By Rhonda Dougherty - March 31st, 2001

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Rhonda Dougherty - I’m Rhonda Dougherty, and the date is March 31st, 2001, and this is the Fort Chaffee Oral History Project. Mr. Taff, could you please state your name, and tell me when and where you were born.

Verlon Taff - All right. My name is Verlon Taff. I was born in Waldron, Arkansas, April 20th, 1923, and when I was three and a half years old my father and my mother moved my family to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and we arrived there Christmas Day, 1926, and I lived on the reservation until Fort Chaffee was made a camp...I mean until Camp Chaffee was made a camp there, and then I went to service, and was gone for about four years, and came back and have resided in the area ever since. I worked at Fort Chaffee for several years...about seventeen years. I started there, after the war, in July, 1948, and the camp was open and stayed open about eighteen months, if I remember, and in the latter part of 1949 they deactivated it again, and I was only off about three months during that time, and I went back in 1950. I was not laid off until I retired out of Fort Chaffee into Fort Knox, Kentucky, and I retired in June, 1979, so I had a lot of years at Fort Chaffee.

R.D. - You sure did. Can you tell me what life was like in the Fort Chaffee area before the post was built?

V.T. - All right. We lived in a four square mile area in five different houses from 1926 until 1941 when the camp was built. We went to school there in a little one-room school named Pleasant Grove, and it was on the corner of the place that we lived in, and it was known as "The Ross Place" because he had donated an acre or two acres for the school to be there, and it was about an average of thirty-five students that went there, and I started there when I was four and a half years old with my brother. My mother was afraid to send him by himself, and so she asked the teacher, and I got to go with him and take care of him, you know. But I had my eight years in the Pleasant Grove School. It was a one-room school. We had one teacher there, and that's when you could get a whoopin and get by with it, you know. But right after that I went to Lavaca Highschool, but we moved. We stayed six years one place. We moved to another place where we stayed about five years, and then we moved to the place on the highway, just east of the front gate, where the old front gate was, and the tree's still there, and we were there when they moved us out to build the camp.

R.D. - What was the reaction of the people in the community when the post was built?

V.T. - Well, naturally the people had roots there. There were about five hundred families that I recall the Army reported that was in the reservation there they condemned for the camp, so you had a lot of different reactions there from the people. Of course, the Army wanted to compensate them for their farms, for their crops, for their buildings, and things like that, but you had a lot of controversy on whether they were properly compensated or not...you always do. But they did this, and we had to move in the latter part of 1941. Now, I worked for a contractor who came in there, the first contractor that I remember coming in there. He was clearing right of ways for the building sights. The people who were doing the surveying had been there since early June or April, and when the building contractors came in, I was there when they brought the first load of lumber in. They parked it right there by the front gate, and they hired people out of the back end of a pick-up truck. This was the first fifty-cent an hour labor that had ever come to the Barling area. I had made twenty-five cents an hour working on a farm, just temporarily, but I had never had a job for fifty cents an hour. But that's what they paid to unload lumber out of the train. They had forty or fifty car loads of lumber, and we had to unload it by hand and put it on the tracks. And so this was the start of Camp Chaffee. They had it heavily guarded there. My dad was a guard for several months until the Army took over, and then in 1942, I believe it was in March, the first troops landed at Fort Chaffee. There were five hundred troops from the Sixth Armored Division, and they came there to start training. Now, this was only about three and half months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and so they were getting with it, but, as far as the people, most of the people did what they needed to do. Some felt they were mistreated. They reacted with maybe a gun, and I know a couple or three that did, and, you know, they were my neighbors and things like that, and they felt that they weren't fairly treated. So I had to leave my job there one day. They wanted to put a headquarters in one of the neighbor's homes over there. This was where they were going to establish their little office over there, and we got instructions from the Army Officers out of Fort Smith, who had a headquarters on Rogers Avenue, to go out there and fix that house, and they wanted it fumigated and everything like that. And so me and my buddy was to go there and seal all the windows with tape and meet them there the next morning about 9:00. And when we got out there, there was a man there with a gun. He owned the house, and he was milking cows there in the milk barn, and he didn’t know anything about this fumigation until he got up there and it liked to knock him down when he opened the door. And so he went back up there and got his gun and came back up there, and when he got there and found what the problem was, and he was a friend to us, but we had to leave and go back up to Fort Smith and notify the officers up there that there was trouble out there, and we would not go back out there until they got it solved, which, to make a long story short, they did wait a few hours, put their officers in a car, and they went out there and got things straightened up with him. And so that's just one of the incidents. Another old man, a bachelor who had a farm up there...what they did, they gave you a date to move and vacate your property, and he said, "I'm not going to move until I get a check in my hand," and he got into it with them at Fort Smith, and he told them, he said, "you give me time to get home, and you come out there, and you'll take my property over my dead body." And so they had to take care of that. But that's two incidents in the area where I lived down there that they had to deal with. And so, you know, that's just people. But, all in all, the people got moved out, and the Army moved in, and Camp Chaffee's still there today.

R.D. - What was your reaction when you were drafted into the Army?

V.T. - Well, my reaction was that I knew, eventually, I’d have to go. I was in Dallas, Texas when they bombed Pearl Harbor. I had worked for the contractors there getting ready, and had saved a few dollars, maybe a couple hundred dollars, and there was a school in Dallas, Texas that trained you for metal work on aircraft, and me and my brother decided that we’d go down there and take that six-week school and maybe go out to California to the defense plants and go to work. And I had just about finished, well, I had about two weeks left, when they bombed Pearl Harbor, and I was on Ross Avenue in Dallas, Texas. And I’ll never forget what I thought. I was eighteen years old, and I was going to be nineteen in April, and I said, "Well, I don’t have to look for a job. I’m going to have a job eventually." But, I went back to Barling, spent about two weeks before Christmas and the week after Christmas, and me and my brother got on a bus, and we went to California, and was immediately hired by Consolidated Aircraft to build Liberator Bombers. But that’s where I was when I got drafted. I liked four days having a year finished in the aircraft plant, and I got my notice to report in seven days. You know, my reaction was, "sure, I’ve got to go. Everybody else has got to go, and I want to go," but I’d been gone a year from my family, and I went to the Draft Board, and I said, "Look, I like four days having a year in. They’re going to give me a bonus if I finish a year, but I’ve been away from my family for a year, and I can’t stay here and finish the four days and see my family because I won’t have time to go." And I said, "Will you let me go back to Arkansas if I leave this evening and transfer my call to Arkansas?". And they said, "Well, we’re going to sympathize with you, and you haven’t seen your family, and you don’t know where you’ll go with the Army or if you’ll ever see them again." So they said, "If you’ll get on the train and if you’ll get there and send us a telegram of where you’re at before the seven days, we’ll send you a transfer." And they did.

R.D. - And did you report to Fort Chaffee for basic training?

V.T. - No. I went into the Air Corps. In fact, I got to stay home about six weeks after I got back before they reissued my call. Since I had been in an aircraft plant building airplanes, they said, "would you like to go into the Air Corps?", and I said, "that’s my choice." So they sent me to Biloxi, Mississippi, and that’s where I took my basic training. I was there about seven weeks and had seen a gun only one time. We had some sawed out of two by fours that we’d practice with, but one afternoon, during our basic training, they brought out some Springfield Rifles, real guns, and said, " you’re going to spend this evening training with these guns," and that’s the only gun I had in my hand until I got to the Aleutian Islands. This was how scarce the weapons were during our training. They didn’t even have weapons to train the people with, and they had them all along the battle front and things like that, but when I got to Aleutian Islands- I got to Aleutian Islands in December of that year. I went to Detroit, Michigan, took a course in rubber-steal seals, that was going into airplanes, on how to repair them when were shot through. And then I got to come home a few days, and went to Seattle, Washington, on to Alaska, stayed there about thirty days, and then went to the Aleutian Islands.

R.D. - And how did you end up back at Fort Chaffee?

V.T. - All right. We stayed in Alaska and Aleutian Islands for about twenty-one months. And so in 1945 we were assigned, our unit was, we were a repair unit for aircraft, we were assigned to come back to the states and take a furlow and take sixty days training on the B-29 Bomber, which they were using to bomb, and then we were supposed to report to the South Pacific, to our destination over there, and when we come in on the train into St. Paul, Minnesota, out of Canada (we got on a train out of Prince Rupert, Canada, and came all the way across down into Michigan), and we got the headlines of the paper- "They have bombed with the atomic bomb, bombed Japan", and by the time we got back home they had dropped the second bomb, and a telegram immediately came to report to San Antonio, Texas when your thirty days is up and we’ll give you further instructions. So the war was over immediately. I got home at the right time.

R.D. - And what did you do at Fort Chaffee after that?

V.T. - I went to work in 1948, after they closed it in 1946, I believe, after the war was over, when they had disposed of most of the vehicles and things like that. They had sales, and the servicemen had first choice to buy this stuff. I didn’t buy any, but anyway, they reactivated it in 1948, and then deactivated it again late in 1949, and then the Korean war broke out, and in less than six months they opened it again, and then it stayed open until 1959.

R.D. - Can you describe your duties at Fort Chaffee?

V.T. - Well, I went to work in the pest control section of Fort Chaffee. I knew the man that was in charge of it. I had worked with him some, and he wanted me, and, when he found out I was applying for work, he said, "I want you to come to my section," and I asked him what he did, and he said, "We take care of pest control for all of Fort Chaffee facilities." And so I worked with him and, eventually, he got into it and lost his job. He failed a qualifier for his job, and he caused some problems for Fort Chaffee, and they transferred him to California, and I got his job, so I stayed there in that, and they closed it again in 1959, opened it in 1961, and closed it again in 64. And I was on the caretaker crew, and the officer told me, "you’re not going anywhere, you’re on the caretaker crew, and you’ll be here until you retire." Well, that was all right with me. But it wasn’t a matter of three or four weeks he called me back in and he said, "they’ve closed and downgraded all the facilities and all the jobs have been frozen in your category. And he said, "I can tell you, as an officer in the United States Army, you’d be better off to go and get some of them good jobs." And so he talked to me a long time, and he said, "I want you to talk to your wife about that," and he said, "there’s some jobs open," and in the same week he called me back and said, "Fort Knox, Kentucky, which is the biggest installation outside of Fort Richardson, Alaska, has an opening in your category which pays twice what you get here." And he said, "Wouldn’t you like to go up there?", and I said, "I don’t know. We just built a new house," and he called me and he said, "next week, you get your wife and pack your suitcases, and I’m going to send you to Fort Knox, Kentucky on full pay. You and your wife can go spend a week and see how you like it up there," so, to make a long story short, we went up there in 1965, in June, and I retired June 30th, 1979.

R.D. - When you were working at Fort Chaffee, how do you feel the soldiers and civilian employees were treated by members of the local community?

V.T. - Real good, real good. I’m a Christian, and in 1952 I came to know the Lord, and I was a member of the First Baptist Church of Fort Smith. It was a big church, biggest church up there, and when the Korean war was going on we had a ministry, the Baptist men, that’s what we were. We had a ministry under the leadership of the pastor, who was J.L. Smith. We went on the streets of Fort Smith. We went down to Garrison Avenue every Saturday night for five years. We went down there and invited the men and the servicemen up to our church to have some fellowship, and they had about a fifteen minute devotional up there. But we carried that on for five years, and our relationship was just excellent. And we had a lot of letters from parents of the servicemen who commended our people in our church for doing a good job.

R.D. - What changes did you observe in Fort Chaffee during the years you were there? You talked about how it closed and it opened. Were there other changes at Fort Chaffee that you noticed?

V.T. - Well, it was according to the missions that would come in from time to time, and, of course, right after they closed it, after the war in 1946, everybody wanted the war over and to go home, so they deactivated it for about eighteen months. And they decided they’d open it up again in 48, and that’s when I went to work. Then in 50, early 50...I believe it was January 50, they deactivated it and closed it again, and only about four or five months later the Korean War broke out so they immediately put it back into action. And we had the service people there from the Army that was necessary to carry on the mission they were going to have during the Korean War. Yeah, I’d say the fellowship was excellent. A lot of soldiers married girls here. They had families here, and I have some of them right now, real good friends, that was married here into the community, and they have families here. So it was real good, it was real good.

R.D. - Can you tell me about the changes that took place in the community over the years?

V.T. - Naturally, the community, going back to the residents that lived here when they were asked to give up their homes and everything like this, there was a lot of anxiety among the families. Where are you going to put five hundred families? You know. And this was a concern. And most of the families had roots here. They’d lived here one hundred years. Their ancestors were here, they had land that their ancestors gave them, and it was hard. And so, but they got through that. My dad went with a group down to San Antonio, Texas, a valley down there. The Agriculture Department wanted to help relocate the residents that had to leave the reservation, so he took about two car loads down there. My dad didn’t decide to go down there, but they wanted to go down there and establish some of the land. A lot of them went to California and this was in the forties, the Ark and Okies went to California, and I’ve got relatives out there right now that went out there and are still out there. Their children and grandchildren are still out there. But, eventually, they just faded into the societies of other states and other families and things like that. But you still have some in the local area around here that feel like they’re entitled to go back to that land. And I had a neighbor that wrote a letter a couple of years ago, and she said she was the only child, and, "My Daddy paid for that land, and we were told and led to believe that, when this is through with, we’ll get it back." And that was the consensus of the people, but it didn’t happen. Of course, we’ve still got it, and they say they’re going to deactivate Fort Chaffee. I said, "Well, you know, if we get in another war, you’ll see whether it’s deactivated or not. They’ll go back and use it again." But it’s seventy-two thousand acres. One time they had about ninety thousand, but they sold some of it. But it all worked fine. We got through it.

R.D. - Can you tell me a little more about growing up as a young boy in that area?

V.T. - Oh Yes. I can show you every mud hole. Naturally, as I said, I went to a little school with my brother for eight years, and, of course, all the kids in the neighborhood down there, we didn’t have things to do in that day. We had to manufacture things to do, and we would fight wasp nests, and on the weekends we would hunt rabbits and things like that. And we would find an open field and get a baseball and have a little ball team in the communities and things like that. We walked everywhere we went, mostly. You didn’t have cars. I didn’t even have a bicycle all my life. I had some little brothers that had some, but it was a community. We’d have parties at the houses, maybe for the young people. The parents would allow them to do that so they could be together on a Saturday or Friday night. But it was a good life....a good life.

R.D. - Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about Fort Chaffee?

V.T. - Well, you know, it’s still part of our country. As I say, you know, a lot of boys who went over there, they didn’t lose their home and land, they gave their life. And so, I don’t know that we sacrificed any more than a lot of other people did. We hated to leave the places where we grew up and played and things like that, and a lot of the cemeteries are still there. They’re family cemeteries. They’re taken care of. I have a mother and dad and four brothers buried right there at Oak Valley on 96. We made a living in there, and we farmed. We didn’t have a lot of money, and nobody had any money back in those days. And the coming of Camp Chaffee, I guess, brought a little prosperity to the area down there, and, like I say, in 1941 I got that fifty cent an hour job like the rest of them did who were working there. But a lot of people were employed at Fort Chaffee, including my dad and my family. But I go by where our house was, right there on 22. The big Oak tree’s still there. That’s where we lived when they said to get out, and they made a deal with you. You couldn’t pick your cotton, you couldn’t gather your corn or anything like that because they said they’ve already paid for it...sorry. The Army had. Now, they would sell you back the house or the buildings that you wanted to re-buy and move off. And some did that, and established homes somewhere else. But, eventually, it all washed into the war years, and people forgot about their woes. My sisters worked in the laundry. I had a brother who worked in the supply down there. So there were about five of us, eventually, in and out of Fort Chaffee. But after I went to work in 48, except for the three months they closed down, I worked until I retired. So it’s been good to me. I have a retirement. I chose to build a personal retirement rather than go on Social Security. They gave us a choice, but I had to pay more to get it, but it’s been good to me. My income, we just get one check, and that’s mine, but my income is more than I was making when I quit. I’ve been retired twenty-two years this June. So I can say, "I’m happy."

R.D. - When you were working at Fort Chaffee where did you and your family live?

V.T. - All right. We lived on 22 Highway, up there just east of Central City, about a mile and a quarter. Three minutes from work. Ideal. They had lived at Barling, my wife, before I knew her, and they ran a dairy up there, north of Barling, not in the camp area, but adjacent to it. But the troops, back then, didn’t stay on the camp. When they were training, they may come right through your barn, through your lots, through your cows and everything. That was part of their training. They may come in tanks right up there in Barling, Arkansas. And they took Barling one day. That was their project, to take Barling, because if you can’t take Barling you can’t take over there. And so, a lot of surprises came when the troops were here.

R.D. - And how did the residents feel about that?

V.T. - Well, they were startled. He went down to milk his cows one morning, and here they were in his milk barn with their guns and everything like that. But they understood what he was doing, and he understood what they had to do. And so, they made friends. Very few incidents happened where you had bad feelings.

R.D. - Did your parents stay in the area?

V.T. - Yes, they did. My dad retired in 1969, and he moved down east of Central, and bought a place, a little farm. He had forty acres on it, and her dad bought another one up the road that had forty acres on it. I think her dad gave four thousand dollars. My dad gave forty-two hundred for his estate, but the thing brought a hundred and something thousand dollars for it. But, all in all, everything’s been good. It’s been a good experience. It’s terrible. Wars are terrible, and you know that. But I lost some relatives, and I lost a cousin on the last ship that went down. He was in the engine room, and he lost his life....lost over one thousand people. I lost some friends I went to school with and high school with, but here I am. I’m alive. So, you know, it’s been a good experience, but we lived through it. Now, we mentioned awhile ago the relationship between cities and the communities around regarding soldiers. At one time there were three divisions at Fort Chaffee. The had one in the main camp, one in what they called the west camp, and then they had one in the field, generally at the same time. And this was a lot of soldiers. In fact, they may have had thirty-five thousand soldiers, and Fort Smith was only forty thousand population. So the General set up a restriction on how many soldiers could be in Fort Smith at any one time. And, of course, this was a wise thing to do because when you get in problems like that. But the people of Fort Smith, and especially the church I went to up there, they made a special effort to have a social program every week besides the street program we had down there to invite them up there. And the ladies of the church would take the young girls, and they would bake goods; cakes, cookies, and everything for every service we invited the soldiers to. And they were brought off the streets, and they had a social program for them to make their stay in Fort Smith wholesome. And we weren’t the only church that did this. A lot of churches did. So I’m proud that the Fort Smith people responded like that, and I think a lot of the people who could give you testimonies on that is some of the people who married and are still in the country here because they were treated like humans. Now, we were talking awhile ago about projects where they would go in and take the city and things like that. And I met my wife here, Mary. She worked at the telephone office in Barling until after we married, and when we were expecting our first child she had to take out, and I said, "Well, I think I’ll try to make a living myself and keep you home", and so that’s what we did, and that’s where I met her at. And she ended up living just a quarter of a mile from where my dad was, and so, you know, when I was gone, God took care of my wife after we married later. But, all in all, I think this country has a good record of accepting what they need to accept. During the war the many hundreds of thousands of soldiers that had to come here to complete their duty, take their training, and go off to war. So I’m real proud of them. I’m proud of the churches and things like that.

R.D. - Thank you, Mr. Taff