Over the course of the second world war, the number of military bases on the Floridian peninsula skyrocketed from 12 to nearly 200 as the Navy and Army Air Corps began to train pilots over the sandy beaches and thick pine forests of the Sunshine State. The military had such a great need for pilots they again outsourced training to civilian flight schools, with Arcadia, Dorr, and Carlstrom fields again hosting cadets from the United States and her allies abroad. Thousands of servicemen flocked to Florida for mission training during the war, experiencing for the first time the

Over the course of the second world war, the number of military bases on the Floridian peninsula skyrocketed from 12 to nearly 200 as the Navy and Army Air Corps began to train pilots over the sandy beaches and thick pine forests of the Sunshine State. The military had such a great need for pilots they again outsourced training to civilian flight schools, with Arcadia, Dorr, and Carlstrom fields again hosting cadets from the United States and her allies abroad. Thousands of servicemen flocked to Florida for mission training during the war, experiencing for the first time the warm, gleaming waters and cool breezes of Florida. Many of these soldiers were stationed at temporary barracks established in some of the state’s luxurious Gilded-age and Boom-era hotels, such as Dunedin’s Fenway, Bellaire’s Belleview-Biltmore, and St. Petersburg’s Vinoy hotel. Servicemen traveled to the region’s flying fields, such as Drew Army Air Field, MacDill Army Air Field and Hillsborough Army Air Field for their training.

The Chemical Warfare Service’s (CWS) mission in Bushnell was to carry out research vital to the war effort in the South Pacific. Islands of dense vegetation hindered the progress of Marines and Army infantry troops who stormed the beaches in pursuit of their Japanese adversaries. To test the behavior of these chemical formulas under the subtropical conditions found in the Pacific, Herbicides and defoliants were tested in the Withlacoochee Gunnery and Bombing range, which contained its own small landing field known as Withlacoochee Army Airfield. A variety of munitions and application techniques were tested such as sprayers filled with thick chemicals, 1000-pound chemical-filled AN-M79 bombs, 115-pound chemical-filled M70 bombs, as well as filled land mines, rockets, and artillery shells.

As the Pacific campaign dragged on, the United States was quickly approaching the Japanese heartland and the military apparently took no chances on their adversaries abiding by the Geneva Protocol. Japan had already used mustard gas in the crushing of Taiwan’s Wushe Rebellion in 1930 and in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1938-1941, so there were justified fears of a Japanese chemical defensive campaign during Operation Downfall. Operation Downfall was a planned sea-based invasion that, if executed, would have been the largest amphibious military operation in history. If the battle for Iwo Jima was any indicator of the determination and grit of the Japanese people, an invasion of the Japanese islands was expected to be a bloodbath.  The CWS researchers in Bushnell and Withlacoochee changed their focus to help develop equipment that could defend against and help treat the effects of the vicious mustard gas and lewisite poisons. Men were brought to Bushnell under the guise of testing clothing for the war effort, a seemingly harmless endeavor that enabled them time away from the deadly front lines and closer to home while still helping serve their country. These men, some fresh out of boot camp from both the Army and the Navy, were unknowingly volunteering for tests that would irreparably change their lives and burden them for years to come.

A study by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine found that of the approximately 60,000 men involved with the nationwide testing program, nearly 4,000 troops were given doses of lewisite and mustard that matched the doses front-line soldiers sustained in the first world war. Some of these men were not given protective clothing and were subjugated to “Man-break” tests to see how much a human could sustain. The damage caused by mustard is debilitating and often permanent, and survivors felt their experiences amongst the pines of Central Florida were as traumatic as time spent in a German prisoner-of-war camp. In many cases, the survivors of the Bushnell Project died of project-related illnesses and diseases without the support or assistance from the Government or the Veterans Administration.

Submitted by Glenn Gallagher