Julius A. Lockett
Julius A. Lockett (SN: 34419986) graduated in 1939 with a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College. He worked as a teacher until October 1942, when he was inducted into the US Army as a Private. Like most African Americans, Lockett was not considered eligible for service in a combat unit; he was assigned instead to the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS). Soon after this assignment, he probably saw a training film, “You Are in the Chemical Warfare Service, Soldier Brown,” which promised that any private could become a commissioned officer, regardless of race or color and with or without having attended college.
Lockett never became a commissioned officer, but rose quickly through the ranks as a non-commissioned officer. By October 1944, he had become First Sergeant in the 705th Chemical Maintenance Company (Aviation). The 705th was one of many “colored” units in the CWS with white commissioned officers and African American enlisted men. Few specifics are available about this period of Lockett’s military service in the secretive CWS; however, recognition granted in 2001 to soldiers in a similar unit, the 701st Chemical Maintenance Company, helps shed light on the duties and dangers Lockett’s unit might have faced.
A detachment of seven soldiers from the 701st crossed the Atlantic on the SS John Harvey, transporting 2000 mustard-filed M47A1 bombs to Bari Harbor in Italy. Mustard bombs were never used during WWII, but the US and other Allied nations maintained large stockpiles at home and abroad, ready to “retaliate in kind” if Germany or Japan initiated chemical warfare. On Dec. 2, 1943, the soldiers from the 701st were preparing to unload their cargo when the harbor was attacked by German bombers. The John Harvey burned for several hours while the soldiers from the 701st and others worked to extinguish the flames. Despite their efforts, the ship ultimately exploded, killing all onboard and releasing mustard agent which killed and injured a large number of soldiers and civilians in the surrounding area.
In October 1944, Lockett and the other enlisted men in the 705th Chemical Maintenance Company were reassigned to the 770th Chemical Depot Company (Aviation) under a different group of four commissioned officers. Soldiers in depot companies needed more advanced skills than those in maintenance companies since they were expected to manage large, diverse stockpiles of chemical munitions for extended periods. The work could include, for example, transferring mustard agent from bombs into bulk storage tanks and replacing it with napalm or other materials. Unlike toxic chemicals, incendiaries like napalm were used extensively by the US during the war. Most of the privates in Lockett’s company began their new assignment classified as “Duty Soldiers III” (590) and would need to become qualified as “Toxic Gas Handlers” (786). The upgrade would enable the company to work with the full range of toxic and non-toxic chemical bombs then available, including phosgene, hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride and more.
Lockett’s company remained at Barksdale Field in Louisiana for nine months, learning to operate an overseas chemical bomb depot. After Germany surrendered in May 1945, the focus shifted to the Pacific. Japan had indeed used toxic chemical weapons in China during the 1930s, and many Allied planners considered it almost inevitable that Japan would use them again to repulse an invasion. Okinawa was expected to be a key base from which B-29s and other bombers could deliver a chemical response in kind. As fear rose about the casualties expected during a D-Day style invasion of Japan, some high-ranking US officers went further and advocated American first use of toxic chemical bombs as an alternative or supplement to the atomic bombs. Lockett and the rest of the 770th were on track to support those chemical bombings—if President Truman had approved the order.
On July 21, 1945, the officers and soldiers of the 770th left Seattle harbor with 15,000 other troops on the USS Colbert, bound for US airbases being constructed in Okinawa. The invasion of the Japanese home islands was planned to begin in November, but Japan surrendered in August while the Colbert was still at sea. The 770th Chemical Depot Company reached Okinawa shortly after the surrender, and helped guard what they called the “China Bomb Dump.” In November 1945, Lockett was transferred out of the Company and began the process of returning to the US for discharge. He married Valerie Tolbert immediately after returning to the US.
Julius Lockett lived a long and successful life. He earned a Master of Business Administration Degree from Atlanta University in 1948, and held high-level academic and administrative positions that included serving as Bursar at Morehouse College. He died in 2006 at the age of 96, two years after the death of his wife.
In 1971, shortly before the US returned control of Okinawa to Japan, Operation Red Hat removed 13,000 tons of US toxic chemical munitions which had been secretly stockpiled at Chibana Ammunition Depot on Okinawa. Most of these munitions were relatively new, intended for potential use in Korea or Vietnam. At least one report, however, indicates that in 1969 some “decades-old mustard agent munitions were also stored at Chibana.” All were transported to Johnson Island, where their safe destruction was finally completed in September of 2000.