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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RALD . ORWI B 9,2000 WE: But sine you were in the paid Reserve they nail d your ally fa t fi r K r a? GAC: Yes. WE: till in infantry? GAC: I was now chemical warfare service. I knew that I'd been lucky in the infantry, but I didn't make it any point to stay in it. So when I was there, I don't know, I was floating around somewhere. Oh, Reserve meetings, we used to have them so I got assigned to some chemical reserve unit, which we didn't have any of in Montana. They still had me on their list somewhere. I don't know, I might have gone and volunteered in that. Anyhow, I wound up in the Chicago Chemical Procurement District, lasted there about a year. It was very interesting work. But, anyhow, then I went over and I was assigned first to a smoke generator battalion. Smoke generators, these were little devices they could set up and they'd make smoke like you wouldn't believe. WE: How did they do that? GAC: Basically what they did was injected steam and white phosphorous solution so you get white phosphorous smoke coming out, which is a heavy, dense, white smoke. WE: Is it toxic? GAC: No. You might get a little oily in it. I expect that what you're ejecting is not white phosphorous; it's a phosphate smoke, white phosphorous smoke and the phosphorous is all oxidized, which probably a P205 type of thing. It was highly oxidized when it came out. That's one of the things that made this Huntsville Arsenal, when I was working there, we used to fill smoke pots. They had floating smoke pots. We had to provide a million and a half on some date in May and a friend of mine said, "We know about when 22