Museum honors arsenal’s hero
America had Rosie the Riveter, the War World II icon, but the Pine Bluff Arsenal had its own real-life hero, Annie Marie Young.
As part of Women’s History Month, the White Hall Museum has an exhibit dedicated to the late Young’s extraordinary actions.
For her bravery and tenacity, Young was the first woman awarded the U.S. War Department’s Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 1944.
It was the agency’s highest civilian citation, and her story became part of the dedication of the Pine Bluff Arsenal’s Quality Evaluation Facility ceremony.
“Annie Marie Young is an inspiration to many women,” said Brenda Doucey, museum director. “At a time that women were just beginning to be recognized in a mostly male field, she received a commendation for her heroic efforts.”
As the U.S.’ efforts in World War II ramped up, women were joining the U.S. Armed Forces, mostly in support, educational or medical roles, while others took manufacturing jobs that until then would have been performed by men.
They built ships and tanks and filled factories, making items as varied as M&M’s in Hershey, Pa., and chemical ammunitions like those produced at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. It was then named the Pine Bluff Chemical Warfare Arsenal.
FIGHTING FIRES
The same year that Norman Rockwell’s Rosie was used on Post magazine’s May 1943 cover, Young worked on one of the Arsenal’s ammunition production lines.
On Oct. 13, 1943, while working with incendiary materials, several of the cubicles where Young and the others worked caught fire.
“Young, with no thought to her own life, initially covered the victims in blankets. When she saw that this wasn’t working, she beat out the flames with her bare hands,” according to a 2005 Arsenal Sentinel article.
It was written as part of the dedication of the Pine Bluff Arsenal’s Quality Evaluation Facility honoring Young, a wife and mother, as a hero.
TWICE BURNED
According to the Commendation for Exceptional Civilian Service issued by the U.S. War Department on March 2, 1944, she saved fellow employees not only on Oct. 13 but again in November.
In a Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper article dated Nov. 16, 1943, two employees died, three were hospitalized with critical burns and another was hospitalized with serious burns from an explosion at the Pine Bluff Arsenal that morning.
“Mrs. Annie M. Young, Route 1, received treatment at the army dispensary but was reported not to be seriously injured.”
What the newspaper article didn’t report was that Young was still recovering from her first burns.
According to the Arsenal Sentinel: “Young beat out another fire with her hands still in bandages from the fire a month prior. Young was the first woman awarded the Exceptional Civilian Service Award, the highest citation for War Department civilians.”
She was awarded the citation “for heroism over and beyond the call of duty.”
It continued, “By her calm judgment and presence of mind, she saved workers from serious or fatal injury and prevented panic among the frightened employees, inspiring them to assist in the emergency,” the citation said.
Young died in 1980.