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Camp Tyson brought James Wilson to Paris |
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| Parisian James Wilson is one of the few remaining soldiers who were stationed at the former Camp Tyson barrage balloon center at Routon. Wilson (standing third from the right) stands with fellow soldiers at the camp in front of one of the Army's barrage balloons. |
James Wilson (third from left) stands with fellow members of the medical detachment at the entrance to their headquarters at Camp Tyson. |
| By SHANNON McFARLIN P-I Staff Writer When James Wilson relaxes in his Whitehall Circle home in Paris, he can look back on a unique experi- ence. He is one of the few remaining former soldiers who served at Camp Tyson, the U.S. Army's barrage bal- loon training center that was located at Routon. "When we had a reunion a few years ago, there were quite a few of us there, but the last one we had hardly anyone was there." Wilson's memories of the camp are significant because, he saw it grow and operate from its beginning until the camp closed. It was like a city unto itself, he said, with its own hospital, news- paper, chapels, library, theater, post office, cafeteria, soda fountain, laundry, recreational facilities and housing. The camp even had its own band. Wilson served in the medical detachment and he arrived at the camp just a few weeks after Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 21, 1941. "When I arrived, there were just a few barracks completed," he said. "It didn't look anything like it ended up looking." Construction at the camp began Sept. 4, 1941, using civilian labor, many of whom were local men or men who moved into the county to work on the project. Wilson's memories are aided by the collection of photographs he has of the camp and the medical corps, as well as his copy of the camp's yearbook which was published in 1941. The book contains pages of formal portraits of officers and soldiers who served at the camp, as well as candid photos of camp activities. According to the yearbook, the camp covered 1,600 acres and contained 400 buildings, 10 miles of asphalt road, and five miles of railroad. The book also states that even before the United States entered the war, the U.S. Secretary of War initiated the organization of a bar- rage balloon camp to be located someplace in the country to train personnel to use the balloons as a defensive weapon. Many people who know about Camp Tyson ask why it was built so far from either coast. The book states it was decided the camp would be located "away from regu- lar air lanes, so as not to endanger aviation." Wilson said the camp was a site of excitement and activity, but the personnel there never forgot the seriousness of their mission. When Wilson was "twenty-one years and one day old," he registered for the draft in Fort Mills, S.C. "I was drafted in the Army and the first place I was sent was Fort Jack- son, S.C., then on to Fort McClellan in Alabama for my basic training." His next stop was Camp Polk (now Fort Polk), La., where he was assigned to the medical detachment. |
"They asked us if anybody had any skills," he recalled. "Well, I had taken typing in high school, so I was assigned to be a clerk for the medical supply. I typed index cards for the medical warehouse." It was there that he learned he was one of 20 other men in his unit who would be sent to Camp Tyson, of which they had never heard. Likewise, they did not know that the camp would be a barrage balloon training center when they were dispatched there. Wilson was promoted to corporal soon after he arrived, with steady promotions to sergeant, staff ser- geant and first sergeant during his stay at Camp Tyson. "When we got here, there was tremendous work going on; the civilians were building the camp from the ground up. I can vividly remember the red gravel streets," he said. Eventually there were 15,000 troops stationed there, he said. "That's more people than there is in Paris now," he said. "It was like a city. Well, it really was a city." According to the Camp Tyson yearbook, the camp was officially opened in January 1942. The first soldiers to arrive were the 302nd Battalion and they sent their first balloon aloft at the local camp on Feb. 13, 1942. The camp was operated like any other Army camp, with regimented daily routines, he said. "At 6:30
a.m., we had reveille, "Every Army had it's own Wilson played baseball and bas- |
I enjoyed that; we got to go to different places and play, so I got to see a lot of the area that way." Wilson also one of several camp soldiers who met and married local women. He and his wife, the former Anne Thompson, dated for two years before they married. In addition to providing an impor- tant service for domestic defense, the camp also played a significant role in the development of Henry County, especially Paris, Wilson said. "It really did a lot to improve Paris, economically and culturally, really." The need for the barrage balloon diminished once the atomic bomb was developed, Wilson said. "When they perfected the bomb site, that made the balloon facil- ity obsolete" and the camp closed before the war was over in 1945. Wilson stayed at the camp until the summer of 1944, but his service to his country was not over. From there, he was sent to Cali- fornia to be shipped overseas. "First we went to New Guinea, then to Luzon in the Philippines, and then on to Okinawa, Japan. We were there when the atom bomb was dropped on Japan," he said. "When the war was over, we went to Seoul, Korea, to serve with the army of occupation." He was discharged in November 1945. Upon his return to Paris, he was encouraged by his father-in-law, Judge Jim Thompson to accept a position at the Kentucky-Tennessee Clay Co., which became his lifelong career. He became manager of the Ten- nessee division of the company and worked there 38 years. Since his retirement in 1982, he said he has "been doing a lot of 'honey-do' jobs." His hobbies are gardening, golf and playing the organ, which he taught himself largely from instruc- tion manuals. He bought an organ in 1950 even before he knew how to play it. The couple is active at First Christian Church in Paris, where they are the oldest couple. He and his wife are charter mem- bers of the Paris Country Club and he served as president for three terms. They are the only charter couple remaining in the club. He served four years both as a magistrate in the old County Court and a county commissioner and 12 years on both the county budget committee and the old county nurs- ing home board. The Wilsons have one son, James H. Wilson Jr., who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., and one grandchild, Joseph Wilson, who attends college near Chicago. Wilson said his experience at Camp Tyson was a milestone in his life in more ways than one. "I served my country and it brought me here to Paris." |
ADDITIONAL Camp
Tyson Barrage Balloon Pictures
from the U. S. Library of Congress Web Site.
Reprinted from
The Paris Post-Intelligencer
Paris, Tennessee
December 14, 2004 Edition ~ Used by Permission