When a groundbreaking ceremony for the then-newly planned Pine Bluff Arsenal was held on Dec. 2, 1941, war seemed half a world away from Jefferson County, but the imposing threat of Germany’s Adolph Hitler, his crusading Nazi forces and global unrest were eclipsing the distance almost hourly.
Five days later – on Dec. 7 – Japan attacked America’s Naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the nation soon entered World War II. At PBA, construction plans were hastily accelerated. In late July, as construction continued, PBA – initially proposed as a temporary operation to serve no more than five years – produced its first munitions, four-pound incendiary bombs for Great Britain.
Those bombs were later packaged into “papa bombs,” which contained 110 of the small units. Production soon expanded into 4.2-inch mortar white phosphorus shells, smoke shells, hand grenades containing phosphorus or smoke, 100-pound white phosphorus bombs, mustard gas, lewisite gas, both liquid and gaseous chlorine, napalm, nerve gas and harassment gas.
Originally called Chemical Warfare Arsenal, the installation was renamed as Pine Bluff Arsenal on March 5, 1942, and by the end of that month, it was headquartered on-site. As more and more younger men were drafted into military service, PBA began hiring ever-increasing numbers of women and older men, both black and white. Most blacks had previously worked only as low-salaried sharecroppers or domestics, and many women had never worked outside their homes. Those women who had been employed – except for health professionals and teachers – had generally been paid only 33 to 75 percent of what their male counterparts earned.
Thus, the arsenal forever changed life in Southeast Arkansas.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Jefferson County and the City of Pine Bluff first began a quest to net the proposed Army base in the summer of 1941. City officials submitted a proposal for the installation on Sept. 16, 1941, and following some alterations to the plan, the federal government committed $10 million for its construction here on Nov. 3. Ten days later, the secretary of war contracted the Sanderson and Porter Company of New York for the facility’s construction.
More than 200 parcels of land totaling approximately 15,000 acres in the then-unincorporated area were purchased as the site of the post, at a cost of $250,000 – less than $17 an acre. Col. A.M. Prentiss, who would retire from the Army as a brigadier general, arrived in Pine Bluff on Nov. 21 to establish a headquarters, originally located about 10 miles off-post in Pine Bluff.
Following the Pearl Harbor attack, Prentiss immediately took command of the hurried construction schedule. Work was conducted around the clock so that PBA could respond to the war’s demand, especially since America had entered the action and the arsenal’s mission had been accordingly expanded. The rushed effort and heightened mission caused installation costs to swell to $60 million.
The influx of construction workers – estimated by one source as 16,000 – brought unanticipated changes to Pine Bluff, which at the time had a population of about 21,300. Federal incentive funds were distributed to home and business owners to help enable creation of rentals. Many of the city’s graceful, old homes were dissected into apartments. Downtown businesses made use of extra space for the purpose. Some business and homeowners rented out single rooms, some with multiple beds.
The workers’ spirited patriotism is still visible with the “V for Victory” signs that masons diligently mastered on the walls of ceramic-tile warehouses at the arsenal.
At the peak of its World War II production in 1944, PBA counted about 9,000 civilian employees and 450 military personnel. By October of that year, production of several munitions at PBA had exceeded war demands and the facility experienced its first layoffs. Before the year had ended, prisoners of war were being transported in to provide custodial and yard services at the installation.
By the end of the war in June 1945, PBA had had to construct st0rage facilities for surplus supplies of mustard gas and other munitions, much of which was later eliminated through the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility, which has completed its mission and is now in its final stages of dismantling. Following World War II, PBA continued to officially function as a temporary operation. Some of the installation facilities had been leased to private, civilian concerns.
Area residents anxiously awaited news of a federal decision on the base’s future. The waiting ended on Sept. 6, 1946, when it was announced that the installation had been granted permanent status. Also, it was renamed as Midwest Chemical Depot, but the new tag never connected and it continued to be recognized as Pine Bluff Arsenal.
Immediately after World War II, activity at PBA primarily consisted of demilitarization, industrial mobilization, and maintenance of and renovation of chemical supplies and equipment. The production lull didn’t last long, however.
The Korean Conflict of 1950-53 necessitated renewed and expanded operations. PBA’s peak production for the war came in 1952, when it manufactured 38 separate items, including incendiary bombs and clusters, smoke grenades, white phosphorus shells, and smoke pots and canisters.
PBA also marked its Korean Conflict employment peak in 1952 with 3,600 civilian workers and 250 military personnel. By the end of the decade, the respective workforce numbers had dwindled to 1,075 and 140. But the arsenal’s future had been secured for the foreseeable time, however, on Aug. 16, 1954, when the Army gave the base a second designation as a permanent installation.
The Army produced BZ, a non-lethal hallucinating agent, at PBA from 1962-64, during the early stages of the Vietnam War. Most of the agent was mixed with pyrotechnic and placed in cluster bombs and generator clusters. However, the agent was never deployed and remained in storage at PBA until it was destroyed in the late 1980s and 1990 in an incinerator predecessor to PBCDF.
Also during the Vietnam War, PBA filled tear gas munitions.
Since, PBA has continued in its mission “to manufacture various types of conventional smoke, riot control, incapacitating, incendiary and pyrotechnic mixes and fill/lap components as necessary” and “produce and test chemical defensive equipment (masks, filters and protective clothing).
Many consider the partnership PBA enjoys with its surrounding community to be the strongest of all the nation’s military posts.