Gerald A. Corwin, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston Erickson, October 9, 2000: Saving the Legacy tape no. 119

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G RALD . ORWI T B R 9 2000 d partment. I remember I used to come in and people would b 1 oking fi r thre -quart r inch rivets or bolts of various sizes. If somebody needed a few of them I d go ov rand pick up a few of them and the next day when I went around I'd drop them off. WE: So you didn't use your chemistry too much? GAC: Oh, no (laughs). It was handy to me all the years I was in the service and other than that, because I was supposed to know something about it and when people would be talking about chemical items, I could kind of follow the conversation. I had a general idea of what was going on, but the details of the chemistry I never got to that. WE: So you were mostly just in administration? GAC: I was mostly running these tool cribs. As I say, I had them. And one day somebody decided we needed line equipment or stamps, big machines to stamp stuff out, or heavy machinery. They'd store it in this line equipment warehouse and I'd have them paint lines on the floor and number them so when somebody called up and wanted a stamp, stamper, or some kind of a pilling machine, I'd look at my records and say, "It's over there. Send your truck up." Load it on. Take it down to the plant where they needed it. When the need was through, they'd shift from making one thing to another now and then. They'd turn items in and take them out. Of course the tool crib people were always in and out of all that stuff. While I was there they came up and I can pretty well quote it; it was a war department circular. And it said, "Any lieutenant under thirty-two desiring detail to the infantry may request same." Then came the killer: "This approval will be by the war department." And I have heard of no case that they disapproved anybody (laughs). So I went to the infantry and luckily, before I could catch up with the war, it stopped. 16