As If They Were Ours: The Story of Camp Tyson - America's Only Barrage Balloon Training Facility

Merriam Press World War 2 History Series

It was the only barrage balloon training facility in the U.S. in World War II, so the soldiers who were there had an experience unlike any other soldiers anywhere.

The Camp also became engrained in the lives of Henry Countians - most every home in Paris, Tennessee, had a soldier and his family living with them (including the author's) and the camp is credited with modernizing Paris and the county.

Most importantly, however, Camp Tyson was the home of the all-black 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, which was the first battalion to rush onto the beaches on D-Day. They were trained for that battle at Camp Tyson and their accomplishments have been largely unheralded.

Additionally, both Italian and German prisoners of war were held there during and after the war.

The author was able to track down several of the black soldiers who were trained there and were at D-Day, and also has first-person accounts from white soldiers who were at the camp, as well as former soldiers who remember the German and Italian prisoners.

Much of the book is first-person interviews, as well as documents from the Library of Congress and other government sources that have never been published before.

The author, Shannon McFarlin, now lives in the family homeplace in Paris, Tennessee. She grew up listening to stories told about Camp Tyson from her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and was inspired to write about the Camp from an early age. She has worked as a news reporter for most of her working life, for newspapers in Ohio and Tennessee, and is currently the News Director for a large West Tennessee radio station, WENK/WTPR, and its website and writes for Paris! magazine. She has a master's degree in public history and a bachelor's degree in history from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, and also studied history at Bowling Green State University. She was awarded first place in Investigative Journalism in 1981 by the Ohio Associated Press and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize that same year. Contents

Chapter 1: Eddie Finds A New Home

Chapter 2: Motors Roared, Hammers Thudded And Saws Swished

Chapter 3: They Just Came Out And Destroyed Our Farms, Our Barns, Our House"

Chapter 4: "They Didn't Feel Like Strangers"

Chapter 5: Flying Elephants In The Sky

Chapter 6: "It Just Exploded"

Chapter 7: Shot Down Over Lake Erie

Chapter 8: Good Times For Entrepreneurs

Chapter 9: "They Would Throw Hands of Candy And Gum At Us As They Marched By"

Chapter 10: "We Reached Out To Those Boys As If They Were Ours"

Chapter 11: "War Is Hell, But Pretty Entertaining, Too"

Chapter 12: "The Day Jeanette MacDonald Came To Town"

Chapter 13: Death In An Army Camp

Chapter 14: "The Deuces" The African-American Experience

Chapter 15: "We Were There. We Did Our Part"

Chapter 16: Working There Was An Education In Itself

Chapter 17: A Close Encounter Of A General Kind

Chapter 18: "This Is Your Life, Pearl Routon"

Chapter 19: 4,000 Hamburgers To Go

Chapter 20: "Paris Has Nowhere To Go But Up, So I'm Staying Right Here"

Chapter 21: Hospitality, Southern Style

Chapter 22: Haul 'Er Down

Chapter 23: From Surplus To POW Camp

Chapter 24: Didn't You Hear? The War Is Over!

Chapter 25: "It Was Considered Sinful"

Chapter 26: "Don't Come Back From Washington Without A Signed Deed"

Chapter 27: Soldiers Tell Their Stories

Chapter 28: "Hi There, Soldier!"

Chapter 29: Keepers Of The Flame

40 photos

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