After the Allies secured the French harbor of Le Havre (left) (on the eastern side of the Bay of the Seine, opposite Cherbourg, as in the modern map view of Northern France below), the Americans began ringing the city with camps that served as staging areas for new troops arriving in the ETO. Most of the camps were located between Le Havre and Rouen. [They also constructed the so-called "City Camps" around the city of Reims; these camps served as assembly areas for units about to enter combat. And there were additional embarkation camps in Southern France, north of Marseilles, and, of course, Camp Tophat near Antwerp, Belgium.] The wartime plan was for incoming units to first pass through staging camps on their way to the assembly areas, and then to the front. The staging-area camps were named after various brands of American cigarettes; the assembly area camps were named after American cities. The names of cigarettes and cities were chosen for two reasons: First, and primarily, for security. Referring to the camps without an indication of their geographical location went a long way to ensuring that the enemy would not know precisely where they were. Anybody eavesdropping or listening to radio traffic would think that cigarettes were being discussed or the camp was stateside, especially regarding the city camps. Secondly, there was a subtle psychological reason, the premise being that troops heading into battle wouldn't mind staying at a place where cigarettes must be plentiful and troops about to depart for combat would be somehow comforted in places with familiar names of cities back home (Camp Atlanta, Camp Baltimore, Camp New York, and Camp Pittsburgh, among others). (I doubt if the GIs heading into Europe were taken in by any of that cigarette and city mumbo-jumbo!) By war's end, however, all of the cigarette and city camps were devoted to departees. Many processed liberated American POWs (Prisoners of War) and some even held German POWs for a while.]|
A drawing of Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine.
The British had liberated the city, rested there for just a few days, and then continued their pursuit of the retreating Germans. The Americans arrived next, who desired to convert the harbor into a powerful logistical base from which to supply their armies with men and materiél. As they moved further and further from the Normandy beaches, Le Havre seemed ideally situated to feed the assault across Northern France. The Americans, as they had done in Cherbourg, began to restore the harbor facilities, of which nearly 90% had been destroyed by the Germans, first by increasing the depth of the channel through which ships entered and then the general water level by prodigious dredging in the dock areas. The XVIth Port Command also constructed dozens of ramps to facilitate the easy shuttling of personnel and supplies from ship to shore, since the city's beautiful quays were unusable by U.S. Quartermaster Corps standards since they were too high above the water. The Americans were practical and many physical changes were necessary to ease the transfer of supplies from ship to amphibious vehicles (such as LCAs and DUKWs) to the warehouses and storage areas where trucks (mostly operated under the auspices of the famous "Red Ball Express") would load up. Just as the concept of "hards" (which resembled sloping car parks that led directly into the water) had transformed dozens of British harbors prior to D-Day (and expedited the ferrying of troops from shore to large landing ships via assault craft), Le Havre's waterfront suddenly saw the construction of similar ramps to speed the delivery of spare parts and spare GIs to the mainland.
The men who disembarked in the harbor (photo at left) were ferried immediately to the Cigarette Camps, the hastily erected conglomerations of tents and wooden huts that rose up in the forests and fields to the east and southeast of the city. There was Camp Herbert Tareyton, located in the Forest of Montgeon within the city limits, with a capacity of 16,400 men. Camp Wings, with a capacity of 2,250 men, was situated somewhat appropriately on the grounds of the Blaville Aerodrome. At Sanvic, 2,000 men called Camp Home Run home; at Gainneville, Camp Philip Morris held 35,000 men; and at Etretat, Camp Pall Mall provided rather soggy billets for 7,700 men. But these were not the largest, or even the busiest, camps. That distinction goes to the "Big Three" Camp Lucky Strike, located between Cany and Saint-Valery (capacity 58,000); Camp Old Gold, at Ourville (capacity 35,000); and Camp Twenty Grand, at Duclair (capacity 20,000). (Information about Camp Chesterfield is very sparse; please contact the Webmaster if you have any information regarding it.)
It is estimated that nearly three million American troops either entered or left Europe through Le Havre, which led to it becoming known as the "Gateway to America" in 1945-46. (A tremendous resource for information about Le Havre during this period is one of the official sites for the City of Le Havre. Although the site is in French, it can be freely translated at AltaVista's Translation Page.)
In late 1944 these camps were rather primitive places, usually sprawling tent cities characterized by a sense of transience, with little if any conveniences. These "canvas" camps were at the mercy of the weather that was particular to Northern Europe in the Fall and Winter of 1944-45, and many U. S. veterans who spent time at any of them before the onset of the Battle of the Bulge and prior to being shuttled forward recall nothing but cold rain and colder mud, and, of course, snow. Trenchfoot ran rampant. So did the flu.
The camps, located in what the Army designated the "Red Horse" staging area, were, as noted, named for American cigarettes, which were fast becoming a universal currency in the ETO. Soon, GIs were cursing places called Camp Chesterfield and Camp Lucky Strike. And there was Camp Old Gold too, and Philip Morris, Pall Mall, Herbert Tareyton, Wings, Home Run, and Twenty Grand (click on a button at the top of the page to visit a camp, or use the "Deuce-and-a-Half" below to tour them one by one). They'd cross the channel in some LST or an even tinier tub, perhaps an LCI, spend a few days in what must have seemed like a hell hole, and then entrain to the front in boxcars known as "40 and 8s" (so called for the French designation "40 hommes et 8 cheveaux," which means the boxcars had a capacity of 40 men or eight horses; the photo at left shows the typical French boxcar known as the 40 and 8) or in trucks. The camps were also known as "pneumonia holes," "repple-depples," or "Repo Depots" (denoting Replacement Depots, also spelled as Repo Depos). (WW II movie buffs will recall that the opening scenes of WIlliam Wellmann's Battleground evoke the atmosphere at these camps pretty accurately.)
The camp sites first had military designations like B-19 and in the fall and winter of 1944 were not more than snow-covered patches of France on top of which squad tents had been erected. The following account (culled and condensed from the experiences of many units that were there) of the changes they saw at Camp Lucky Strike between their arrival in open trucks in late 1944 and their departure the following spring shows how these camps evolved:
"New arrivals were cold, tired, and hungry, but there was work to be done before they could get some shut-eye. They had to assemble their own cots and set up stoves and pick up fuel and haul it back. (There was no room service!) The heat from the stoves barely heated the tents and seemed only effective at thawing the frozen dirt floors so by morning the cots had settled into a good four inches of mud. Soon gravel was available to put down and the men hauled it back in pails, steel helmets, and any other container that could be found. The paths leading through the rows of tents were also graveled and the situation was beginning to improve. After a few months, most of the tents had wooden floors, doors, shelves, and cabinets. A softball diamond, as well as volleyball and basketball courts, had been constructed. Day room and theater tents had been set up. Soon resident units were printing their own newspapers. And the whole place was wired for electricity. Twenty-four hour passes were available to Le Havre, Rouen, Fecamp, and Yvetot. Since bathing facilities at camp were nonexistent, one of the first places visited by men on pass was the Red Cross shower room. Perhaps the next most popular spot was the Hotel Metropole in Rouen, where for a price just about anything could be obtained. It was also while on pass that most of the men had their first experiences with French wines, cognac, calvados, and benedictine."
In 1945, when the end of the war in Europe was in sight, some of these camps underwent tremendous changes, in anticipation of the role they were to play after the war in Europe was over. Barracks and other permanent structures were built. Hospitals and PXs too. Mess halls replaced outdoor chowlines snaking through rows of tents to mobile field kitchens. One of the ironies of war that these camps lent themselves to was that after V-E Day the mess halls at some of the camps were staffed with cooks and waiters that were German POWs. Many U.S. veterans recall arriving at a camp underfed and malnourished and being served by Germans who were well-fed by virtue of working in the American mess halls for a few months. Stories abound of tired GIs arriving on a cold autumn night after a five-day-long ride from Germany to France in a boxcar only to end up being served lousy boiled chicken by "fat krauts" that had been eating steak on a regular basis.)
Wood began replacing canvas and concrete and asphalt replaced the mud. The Red Cross had a tremendous presence at those camps that were to handle returning POWs (Prisoners of War). "Java Junctions," those ubiquitous dispensaries of real coffee and doughnuts, were established at all of the camps. (Spend a day at a camp and one would come away thinking that the American GI could be sustained solely by tobacco and doughnuts!) After V-E Day the camps were now ready for these new roles and were redesignated redeployment centers as part of the American plans to both reassign units to the Pacific Theatre and to demobilize others and return men home.
At the core of the U.S. Army Demobilization Plan was the so-called 'Point System.' Points were awarded for years of service overseas, medals and other commendations received, campaign battle stars earned, as well as other factors. The magic point total for being sent home was 85. Many men had more points, and those that had the most were slated to be sent home first. Following is a pretty typical point-system computation table (though probably incomplete):
GI were constantly badgering company clerks to get errors corrected and adjustments made to their point totals, which were recorded on their "Adjusted Service Rating Cards." Those men with the magic number of 85 points, or more, were to return to the United States, while those with fewer points were transferred out to make room for high point men from other organizations. Those with 80 to 84 points were sent to other units in the ETO and some of those with even fewer points were sent home on furlough and then went on to retraining for duty in the Pacific. The latter were perhaps the most fortunate of all, since the war in the Pacific soon ended and many of them were discharged before the higher-point men in the ETO got home.
In these pages, we hope to document the history of "The Cigarette Camps," collect maps and pictures depicting them, and tell the story of what life was like there for the few days between
hopping off the boat in Le Havre and heading for the front lines, or waiting for a Victory Ship ride back home. We will be working with contacts in the U. S. Army Military History Institute to procure source materials and other ephemera. We also welcome contributions of such material from individuals (maps, photos, postcards, etc.). We will pay all postage associated with sending them or facsimiles (address below) and will return original material by express mail at no cost to the contributor. As
always, we cannot write history properly without the participation of the men and women who
were there, and we invite GIs and other personnel who have memories of these camps to
get in touch with the Webmaster at:
The city after the German withdrawal, 1944
The city in ruins, 1944
USA or bust!
The harbor recedes ... goodbye to the ETO!
|To Camp Chesterfield|