Home

WWI
Camp Cooke California, 
Camp Claiborne Louisiana WWII 

Written by a Corporal at Camp Cooke California, writing to another soldier at Headquarters Squadron, 4th Fighter Command, during WWII, in January 1943. From the letter……Nothing to do so will write you a few lines. Today is about as perfect a day as you could ask for, but there isn’t any place to go, and couldn’t get a pass to go if there was. I had three gun inspections in two days this week. I’m just about ready to go over the hill. I have seven new tank equipments in my arms room, to clean up, and then have to lay out all of those guns for inspection; as if I didn’t have anything else to do. Gripe! Gripe!……Say those pictures you sent were really good I must say that your mustache and pipe really make you look quiet dignified. Your living quarters look as if they would really be very comfortable. You ask how I make contacts with the women; well I don’t very much, but we can still get a six hour pass to “Lompoc”. It isn’t much, but they do have a square dance every Thursday night; so there is a little entertainment……..

The 5th Armored Division began training at Camp Cooke, in 1942. Other armored divisions that trainged there, were the 6th, 11th, 13th, and the 20th. The 86th, and th 97th Infantry Divsions also trainged at the camp.
Many other types of outfits also trained at Camp Cooke, with several hundred seperate units training there over the course of the war.
The Camp also became home for Italiona, and German Prisoners of War. Some of the POWs, were put to work in the fields, and other jobs, due to the shortage of labor at the time.  

Written by a Lieutenant at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, during WWII, in 1945. From the letter……..When this letter came, I was playing a game with some of the fellows, it was lunch time and we were having lotsa fun. This game is sorta nuts in a way, the idea is to toss a 2 inch diameter washer into a three inch hole from a distance of about twenty five feet. It’s kinda like horseshoes……..Tonight I had “open hut” again for the fellows, Gad! How they can put away the booze, a bottle of hooch lasts just long enough to take the cap off……no one got drunk, but several were drunkish. The difference being that a “drunkish” can still stagger. One of the boys mistook a light socket for the bottle opener and was quite shocked to discover his mistake……...

Custom Search