| Accession# |
VE1-2010 |
| Catalog date |
12/31/2009 |
| Collection |
OSHP Collections |
| Date of photo |
varied |
| Description |
In the typed recollections of the Lieutenant Colonel Floyd C. Moon (who died in 2008) are thousands of details remembered by very few these days. Lt. Col. Moon, who graduated with the Second Academy Class in 1934, lived to be 99 years old and would recount his days with the Patrol and subsequent position with the Ohio Department of Liquor Control with great clarity and specificity. Among his favorite "stories" to tell were those of the "Delaware Men," those classmates in the Patrol Academy who trained in 1934 at an old state Department of Highways garage. The following is just a small portion of the Delaware School story:
"During the last few days prior to graduation of the Delaware School, we students were guilty of mutiny in retaliation to certain acts of a few of our instructors. I was in training along with 70 plus other cadets. Within a few days before graduation there was nearly a riot by we cadets.
"We had nearly completed all of our training, and one night one of our instructors threw out a tear gas bomb in our barracks on the second floor. We were all asleep in our bunks at the time. Our eyes burned and it was terrible because of the confinement. Apparently, some of our instructors thought it a good prank to play on us, as we were able to cope with about any pressure they could place on us. For several weeks, part of our training was close order military drill for four hours every day. Then it was decreased to three, two, and the last two weeks, an hour per day.
"I coping with the havoc caused by the tear gas, some of our group hung out the windows for air. Some got retaliation by putting sugar in the gas tanks of some of the instructors' personal cars. Some of us surmized that there were several of our trainees assigned to the first floor barracks who had something to do with the action taken by the instructors to make it tough for our group, as we had pegged them as teachers' pets because they had been permitted to sleep in the same quarters provided for the officers when any of the instructors were not there. Following the tear gas bombing, some of us rounded up these three favorite cadets and forced them to take cold showers with their clothes on. Apparently, all the instructors had gone home for the night. The next morning, we on the second floor realized that we were in for some diciplinary action but also thought that an instructor should be punished for the tear gas episode.
"We had concluded that the army drill instructor of our school was the principal one who should get some of his own medicine. He was a Capt. Maxwell from Pennsylvania, a military officer who had been hired to instruct the Delaware School. The morning following the tear gas episode, when Capt. Maxwell entereed the door to our barracks and when he passed the first bunk to his left, all of us were standing at the foot of our bunks. Jim Hanley was in the first bunk when Maxwell approached the second bunk, a blanket went over his head. Several of us rolled him to the floor and stripped his shirt open and all cadets took turns of painting his belly with Mercurochrome. He never knew who was responsible, and all were back at their bunks or away from the action in short order.
"Our action was immediately reported to Colonel (Lynn) Black at Columbus General Headquarters. All cadets were ordered to line up in a column of twos and then the order was given for those cadets responsible for our mutiny to take two steps forward from our ranks. No movement by any one. Second command the same was given - still no movement. We were told then that we would all be dismissed from the school and instructed to return to our barracks.
"In retrospect, after learning more about Col. Black, we would believe that he held Capt. Maxwell responsible for our mutiny and that he got his just deserves for throwing the tear gas bomb in our barracks. So of the 74 who started in the school class, 34 were graduated to later be appointed as patrolmen or temporarily as so-called weighman until openings occurred in the regular ranks of 60 Highway Patrolmen.
|
| Year Range from |
1933 |
| Category |
8: Communication Artifact |
| Year range to |
2000 |
| Object ID |
VE1-2010-008 |
| Object Name |
print, photographic |
|
