An aerial view of Camp Tyson in 1942 shows the camp’s some-400 buildings arranged neatly over 1600 acres. Included in the construction of the camp were ten miles of asphalt road, five miles of railroad, a post office, hospital, guest house, service club, two chapels, library and theatre at a cost of about $11,708,640.

"The homefront is what it really amounts to," declares Elliot "Eddie" Moody of Paris, regarding his views of how America could have been defended against the forces of terrorism that struck on September 11th. He continues with a look of consternation on his face, "and this whole country is the homefront."

The patriotic gentleman is one of a multitude of military and civilian veterans of the World War II era who recall with sadness that the United States is not experiencing her first invasion since becoming a world power, and that fear of further invasion - rather than being a new experience - was all-too-real in the years following Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Upon the wall of Moody's den stands out a plaque on which the words of Benjamin Franklin proclaim a conviction that has long been a guiding light in America, and one that continues to provide hope for the future:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs the affairs of men - and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this."

"That's my philosophy for this here," says Moody sincerely, "Me and you are responsible - we're just as important as Bush or any congressman - we've got to help them do it - the power lies in the people."

As the nation pulls together and comes to terms with the insecurity wrought by, first, the demonic assault upon the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and, now, with the caution afforded the opening of a simple piece of mail as more and more reports of anthrax-tainted letters are reported, more serious questions come to mind: At what cost, peace. At what price, freedom.

Moody believes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, feeling that, had Camp Tyson remained viable during World War II - had barrage balloons been in place above New York to thwart the evil-doers of September 11 - the World Trade Center may have been untouched by the strong attack that brought the building crumbling to her knees, in her lap, unprotected, the thousands who fell with her.

Moody is not alone in his plea to revive the balloons that were deemed obsolete with the invention of the Norden bomb sight, a device that allowed high altitude bombers to avoid the balloons that were strung through the skies on steel cables to deter low-flying planes from their deadly missions.

For years, United States Air Force Major Franklin J. Hillson has warned, "If the West is to improve its defenses against low-level air attack, it needs another element of the air defense team--something that can enhance current antiaircraft weapons while providing an extra measure of protection to crucial areas. That something is the barrage balloon."

His views were echoed recently by Retired United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Sam Dehné who declares, "Barrage Balloons should be placed over and around the critical 'targets'. Terrorists would thus know they could not successfully attack any of these targets without getting tangled up in the huge cables hanging from the beautiful balloons. (Paint them red, white, and blue!) Barrage balloons should also be placed (prominently) around nuclear power plants, power supply systems, and other critical installations. The deterrent aspect of this very simple technique would be all that was needed!"

The barrage balloon and Camp Tyson, where the balloons were made and where the men who flew them were trained, are intimate ingredients in the history of Henry County and surrounding area. Eddie Moody was there to see it all.

Moody learned at the age of 17 that he was the descendant of a traitor. His mother, Eula, told the story to her three sons on the eve that two of them, Fred W. and D.L., would leave to join the Navy. Her great grandfather, George Clymer, had abandoned England's cause in the new world to become one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

"It was peacetime when they went in," Eddie says of his brothers' decisions to join the Navy. "They did it for the idea that they couldn't get a job and the Navy needed them; they didn't know President Roosevelt was building up for an attack on the country. He stated there would never be a war unless attacked by another country as long as he was president."

Moody's father, Fred Richardson Moody, was descended from I.N. Moody, who fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War, volunteering from the Henry County Courthouse.

Eddie, himself, was born April 17, 1922 in Henry County, his parents' fourth child. World War I had ended four years before his birth, but he grew up hearing the stories told by soldiers who had returned.

He went to Robert E. Lee School in Paris through the 6th grade, a building that is currently being restored to commemorate one of the oldest schools in the county. In the seventh grade he attended the Atkins-Porter School.

Times were hard for all, and President Roosevelt was hard at work developing programs to help. Moody was called into the office by Superintendent W.O. Inman, who encouraged him to join the National Youth Administration, a program that gave youths work training and part-time employment while also providing student aid.

"We was very poor, we hardly had food on the table, beans and taters most of the time," confessed Moody. "They paid my mother and daddy $4.00 per month - it looked like $4000 now. So I went to work for President Roosevelt's program."

It was a time of great national pride: "We thought President Roosevelt was right next to God - right under God," Eddie recalls, "He promised a chicken in everybody's pot and he carried it out pretty good.

On August 15, 1941, it was learned that Routon, Tennessee, located about 6 miles south of Paris, would be the new location for the Barrage Balloon Training Center, a new branch of defensive warfare for the purpose of training personnel in the technique and use of the barrage balloon as a weapon of modern warfare, an assignment commissioned by the Secretary of War on April 14, 1941. The location of the camp was chosen because it was located away from regular air lanes so as not to endanger peacetime aviation. It was a time of relative peace in the United States, with the country still not committed in the struggle that became the Second World War.

It was hoped the barrage balloons would deter invasion by low-flying aircraft. The barrage balloon, filled with lighter-than-air gas, was attached to a steel cable that could be raised or lowered using a winch. In forcing enemy planes to higher altitudes, surprise invasions became less likely and bombing accuracy was hampered as well. The balloons restricted the airspace available to rogue aircraft, channeling their flights into zones protected by ground-based artillery. The cables themselves presented a hazard to pilots, capable of "shearing off a passing planes wing and propellers." Moody says a charge was placed beneath the balloon that would blow when the wing of the plane slid to the top of the cable, with the release of the helium setting the plane on fire.

Great Britain had used similar balloons during the last years of World War I and in World War II, and it is said that "thousands of balloons dotted the British skies.

The Barrage Balloon Training Center remained at Camp Davis, NC until a new camp could be established at what became known as Camp Tyson. Much was accomplished in the North Carolina camp while waiting orders for the new camp to be completed, but the balloons were deployed too late to prevent the disaster at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a day of great consternation for the Moody family when Eddie's two brothers, both stationed at Pearl Harbor, were missing in action for about eight days while the brothers helped pick up survivors.

As Camp Tyson took shape, "everyone who could drive a nail became a carpenter," says Moody. According to Spinks Clay Company literature (the company that bought Camp Tyson's lands when the camp was closed) almost 8,000 persons were employed in building the camp at the height of its construction.

Moody drove a gravel truck at the camp, hauling four loads a day to help build roads. When the brakes on the truck failed, mechanics advised it would be days before they could be repaired. He was told to keep driving and haul two loads per day without brakes.

The rationale was obvious: "Do you know that a war is going on?" he was asked.

"Yes sir," he replied, and kept driving. "I never will forget that after they got the brakes fixed I didn't even want to use them," he jokes.

He began playing pool on Saturdays, a practice that soon evolved into helping out at the poolroom while playing for free. Along about this time a contingency of 16 soldiers arrived at the camp, setting up the medics station and readying the camp for others to arrive. Eddie met some of the men at the poolroom where they became friends. One of the 16 was Cedrick Knott, who met a girl named Mildred in Paris, married her and stayed in Henry County to later found Knott's Bakery.

The BBTC began its move to the new camp on January 15, 1942. Sources put the actual size of the camp at around 1600 acres measuring approximately 1.5 miles wide, north and south, and 2.5 miles long, east and west. The post held 400 buildings, ten miles of asphalt road, five miles of railroad, a post office, hospital, guest house, service club, two chapels, a library and theatre and cost approximately $11,708,640 to build.

On Friday, February 13, 1942, Company B of the 302nd Battalion sent aloft the first balloon at Camp Tyson. United States Army Brigadier General John B. Maynard, arrived at Camp Tyson on February 16, 1942 and assumed command of the installation.

In the meantime, overseas a horrifying war was taking place while at home there was talk of another invasion, this time on the mainland.

"The homefront was not a bed of roses. We were sitting there sweating it out if we were going to be attacked or invaded," recalls Moody, "We were anticipating German attack from the east and Japanese invasion from the west coast."
Stateside, balloons came into use in places like New York, San Diego, Norfolk, Virginia and Pensacola, Florida, according to Moody. Ships were outfitted with the balloons to keep German aircraft from sweeping in low to strafe the ships and "several US Army balloon units saw combat in North Africa, providing effective protection against low-level attack on captured ports."

Eddie married Betty Carr of Murray, Kentucky,a relative of one of Murray State University's founders, on March 29, 1942. There was a sense of urgency to marriage during the war that caused Eddie and Betty and other young couples to escape the waiting laws of Tennessee and travel to Mississippi or Caruthersville, Missouri where blood tests were not required. "We left here one Sunday morning and went out there and got married," he grins. "We didn't want to wait. That was 59 years ago."

He recalled servicemen going to church, meeting girls and taking them on dates then marrying them the following week. "They married them girls, then people that had houses - some had five or six soldiers wives in them, one to a room - that's where they stayed."

Eddie quit the poolroom, where he had begun working fulltime, and the couple headed for Detroit, Michigan where work was plentiful. There, he took a job in a defense plant, Aluminum Company of America, where he was trained as a core maker. The plant's mission was building engines for B29s and other aircraft.

A back injury took him out of work and sent him home to Paris, where he found Camp Tyson operating at full throttle, "training men to put balloons up by the hundreds and sending men all over the country to prepare for an invasion that was expected to be like Pearl Harbor or worse."

He was working once more at Camp Tyson as a plaster helper when he received his draft notice to be examined for service. Saying nothing about his injury, he volunteered for the U.S. Navy, making first seaman before becoming re-injured, a condition that ended his Naval career.

Back at Camp Tyson once more, his prior service status landed him a position as a camp guard. Moody and other World War I and II veterans were sworn into the Army in a limited service capacity as auxiliary military policemen. The limited service aspect of their service meant they could not be sent over 72 miles from the camp.

Moody was honored when he was assigned the duty of chauffeur to Camp Commander, General John Maynard.

"'Course I was young and all, I never realized what a big thing it was, I don't believe there's any higher job you can do than haul a general," he says now.

"Captain Wall, the Provost Marshall at the post said, 'When you take that general out and carry him to town I want him brought back in as good a condition as he left here. Should anybody come at him, halt them three times and kill them if they don't stop. If you think somebody is coming right at him don't even halt them. If they throw a grenade and you can't throw it away, cover it. We have other people like you but we only have one general."

Concerning the man for whom Moody was willing to lay down his life, he says, "I have to say he was one of the finest men I have ever met before; he was a real general and he was a real man."

Movie stars like Dorothy Lamore and Fred MacMurray visited Camp Tyson to entertain the soldiers while the USO Club in Paris and beer joints in McKenzie as well stayed busy entertaining soldiers.

When the barrage balloons became obsolete, Camp Tyson became a staging ground for soldiers who had been wounded and placed on "rest and ready." The former front-line troops bivouacked in the fields, setting up tents, toilets, and mess halls.

Moody recalled the evening he was called upon by the general to take orders to the colonel in the field. He insisted upon delivering the missive directly to the officer, who, upon reading the decree, wasted no time in following its command. "Get ready to move out," he instructed those around him.

Moody notified the general that the orders had been delivered and obeyed, then assumed his post at the front gate.

"I stood there and watched those kids going back to the front lines again," he said with a heavy heart, "When one company moved out another came to take their place."

Later, Camp Tyson served as a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers taken prisoner and brought stateside. Once again, Moody received harsh instructions, this time to "take the prisoners out" in the event of an invasion.

"It sort of bothered me - I was so young - to think I had to go in there and kill those prisoners, helpless people. Could I do this?" he asked again. "I made up my mind I'd be there taking them out long as I could if they ordered me to do it."

When the Camp was disbanded, Moody was offered the option to remain with the military at a different site. "That's when I took my pay and decided to stay in Paris, Tennessee," he says, "I never thought of asking for a discharge; I'm basically still in the Army. That was 55 years ago and I'll be 80 in April."

He went to work for the Post Office, a job he retained until the veteran who had left the post to serve his country returned to claim his prior position.

Moody then became a farmer, milking seven cows and raising crops to feed them.

"I sold the cream and fed the skim milk to the hogs," he says. A disastrous crop of beans that rotted in the fields from rain ended his farming venture and led him to Holley Carburetor where he was employed for nine years.

While working at the carburetor plant, Moody obtained one of the first GI housing loans in the area when he bought "a little old house on Oliver Street for $5500." His payments on the home were $36.10 per month and he was bringing home $36 per week from the carburetor plant. "That was in 1950," he recalls.

He began helping other veterans obtain GI loans, a volunteer service he continued for about six years. Then, the lawyer who closed the deals, Charles Montgomery, suggested that Moody obtain a real estate license.

"He told me it cost $10 and two people to sign saying I was honest, so I got me a real estate license in 1956. I have that license now and I've come a long way," says Moody, who established one of the most successful small-town real estate businesses in the state.

Two years later, when he sold a motel while still working at the carburetor plant, the $2250 commission gave him the gumption to quit his job and pursue real estate full time.

"I told them I had all the money I'd ever need," Moody laughs, "and I've been in it ever since."

From the latter part of 1959 until 1964, Moody spent summers in Texas developing land while sending the money home to Tennessee.

The business has continued growing over the years. "In the last three years we've done $20 million per year with 14 to 15 licensed real estate brokers. I'm not active in it now work," he continues, "I work out of my office at home, but I still sort of want to keep my license."

He hasn't lost touch with the idea that started him on the path to real estate, however. "You can live most anywhere," he declares, "The wealth is what you can do for people that can't help themselves; I've probably helped a thousand people who couldn't have got in if I hadn't helped them."

Moody is a member of the American Legion, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Amvets, Masons, Tennessee 5th Volunteers Infantry Regiment Association and the National Rifle Association.

He has been actively involved in Camp Tyson reunions for many years, serving as chairman for the reunion committee from 1973-1992. Camp Tyson veterans hope to assemble in April for another reunion, though Moody acknowledges many are no longer able to make the trip.

A direct descendant of Jeremiah Moody, who in 1821 moved to Henry County from Essex, Virginia, Eddie boasts that eight generations of Moodys have lived in Henry County, three of which are living today.

Eddie and Betty are the parents of sons William E. (Bill) Moody, married to Linda Finch Moody; Harry T. (Tommy) Moody, married to Paulette Rickman Moody; and Richard L. (Rick) Moody, married to Missy Dunlap Moody, and the grandparents of Candise Moody Farmer, Jon Paul Moody, Ginger Moody, Carrye Moody, Madison Moody, MacKenzie Moody and Gavin Moody.
 

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