Of Note is an occasional series in which we share items that have caught our eye.
In July 1941, with war clouds over Europe and the Pacific and elements of the War Department scattered in overcrowded offices around Washington, D.C., Congress authorized the construction of a large new office complex to centralize U.S. military operations near the nation’s capital. The result was the Pentagon, built with astonishing speed on the banks of the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. Construction began on September 11, 1941, and finished sixteen months later on January 15, 1943. As the name suggests, the Pentagon featured a five-sided design, and its five concentric rings contained over six million square feet of total floor space and more than seventeen miles of corridors. The Pentagon remains one of the largest office buildings in the world.
Occupants moved in as each section of the building was completed, even as construction continued on other wedges. As a result, some prospective residents began hearing stories about life at the Pentagon before experiencing it for themselves. The reviews were not entirely positive, at least according to Colonel John W. Thomason (1893-1944) of the U.S. Marine Corps, then serving in the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C.
In addition to being a career marine, Thomason achieved fame in the literary world as a talented author and artist. He contributed articles to popular publications, such as The Saturday Evening Post, and wrote and illustrated several well-received books, including Fix Bayonets!, Jeb Stuart, and Lone Star Preacher. When he turned his pen on rumors circulating in Washington about the new Pentagon, his wit and way with words were on full display.
On November 15, 1942, Thomason wrote to his friend U.S. Army general Sherman Miles (1882-1966), “the Navy Department is now shattered by the announcement that we are to move into the Pentagon Building, in order to show the world that the two services are in close and cordial cooperation.” In addition to Navy personnel facing longer commutes and transportation challenges, scuttlebutt also suggested a “food problem” at the new building. When completed, the new Pentagon offered several cafeterias, snack bars, and dining rooms to serve the thousands of staff onsite. However, Thomason heard that one of the restaurants “is said to stink so that you can smell it [upriver] at Chain Bridge, if the wind is right.” Reports about the lighting situation were not much better than the food. Despite the installation of thousands of windows in the rings of the Pentagon, “we are terrified by the tales survivors tell us of that terrain,” Thomason wrote. “The light of day does not penetrate the rooms. All the comrades are getting Kleig [sic] eyes,” comparing the optometric effect of artificial light in the Pentagon offices with the bright lights then used in filming motion pictures.
Thomason then unleashed his satirical firepower on the confusing floor plan of the Pentagon, with its miles of corridors over multiple floors in five rings of buildings. “It is reported that, if you leave your office to confer with some co-worker in the next ward, you have to take a compass, a road map, and iron rations, and leave word for your next of kin,” Thomason joked. “It is attested by a truthful G2 officer that a Western Union Messenger boy entered [the] Pentagon with a telegram, and was lost three days. When a troop of Boy Scouts found him, he had been made a lieutenenat [sic] Colonel in the Army Air Corps. We are assured, now, that the Signal Corps is training war dogs to rescue such people; they will carry a flask of restorative strapped to their necks, and will bark SOS in international Morse. Its all completely nuts.”
Col. Thomason ultimately avoided the transportation woes, Klieg eyes, and disorientation he associated with the new Pentagon Building. Plans made in November 1942 to move the Navy Department to the Pentagon were at first delayed, then failed to materialize during the war. In March 1943, Col. Thomason headed west for assignments with the Pacific Fleet at Camp Elliott (now part of the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar), in San Diego, California, and as an inspector of Marine bases in the Pacific. After several months of variable health, Thomason died on March 12, 1944.
But Thomason’s humorous description of the maze of corridors in the Pentagon, and the ease with which staff and visitors could get lost, still ring true. More than one reader of this letter has chuckled knowingly, recalling their own time navigating the complex. And since the tangle of roadways around the Pentagon still causes traffic woes, let’s hope at least the food situation has improved since 1942.
Col. John W. Thomason’s November 15, 1942, letter now forms part of the Miles-Cameron Families Correspondence in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
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“a five-sided design…” Alfred Goldberg, The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1992): 183-184. Available online through HathiTrust and the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“according to Colonel John W. Thomason…” Martha Anne Turner, The World of Col. John W. Thomason, USMC (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1984): 311.
“the Navy department is now shattered…” Col. John W. Thomason to Gen. Sherman Miles, November 15, 1942, box 4, Miles-Cameron Families Correspondence, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
“several cafeterias, snack bars, and dining rooms…” Goldberg, The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, 131.
“Plans made in November 1942…” Goldberg, The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, 157.
“Thomason died on March 12, 1944…” Turner, The World of Col. John W. Thomason, USMC, 331-341.