Toftoy, Hazel

Toftoy, Hazel

Experiences in the early days of Gen. Toftoy's career in Huntsville from his wife. How he fought to keep the Army missile programs, how Toftoy almost resigned, Toftoy's involvement in the creation of Redstone Arsenal, and the transition from Army to NASA.

University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama

1972

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Interviews

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Christensen, David

Toftoy, Hazel

[00:00:08] David Christensen: Interview with Hazel Toftoy, August 31, 1971. And she's going to tell a few anecdotes about General Toftoy. Hazel, you mentioned on one occasion that the general actually got down on his hands and knees to beg for money for the missile program. Would you tell a little more…?

[00:00:27] Hazel Toftoy: I know he got down on his hands and knees to beg for Redstone Arsenal. And when General Ridgway was Chief of Staff, I think, at that time, and he tried to influence the crowd, the executive crowd that was there. And he couldn't seem to get to first base, so he said, we'll put the map on the floor, and they put the big map on the floor. This has to do with Redstone, I think. Then he got down on his hands and knees and showed where Huntsville, Alabama was, you know. And then he said, that's the place we need, General Ridgway. Everybody else was against it. General [Pike?], I think, was the more than said no, irrevocably no, or something. And his decision and they all went no. General Ridgway looked at Toftoy and said, “Alright, that's where it will be.” And so, everybody was, of course after all, the Chief of Staff was the one to decide. So, then he was real happy, and he rolled up the map, and away he went. So that was one of the things that happened.

And then on several other occasions, I know he was called up to Congress because they weren't giving enough money. For instance, the Redstone missile, they couldn't get enough money and the contract, I think, was being given to Chrysler. And they needed some other funds, government funds. And he would do everything possible to get funds for that. And then going back to the Germans, you know, when they first came, they were aliens, really, in this country. And he tried to get funds for them, and everybody said no, send them back. We don't want them here because we have our own science.

[00:02:59] DC: Was that the military thing, or the industry?

[00:03:03] HT: This was the industry, mostly, our own scientists. They thought they were coming in and taking over. And I can remember him on the phone, and two or three phones going, you know, back and forth with people in Congress and up there. And I think that Senator Sparkman and Bob Jones should be given this credit for helping to push this through, you know.

[00:03:34] DC: It would be wise to talk to them about this. Do you remember any incidents when the General used to drive to Fort Bliss? I guess you were in Washington then, mostly, weren't you?

[00:03:50] HT: Yeah, I was in Washington.

[00:03:51] DC: Did you ever go out with him on any trips to Fort Bliss to visit?

[00:03:56] HT: No, I didn't get out there. White Sands or Fort Bliss. Never gone out there.

[00:04:02] DC: Was he out quite frequently though?

[00:04:04] HT: Oh yeah, he was a traveling man. Talk about a salesman. He was a salesman for missiles. That's about what you’d call a missile salesman. But I think that Colonel Hamill would have all the stuff on the housing and all the – you know, because they were in those igloos at first, you know. And then they built little houses for them, better housing, and then they finally took over the hospital at Fort Bliss, you know, and put everybody out of the hospital so that they could take over. And that's the story in itself. And I can't quote that exactly.

[00:04:55] DC: Yeah, we have most of the details.

[00:04:57] HT: But he can do that much better than I can.

[00:05:05] [recording cuts]

[00:05:06] DC: A little bit about the salesmanship of this getting industry interested in the missile programs.

[00:05:12] HT: Well, first he, I can remember, I don't know whether it was the first one, but he went to Thiokol and talked to them. And then Rohm and Haas, they were in on it at the beginning. And then he went out to Chrysler and had the people come here to see, you know, what was going on and what they were.

[00:05:33] DC: Bell Labs. They had to sell them too.

[00:05:35] HT: Uh-huh. And then Douglas Aircraft. And he picked out, I think, some of the leading ones in the industry at that time. Then Martin got into it later. And let's see. I think, I'm trying to think of all this and doing dynamics.

[00:06:04] DC: You have a hard time investing them to get into this kind of business? They were all aircraft people, primarily.

[00:06:10] HT: Yeah, but they didn't see much. You see, nobody in the country saw much missiles in the early days. In fact, half of them didn't know what a missile looked like, you know, or a rocket. And so, they didn't want any part of it. So, you had to have some good salesmanship. He had other men go out with him.

[00:06:34] DC: Can you recall any names of some of these other people? We might want to [inaudible].

[00:06:39] HT: Well, you know, I really don't, except Hamill. Of course, he was always a good, because he was a booster. Well, I would say Dr. von Braun was one of our biggest salesmen.

[00:06:53] DC: Yeah, carried him along, too.

[00:06:57] HT: He wanted to stay here, and of course he wanted to get in on all this, too. And although he was actually working on other things, he went along with that. And in fact, I think Maria will tell you that he kept the seats hot on the plane. That's the way she put it, because he was always traveling from one place to the other. And...

[00:07:29] DC: Was there any effort to break up this team and sort of put them out to industry? Do you recall anything there?

[00:07:35] HT: Oh yeah, they had fabulous offers from industry once they got started and they knew what they could do. I think every one of them, I don't know, but really, they did. They had a lot of people.

[00:07:51] DC: How did Toftoy fight that, to help keep them together as a team? Was this a story for their [?]?

[00:07:58] HT: You mean all the German people? Well, he was like the father to them I think. Because he was the one that actually got them together, brought them over here, they felt like – I don't think they felt like they owed him anything – but they felt like he was the father of the brood, you might say, and the group. He just kept them going, you see, and put them to work. And he had charge of putting all these in at Aberdeen, all these charts and things that they picked up from the documents. And then he had charge, ran the White Sands. I don't know how he did some of those things, and still I saw a little bit of him once in a while. And the children, they always say, well how did the children ever get to see their father? I said, well you'd be surprised how he could sandwich a lot of things together. We still made trips and he just seemed to enjoy, that was sort of the other part of his life.

[00:09:19] DC: Yeah, did he turn his missiles off when he got home?

[00:09:21] HT: Oh yeah, one thing the front door shut and the missiles went off, but the phone was there. And in order not to, I'd often go in the room and take the phone off the hook. And then he'd get so mad because he wanted to call somebody and he'd see it, I'd forget to put it back, and he'd see the receiver off and then I'd catch hell. But yeah, he really did. And I think that's the reason we got along so well. And I went on lots of trips with him. And of course, the Army didn't pay mine, I had to pay my own, but that was all right. We had the time together and that was the only time that actually we enjoyed each other was to be on a trip.

[00:10:23] DC: What was the general opinion of the Air Force? I guess there was some controversy all the way [inaudible].

[00:10:29] HT: Oh man, yeah, well he kept quiet. He was a very tactful person. He could have, I think, made a real big noise about everything. If he was that type and I think everything would have blown up and we'd have nothing.

[00:10:50] DC: So, he would lean over backwards just to keep the thing going.

[00:10:53] HT: Yeah, he'd rather if they wanted something, except that he did not want them to have the missile. He thought that the Army should, because it was his baby and he felt like he started over there with them although the Air Force was in it too. But they should have some of it. But where do you draw the line? But where should they start? Where should they stop and where should the Army? They wanted them to go up 250 miles and they argued over that and he went too.

[00:11:32] DC: Some had wings and some couldn't have wings.

[00:11:34] HT: And there's a story about him almost being court-martialed on something. But he got out of it. Some congressman got out of it. I can't. Well, I think maybe Colonel Hamill has some data on that. But yeah, Hamill was in on it.

[00:11:54] DC: [By the Air Force or something?]

[00:11:54] HT: He says, well, goodbye, honey. Goodbye. I may be in jail the next time you see me. I'm going to Washington and I'm going to be court-martialed and this man's after me. And it's almost like a criminal case like you've done something bad. You know, I mean, this is so serious. And now that I'm out of the missile business, I can really smile again. I felt like everything was, I felt like missiles were the thing. So did everybody at that time that were working with us. And I felt like they were coming out of my ears, my eyes, my head all around me were missiles. And at night I'd see one going up in front of me and I'd think, oh, is that the Redstone? Which one is that? Wake up in the morning and grab, you know, I think I was grabbing a missile.

[00:12:54] DC: You were really [missiled?]…[laughing]

[00:12:54] HT: And I'd be grabbing, yeah, I was really [missiled?]. And I was grabbing my husband instead of the missile. He'd say, ‘What's the matter, honey?’ I'm sorry I didn't have that term right there. I would have said I've been [missiled?]. But anyway, we had a lot of fun over and yet there were real sad moments. And he almost, I don't think anybody else knows this, but he almost resigned from the army because...

[00:13:28] DC: Over here at Redstone?

[00:13:29] HT: Yeah, over here at Redstone. Maybe you found out about that because he didn't feel that he was getting the support in Congress, the money, or that people didn't understand. To him and to everybody working in the missile field, it was very serious, all this stuff. And of course, we wanted to beat Russia and that was part of it. And yet, that was in the background. But he actually, and he had the phone in his hand to call up the Chief of Staff. He was putting in his resignation. And I took that phone away from him. I'd bet about six times we went through that and almost had a fight. And I think if he was a different temperament, I would have got that phone in my head, on my head. But he was a general type and he put it down. And I said, now come on, let's talk about it.

[00:14:34] And he had an offer from [Bulova?] to be president of the [Bulova?] company. And we went out to see Bradley down there.

[00:14:46] DC: He was Chairman of the [Bulova?].

[00:14:50] HT: And so that was a fabulous offer in itself for, I don't know, I won't quote the amount of money, but much more than the army could ever give him, even as a general, even if he had been promoted. And he was then a Brigadier General, I think. And like that, somebody got wind of it in Washington because I talked about it so much. Oh, my husband's gonna retire, oh dear, oh dear, he's going out of the army. And we liked the army so much. [inaudible]

[00:15:30] DC: So, the word got out.

[00:15:32] HT: And word got out and next thing you know, down came the promotion to Major General. So of course, that boosted his ego. And he knew that he was worth something then or they would not promote him as Major General. And so…

[00:15:53] DC: About what time, probably, would this be about ‘53 or something like that?

[00:15:58] HT: I think, well, we can look up when he was promoted. That was when the offer came in. And of course, we dickered with that for a long time before I almost got the telephone on my head. And I thought, sure, he was going to, you know, throw it out. He was so mad because I was interfering and I didn't think he was thinking this thing through. He was just mad at Congress, mad at missiles, mad at everything.

[00:16:30] DC: Frustrated, yeah.

[00:16:31] HT: Yeah, frustrated. He just couldn't get to first base with anybody. They said they didn't have the money. You couldn't do this. You can't do that. And he said, you can do it. He was a perfectionist and he wanted everything done right. He thought anybody could do anything that they wanted if they tried. And so that was his, sort of his model.

[00:17:00] DC: Of course, he also had kept the team together. I'm sure he didn't want to leave the boat after keeping the group together. That would have been a...

[00:17:08] HT: But see, the group at that time were also...

[00:17:11] DC: [inaudible]

[00:17:12] HT: Well, they were offered, I think, [gentle?], and I won't say [inaudible] dynamics because that may be the wrong one, but it was one of these big industries that kept offering them jobs, you know, at fabulous prices by that time.

[00:17:31] DC: We need to find out who and talk to them. That might be interesting for our story.

[00:17:36] HT: But I know that they were threatened to get out and I guess maybe he knew about it. Of course, he didn't tell me...

[00:17:47] DC: The whole thing was pretty rocky right at that time.

[00:17:49] HT: Yeah, he didn't tell me details because he never discussed those kind of things with me, but I knew there was something that was making him feel like... Like... And after all he was doing, and I think we got Colonel Hamill on the spot. I don't know whether I phoned him. I phoned around a lot of people to phone him to tell him how good things were going and everything just to keep his morale up, you know? So, a wife really has an important part in this business too. As I say, you have to go through all these missiles coming at you and out of you, dreaming of them and wondering if you were sitting on one going up when you got up in the morning and all this. And then as soon as he got out of the door, then it left me and I went on with my chores.

[00:18:53] DC: Did you ever see a launchers at all?

[00:19:00] HT: I saw just the ones that went off at Redstone. You know, they started in with what they call Toftoy’s Folly here in Redstone. That's when they built the little test stands, you know? And they said that was, for instance, this is the way the top crowd looked at it. I won't say general staff because I don't know who it was, but they thought that was much too big. We never had, because it wasn't that high, but you know, whatever height was, we never had anything that would. And then it grew so much that they had to build that great big one, you know? And I don't know whether they call that Toftoy’s Folly or whether that was another story. Did you get in on that one?

[00:19:56] DC: I'm generally familiar with the story. The first Redstone test stand and the larger one, you know?

[00:20:01] HT: Well, of course, we got to see all those around the arsenal.

[00:20:05] DC: You saw some of the first static tests of the engines around it?

[00:20:09] HT: Uh-huh. Oh yeah. And the wind tunnel, you go in the wind tunnel at the beginning, you know? When, and [inaudible] you’d think you were going to be blown out of there. The roar. And he said — I said, “Is that a rocket in there roaring?” He says, “oh, that's the way it's going to sound worse than that.” You wait and see. And one incident I remember is White Sands. He came home and told me about it, that a reporter from one of the newspapers, I think Washington or New York, saw this thing for the first time at White Sands. Guess it was a V-2. Anyway, the first one that went up, and they weren't sure. And everybody was saying,oh, that thing is going to go right, and it'll probably go to Mexico. It was not the one that went to Mexico, by the way. But it was an awful roar, and the first time any of these reporters had heard a roar, you know? And so this one got down in the sand, in White Sands, and covered himself all up quickly. And [got down] and never did see the fire. [laughing]

[00:21:21] DC: [inaudible]

[00:21:22] HT: Because when he heard the roar, you know, that's all he did was dig like, and went right on down and covered himself. And said, so then when they said, it's all over, Jim. I don't know whether it was Jim Lucas or not, but it's all over, Jim. Come on out. And then he uncovered himself and came out all full of sand, and they laughed. They said that was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. And I think the general was nearby there. But he said this poor guy was scared to death. And of course, he still had to be quite far away from it. And he didn't want any part of that. And so, the newspaper never sent him again because he came back with no report, except he buried his head in the sand.

[00:22:21] DC: It’s a good story. [chuckling]

[00:22:23] [recording cuts]

[00:22:25] DC: This is the story of the [steakhouse that’s off-limits?]. Just mention a little bit so I know what that [inaudible].

[00:22:30] HT: Yeah. Well, they went down. They were looking for the quarters for the German crowd at that time. They wanted a hospital, at least. Hamill had in the back of its mind that this hospital was giving up and that they had no money to put into it. So, one night he said, or I don't know whether it was Colonel Toftoy or Hamill, they said, “well, let's go to the steakhouse.” So, they did go to the steakhouse. And then on the way back, instead of turning, go to White Sands or Bliss, wherever it was they were going. He turned the other way and said, “where are you going?” He said, never mind. I'm going down by the hospital. And he had it all fixed with the commanding officer and they stepped in there. And so, he said, now you tell them you want this hospital for these Germans. You're going to have a better place to live. So, they went in there and he showed them all around him and said, well, I don't think I could do that. And Hamill had already, as he made the way for this by telling them that — I don't know whether he got permission from Washington. I don't think he had at that time. But anyway, he had made some kind of preparation beforehand. And they went right in and he said, all right, tomorrow morning, Hamill, you will get this thing. And it was just like that, right overnight. Because they were going to move out of there anyway, they had no money to run the place.

And the congressman gave it to them and said, all right, you can have it. And of course, that was another get down on your knees, what I call get down on your knees and plead. Because that was another thing. They had to plead for that because they said, “Oh, we have other plans for that. That's going to the Air Force or the Navy,” or somebody was going to take it over. Not the Army. And they said, “Well, they can't have it.” And they were real upset and mean about it. And so, they thought, well, they better please them. You know, and so sometimes it works the other way where they have to be tough on the congressmen and the ones up at the top instead of the ones at the top being tough on them. So anyway, that's a little bit. I don't remember all the details. He can tell you what even the speed they went and they said, why are you going so fast? Oh, we got to go someplace and all the details can be told by Hamill. Better than me, because I just heard about it when they came back. They just told the story. And that was long ago.

[00:25:47] DC: I guess Hamill was in close touch by telephone to Toftoy in Washington.

[00:25:52] HT: In Washington.

[00:25:53] DC: There were a lot of problems with Bliss they had straightened out in Washington.

[00:25:54] HT: Oh, yeah, they got all the orders and [Sagan?], of course, Mr. [Sagan?] was down there again with them. And so, they had quite a time. It was uh…

[00:26:12] [glass or cups clinking]

[00:26:13] DC: I put a little in there already. Maybe not enough.

[00:26:15] HT: You put sugar in it?

[00:26:20] HT: But they had a hard time getting real. It was real difficult getting all these things put together. And at the same time, you know, he was trying to run the whole show. And it was hard to convince people that this thing was important. That's why he got so serious, that I couldn't half the time get a smile out of him. Although he did have a beautiful smile. And we'd always say, look at the birdie smile. That was our famous. So that he'd give that time because it was so dead serious about this thing.

[00:27:05] DC: Well, I guess one of the biggest problems was the American public wasn't that interested. After the war, they were tired of…

[00:27:10] HT: No, they were very [inaudible] and didn't care. And, of course, everybody knows we went into the deep freeze and all these things. We were more interested in household.

[00:27:27] DC: [inaudible], homes, automobiles.

[00:27:30] HT: Yeah and didn't care about missiles. And that's what I'm afraid of when Vietnam, they give up, you know, Vietnam and that money they'll want for the poor. They've been talking about welfare and all that. And they won't give it to the state program. And that's when unless you have a fighter like him behind that's going to. And I'm afraid the next best fighter is going to be Dr. von Braun himself, because he fought all along with my husband on this whole deal. Whatever he said would go or he would have suggestions. And then then Toftoy would go along with Von Braun and they worked together very beautifully. And I think that Wernher kept the team together a lot, too.

[00:28:27] DC: I guess there are a lot of…

[00:28:28] HT: Yes, there are a lot of, you know, sidelines to this thing. And actually, I think Von Braun, most of them wanted to work on space. They didn't want to work on these little missiles. That was not their job. They wanted to work on the space.

[00:28:48] DC: So, there was no NASA then at all.

[00:28:49] HT: So there was no space program. And it took all these years to build up to it.

[00:28:57] DC: Did Toftoy mention space very much? Is that sort of in the back of his mind?

[00:29:01] HT: Back in ‘46, you know, that was the one thing he said, “In this decade, we’re going to space.” You got a clipping, I’m sure, of that. And he…

[00:29:11] DC: There were some raised eyebrows, too, when a military man started speaking about space so much.

[00:29:16] HT: I mean, he thought he was a lunatic. In fact, they said, “The white coats are coming to get you any day.” That was really told to him. “Are you cracked?” “I think your husband's cracked.” I get that kind of and all these things thrown at me, you know. “I think your husband's had it. You better take him to the hospital. He's cracked.” And I said, “Well, if he's cracked, Wernher von Braun’s cracked, too.” Oh, well, that's different. He's a scientist. They're all cracked.

[00:29:49] DC: [laughing] That was understood!

[00:29:50] HT: Yeah, that was understood. But an army man, should stick to his army guns, you know, and things like that. And not bother with all this space. I mean, this space stuff. And of course, it was the same way when they began on the missiles. “He was cracked.” And, “What do you want a missile for?” “How do you know Russia has missiles?” We… you know, and all this stuff. And in the meantime, I'm sure that general staff or intelligence in our army or someone has looked into it and knew they did. But they just didn't want to give money for it.

[00:30:39] [recording cuts]

[00:30:41] HT: I was at Redstone Arsenal, and I've been in this missile work. And I've gotten as far as space. Now that I've gotten a little further on to heaven. Couldn't I come in? Or do I have to go the other place? And he said, “My dear, here's your orchid. Step right in. Your angels are here. Your mermaids are here. Your missile people are all around you. So just have a good time.

[00:31:16] DC: Thank [Peter Lutton?], again.

[00:31:17] HT: Yeah, thank [Peter Lutton?]. [inaudible] tell a new story. Of course, every time somebody adds a little bit, something more to it beside the angels, you know, I added the missile men. But they said your whole crowd's here.

[00:31:35] DC: You made it.

[00:31:35] HT: So we made it.

[00:31:38] [recording cuts]

[00:31:39] DC: I ask you what were some of his personal feelings when the von Braun team finally switched over to NASA. Since he was an army man, I'm sure he had mixed emotions. Do you recall what some of his feelings were at that time, about 1960?

[00:31:54] HT: Well, let's see, that's the year he retired.

[00:31:58] DC: But the army, of course, was still trying to keep the von Braun team and do things in space. By the same token, I'm sure he wanted to see them go on.

[00:32:08] HT: What hurt him the most, and this was, of course, the feeling, was when they put General Medaris into the job as top.

[00:32:18] DC: Oh, the Jupiter project.

[00:32:21] HT: And he was the head here at Redstone. And that, he felt, the General felt like he was having a demotion when he ran the whole program. And then they put the man from General Staff in Washington in, who knew, really — well, he knew something about it, of course – but he was not in on the beginning. And he wanted to be at the top. And that, a little while after that, he went to the hospital. And I think in my own mind, this is just my own opinion, that he just, you know, kind of went to pieces.

[00:33:06] DC: Hurt him inside, yeah.

[00:33:08] And then, let's see, well, I think NASA, he knew it was getting to be a big program and that the army, I mean, as small as it was, and Ordnance couldn't hang on to it. They had to. And they'd rather have NASA, he'd rather have NASA take it over than give it to the Air Force. [laughing] That's about the size of it, even though the Air Force…

[00:33:36] DC: Lesser of two evils.

[00:33:38] HT: Because there was always that little bickering and I don't believe that.

[END]

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