Camp Livingston Louisiana WWII Army Camp

Camp Livingston: The Local Alexandria Angle

Changes and impacts abounded in Alexandria as the war grew closer to the United States. Suddenly there was a shortage of many of the basics of life, and a system of rationing was inaugurated. Families were issued ration books with stamps good for certain items such as gasoline, tires, meat, and sugar.

Within a 30-miles radius of Alexandria, the military constructed Camp Livingston, Camp Claiborne, Esler Field, Alexandria Army Air Base (later England Air Force Base), and reactivated Camp Beauregard. Camp Polk was located further west of Alexandria near Leesville.

Camp Livingston, active during 1940-1945, occupied about 47,000 acres and was a key element in the Louisiana Maneuvers. It was originally named Camp Tioga, but later renamed in honor of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, a negotiator involved in the Louisiana Purchase. Thousands of troops were based at the camp, which also included a POW facility.

To speed military vehicles around the area, a new four lane loop named MacArthur Drive was constructed through what was farms and pastures on the western outskirts of Alexandria. It featured state-of-the-art traffic circles and interchanges. Gardner Highway became a straight paved highway, rumored to be an emergency airplane runway.

Thousands of acres of rural land in Louisiana were selected by General Leslie McNair and Colonel Mark Clark to conduct maneuvers to train the United States' rapidly expanding military forces. The area ultimately selected to be used in the maneuvers extended over 2,400 square files, from the Sabine River to the Calcasieu River and north to the Red River.

Camp Livingston aerial, 1941. Courtesy of the Louisiana History Museum, Alexandria

During the Louisiana Maneuvers, Army strategists began by teaming division against division. Later the war games expanded to have corps fight against corps, and finally in the grand finale, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger's Third Army took the offensive against Lieutenant General Ben Lear's Second Army.

Other key commanders included Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chief of Staff, Third Army, and Brig. General Mark Wayne Clark, Maneuver Director, Omar Bradley, and George Patton, among other notables.

The armies of two mythical countries were assembled, totaling about 400,000 troops: Kotmk (Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky) and Almat (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee). Navigation rights for the Mississippi River was the reason for the "war".

During the maneuvers, Army commanders were able to test and simulate a variety of offenses and conventional defenses with attacks from armored vehicles.

Patton's tanks pushed back conventionally-armed defenders but failed to achieve a major, convincing victory. Army strategists also encountered recon and troop supply issues that would later be experienced in actual real-world battle situations, creating valuable experience for the Army prior to the U.S. entering the war.

The Army conducted similar, but smaller, Louisiana maneuvers in 1942 and 1943, but cancelled exercises in 1944 so soldiers could be part of the D-Day invasion in Europe.

Convoys associated with the maneuvers frequently moved around and through Alexandria, and residents reported waking up in the middle of the night and watching General Patton's tanks rumbling down city streets.

Alexandria only extended a few blocks west of Chester Street, and the outskirts were favorite places for the Army to set up their 155 millimeter cannon and anti-aircraft installations.

Sometimes soldiers would permit children to peek through their range finders and climb all over the cannons. Occasionally, opposing forces would engage in a battle and children would fill their pockets with spent blank rifle cartridges.