San Jose Island

I did not go to San Jose Island, Panama, and this chapter is built up mostly from quotations written in the 1940s by those who did go there and from pictures taken in 1944. 1 start with two quotations from W.A. Noyes, Jr., Head officer of Division 10 of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). 

Figure 5.1.A. Temporarily beached landing barge, which was used to unload lumber, machinery, weapons, vehicles, goats, etc. San Jose Island, Panama, 1944.

I give quotations to illustrate both sides of heated disagreements about the development of the San Jose project. One side was Washington, DC, and the other General E.F. Bullene, commanding officer on San Jose Island. WASHINGTON DC VIEWPOINT (W.A. Noyes, Jr., page 322)... 

Upon arrival at Balboa it was evident that the camp site and the various facilities on San Jose Island were not ready, and it was April before the group moved to the island and the first experiments were carried out. 

GENERAL E.F. BULLENE S VIE VPOINT FROM SAN JOSE ISLAND... 

For a long period of time, the San Bias Indians had lived on San Jose Island, but it provided meager sustenance, and they had abandoned the island many years before. The army hired a group of San Bias Indians temporarily to return to the island and work as laborers and servants. The army provided housing for them, adjacent to the main base. Figure 5.I.B. 

Figure 5.2.B. Blimp over San Jose Island, Panama, on cloudy, rainy day, 1944. Army warehouse in background. Tents for enlisted men in foreground.

Figure 5.5. Complete group of NDRC Division 10 on San Jose Island, August 1944. Picture taken by army photographer, given to Bob Mills, and given to H.S. Johnston.

During Roscoe Dickinson s trip to San Jose Island, he was escorted to Panama by his Caltech crew and shown the sights. As they were doing so, Professor Dickinson, to his surprise, encountered Commander Robert Dickinson, his son, who was also sightseeing in Panama and on his way to elsewhere. Neither realized that the other was anywhere near Panama. 

Undoubtedly advised of the opportunity, a Smithsonian biologist was in residence on San Jose Island. He collected immense numbers of animals, birds, and fish killed by gas. Because the island was far offshore from mainland, many species were different and had not been identified before. 

In the late summer of 1944, W.A. Noyes, Jr. in Washington invited NDRC workers in Bushnell and on San Jose Island, Panama, to volunteer to go to New Guinea to join a chemical warfare station there. Robert Brinton and Bill Shand were the only volunteers. They traveled to New Guinea with a group of army officers, and they moved from station to station, presenting... 

The leasing of San Jose Island to the U.S. Government had been preceded by considerable reconnaissance of the Caribbean area for a suitable site to carry on chemical research under tropical conditions. In the fall of 1943 Col. Robert D. McLeod, Jr., and Dr. Carey Croneis of the National Defense Research Committee made a thorough search of the territory adjoin-... 

One legacy of the San Jose Island tests is that the Republic of Panama has declared to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that it has abandoned chemical... 

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