Description

36 pages
Located in the heart of the picturesque Ozark Mountain region, Camp Crowder is the home of the Army Service Forces Training Center, largest signal corps training center in the world. The post was named for General Enoch Herbert Crowder. native Missourian, who attained fame as the author of the Selective Act of the first World War and who, as Provost Marshal General, was responsible for its successful administration. He served as Judge Advocate General, and was for a time professor of military tactics at the University of Missouri. General Crowder predicted, on the day of the first World War Armistice: “We have stopped too soon … we should never have stopped until we were in Berlin. It will not be 25 years until we will have to do this all over again.” He was honored as a distinguished soldier, lawyer, statesman, diplomat and administrator and is well described by the simple words on his tombstone in Arlington Cemetery: “A military man who understood the spirit of a free people.” Ground was broken at Camp Crowder August 30, 1941, on what was then rolling farm land, dotted with small orchards, cornfields and modest farm homes. The first troops moved in December 2, just five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the declaration of war, work on the project was speeded and the serious business of training troops in ever greater numbers got immediately under way. Nearest town to Camp Crowder is Neosho, Newton County seat, six miles north of the post, with a prewar population of about 5,000. Larger towns of Carthage (population approximately 10,000) and Joplin (population about 40,000), lie some twenty miles further north, and may be reached by bus service.