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Fort Campbell

Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located between the KentuckyTennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee. Though the base's postal address is nominally listed as being in Kentucky (due to the location of the base's headquarters), the majority of the post itself is physically located across the state line in Tennessee. Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The fort is named in honor of Union Army Brigadier General William Bowen Campbell, the last Whig Governor of Tennessee.

The site for Fort Campbell was selected on September 9, 1941, and the Title I Survey was completed November 15, 1941, coincidentally the same time the Japanese Imperial Fleet was leaving Japanese home waters for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Construction of Camp Campbell began on January 12, 1942. Within a year, the reservation designated as Camp Campbell was developed to accommodate one armored division and various support troops, with a total size of 102,414 acres (414 km2), and billets for 2,422 officers and 45,198 enlisted personnel.

Due to its close proximity to Nashville, the War Department on March 7, 1941, designated Tennessee as the official address of the new camp. This caused a great deal of confusion. While the headquarters and a great majority of the base's acreage was in Tennessee, the base's post office was in Kentucky. After many months of mail delivery problems, Colonel Guy W. Chipman requested that the address be changed to Camp Campbell, Kentucky. The War Department officially changed the address on September 23, 1942.

Early in the summer of 1942, the post's initial cadre, one officer and 19 enlisted men, arrived from Fort Knox, Kentucky. From that time until the end of World War II, Camp Campbell was the training ground for the 12th, 14th and 20th Armored divisions, Headquarters IV Armored Corps and the 26th Infantry Division. Several formations were sent to Camp Campbell after the war and deactivated, one being the 5th Infantry Division in September 1946.

In the spring of 1949, the 11th Airborne Division arrived at Campbell following occupation duty in Japan. The 11th was in residence there until early 1956.

By April 1950, the post had evolved from a wartime training camp to a permanent installation and was renamed Fort Campbell.

From 1950 to 1962, the post operated an Airborne Course which trained nearly 30,000 soldiers as paratroopers before its inactivation.

On September 21, 1956, Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker and the Army Chief of Staff, General Maxwell D. Taylor, presented the colors of the 101st Airborne Division to MG T.L. Sherbourne, the first commander of the new, previously experimental, ROTAD (Reorganization Of The Airborne Division) division. This ceremony officially reactivated the famed "Screaming Eagles" of World War II.

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