Went to Fort Chaffee today, It was a reminder of the months spent at Fort Leonard Wood, MO during AIT (Advanced Individual Training). We lived in buildings just like the ones pictured. They were cold, hard to clean, and all open bayed. I was lucky to be a squad leader and had my own private room, but back to Fort Chaffe.
This post served as a military base starting about 1941 and in 1997 the command was transferred from the U.S. Army to the Arkansas Army National Guard. The same day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor The first soldiers arrive for training. Three Armored Divisions trained there from 1942 to 1946, they were The sixth. Fourteenth, and Sixteenth.
It was both a training camp and a (POW) prisoner-of-war camp housing about 3000 German POW’s. Later Camp Chaffee was the home of the Fifth Armored Division. Camp Chaffee was re-designated as Fort Chaffee On March 21, 1956.
There was a very famous person that occupied Chaffee, who was it? Elvis Presley, it was here that he received his first military haircut.
There is a lot more history to this long forgotten Fort but over time that too will be lost by future generations as not important.
