Filching apples; water skiing on canals; avoiding mandatory meetings: Soldier recalls Yuma Test Station of 1955

YUMA, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES

08.01.2017

Story by Chuck Wullenjohn 

U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground

It took five decades, but Ronald E. Bell, a private in the Yuma Test Station Finance Office of 1955, recently returned to the site of “the best decision I ever made.”
As a high school student in Baltimore, Md., Bell set his sights on attending college to become a certified public accountant. However, with a draft on, he would be eligible for military service after graduation. He gave the situation a great deal of thought and decided to volunteer to serve in a field that interested him – finance. After graduating, he enlisted and attended the Army’s finance school at Fort Benjamin Harrison (it has since relocated to Fort Meade, Md.) and, upon finishing, faced a choice. Where to serve?
Finance school graduates were ranked in order of how well they performed. Bell finished second and hoped to be stationed at Fort Meade, close to his home in Baltimore. The first place finisher selected it, however, forcing Bell to expand his horizons. He chose Yuma Test Station, which had been in existence only four years.
“Since I couldn’t be close to home, I decided to go far away, which I had never done before,” said Bell when he visited U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in early September, 2006. “The west had always appealed to me and it proved to be a great decision.”
Life at Yuma Test Station
Bell arrived in Yuma in the spring of 1955, after a long, frustrating train ride. Not being advised by a travel expert, he had booked passage on a “milk” train that stopped every few miles along the way. “It must have taken me a week to get to Yuma,” he said. Bell even remembers one passenger who boarded with a wooden crate of chickens and another that brought a hairy goat along. “It was just like one of the trains you see in western movies, with wicker chairs and all,” he said with a laugh.
The train pulled into Yuma about 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday. Bell stepped down onto the concrete depot platform and looked around. “It was pitch black,” he said, “with only light bulbs around the station building and along the platform holding back the darkness.” He spotted the Del Sol Hotel across the street and was able to take a bus from there to the test station later that morning. He slept in one of the hotel’s rooms until it arrived.
Yuma Test Station was a relatively small post in 1955, consisting of several hundred soldiers and civilians with the mission of testing a wide variety of military equipment for use in battle. The atmosphere was more relaxed than larger posts, said Bell. The finance office was located on the ground floor of a two story wood barracks and consisted of two rows of wooden desks. Most of the workers were military, supplemented by a few civilians. Cooling was provided by evaporative (swamp) coolers. Bell’s job was to process travel vouchers and work with the payroll.
“It was almost like a civilian job back home, for we worked Monday through Friday,” he said. “We only had to wear uniforms while working, so I wore civilian clothes each night and on weekends.” Bell lived in a nearby barracks building that still stands.
“I liked the test station right from the start,” he remarked. “People were friendly and everyone knew their job and did it. It seemed like a big family sometimes.”
One of the persons assigned to the office was a Lt. Rodriguez, who Bell considered “a really nice guy.” Rodriguez liked to socialize with the enlisted men in the finance office after hours, which was frowned upon by other officers on post. “Officers aren’t supposed to fraternize with enlisted Soldiers, but Lt. Rodriguez said they were a bunch of ‘stuffed shirts’ and did it anyway,” said Bell.
Col. Walter Abbey, test station commander, held a mandatory cocktail hour each Friday afternoon he made mandatory for all officers to attend. According to Bell, Rodriguez used every opportunity to avoid taking part. He was warned by other officers and even Abbey to change his attitude, but he replied that what he did during off duty hours was none of their business. “Lt. Rodriguez wound up being transferred,” said Bell with a shrug of his head.

Having fun in the desert

Bell spent his off duty hours in many ways. Row boats on the Colorado River were available for fishing and exploring. For a time, he operated the movie projector at the test station’s outdoor theater, which showed films after dark.
One of the Soldiers he befriended was a rock collector and the two spent many hours hiking through the desert searching for semi-precious stones. He developed a close friendship with a civilian test station photographer who owned a hobby store downtown. He spent many hours helping out in the store and rejuvenated his own interest in gasoline powered model airplanes, which he flew at the test station. The plane he constructed had a wingspan of over three feet and was flown with sixty foot long control cables. He helped form a model airplane club in Yuma.
It was at a small restaurant near downtown Yuma that Bell developed a lifelong taste for Mexican food, which he had never eaten before. What became his favorite place to eat was a house in a residential area at which meals were served on four tables located in the living room. The wife prepared the food and the husband served.
“I wish I could remember the name of that restaurant, but I can’t,” Bell said with a grimace. “I made a point of eating there every weekend.”
He remembers the first time he ate Mexican food, for it was so spicy hot that he could hardly handle it. “But by the time I left Yuma I was pouring on extra hot sauce and adding salsa,” he laughed.
Bell recalls one of his fellow Soldiers who enjoyed water skiing on the Colorado River. “We decided to do something different one day,” he said. “We towed him by car and he water skied down one of the narrow canals around here. It’s a good thing nobody saw us.”
He also remembers filching apples late one night from a farmer’s orchard near the test station. Three Soldiers, all in civilian dress, were involved. One acted as guard on the road while one of the others piled apples into Bell’s outstretched shirt.
“Our lookout yelled that a vehicle was approaching, so I ran to our car and tossed the apples inside through the window,” explained Bell. “The only problem was that the window was closed and the apples bounced all over the road. Luckily, the passing car turned out to be civilian, but we thought we were going to be locked up.”

Life after Yuma

Bell left Yuma Test Station for his next assignment at Fort Clayton, Panama, after one year and later left the Army and returned to Baltimore, where he attended college. He got married and retired from Bethlehem Steel as a senior program analyst in the late 1980’s.
“I credit the Army and Yuma Test Station for making me the type of person I became,” said Bell. “I’m a take charge kind of guy who can’t be intimidated. I stand up for what I believe. That’s how I led my life and accomplished what I did. I thank the Army for giving me this ability.”

• Date Taken: 08.01.2017
• Date Posted: 09.25.2017 10:56
• Story ID: 243347
• Location: YUMA, ARIZONA, US