UXO Site selected: Fort Chaffee, AR |
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General Area: Fort Chaffee, AR Site Type/Program: MMRP - Army Location: 130 miles NW of Little Rock, SE of Fort Smith. Brief History: Groundbreaking for what was then Camp Chaffee was held on September 20, 1941, as part of the Department of WarÂ’s preparations to double the size of the U.S. Army in the face of imminent war. That month, the United States government paid $1.35 million to acquire 15,163 acres from 712 property owners, including families, farms, businesses, churches, schools, and other government agencies. The camp was named after Major General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., an artillery officer who, in Europe during World War I, determined that the cavalry was outmoded and, unlike other cavalry officers, advocated for the use of tanks. It took only sixteen months to build the entire base. The first soldiers arrived on December 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The installation was activated on March 27, 1942. From 1942 to 1946, the Sixth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Armored Divisions trained there. During World War II, it served as both a training camp and a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp. The major purpose of the camp was to train soldiers for combat and prepare units for deployment, but from 1942 to 1946, there were also 3,000 German POWs there. The creation of the camp caused the nearby town of Barling to experience a tremendous boom in housing and businesses. (Thanks to http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2263) |
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