10-043 Garand Picture of the Day - 101st 1960

[Mark in Rochester]

Men of 101st Airborne Division, crossing stream w. rifles at Fort Campbell.
Location: KY, US
Date taken: September 1960
Photographer: Ralph Morse




Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astraddle the Kentucky-Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee. Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

The fort is named in honor of BG William Bowen Campbell, the last Whig Governor of Tennessee.

The site for Camp Campbell was selected on July 16, 1941, and the Title I Survey was completed November 15, 1941, coincidentally the same time the Japanese Imperial Fleet was leaving Japan home waters for Pearl Harbor, with construction beginning January 12, 1942. Within a year, the reservation designated as Camp Campbell was developed to accommodate one armored division and various support troops, with a total size of 102,414 acres (414 km2), and billets for 2,422 officers and 45,198 enlisted personnel. Due to its close proximity to Clarksville, Tennessee, the War Department on March 6, 1942, designated Tennessee as the official address of the new camp. This caused a great deal of confusion, since the Headquarters was in Tennessee and the post office was in Kentucky. After many months of mail delivery problems, Col Guy W.Chipman requested that the address be changed to Camp Campbell, Kentucky. The War Department officially changed the address on September 23, 1942.

Early in the summer of 1942, the post's initial cadre, one officer and 19 enlisted men, arrived from Fort Knox, Kentucky. From that time until the end of World War II, Camp Campbell was the training ground for the 12th, 14th and 20th Armored divisions, Headquarters IV Armored Corps and the 26th Infantry Division.

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