. 21 reported that Mobile denied entry of the gas-carrying rail cars to their city, as did Charleston, S.C., and the state of Virginia. More than 100 people were exposed during transport of the gas to the U.S. and to its destinations.
After leakages, multiple decontamination efforts, and burial of some material in Memphis, the remaining 52 tons of mustard gas bombs were towed by a crew-less tugboat to Edgewood in Maryland.
The Biloxi Daily Sun Herald on July 25 reported, “No More Poison Gas to be Shipped to U.S.“
Sources
This is Chemical Weapons Movement, compilation By William R. Brankowitz April 27, 1987
Office of the Program for Chemical Munitions (Demilitarization and Binary) (Provisional) Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, 21010-5401
From Theodore to Pine Bluff all came through Memphis 1946 June 14 – June 18 42, H Mustard Gas Cars
No incidents June 8 to June 11. 21, H Mustard Gas Cars No incidents June 26 – June 29. 33, H Mustard Gas Cars No Incidents July 1 – July 4 26, H Mustard Gas Cars
No Incidents July 8 – July 11. 12, H Mustard Gas Cars No Incidents July 11 – July 30. 10, H Mustard Gas cars
18 incidents July 13 – July 17 10 H Mustard Cars No Incidents 154 Mustard Gas cars came through
Mississippi, Shelby County/Memphis and Arkansas on the railroad tracks to Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. Between June 14 and July 17, 1946
Special Thanks for assistance to Emergency Response Specialist William R Burke of DuPont Chemical Company
Commercial Appeal July 5, 1946, P. 11
Press Scimitar, July 15, 1945, P. 3
Commercial Appeal, July 16, 1946, P. 4
Commercial Appeal, Sept. 28, 1946 – “Mystery Fumes on Parkway Attack Birds, Human Noses.” In the vicinity of 1153 East Parkway South, a few hundred feet south of the Norfolk Southern railroad track that parallels Southern at S. Cooper, Col. Frank Heywood of the Army Defense Depot said there is no more gas stored there and none had been received by the depot since the captured mustard gas was destroyed in July. “The entire area has been thoroughly decontaminated, and the ashes have been buried. The Health Department is investigating.”
[1] Mustard gas is an oil-based vesicant, blister agent that causes burns to the skin, lungs and eyes. It is heavier than air and would cling to the ground, carried and pushed by the wind, contaminating everything it touched.
[2] Horn Island was used by the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service managed by the U.S. Army Ammunitions depot. The name was changed to Theodore Naval Ammunitions Magazine in 1942. The bombs’ contents were dumped into 12-foot-deep trenches filled with petroleum liquids and then set on fire.
Ships carrying ammunition arrived at Pascagoula, were unloaded at Theodore, placed on flat railroad cars and sent to various ammunition storage depots. The rail cars were decontaminated at their final destinations.
[3] The soldier went to Ferrying Group hospital at the Municipal Airport; the conductor went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Memphis. One burn victim went to Amory, Miss., and another went to Columbus, Miss.
[4] Then without railroad under- and overpasses.