C\AAA\Web Pages\Robbhaas Family Pages\WW2\Documents-WW2\CampAdair-EEWilsonHistory.txt


Camp Adair, a World War II army cantonment, was located north of Corvallis on 50,000 acres in Benton and Polk Counties. The site was chosen by the United States War Department as a training site for Triangular Divisions. Each division consisted of 15,000 men assigned to infantry, artillery and engineering units with the necessary support personnel. However, the divisions at Camp Adair never reached their full complement of men. In order to construct this cantonment, which became the second largest city in Oregon, families were uprooted, cemeteries relocated, railroad tracks rerouted, and the small community of Wells was erased.

Today, only a few buildings and foundations remain to mark the main cantonment site of Camp Adair. A sign on US Highway 99W commemorates the divisions that trained there. Each Division also has a memorial located near the public viewing area 0.5 mile east of 99W on Camp Adair Road. The 50,000 acre site that made up the camp is owned by state and local governments and individuals.
Four infantry divisions were trained at Camp Adair for overseas duty: the 91st Powder River Infantry Division, the 96th Deadeye Infantry Division, the 104th Timberwolf Infantry Division, and the 70th Trailblazer Infantry Division. Three of the divisions, the 96th, 104th, and 70th were activated at Camp Adair and 91st was activated at Camp White near Medford, Oregon.
The camp was named in honor of Henry Rodney Adair, a West Point graduate and descendant of Oregon pioneers, who was the first Oregonian killed during the 1916 Mexican border clashes. When General Pershing pushed over the border in search of the bandit general Pancho Villa, Lt. Adair, an officer in the 10th Calvary, wiped out two machine gun nests and accounted for more than 30 Mexican bandits before he was killed.

The area east of Highway 99W, on the valley floor, was used for the base camp while the hilly area west of the highway was used for training maneuvers. To simulate actual conditions, full-scale models of European towns were constructed in this area.

During World War II, the armed forces were segregated. African-American soldiers were assigned to Camp Adair, but were not part of any of the divisions that trained at the camp. Very little information about the African-Americans role at the Camp has been discovered, although reportedly some were assigned to the Quartermaster Corps.

The U.S. Army turned the hospital over to the U.S. Navy when the divisions left. Casualties from the Pacific Theater were brought to Camp Adair for treatment and recuperation. On March 1, 1945, it was reported that the wounded were arriving by train, and the hospital had been enlarged to take care of 3,600.

Shortly after the last division left, part of Camp Adair served as a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp for Italians, then Germans. It appears POWs were at Camp Adair from August 1944 through April 1946. Although former civilian personnel have memories of both German and Italian POWs at the camp, their presence was not common knowledge in nearby communities.

Remembrances of Camp Adair include poison oak, snakes, summer's dust, climbing Coffin Butte, and intense training. Perhaps the most lasting memory for many soldiers was Oregon's rain. After sloshing through the countryside, marching, pushing and pulling vehicles through the mud, trying to keep equipment from rusting, and fording swollen streams, it is no wonder many called the camp--Swamp Adair.

Source:  http://home.teleport.com/~eewilson/campadair.html  (Link not working 6 Feb 2010)