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MercurysBall2 ago

A Military History of Water Island http://www.waterislandhistory.com/militaryhistory.html

MercurysBall2 ago

Post World War II

If you recall from above, it was mentioned that in 1943 the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service determined that a testing site in the tropics was needed to prepare for potential chemical battlefield activities in the Pacific theater and that San Jose Island off the coast of Panama was selected for this testing. This came to an end in December 1947. This was not good news for Water Island.

Experimentation was halted on 23 December 1947 when the lease for San Jose Island was not renewed by Panama. All equipment and personnel were moved by 28 January 1948 to temporary locations in the U.S. controlled Canal Zone, Panama. Immediately, exploration began to locate a new testing site. St Thomas was selected as the new site for the chemical testing activities.

By the end of May 1948, all the equipment, personnel and chemical munitions had been moved to St. Thomas into the former Navy Submarine Base. An area of about 2,095 acres, consisting of the entire west end of St. Thomas, was condemned for lease. Fort Segarra on Water Island was also included in this condemnation process.

Between May 1948 And May 1950, the San Jose Project continued limited testing on St. Thomas and Water Island. Testing included mustard gas (blister agent) and phosgene (choking agent). Later tests were planned to shift to captured German munitions and nerve agents. While incomplete, records show that only non-persistent choking agents were tested on St. Thomas while persistent and lethal munitions appear to have been performed on Water Island. It appears that only a limited number of tests were performed on Water Island.

ORDOTEMPLIINTERNETIS ago

GREAT WORK MERC! I was looking for a map... I would update the sub but theres so much here I am past the allotted 10,000 characters. Looks like we should get this all cleaned up and collected on a follow up post when we are done digging.