In the Highest Traditions of the Naval Service: Pharmacist’s Mate Durward Allan Laney and the Cavite Navy Yard Bombing

It is a rarity in the annals of war when one finds a dental technician gaining recognition for heroic action on the field of battle; their valuable duties seldom bring dental practitioners to within the sound of gunfire. However, in the opening days of World War II, Ohioan Durward Laney of the U.S. Navy gave his life for his country and achieved distinction by being recommended for the Navy Cross.

Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class Durward Allan Laney, U.S. Navy

          Durward Allan Laney was born February 24, 1918 in Fremont, Ohio, the first born of Floyd and Nellie (Burkett) Smith. Shortly after Durward’s birth, Floyd was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the A.E.F. for nearly a year as a cook. 

Nellie and Durward Laney, 1919

           Upon his honorable discharge in 1919, he returned home and began to work as a cook in restaurants in Fremont. The Laney family added two daughters to the family, Audrey Ellen born in 1920 and Nina Belle in 1922. Home life was challenging. Floyd Laney struggled with alcohol, and his violent behavior towards Nellie and children “caused her to live in constant fear for her safety and that of their children.” The Sandusky County court granted Nellie a divorce in 1925, and it is unknown whether Durward ever had contact with his father again.

Durward Laney in 1935

In 1927, he was enrolled at the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home in Xenia, Ohio.  Durward thrived in the military atmosphere at O.S.S.O.H. As a junior in 1935, he served as a page in the Ohio House of Representatives and in the next year excelled in football, swimming and basketball, as well as being the cadet major of the local ROTC unit. On graduation night in 1936, Laney received the ‘Honor Student Medal’ from the American Legion of Ohio.

Upon graduation, he immediately indicated an interest to join the Navy. As was the custom of the time, the Navy sent a representative from the Toledo Naval Armory to investigate Durward’s home life and habits. “He is a clean cut lad, neat in dress, and comes well recommended,” Machinist’s Mate 3^rd Class Johann Thiede wrote to the Navy Department. “He had made up his mind, knows what he wants to do and should be given due consideration for enlistment.” 

          The Navy agreed with Thiede’s assessment and Durward enlisted in the U.S. Navy on May 19, 1937 at Detroit, Michigan. After three months, Durward graduated with high marks from the recruit training school at Norfolk and was selected to attend the Navy’s Hospital Corps school in San Diego, California. Laney’s descriptions of the adventures on this trip to San Diego give a sense of his ebullient free spirit.

Laney's rank insignia

 “We reached Chicago Sunday afternoon about 3:30. What a time we had there! Met an old geezer in a drug store who thought sailors were tops. Result- scotch for lil’ Sinbad,” he wrote. “Well, with drinking the potent stuff and shooting the bull with this guy it became 8:18. Wow! Our train left at 8:20. Another one of the fellows was with me and we were two blocks from the station. Boy did our heels fly. We ran all the way and in passing the porter in the station asked which was our train. Wonder of wonders we caught it just as it was moving out.”

The coursework at the sixteen week school was brutal: anatomy, physiology, bandaging, first aid and medical surgery, pharmacy, maternal medicine and toxicology, hygiene and sanitation, nursing, dietetics, and bacteriology. ”Keeps me studying morning, noon, and night,” he wrote in October 1937. Laney graduated 28^th in his class of 48 in January 1938 and was assigned to duty at the hospital ward in San Diego.

Nine months of duty in the hospital led to an appointment to the dental clinic and the real start of Laney’s navy career. He served in San Diego for about a year before being transferred back east to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Seeking further adventures, Laney agreed to extend his enlistment by two years in exchange for a transfer to the Asiatic Fleet based in the Philippines. He left the Atlantic Fleet in September 1940 and started the long journey westward, arriving at the receiving ship in San Francisco on October 27, 1940. 

U.S.S. Chaumont

          Laney boarded the U.S.S. Chaumont and set sail from San Francisco for the Orient on January 8, 1941. The 13,400 ton, 448 foot long transport loafed along at a leisurely maximum speed of 14 knots, which ensured that the cruise across the Pacific was a long, grueling affair to a landsman. Writing to his mother from Guam, Laney lamented that while he felt “tip top,” he was tired of traveling. “We have come just 6,500 miles so far from San Francisco and still have 1,500 miles to get to Manila. It certainly has taken a long time to get this far from New York; have traveled about 18,000 miles.” The naval transport made stops along the way at San Pedro, San Diego, Honolulu, Midway, Wake, and Guam, before arriving in the Philippines more than a month after leaving San Francisco. 

          Laney arrived in the Philippines on February 10, 1941 and was briefly assigned to the naval hospital at Canacao before he transferred to the Naval Dispensary at Cavite Navy Yard near Manila a few weeks later. On March 6^th, he reported in person to Lieutenant Commander Hjalmer A. Erickson, the officer in charge of the dispensary, who assigned him to Lieutenant (j.g.) Robert G. Herthneck of the Dental Corps.

Pre-war image of Cavite Naval Base in the Philippines

          The Cavite Navy Yard dispensary “was a two story wooden structure with a carpenter’s shop on one side and a print shop on the other. Examination rooms were on the ground floor while the medical officers were housed in the bachelor’s officers’ quarters upstairs.” Duty was light- the dispensary observed tropical hours (6 a.m. to 1 p.m.) which gave the sailors assigned to dispensary plenty of time to survey the local attractions and to sample the local womenfolk. As a matter of fact, one of the primary duties of the dispensary was to regularly check the three local Marine companies for venereal disease. 

          The relaxed, free spirited atmosphere of the “Pearl of the Orient” suited Laney. “The duty out here isn’t bad, a bit monotonous at times,” Laney wrote home to his mother in June 1941. “I belong to a club where we occasionally get together and drink a little beer. We also take short trips around the island. The Navy furnishes a bus for the trips which I think is quite nice of them. Every couple of weeks we have a dance and I have made many friends through the club; we even have our own building which is called the American Shack.” Laney also admitted to his mother that he had upped his enlistment by two years to get the transfer to the Philippines. “I like the Navy. It is tough sometimes getting transferred here and there but the benefits to be derived after retirement overshadow the things that seem unpleasant now,” he argued. “Of course, in another two years, I may have a different outlook, but that remains to be seen.” 

           

Overhead view of the base dated October 27, 1941. 

           The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 came as a shock but not a surprise to the naval establishment in the Philippines. Yet many of the sailors at Cavite learned of the attack the same way as their countrymen back in the states: they heard the news on the radio. The American commanders in the Philippines proved slow to react to the danger; most of the American air force was caught on the ground at Clark Field by a Japanese air attack at mid day on December 8, 1941. In the Cavite Navy Yard, the medical staff were given tin helmets, gas masks, and side arms and ordered to be on the lookout for sabotage.

         

           A few of the officers tried to get the Navy Yard prepared for an air attack that they felt was sure to come. Lieutenant Fred Berley of the medical detachment knew that the dispensary was a death trap if an air raid took place. “Berley suggested an alternative: the old paint locker behind the dispensary, which was made of concrete blocks a foot square and was built below street level. He had the locker stocked with bandages, operating instruments, kerosene lamps and flashlights.” The lieutenant also enlisted forty five stretcher bearers and ordered them to report to the paint locker on the double in the event of an air raid. 

          

         The expected Japanese air attack came at mid day on December 10^th. The Japanese bombers flew over Cavite at more than 20,000 feet, well out of range of the antiaircraft guns that were supposed to protect the base. Men on the ground could see the individual bombs floating to the earth, but once they hit, all hell broke loose. Explosions from 300 bombs wracked the yard fore and aft. Most of the important buildings of the yard burst into flames. One bomb even hit the paint locker, which miraculously withstood the blast. 

The Japanese bombing of Cavite devastated the base. 

In the midst of this sudden rain of bombs, Lt. Cmdr. Erickson realized that not everyone had been evacuated from the dispensary. Durward Laney volunteered to investigate and get the men into the safety of the paint locker. If no one was in the dispensary, he would return with a load of medical supplies as it was evident that they would be needed. Darting across the flaming yard, Laney’s heart must have sunk when he entered the dispensary: more than twenty patients cowered in the flimsy structure. Disregarding his own safety, Laney jumped inside the dispensary just as a Japanese bomb landed on the building and blew it to splinters. Erickson witnessed Laney’s heroism from the paint locker, and survived the attack.

          

Laney's Purple Heart

          The following day, detachments of the Filipino Fleet Reserve and the Provisional Military Police entered Cavite Yard to gather, identify and bury the dead. “It was a grisly task. The stench was overpowering. Of the 167 bodies disposed of, only seven could be identified. They cremated a few by dousing them in kerosene; bomb craters became tombs for the rest. Laney’s remains were never found.” 

This Japanese photo shows smoke pouring from the base
during the bombing.

News of Laney’s death did not reach his family for nearly two weeks. The telegram was delivered to Nellie Smith’s residence of 2034 Ashland Ave. at 2 a.m. on December 21, 1941. The message was terse: “The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son, Durward Allan Laney, Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class, USN was killed in action in the performance of his duty and in the service of his country. The department extends to you its sincerest sympathy in your great loss. To prevent possible aid to our enemies, please do not divulge the name of his ship or station. If not possible to send the remains home, they will be interred temporarily in the locality where death occurred and you will be notified accordingly.” After two years of wrangling, the Navy finally agreed to grant Mrs. Smith a six months death gratuity that amounted to more than $600. The war brought additional tragedy into Nellie’s life; within a month of receiving this gratuity for the loss of her son, her youngest daughter Nina died. 

Nellie (Laney) Smith in 1940. 

Lieutenant Commander Hjalmer A. Erickson was captured when the U.S. forces in the Philippines surrendered in May 1942. He spent three years as a captive of the Japanese consigned to hard labor. But upon his return to the United States in 1945, the memories of Laney’s bravery during the Cavite Navy Yard bombing compelled him to seek recognition for his deceased corpsman. He wrote a series of letters lauding Laney’s heroic actions, going so far as to involve Vice Admiral Ross McIntire, Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, in arguing his case.  

          

          The letter writing campaign worked. In April 1946, Admiral McIntire recommended that the Navy award Laney with the Navy Cross, the service’s second highest honor next to the Medal of Honor. McIntire’s citation read as follows:

“When the Japanese attacked Sangley Point and the Cavite Navy Yard on the 10^th of December 1941, in accordance with previous plans due to the vulnerability of the Navy Yard Dispensary and it’s proximity to vital military installations, the personnel and patients were immediately evacuated to safer areas in other portions of the Navy yard and the village of Cavite. While the first wave of bombers was passing over the yard, and while the devastating bombs were falling and destroying facilities all around the dispensary, Laney, with completed disregard of his own safety, voluntarily returned to the dispensary for additional first aid supplies and to make a final check to be sure that all patients had been evacuated, narrowly escaping death as he dashed into the fragile structure on his desperate mission. A few seconds later, before he could accomplish his purpose and return to safety, the dispensary was completely destroyed by bombs and the wreckage consumed by flames. Laney heroically gave his life for his country, and his conduct was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.” (citation- Durward Laney Military Record)

          

Laney's Bronze Star

          Upon further review, the Navy in early 1947 decided to award Laney the Bronze Star, a newer medal of considerably lower precedence than the Navy Cross. Documents in Laney’s military record do not contain any specific reason for this change, but previous documents had pointed out a lack of specificity in Erickson’s description of Laney’s actions. Regardless, the Navy chose to award Laney the Bronze Star but used the same language in the citation that Admiral McIntire had used in his Navy Cross recommendation. With appropriate ceremony, the formal presentation was made in Nellie Smith’s home on Floyd Street in Toledo on April 15, 1947. 

To commemorate her lost son, Nellie Smith erected a stone in his memory at Oakwood Cemetery in his birthplace of Fremont, Ohio. In addition, Durward’s younger sister Audrey Parkinson named her first born son Durward in honor of her deceased brother. Durward Parkinson today is in possession of Laney’s effects, including his Purple Heart and Bronze Star, mementoes of a forgotten hero of World War II.

Oakwood Cemetery, Fremont, Ohio

Final Citation as awarded by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and signed February 20, 1947:

“The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Bronze Star Medal posthumously to Durward Allan Laney, Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy for service set forth in the following citation:

“For heroic service as a member of a Hospital Corps detachment at the Navy Yard Dispensary, Cavite, Philippine Islands, during the bombing of Sangley Point and the Cavite Navy Yard by enemy Japanese forces on December 10, 1941. Helping evacuate personnel and patients from the Navy Yard Dispensary while devastating bombs were falling in the are and destroying facilities in close proximity to this building, Laney voluntarily returned to the dispensary to obtain additional first aid supplies to make sure that all patients had been evacuated. Narrowly escaping death as he dashed into the fragile structure, he attempted to rescue the remaining group of 25 patients until, a few seconds later, he was struck down by a direct bomb hit which completely destroyed the dispensary and left it in flames. Stout hearted and indomitable throughout, Laney rendered invaluable assistance to his wounded comrades, and his courageous and self sacrificing devotion to duty was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”

The Laney family possesses the letters Durward wrote home before the war and gave their permission to be used. I've also quoted from Glusman, John A. Courage Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945. New York: Viking, 2005, pgs. 41-45 which gives a description of the Cavite Navy Yard attack. 

"We kept 'em flying" Donald Kramer in World War II

Wichita Falls resident Donald L. Kramer spent most of December 7, 1941 quietly in the Texas countryside near Sheppard Field visiting with his girlfriend Glendine. That all changed when he tried to get back on base that night. “I knew nothing about Pearl Harbor till I tried to get back in through the back entrance like I normally did and got stopped three times. ‘Halt! Who goes there? Advance and be recognized!’ they said. The guards wouldn’t let me pass, so I had to come back through the main gate. I still didn’t know what was going on, but I got into the barracks just in time for bed check at 10 o’clock and the guys told me what had happened. Immediately there were changes. We had to send our civilian clothes home; from then on, we had to wear our uniforms all the time. The pace of our training sped up. All of the sudden we were at war,” he said.



Donald L. Kramer in 1941

          The transition from war to peace was just the latest in a series of abrupt changes in Mr. Kramer’s life. A native of New Riegel, Ohio, Kramer had spent much of his life in that small farming community southeast of Toledo working on the family farm through the Depression years. “We had a 24 acre farm outside of town and grew nearly everything that we ate. We raised cows, chickens, and hogs. We had a big potato patch, fruit trees, berry bushes, and a vegetable garden. It was a good life but it wasn’t easy. Everyone had to pitch in,” he remembered.

          During the summer of 1941, Kramer worked at Swan Rubber Co. in nearby Carey, Ohio, operating a punch press making rubber clutch facings and brake linings along with his cousin and close friend Harold Landoll. “We worked together, and dated together, so when Harold was drafted in July; it just wasn’t the same after he left. So one day after work, I journeyed up to Toledo to see an Army recruiter and told him that I wanted to join the Air Corps and be an airplane mechanic,” he said. “I got my choice of service, my choice of job, and even my choice of where I wanted to be sent for training.”

After being sworn into service August 25, 1941 at Fort Hayes near Columbus, Ohio, he was sent on a train to Sheppard Field at Wichita Falls, Texas for basic training. “My first impression of Texas wasn’t all that great. It was hot and dry. Sheppard Field was just getting started, just a few barracks out in a wheat field. There were about 350 men assigned to the field. They only had a few barracks finished, so we would move in and clean one up, then move on to the next one. This happened four or five times. I was in the second graduating class at Sheppard as part of the aircraft mechanics course, which lasted 26 weeks,” he said.

Once the war began, one of the first things Kramer did was to marry Glendine in January 1942. It capped six months of remarkable changes in his young life. Since August, Kramer had transitioned from civilian to military life, from living at home to living in Texas, from peace to war, and from single life to married life.

Don Kramer's Certificate of Appreciation for War Service from 1945.

After his class graduated that spring, most of the men were sent to other bases but Kramer was left behind at Sheppard Field for a month, “not contributing anything to the war effort. So I went to the chaplain and complained. He said he would see what he could do about it. Two days later, they pulled me from K.P. and sent me off to Duncan Field where I was assigned to the motor pool. Next I was sent off to aircraft carburetor school at Kelly Field. Finally I received my orders to go overseas.”

Kramer sailed to England in the spring of 1943 aboard the liner Queen Mary along with 18,000 troops and a crew of 3,000, crossing the Atlantic in 4 ½ days. Upon arriving in England, he was assigned to the 16^th Depot Repair Group at Burtonwood No. 2 near the town of Warrington, about halfway between Manchester and Liverpool. The Army Air Force had just established this massive service depot operation to support the Allied air offensive against Germany, labeling the two depots Burtonwood No.1 and Burtonwood No. 2. “The airplanes would come in to the depot, and all of the parts that needed to be overhauled would be taken off the plane and sent to the various shops. I worked at both depots fixing carburetors, so I worked in the engine shops. One depot worked on inline engines for fighter planes like the P-51, while the other worked on radial engines for the B-17s and B-24s. We retrofitted 700 or 800 P-51s with a water injection system which gave them a short term burst of power. It was a lot like working in a factory, just like back home. Once the various shops finished their work, the plane would be re-assembled and flown back to the fighter or bomber group. We kept ‘em flying,” he remembered.

It took endless hours of maintenance to keep up
the Allied air offensive in Europe. Here two mechanics
are working on the radial engine of a B-17
belonging to the 384th Bomb Group at
Grafton Underwood in 1944. Planes requiring major
overhauls were sent to Burtonwood.

Life in England was a stark contrast to the life he had known back in the States. “When we got to England, the country was on the ropes. England had a strict blackout rule, anybody that got caught lighting a cigarette was punished. They were still getting bombed nearly every night. In some of the towns, it looked like a war zone with burned buildings and rubble. I stood guard duty at Burtonwood with three rounds of carbine ammunition because that was all they could afford to give us. What do we do if we see the enemy? Fire your three shots and run! It was really something,” he stated. “I liked the English people though, lots of nice families. For the most part we got along pretty well.”

Kramer spent his three years in England living in a barracks “very similar to the Nissen huts in the movie Twelve O’Clock High. We had a little wood burning stove right in the center of the barracks and since I was a staff sergeant and barracks chief, I got a cot right next to the stove. It didn’t put out too much heat but it kept the ice off the windows. We ate a lot of Spam, powdered eggs, powdered potatoes, and corn beef hash. We usually had a traditional meal at Christmas and Thanksgiving. I knew what we were doing at the depot was important, but I had some mixed emotions about fixing planes to go back and bomb Germany. My dad came from Germany and I’m sure we still had relation living in Germany then.”



A snapshot showing one of the endless poker games in the barracks at Burtonwood No. 2 Kramer remembered that as staff sergeant, he "got a cot right next to the stove. It didn't put out too much heat but it kept the ice off the windows." The poor G.I. on the cot in the foreground looks cold (he's wearing his jacket) and utterly exhausted: he is fast asleep despite the rowdy card game going on just a few feet away.

“One of the things I really remember is when I met General Eisenhower. He came to the shop one day with a Russian general, introduced himself, and went around the shop shaking hands and talking with the men. He had me explain to this Russian general what we were doing in the shop. This happened before D-Day, as he was probably too busy after D-Day to have time to visit,” Kramer commented.

Going on leave always promised an adventure. “The officers and enlisted men usually went to separate towns while on leave. I remember going to Liverpool on leave and you’d run into troops of every nationality. English, Canadians, Norwegians, Free French, Poles, you name it. It was a wild town. We normally went to Manchester which was a little closer and not as wild as Liverpool,” he said. “You could never get good food in an English restaurant since everything was short. I had a furlough in London and had to go down into a bomb shelter every night, but had a good time.” Kramer later acquired a two-seater bicycle and rode through the English countryside, even going into towns that were ‘off-limits’ to military personnel.

Sergeant Donald L. Kramer at left with best friend Claude Loe of Cygnet, Ohio on the right in a photo dating from 1944 while both men were stationed at Burtonwood No. 2. Kramer is wearing an enlisted men's service cap and heavy wool overcoat while Loe is wearing an overseas cap and dress uniform; he displays ribbons for Good Conduct and European Theater service. His left lapel shows an engineering collar disc.

V-E and V-J Days both occurred while Kramer was on leave. “After the war, I was sent down to the bomb dump at Groverly Woods. It was my job to get rid of the bombs, so we’d load them on flat bed trailers which were carted into port, then dumped out to sea. Same thing with airplanes. We had so many bombers left over that no one knew what to do with them, so we’d strip them down of anything useful, chop off the wings and haul the remnants out to sea and toss them over the side.”

Mr. Kramer was discharged in November 1945 at Tyler, Texas and returned home to Wichita Falls. “I was just so happy to be home after 2 ½ years overseas and was eager to resume the normal life. But it was a different life than before the war. We all had the same dream of building the country up after the war. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I bounced around jobs for a few years before I went to work at Sheppard Air Force Base, and stayed there until I retired,” he said. “By the time I came back to Sheppard in 1951, there were 15-20,000 men assigned to the base. Quite a change from 1941.”

Luckey Magnesium Plant Played Important Part in World War II

At the intersection of State Route 582, Gilbert and Luckey Roads just north of Luckey, Ohio sits a broken and forlorn reminder of a bygone age: the wartime factory that once housed the Magnesium Reduction Company. Built on a crash basis in the early days of World War II due to a national shortage of magnesium, the plant has not been used in more than 15 years, and the Army Corps of Engineers is actively engaged in cleaning up the plant site with plans to tear down the factory within the next few years. It is a sad ending for a structure that once formed an important part in the Arsenal of Democracy which gained the victory in World War II.



Magnesium Reduction Co. plant at Luckey, Ohio (Luckey Historical Society)

          At the outset of World War II, the United States found itself desperately short of magnesium and the Axis powers controlled 60% of the world’s total output. Pre-war production of this metal occurred only at the Dow Chemical Company’s plant in Midland, Michigan which could produce about 18 million pounds per year. Forecasted demand for magnesium, bolstered by President Roosevelt’s directive to ramp up U.S. aircraft output to 50,000 planes per year, far outstripped Dow’s capacity. “The War Production Board recommended that magnesium production be extended more than 90 times that of 1939, to approximately 610 million lbs,” a government report stated in 1942. Production totals in 1941, buttressed by the opening of two more plants, supplied only roughly 5% of that forecasted demand. “Events in 1941 forecast that an unprecedented quantity of magnesium would be required for military purposes for the production of aircraft and incendiary bombs. Demand for the metal was much greater than the supply and to meet military requirements, mandatory priorities were invoked on magnesium on March 3, 1941.” This action placed all sale and distribution of magnesium firmly under Federal government control.

The dilapidated plant shown in a photo from April 2019. The exposed south wing of the plant once housed 20 furnaces in which magnesium was "reduced" from ferrosilicon and calcined dolomite.

The Federal government, through the War Production Board, embarked on a rapid industry expansion to cover the magnesium shortfall. The expansion occurred in two phases; the first phase in 1941 called for the construction of eight new plants, but by February 1942 projected magnesium needs rose to 725 million pounds and drove a second wave of expansion totaling seven more plants: the Luckey plant was part of this second expansion. The new facility, with a designed capacity of 10 million pounds per year, required 120 million pounds of dolomite per year and this fact played a major role in determining where the plant was built. A national search conducted to identify plant sites sufficiently close to both raw materials and railroads identified northwest Ohio, noted for its abundant limestone industry and extensive railroad network, as a natural choice. “In this district there are large deposits of dolomite and of suitable quality.  Natural gas and electric power are available. In the vicinity of the site there are several lime plants from which calcined dolomite can be obtained and it was decided to purchase the calcine instead of installing facilities to produce it,” wrote National Lead Co. engineer Andrew Mayer in 1944. The National Gypsum Co. quarry located on Gilbert Road directly across the street from the plant supplied the calcined dolomite which was then delivered in 12-ton batches via dump truck while the ferrosilicon was brought in on railcars. The New York Central Railroad, specifically its Toledo & Ohio Central branch line, handled all rail traffic to and from the plant. With the New York Central’s Stanley Yard located only a few miles north, expedited delivery of the vital metal to war industries was considerably enhanced.

General plan layout of the plant as built in 1942. The Production Control Bldg. (no. 12 on the map) on the southwest corner of the facility was built first and served as a training facility for new employees. It was later used to develop improved techniques and practices for the plant. (Andrew Mayer, National Lead)

With the Luckey site identified, the Defense Plant Corporation (a Federal entity) entered into an agreement with National Lead Company in May 1942 in which the DPC would build and own the $5 million magnesium plant, while National Lead (which formed a new subsidiary called the Magnesium Reduction Company) would operate the facility. The DPC purchased the land from Melissa A. Laymen on June 1, 1942 and construction quickly commenced. United Engineering & Development Co. of Philadelphia undertook the construction job under the guidance of architects Singmaster and Breyer of New York and completed their work by December. The plant featured two parallel wings: the northern wing housed the briquetting operation while the reduction furnaces were set along the southern wing. Shortages of construction materials and workers slowed construction progress. “All primary facilities under construction experienced delays in obtaining structural steel, electrical equipment, and the complicated components necessary for the completion of the plants,” reported the chairman of the U.S. War Production Board in 1945. Andrew Mayer reported that “steel was conserved as much as practicable in construction on account of emergency conditions.” A shortage of workers, a common problem for U.S. industry in World War II, played a role in the delayed startup. “The work is progressing so rapidly that already applications for the hundreds of workers that will be required are being taken at a room in the Hotel Secor,” the Toledo Blade reported.

The finishing press, shown above, for the completed briquettes was located in the northern wing of the main plant building. The briquetting process took a while to fine tune but by early 1944, the plant was operating at more than 20% above its rated capacity of 10 million pounds per year.

One of the first buildings completed was the production control unit that featured a furnace with four full-scale retorts and auxiliary equipment. This site, later used as a laboratory for improving plant processes, opened in October as a training facility for plant personnel prior to full scale production beginning on December 30, 1942. Eventually the plant operated 400 retorts in 20 furnaces which enabled the facility to produce in excess of 14 tons per day of finished magnesium ingots.

          Pre-war magnesium was produced by processing brine to extract pure magnesium through electrolysis; this was known as the Dow process. But with urgent wartime needs to be met, several new methods of magnesium production were explored and the Luckey plant employed what is known as the ferrosilicon reduction process, named the Pidgeon process in honor of chemist Dr. Lloyd Montgomery Pidgeon of the Canadian Research Council who developed the process in 1941. This process today is the predominant method by which magnesium is produced.



Map showing the locations of the 16 U.S. plants that produced magnesium for the war effort. It is worth noting that Dow Chemical Co. operated four of these plants (Midland and Marysville, Michigan, and Freeport and Velasco, Texas); Dow operated the only plant in the country producing magnesium when the war began and was the only producer left standing after the war ended. It is worth noting that the location of the plants tended to cluster near areas where there was large-scale aircraft manufacturing; the California and Nevada plants supplied magnesium for the aircraft industry centered in southern California. The Ford-operated Dearborn plant supplied magnesium for aluminum used at the Ford-operated Willow Run plant which built thousands of B-24s. (Author's Map)

The primary components for producing magnesium through the Pidgeon process are dolomite and ferrosilicon. The input materials are crushed and ground in separate processes; the dolomite is processed through a calciner which yields calcium oxide and magnesium oxide. The ferrosilicon is produced in an arc furnace which generates 75% grade ferrosilicon, scrap iron, and coke. (Both of these materials were shipped into the Luckey plant from other producers.) Ferrosilicon is then mixed with the CaO and MgO and condensed to form the briquettes. The briquettes were fed into “tubular retorts of chrome-nickel steel set horizontally in a furnace with the open ends projecting outside the front wall,” wrote Andrew Mayer in 1944. “The retorts are then closed and evacuated.” Reduction took place under vacuum at about 2,130 degrees Fahrenheit and the vaporized magnesium separated from the rest of the mixture and condensed in the water-cooled removable sleeve section of the retort. This magnesium deposit, called a muff, was removed from the 10” diameter retort at the end of the cycle and sent along the process to be re-melted and cast into ingots.  “For the daily rated capacity of 14 tons of magnesium there are required approximately 170 tons of dolomite and 16.5 tons of ferrosilicon,” Mayer wrote. Retort residue which was trucked off site as waste amounted to 87 tons per day.

A photo showing a portion of the furnace house in 1943; each furnace housed 20 retorts (the circular doors are the retorts) and the plant operated 20 furnaces. The gas-fired furnaces utilized burners supplied by Surface Combustion Co. which even today operates in the Toledo area.

“Attention was drawn to the Pidgeon process because it requires a minimum of electrical power (chiefly that used in the production of ferrosilicon), it utilizes dolomite (which is very abundant), and a plant can be erected in a relatively short time. The process, however, necessitates substantial expansion of ferrosilicon production capacity and the use of a large quantity of critical nichrome steel for manufacture of retorts.” (Minerals Yearbook, 1941, pgs. 747-748) The Pidgeon process offered a number of other advantages important in wartime: “It does not require a highly trained workforce or sophisticated engineering and only requires a small amount of capital cost.”

Betty Wormley, a 1943 graduate of Pemberville
High School, worked at the Luckey plant
during the war.

Demand for magnesium was one of the most challenging aspects of the national defense program when the Luckey plant commenced operations in December 1942. “During the emergency period, firms sent most of the metal to aircraft plants leaving little available for other purposes. Despite the fact that industry expanded its facilities as rapidly as possible, for a time there was simply not enough metal for the armed forces,” wrote Leo Brophy.

“Through the entire year of 1942, the use of magnesium had to be curtailed, urgent export demands were not fully met, and powder was not available in the requested amounts for flares and ammunition,” Julius A. Krug of the War Production Board wrote in 1945. “However, it was the incendiary bomb program which bore the brunt of the shortage, receiving only 11.4 million pounds of magnesium compared with the greatly reduced calculated requirements of 62 million pounds. Although a substitute thermite bomb had been developed, it could not replace entirely the urgent need for incendiaries in the European theater.”

Operations started off slowly as the normal production problems were sorted out and improved methods devised. The briquetting operation proved most troublesome at first as it took a while to figure out how to make a sufficiently strong briquette. It was found that binder could not be used in the process, and the finishing presses suffered from excessive maintenance costs and power consumption. Over time, a two-stage briquetting process was developed which used a coarser calcine and this yielded better results.  Each retort load took five bags (235 lbs) of briquettes and took about 10 hours to complete the reduction cycle; the removable sleeve was then extracted from the furnace by a machine and the 31-lb magnesium muff was driven out of the sleeve with a pneumatic hammer. The remaining waste product was emptied out via discharge screws into hoppers and the retort prepared for its next charge. The magnesium muff moved on to the alloy building at the eastern end of the plant where it was “melted down and mixed with other metals by usual methods to make alloys for incendiary bombs and aircraft parts,” Mayer wrote. The retorts after repeated use would start to collapse and after about 250 days would fail altogether. Replacement of the retorts, which used expensive and hard-to-acquire chrome-nickel steel (also called nichrome steel), was a downside of using the Pidgeon process and this additional cost ultimately contributed to the plant closing at the end of the war.

An extraction machine was used to empty the scorching hot retort at the end of the reduction cycle. The retorts, made of expensive and difficult-to-obtain nichrome steel, lasted about 250 days before they collapsed and had to be replaced. The reduction cycle lasted about 10 hours and produced 31 pounds of magnesium per cycle; at best operations got two cycles a day out of each retort.

Luckey-produced magnesium ended up in two primary destinations for war use: incendiary bombs and aircraft components. Early war allocations gave most of the magnesium to the aircraft industry, but by the end of 1943 the allocation between the armaments and aircraft industries became even. In the aircraft industry, 64% of the magnesium was used in the manufacture of engines and propellers, 23% used in wheels, 7% for aircraft frames, and 6% for accessories. Types of aluminum-magnesium alloys included Birmabright (1-7% Mg, remainder Al), Magnalium (5% Mg, 95% Al), and Duralumin (1.2-1.8% Mg). “Wartime experience and advances have shown that the metal is easily machined and that its alloys with aluminum, zinc, and copper are not only very light, but high in strength.” (Minerals Yearbook, 1943, pg. 774) As the war progressed, the metal also started to be used for rocket-launcher tubes, flares, and tracers.

Luckey also supplied material which was used for explosives. Magnesium was used both in bomb casings and as powder for incendiary bombs.  In early 1941 “the Joint Aircraft Committee, established to allocate American material between the United States and Great Britain, recommended that the Ordnance Department to produce a four-lb. magnesium bomb suitable for the Army, Navy, and the British. Ordnance thereupon modified the British Mark II/A four-lb. incendiary and standardized it as the American AN-M50. Most of the bombs went to Great Britain on Lend-Lease and were dropped in air raids over Europe. Aircraft dropped more four-lb. magnesium bombs than all other incendiary bombs put together. Almost 30 million fell on Europe, and almost 10 million on Japan, causing damage that ran into astronomical figures,” wrote Brophy

Workers at the Luckey plant are shown utilizing a pneumatic hammer to punch out the magnesium "muff" from the removable sleeve of the retort. The muff was sent to the alloy building where it was remelted and cast into alloy ingots for use in the aircraft industry or for use in incendiary bomb production. Empty sleeves are lined up on the right of the photo; the muff was the shape with a hole in it on the left.

The Luckey plant’s stated capacity was 10 million pounds of processed magnesium per year, and the plant reached its peak figure in 1944 when 12,384,000 pounds was produced. The Luckey plant garnered two Army-Navy E Awards (E for excellence) for its production efforts during the war. The first award was presented on February 16, 1944 in impressive ceremony at the plant that was attended by military and governmental representatives, including former women’s tennis champion Helen Hull Jacobs who was then serving in the U.S. Navy. Fletcher W. Rockwell, president of National Lead Co., accepted the plant award from Colonel E.W. Dennis of the 5^th Service Command. It is unclear when the second award was given.

The Troy High School Band performed at the Luckey plant during the first Army-Navy E Award ceremony which took place February 16, 1944. Production facilities earned an E Award for excellence in meeting WPD production goals; the Luckey plant earned two of these awards by the time in ceased operations in August 1945. National Lead's president Fletcher Rockwell attended the ceremonies as did tennis star Helen Hull Jacobs. Note the collection of flags in the background, each of which represented one of the Allied countries engaged against the Axis. It was an intensely patriotic time and the plant workers took great pride in their contributions to the war effort. If victory in WWII was borne upon the wings of the air forces, those wings were made possible by the efforts of plants like the Luckey magnesium plant that produced the essential raw materials of victory. (Luckey Public Library) 

By the beginning of 1944, the Federal government possessed a burgeoning surplus of magnesium and began to either curtail operations or close plants altogether. Production had increased to more than 367 million pounds in 1943 and far exceeded demand. In February 1944, the first round of production curtailments went into effect followed by a series of curtailments and plant closures throughout the year. In October 1944 the War Production Board removed all restrictions on the use of magnesium but this generated little if any additional demand upon the national stockpile. “A survey of the wartime record leaves no doubt that the industry was greatly over expanded, even for war, but the great difficulty in predicting war demands made this inevitable. The fact remains, however, that both private industry and the government possess magnesium-producing facilities far in excess of any demand foreseeable for at least a decade after the war,” reported the 1944 Minerals Yearbook. It is worth noting that the highest demand for magnesium came in 1943 and totaled 362 million pounds, roughly half the 725 million-pound figure projected by the War Production Board in February 1942.

U.S. production of magnesium rose rapidly as a result of the national expansion to 16 plants; it as a classic case of overproduction as plants that went online in 1943 were shuttered the following year. Even though the Luckey plant was one of the smallest in the nation, the high quality of the magnesium produced kept the plant doors open until the war ended in August 1945. (Author's graphic)

By January 1, 1945, the War Production Board had shut down 79% of national magnesium capacity and yet the country still possessed a healthy stockpile of magnesium.  The Luckey plant, however, avoided all of these closures and continued operating right up to the close of hostilities in August 1945. Production ceased altogether that month with annual production totaling 7,296,000 pounds. Despite the plant’s efficiency, its production costs (30 cents per pound) “could not hope to compete in a market in which magnesium sells for 20.5 cents and in which capacity exceeds demand.” (Minerals Yearbook, 1945, pg. 768) “Orders to close the plant were issued two weeks ago by the Reconstruction Finance Co. according to E.R. Rowley, plant manager,” the Toledo Blade reported on September 4, 1945. “The product extracted from the dolomite rock of Wood County was rated as the purest magnesium produced in the U.S. But its production costs were double the costs of pre-war magnesium.”

Satellite image of the plant from the early 2010s. The traces of the railroad tracks to the east of the plant are clearly visible. The Army Corps of Engineers is busily engaged in efforts to clean up the contaminated soils around the plant and plan to eventually tear down most if not all of the plant buildings. (Google Earth)

The plant was placed in stand-by mode and remained idle until 1949 when the Brush Beryllium Company moved in to produce beryllium for the Atomic Energy Commission. While operating under AEC direction, radioactive steel was brought unto the plant site and that, combined with the beryllium, left the plant a contaminated facility. It was designated as a Superfund site in 1992 under FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program) and recent estimates show that it will take 12 years and $244 million to fully resuscitate the property. Tons of contaminated soil will need to be removed to cleanse the area of beryllium, lead, radium, thorium, and uranium.

Signs warning visitors of both the beryllium and radioactive hazards adorn the fence surrounding the plant. Visitors would do well to abide the warnings and limit their sight-seeing to outside the fence. Honestly, unless you like looking at crumbling gutted buildings, there isn't much worth seeing anymore. (Author's photo)

Sources:

“Big U.S. Magnesium Plant to be Located at Luckey,” Toledo Blade, June 10, 1942

“Notables at Luckey for E Award Rites,” Toledo Blade, February 16, 1944

“Wood County Loses Magnesium Plant,” Toledo Blade, September 4, 1945

Mayer, Andrew. “Plant for the Production of Magnesium by the Ferrosilicon Process” American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, Technical Publication No. 1670, 1944

Wulandari, Winny, et al. “Magnesium: current and alternative production routes.” University of Wollongong, Australia, 2010

Government Documents:

Background Review of the Brush Beryllium and Diamond Magnesium Plants in Luckey, Ohio. Department of Energy: Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program. 1989

Brophy, Leo P., Wyndham D. Miles and Rexmond C. Cochrane. The Chemical Warfare Service: From Laboratory to Field. Washington: Center of Military History, 1988

Bureau of Mines, United States Department of Interior Minerals Yearbooks:

Shore, F.M. Minerals Yearbook 1941. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1943

Needham, C.E., editor. Minerals Yearbook 1942. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1943

Needham, C.E., editor. Minerals Yearbook 1943. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1945

Needham, C.E., editor. Minerals Yearbook 1944. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946

Keiser, H.D editor. Minerals Yearbook 1945. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947

Krug, Julius A. Wartime Production Achievements and the Reconversion Outlook. Report of the Chairman of the Chairman, War Production Board. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1945