Fort Devens is a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

Reserve military installation in the towns of Ayer and Shirley, in Middlesex County and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

in Worcester County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Due to extensive

environmental contamination Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...

it was listed as a

superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...

site in 1989. Most of the fort's land was sold off in 1996, but the cantonment area of the post was retained by the Army as the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area (RFTA). Fort Devens was reactivated in May 2007, though no units of active Army have been located there. The Devens Range Complex operates on property in

Lancaster Lancaster may refer to: Lands and titles *The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire *Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies *Duke of Lancaster *Earl of Lancaster *House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty ...

, south of Route 2, for live-fire training with small arms, machine guns, grenades, and rockets. In 2011, the fort had a population of 306 enlisted personnel, 2,151 reservists, 348 civilians, and 1,399 family members, and maintained 25 ranges, 21 training areas, and 15 maneuver areas on nearly of land. It was home to the United States Army Base Camp Systems Integration Laboratory as well as the United States Army System Integration Laboratory. Part of the former area of the military base is now home to

Federal Medical Center, Devens The Federal Medical Center, Devens (FMC Devens) is a United States federal prison in Massachusetts for male inmates requiring specialized or long-term medical or mental health care. It is designated as an administrative facility, which means it ha ...

, a

federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for people who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), people considered dangerous (Brazil), or those sen ...

for male inmates requiring specialized or long-term medical or mental health care.

History

Establishment during World War I

Camp Devens, named after jurist and Civil War general Charles Devens, was established on September 5, 1917, as a temporary

cantonment A cantonment (, , or ) is a type of military base. In South Asia, a ''cantonment'' refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British Raj). In United States military parlance, a cantonment is, essentially, "a permanent residential ...

for training soldiers during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. About of land was leased then later purchased from 112 owners who sold 230 parcels of land in the towns of Ayer,

and Shirley by the federal government. Some was fine farmland along the Nashua River and other was "sprout" land where trees had been cut leaving stumps. The Fort's siting was due primarily to its location at a major hub of the rail network in New England. Construction, by the largest labor force assembled in the United States, to build an entire city for 10,000 requiring barracks, training buildings, water and sewer systems, raced at the rate of 10.4 new buildings every day. It was a reception center for war selectees and became a demobilization center after the war. As one of 16 temporary cantonments, Camp Devens processed and trained more than 100,000 soldiers. Three divisions (the 12th, the

26th 26 (twenty-six) is the natural number following 25 and preceding 27. In mathematics *26 is the seventh discrete semiprime (2 \times 13) and the fifth with 2 as the lowest non-unitary factor thus of the form (2.q), where q is a higher prime. ...

and the 76th) were activated and trained at Devens during the war. In 1918, Camp Devens, was afflicted by the late 1918 deadly second wave of the 1918 flu pandemic. Approximately 850 soldiers, mostly privates, died at the camp during 1918 from the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...

Between World Wars

In 1918, it became a separation center for over 150,000 troops upon their return from France. Put on inactive status, it served next as a summer training camp for National Guardsmen, Reservists and ROTC cadets. In 1920, following years of debate regarding preparedness for another global war, passage of the National Defense Act established an important role for the citizen army. In 1927, appropriations were made for permanent construction of buildings, but the stock market crash nearly called a halt. Congresswoman

Edith Nourse Rogers Edith Rogers (née Nourse; March 19, 1881 – September 10, 1960) was an American social welfare Volunteering, volunteer and politician who served as a Republican in the United States Congress. She was the first woman elected to Congress fro ...

, of Lowell, recognized the economic significance of Camp Devens to this largely agricultural community. In 1929,

Robert Goddard Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which was successfully lau ...

briefly used the post for his rocket operations. In 1931, through her efforts, Camp Devens became Fort Devens, a permanent US Army post in 1931. However, during the depression, construction was slow; most of the work was done by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

. A few years later, Fort Devens Army Airfield was established.

World War II

In 1940, at the onset of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Fort Devens was designated a reception center for all men in New England who would serve one year as draftees. A massive $25 million building project was begun, including more than 1200 wooden buildings and an airfield. The

1st First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

, 32nd, and 45th Divisions trained at Devens during the war. Devens also housed a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

for German and Italian prisoners from 1944 to 1946. It was designated as early as 1942 for detaining

enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...

s of Italian, German and Japanese birth.

Post World War II

The 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division was located at Fort Devens from 1946 to 1950. Already at reduced strength, the regiment was further decimated when a battalion from Fort Devens was reflagged as the 3d Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, and sent to Korea to join the 1st Cavalry Division. The 7th Infantry deployed to San Francisco, California and sailed for Japan on 20 August 1950, arriving on 16 September 1950 to marry-up with the 15th Infantry Regiment and the division headquarters. Fort Devens hosted the

Army Security Agency The United States Army Security Agency (ASA) was the United States Army, United States Army's signals intelligence branch from 1945 to 1977. The Latin motto of the Army Security Agency was ''Semper Vigilis'' (Vigilant Always), which echoes the ...

Training Center & School (ASATC&S) from April 1951 to 1996. In the 1950s or 1960s the fort was home to the 56th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, part of 1st Region,

Army Air Defense Command Army Air Defense Command, previously Army Anti-Aircraft Command, was a major command of the United States Army which existed from 1957 to 1974. The previous ARAACOM was created in 1950 and was redesignated ARADCOM in 1957. It was formed to command ...

. On 15 February 1958 the 2nd Infantry Brigade was reactivated at Fort Devens,

as the

Pentomic Pentomic (cf. ''Greek pent(e)-'' +'' -tome'' "of five parts") was a structure for infantry and airborne divisions adopted by the US Army between 1957 and 1963 in response to the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons on future battlefields. I ...

2nd Infantry Brigade with its own

shoulder sleeve insignia Shoulder sleeve insignia (SSI) are distinctive cloth patches worn on the left sleeve of the United States Army uniform just below the shoulder seam by soldiers assigned to divisions, corps, armies, and other specifically authorized orga ...

. It spent the next five years training in northern

and

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The ...

. The Brigade was prepared to support the Marines landing in the

1958 Lebanon crisis The 1958 Lebanon crisis was a political crisis in Lebanon caused by political and religious tensions in the country that included an American military intervention, which lasted for around three months until President Camille Chamoun, who had re ...

but did not deploy. * Headquarters & Headquarters Company * 1st Battle Group, 4th Infantry * 2nd Battle Group, 60th Infantry * 1st Battalion, 76th Artillery * Company F, 34th Armor * Company G, 34th Armor * Troop F, 5th Cavalry * Brigade Trains * Two engineer companies The 2nd Infantry Brigade was inactivated on 19 February 1963 at Fort Devens; in 1962 when it was reflagged as 2d Brigade, 5th Infantry Division. It was reactivated on 23 October 1963 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division and moved (with the rest of the Division) to

Fort Riley Fort Riley is a United States Army installation located in North Central Kansas, on the Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, between Junction City and Manhattan. The Fort Riley Military Reservation covers 101,733 acres (41,170 ha) in Ge ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

in January 1964. From 1968 to 1995, Fort Devens was the home of the

10th Special Forces Group The 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (10th SFG (A), or 10th Group) is an active duty United States Army Special Forces (SF) Group. 10th Group is designed to deploy and execute nine doctrinal missions: Unconventional warfare (United States), ...

. It also served as a training center for members of the Army Reserve and National Guard.

Units remaining near base closure

Fort Devens was the home of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), less 1st Battalion based in (West) Germany, from 1968 until the Group's move to

Fort Carson Fort Carson is a United States Army post located directly south of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, El Paso, Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo, Fremont County, Colorado, Fremont, and Huerfano County, Colorado, Huerfano counties, Color ...

, Colorado in 1995. It was also the home of the 39th Engineer Battalion (CBT) until the 39th was inactivated in 1992. The 39th Engineer (CBT) was reactivated in 2014 at

Fort Campbell Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astride the Kentucky–Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee (post address is located in Kentucky). Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Div ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. The Army Security Agency Training Center & School (ASATC&S) was established at Devens in April 1951. In 1976 it became known as the U.S. Army Intelligence School, Devens, or USAISD, and was moved to

Fort Huachuca Fort Huachuca is a United States Army military base, installation, in Cochise County, Arizona, Cochise County in southeast Arizona, approximately north of the Mexico–United States border, border with Mexico and at the northern end of the Huac ...

, Arizona in 1996. The 36th Medical Battalion including the 595th Medical Company and the 46th Combat Support Hospital, the 46th CSH was inactivated July 15, 1994. Finally, the 624th Military Police Company was stationed until the post closed. Headquarters, Army Readiness Region I and Readiness Group Devens were also located there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The mission was to assist the training of reserve component units, state National Guard and Army Reserve units in New York and New England. Other subordinate Readiness Groups were located at Secena Army Depot and Fort Hamilton in NYC. Exact establishment dates and/or inactivation dates could not be found.

Closure, 1996

The

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

post which resided at Fort Devens was officially closed in 1996 after 79 years of service. The

Base Realignment and Closure Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) was a process by a Federal government of the United States, United States federal government commission to increase the efficiency of the United States Department of Defense by coordinating the realignment and ...

process for land distribution for all parcels on the former Fort Devens allowed the

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for all List of United States federal prisons, federal prisons ...

, Shriver Job Corps,

Massachusetts National Guard The Massachusetts National Guard is the United States National Guard, National Guard component for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded as the Massachusetts militia, Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia on December 13, 1636, it contains the ...

, Massachusetts Veterans and MassDevelopment to acquire the land. The bulk of the land was purchased by MassDevelopment for $17 million with the aim of turning Devens into a residential and business community. The Bureau of Prisons used its land for the

, a prison hospital. Since the closing of the military base, many of the existing buildings have been renovated or reconstructed; housing developments now exist, along with a growing business park, a new hotel, restaurants, several public and private schools, a disc golf course, and a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

course. Veterans of the

have also expressed interest in building a museum there as Fort Devens was their principal training facility for nearly 25 years.

More recent

Devens became a

United States Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a Military reserve force, reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed ...

installation under the command the Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) with an Army Reserve,

Massachusetts Army National Guard The Massachusetts National Guard is the National Guard component for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeas ...

and

Marine Corps Reserve The Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES or MFR), also known as the United States Marine Corps Reserve (USMCR) and the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, is the reserve force of the United States Marine Corps. The Marine Corps Reserve is an expedi ...

presence. In 2007 the headquarters of the 94th Regional Readiness Command, which was responsible for the command and control of Army Reserve units throughout New England, as well as providing Army Reserve support for

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

operations in the New England region, was disbanded under the consolidation of forces and buildings within the area came under the control of the 99th Regional Support Command, which is located at

Fort Dix Fort Dix, the common name for the Army Support Activity (ASA) located at Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst, is a United States Army post. It is located south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Fort Dix is under the jurisdiction of the Air Fo ...

, New Jersey, and whose Commanding General serves as the Senior Commander for Ft. Devens. The units with the original 94th Regional Readiness Command were realigned with similar commands along the East Coast. The base still remained an active training site for Reserve and National Guard Forces as well as regional law enforcement agencies. The Army announced in 2008 that it would build a new training center in the area. This was dedicated in 2011 as the David S. Connolly Armed Forces Reserve Center. The three buildings total 280,000 square feet and are on 57 acres. It also supported 650 Army Reserve and Army National Guard Soldiers and Marines, and included space to store nearly 800 military vehicles. The total cost was $100 million. In January 2011 a group of Devens residents filed a citizens' petition for Devens to become a legally incorporated

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

. Efforts to make Devens the state's 352nd town failed on the local level in 2006. As of 2018, Devens is "a regional enterprise zone and census-designated place in the towns of Ayer and Shirley, in Middlesex County and Harvard in Worcester County," (see Fort Devens (CDP), Massachusetts). In March 2021,

Commonwealth Fusion Systems Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is an American fusion power company founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after a spin-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its stated goal is to build a small fusion power plant ba ...

established a 47-acre commercial site within the former Fort Devens. This facility is to be used for development and manufacture of fusion power equipment and plants, none of which were yet in commercial use anywhere worldwide as of 2021.

Units

The following military units are based at this location: * 3411th Military Intelligence Detachment * 3417th Military Intelligence Detachment * 3437th Military Intelligence Detachment * 366th Military Police Detachment (CID) * 401st Chemical Company * Headquarters Company,

25th Marine Regiment The 25th Marine Regiment (25th Marines) is one of two infantry regiments in the 4th Marine Division of the United States Marine Corps. From its headquarters in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, the regiment commands fifteen training centers in nine sta ...

* Headquarters and Service Company & Weapons Company 1st Battalion, 25th Marines * 3rd Battalion (Logistical Support Battalion), 313th Regiment, 174th Infantry Brigade, FIRST ARMY EAST * 2nd Battalion (Training Support Battalion), 310th Regiment, 174th Infantry Brigade, FIRST ARMY EAST * Detachment 1 J2/JT, United States Central Command, Army Reserve Element (ARE) * 395th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion * 77th Sustainment Brigade * 804th Medical Brigade * USNSCC Recruit Training Command New England (Summer only) * 756th Combat Engineer Company

Environmental contamination

On December 21, 1989, Fort Devens was listed as superfund because historic underground storage tanks/fuel depots had contaminated soils with heavy metals and petroleum products. In 2016, the Army started looking for

PFAS Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS, PFASs, and informally referred to as "forever chemicals") are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 millio ...

, which it detected in groundwater and in the municipal water supply wells for Devens and the Town of Ayer. In May 2021, Restoration Advisory Board community members were concerned about PFAs making their way into the

Nashua River The Nashua River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 is a tributary of the Merrimack River in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the United States. It ...

, especially with water from the river being used to irrigate crops in communities downstream. They also discussed progress of the pump and treat system to get dissolved

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

and iron at the 84-acre Shepley's Hill landfill site out of the groundwater remediation. As of 2022, there is ongoing groundwater remediation at the former Moore Army Airfield and the former Shepley's Hill Landfill in addition to long-term groundwater monitoring at four petroleum contaminated sites.

Cemetery

Fort Devens has a cemetery which has the graves of U.S. military personnel, their dependents and about 20 German and Italian prisoners of war who died there either during or shortly after World War II. A number of graves predate the fort's establishment as they were relocated after the closure of several coast defense forts in Boston Harbor after World War II. The oldest grave is that of 1st Lieutenant Robert F. Massie of the Corps of Artillery, who was killed in a sword duel with First Lieutenant Gustavus S. Drane at Fort Independence, in Boston Harbor, on Christmas Day 1817. The legend that Lieutenant Drane mysteriously disappeared after the duel and his remains were later discovered in a walled off part of Fort Independence is not true. In reality, Drane was later promoted to captain and continued to serve in the Army until his death in 1846. Massie was originally buried at Fort Independence, and his remains were relocated to Fort Devens, along with others buried at Forts in Boston Harbor, in the 1950s after the forts were closed. Lieutenant Edward John Kent Johnson of the

Confederate States Navy The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the Navy, naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the Amer ...

died as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in 1863. He was originally buried at Fort Warren but his remains were moved to Deer Island and Governors Island in Boston Harbor before being moved to Fort Devens in 1939. In 2002 his remains were finally returned to his home state of Florida.

In media

The Jack Benny Program ''The Jack Benny Program'', starring Jack Benny, is a radio and television comedy series. The show ran for over three decades, from 1932 to 1955 on radio, and from 1950 to 1965 on television. It won numerous awards, including the 1959 and 19 ...

'' broadcast on December 20, 1942 was recorded at Fort Devens. The fort is the setting for the play "Court-Martial at Fort Devens" by Jeffrey Sweet. Based on a true story, it tells of two Black WACs at the fort during World War II who went on strike after facing prejudicial treatment, and were subsequently

court-martialed A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the mili ...

References

Notes Bibliography *

External links

USAG Devens RFTA
(official homepage)
Fort Devens Environmental Cleanup
US Army Corps of Engineers New England District Website 2022 * {{MAMilitary Buildings and structures in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Worcester County, Massachusetts Devens World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States Military Superfund sites Devens University of Massachusetts Amherst Superfund sites in Massachusetts 1931 establishments in Massachusetts 1917 establishments in Massachusetts United States national cemeteries Cemeteries in Worcester County, Massachusetts