Cigarette Camp

A Cigarette Camp was one of a number of temporary U.S. Army "tent cities" situated around the French ports of Marseilles[1][2] and Le Havre following its capture in the wake of the Allied D-Day invasion in mid-1944,[3] Camps were located in what the Army designated the "Red Horse" staging area and named after popular brands, including Camps Lucky Strike, Old Gold, and Pall Mall.[4]

Another series of temporary camps set up at the same time in France was named after United States cities, referred to as "City Camps".[5]

The Cigarette Camps were administered by the 89th Infantry Division, headquartered at Bois-Guillaume, near Rouen.[6]

Origin of names

The names of cigarettes and cities were chosen for two reasons:

First, and primarily, for security. Referring to the camps without an indication of their geographical location went a long way to ensuring that the enemy would not know precisely where they were. Anybody eavesdropping or listening to radio traffic would think that cigarettes were being discussed or the camp was stateside, especially regarding the city camps.

Secondly, there was a subtle psychological reason, the premise being that troops heading into battle wouldn't mind staying at a place where cigarettes must be plentiful and troops about to depart for combat would be somehow comforted in places with familiar names of cities back home (Camp Atlanta, Camp Baltimore, Camp New York, and Camp Pittsburgh, among others).[4]

The camps varied widely in size, from around 2,000 in capacity to nearly 60,000 at the largest of the "Big Three", Camps Philip Morris, Old Gold, and Lucky Strike.

French camps

The nine Cigarette Camps included:

Belgian camp

While not near Le Harve, France, Camp Tophat was a similar camp located near Antwerp, Belgium, named after a popular American brand of cigarette.[7] Exact capacity is unknown, but the single camp fielded "thousands of black 20-man tents".[7]

Role shift

By war's end both Cigarette and City camps' roles had shifted from gateways to combat to staging GI's for repatriation to the States, processing liberated American POWs, and temporarily confining German POWs.[4]

Post-war, many of the camps survived with yet new roles, including housing for displaced persons at least into the mid-1950s.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "And there were additional embarkation camps in Southern France, north of Marseilles, and, of course, Camp Tophat near Antwerp, Belgium."
  2. ↑ "The major ports had camps for embarkation both ways. They were called Cigarette Camps from their names. When the ports opened up that is where they would keep people and then send them to the front. Then when the war ended that is how they sent people out through the Cigarette Camps. Famous Cigarette Camps were in Marseilles and Le Havre."
  3. ↑ Sawyer and Mitchell, Victory Ships and Tankers, p. 24 http://www.marad.dot.gov/documents/Private_Frederick_C_Murphy_HAER_Report.pdf "The ship made crossings in 1946 carrying troops between the European Theater of Operations, especially Le Havre, France, and New York City, New York. From Le Havre, the ship often left from the area known as the 'Cigarette Camps.'”
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Cigarette Camps: Introduction http://www.skylighters.org/special/cigcamps/cigintro.html Skylighters.org
  5. ↑ City Camps http://www.skylighters.org/citycamps/Skylighters.org
  6. ↑ http://www.89infdivww2.org/combat/vevj3.htm
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Camp Tophat http://www.skylighters.org/special/cigcamps/camptophat.html Skylighters.org
  8. ↑ Camp Herbert Tareyton http://www.skylighters.org/special/cigcamps/cmptareyton.html Displaced persons were living in former American Nissen huts in 1955