Camp Wheeler was a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

base near Macon, Georgia. The camp was a staging location for many US Army units during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. It was named for

Joseph Wheeler Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler (September 10, 1836 – January 25, 1906) was an American military commander and politician. He was a cavalry general in the Confederate States Army in the 1860s during the American Civil War, and then a general in ...

, a general in the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

's Army and in the U.S. Army in the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...

.The War Department used the site area of Camp Wheeler as a mobilization center from 1917 to 1918. It was established on July 18, 1917, as a temporary training camp for National Guard units in federal service and consisted primarily of tents in a cantonment area for the 29,000 officers and enlisted men. The military closed the first Camp Wheeler on April 10, 1919. The military used Camp Wheeler as an infantry replacement center from 1940 to 1945. The base was re-established on October 8, 1940, with construction beginning on December 21, 1940. Rather than being used to train entire units, the camp was an

Infantry Replacement Training Center The United States Replacement and School Command was a training and receiving formation of the United States Army during World War II. History It was established as part of the Army Ground Forces in March 1942, after it was noted that divis ...

where new recruits received basic and advanced individual training to replace combat casualties. The camp was divided into three major portions: a cantonment area, a maneuver area, and a main impact area. At the height of the training effort, the camp contained 17,000 trainees and 3,000 cadre personnel. The camp was declared excess on January 19, 1946. Following a decontamination operation in the fall of 1946, the land was returned to the owners. Among units that staged there was the 7th Infantry Division. A 1,000-bed hospital and a prisoner-of-war camp were included in the

camp. In 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a survey of the site, locating unexploded ordnance and other contamination; cleaning up the site was estimated at the time to take eight years. Today, the Herbert Smart Macon Downtown Airport and Ocmulgee East Industrial Park occupy the site of the former camp.

References

External links

Camp Wheeler Historical markerFormerly Used Defense Sites: Camp Wheeler (USACE)Camp Wheeler Fact Sheet (USACE)
Buildings and structures in Bibb County, Georgia Closed training facilities of the United States Army Forts in Georgia (U.S. state) {{US-army-stub World War II prisoner of war camps in the United States