Video Log Name: Elwood A. Lloyd War: Korean War Branch: U.S. Army Born: 4/1/1928. Interview Date: 2/29/2012 Interviewed By: George England

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1 Video Log Name: Elwood A. Lloyd War: Korean War Branch: U.S. Army Born: 4/1/1928 Interview Date: 2/29/2012 Interviewed By: George England 00:00:00 This interview took place at the Marriott Residence Inn, Avon, Ct, thanks to their patriotism, generosity and support for the Connecticut Central State University, Veteran s History Project. Lloyd s rank at discharge was colonel. As a student at the Knoxville, TN, High School, he enrolled in the R.O.T.C. program. He graduated in From there he went on to college at the University of TN at Knoxville and continued to volunteer in their R.O.T.C. program. Upon graduating in 1949 with a two-year major in chemistry, where he had studied enzymes and the effect of radiation, he was hired at Oakridge, TN, as junior chemist. After two years of early hours to work and a very long day he wanted a change. The Korean War was warming up and he volunteered for the Army, becoming a second lieutenant, thanks to ROTC. Lloyd was sent to the Atlanta HQ of the Third Army as chemical officer. Several weeks later he was told to report to Fort McClellan, GA. Date was in They began with long hours preparing for maneuvers. He was promoted to first lieutenant, thanks to having been in chemical maintenance in the ROTC program. Lloyd s new unit was run by a couple of unqualified second lieutenants that had come in from AK. It was not being run at all. 00:05:22 He had those two officers and one other transferred out. Shortly thereafter, while walking down a street, he met a sergeant whom he had met during summer training exercises and who had considerable experience in chemical maintenance. Lloyd spoke to his commanding general about the man s chemical maintenance experience. The general said, Go get him and he did. It was a perfect match. From there he went to Fort Hood, TX, to set up a company to obtain and repair gas masks. They needed to obtain 200,000 gas masks, which were leftover from WWII. They came from storage in Memphis, TN. Purpose: Readiness for maneuvers and tear gas soon to come. They actually needed 20,000 and that is what they got by repairing many. About one in ten were good.

2 00:08:02 By the time maneuvers occurred, they had already shipped the masks to Ft. McCullen. They were shipped in trailer trucks that had automatic transmissions, which were built to travel at thirty miles per hour. The convoy traveled at thirty-five miles per hour causing the truck transmissions to tear themselves up, due to constant shifting back and forth. Lloyd finally got back to Ft. McCullen in time to go on leave and get married, but couldn t be gone too long. They had already changed the date several times. 00:10:55 Returning from his honeymoon, he was sent to a six week advanced training course for officers. This led to Lloyd becoming an instructor in nuclear energy, having had experience at Oak Ridge. He says, I hardly knew how to spell radiation. 00:12:00 Lloyd was an instructor for three years. This followed with an assignment to radiation dosage and control to develop 30,000 badges for the troops that could detect and measure radiation. They all had them and they were accurate. Most read zero. 00:13:38 Lloyd says they rotated troops in and out, except the ones who were assigned there. He was ordered to go out and read dosages and observe. They built houses to be blown down. They wanted to know how vulnerable they were. Readings were not significant, unless you were at ground zero, where the readings went up significantly. 00:15:20 They learned how to best measure radiation. A vehicle would be run toward ground zero and turn around where measurements would be taken. The closer they got the higher the reading. 00:16:16 Lloyd says after the series of tests, he met a guy who designed and built the instrumentation badges. His name was Howard Everline. He started the Everline Instrumentation Company. Lloyd learned all about how to build instrumentation for the nuclear program. In order to get his family to the Nevada test site, he had to pull a trailer to Indian Springs NV, a little town with one grocery store. 00:18:13 Lloyd s wife kept things going and they had their daughter with them. She was about three years old at the time. Her bed was a couch at the front of the trailer. The trailer was near an airfield facing B-36s with six radial engines and four jet engines that made a racket every time they took-off. Then followed another tour to as an instructor in Alabama teaching a chemical course.

3 00:20:51 At the same time, he met a friend who had been assigned to France in a chemical office at base section. He asked that Lloyd come and work for him in France. They lived in an old coal storage house that had been cleaned out for tenants. Lloyd rented it, but soon found out the washing machine and refrigerator exceeded the amperage capacity. It was a picturesque location and they enjoyed it. 00:23:00 Lloyd s office was then in Porte (sp). It was halfway to Paris and was located in government quarters. Lloyd s purpose was to write a regulation requiring commanders to train teams to do radiation monitoring like they had done in Nevada, in case of an attack by the Soviets in their region. In addition, the plan called for all civilian dependents to be moved to a base section and tents, accommodations, etc. had to be provided. He moved to Porte (sp) and got the required regulation printed that gave commanders authorization to draw troops together. 00:25:19 Lloyd s teams went out to train them at six different bases. Later in the season, the Army was holding a maneuver in southern Nevada called Desert Strike. Actual nuclear weapons were issued. This was the first and last time this has ever been done. Says he the moved to Needles, NV after his three years in France. Lloyd was assigned responsibility to set up a system to keep track of each nuclear shell or missile. Fortunately no weapons were lost or spilled. Accident teams had been set up in case of an accident. 00:28:13 The Army had Red Troops and Blue Troops involved in the maneuver of entire companies and divisions. This was a very dangerous and risky maneuver. Next, he had orders transferring him to Vietnam, just about the time President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 00:28:58 This event caused his orders to be changed. His destination would be beautiful San Francisco reporting to the commanding officer. He was there a couple of years. Lloyd then went to South Korea where the military was in a wartime configuration. He became special weapons officer serving under General Chester Johnson, a Batman Death March survivor. Lloyd s calculations indicated there was no way the division could move out the troops and weapons in an emergency. It was impossible to move out the weapons at the same rate as the troops. It would take two to tree weeks longer for the weapons. He immediately brought this to the attention of the chief of staff, who said, Do you have a few minutes, let s go see the General. The General became very upset

4 to learn he would have two conflicting missions. He couldn t match them and he went off immediately, in a helicopter, to HQ in Soule to report this. 00:33:58 Lloyd thinks this was the trigger that spelled the pullout of all nuclear weapons from South Korea. I think I had something to do with it. Then, I was sent to study at an Advanced Officers Training course at Fort McCullen. Following that, he was sent to the University of TN where he received his master s degree in chemistry. 00:36:00 His principal professor was George K. Switzer. I still hear from him, he is still in the military. Next was the Edgewood Arsenal as Chief of Chemistry in that laboratory in MD. Anti-missiles and rocket trails were being discussed and the contamination caused by the explosions of two nuclear missiles exploding in space. His job was to look at how to lower the contamination. Following that he was assigned to Command General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth. Lloyd was there nine months leading officer staff training. After that he was assigned as chief of research and development as requested by the commander of Biological Weapons lab at Fort Dietrich Md. Lloyd had to move to Fort D. and that was a problem. The local town of Fredericksburg was biased toward blacks. It was the original Jim Crow town and still is. The Army was bringing in black and white personnel because of the labs. While there Lloyd was given twenty-six biological shots, The problem was finding a place for blacks to live. They were associated with the labs. 00:43:26 Lloyd was told to go to their Chamber of Commerce and let them know the Army was intending to bring in black and white personnel and they were running into an acceptance problem. He let them know of the revenue and spending power that would come to town that had not previously existed. Someone suggested paying all Army personnel and civilian employees with two dollars bills. The idea was implemented quickly and it became evident that the Army had a large payroll. The problem suddenly went away. Money talks. While at Ft. D., Mike Wallace, of CBS News, got wind of a story and tried make the most of it. Less than a year ago an employee opened the vents in an anthrax lab and breathed some air by accident. He died quickly. This made news and Wallace showed up. He spoke to the Safety Officer who kept very detailed records, even on defective light bulbs. 00:49:05 He recorded an extremely large numbers of minute problems, which Wallace exaggerated. Eventually, the problem went away. He next moved to the Pentagon, with rank of lieutenant colonel. He was in Army-Office of Research and Development, assigned to the Executive Officer. That name evolved to the Bureau of Research and Development. Served there as deputy to Director of Research and Development, a civilian. They handled all Washington activities. Their programs were run out of

5 Huntsville, AL, by a brigadier general. The subject of anti-missile defense was very hot at the time and the problem of how to deploy them around the country so they could shoot down incoming missiles. 00:53:39 We had to quickly build sixty of these sites. And, needed very special trucks equipped with radar. Today we can hit missiles head to head and do not need a nuclear warhead to do it.we had to have somebody build the radar and General Electric had the capability to do it Since they already had the technology. The plan was O.K., but where are you going to put them? Think about it. We planned to build a sample at Kwajelein Island. We asked GE if they could build them on eighteen-wheeler trucks and make as many as needed. They said yes. 00:56:00 The trucks were placed in concrete bunkers. We were ready to build sixty sites around the country. All that was needed was someone to approve it. However, there was No approval. President Reagan had just become president and the program was dropped. 00:58:59 next followed an assignment that involved making gasoline from coal. A small pilot plant was built to make the liquid. Lloyd was asked to become the head of five programs to build pilot plants. A pilot plant was built on the Charles River in Charlotte, WVA. They had several different programs using different technologies. We proved we could do it. Make gas from coal. EXXON had explored the idea. We encouraged them to proceed. A pilot plant was built in Houston, TX and four other places. CONOCO and EXXON and others were ready. However, President Jimmie Carter was not reelected. And, in came President Ronald Reagan. Shortly thereafter, he said, We couldn t afford to build synthetic oil plants. It is not in our current budget. Our budget for the programs alone was six billion dollars, one billion for each plant. At that time a barrel of oil from the Saudis cost twenty dollars per barrel. Ours cost thirty dollars per barrel. Lloyd said that s the story of coal to oil conversion. We had five plants that worked well. Oil prices have sky rocketed since then. Having achieved the rank of colonel, Lloyd retired after twentyseven year of service.that was followed by employment in civilian life as executive using the knowledge and training he had acquired in the Army. 1:04:48 Conclusion

U.S. Army Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame Nomination

U.S. Army Ordnance Corps Hall of Fame Nomination NOMINEE DATA NOMINEE S NAME: RANK/GRADE: TITLE AT RETIREMENT: William John Durrenberger Major General Major General DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: March 13, 1917/