THE MILITARY BEAT
by Billy R. Greene
PINE CAMP NEW YORK
Pine Camp was started in 1908 as a training camp for the National Guard units from the New England states. At the start of WW II, Pine Camp was taken over by the Army and used to train division sized units.
During WW II the 4th and 5th Armored Divisions trained here. The camp also had a P.O.W. housing area, where 1,000 P.O.W.'s were interned at Pine Camp. In late 1944 Pine Camp became one of several bases which trained Italian Service Units in the U.S.A.
Located ten miles east of Watertown NY, near the town of Great Bend, Pine Camp had its own air field, Wheeler Sack Field, one mile NNW of Great Bend. Pine Camp remained active after WW II and was renamed Camp Drum, in honor of Lt. Gen. Hugh Drum, Commander of the NY National Guard. In 1974 Camp Drum was declared a permanent post and is now called Fort Drum. Now its main function is the training of National Guard and Reserve Units from all over the Northeastern United States.
Editors notes:
The plate shown is from the Haynes Collection, it is copied at its original size.
I would never repaint it from this condition which is black on an off white.
Final note: As a New Yorker, raised just South of Buffalo, my Dad loved to take his family East to the Adirondack Mountains, for our summer vacations. I remember one such trip in a 1953 Mercury, that was detoured many miles off course and on awful roads because the "Boys" at Camp Drum, were firing live rounds over the State Highway that had been our planned route. NY is not all city as some suspect, there are plenty of wide open spaces. Enough for artillery fire anyway...