Welcome UXO Guest Author Robert "Dale" Woosley
UXO Guest Author Robert "Dale" Woosley was born in Arkansas in 1926. He graduated Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas with a B.S. Degree in Chemistry in 1949. He pursued other graduate work at University of Arkansas and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
His college studies were interrupted by 21 months service in U.S. Navy. He was stationed at: Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Chicago (primary radio school), Gulfport, MS (secondary radio school), Theodore Naval Ammunition Magazine, AL, and Naval Air Station, New Orleans, LA.
Mr. Woosley was employed after college by Army Chemical Center, MD to do toxicity studies on nerve gases, including use of small animals. In 1950, was employed by Ordnance of Arkansas (ORDARK), under auspices of the University of Arkansas, to develop improved tracer bullet visibility for small arms fire. The problem was that in the Korean War, the existing tracer chemicals could not be seen against snow background or bright sky. He ran tests with human observers indicating tracer was seen. The test ordnance was (ORDARK-prepared) 20 mm rounds from aircraft gun mounted on a 37 mm carriage. Evaluations were performed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He served on a team that successfully developed a deep-red tracer with over 8 second visibility which was accepted and used by the U. S. Defense Department. He also ran vision tests on student observers at University of Arkansas with findings that vision depended on country of origin and gender and reported the same to National Bureau of Standards and restricted observers to males of draft age born in America.
In 1952 Mr. Woosley joined ALCOA (Aluminum Company of America) as a chemist and retired from ALCOA in 1991. He traveled extensively as adsorption specialist, including Europe and the Middle East.
