Camp White, Oregon

The Camp White training site consisted of buildings and an area stretching to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. A few miles from the camp were Upper and Lower Table Rocks, flat rock formations hundreds of feet high and Mt. McGlaughlin which looked like an inverted ice cream cone. In addition to the 300th, Camp White was the training site for their sister battalion, the 299th Combat Engineers, with inductees mostly from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The training of combat engineers at Camp White was rigorous and diverse. It included close-order drills, fitness programs, obstacle courses, short and long (25 mile) hikes, manual of arms training, maintaining and firing rifles, bayonet practice, demolition, building and assembling bridges and bazooka training. Other training included map reading, scouting, patrolling, radio operation, tank and aircraft identification, first aid, infiltration and courses in improvising with whatever was available as it was needed to support a mission.

The engineers quickly learned that they would be expected to have a rifle in one hand and a shovel in the other. At the end of training, assignments were made based to some extent on civilian occupations as well as IQ and aptitude tests.

300th Engineer Warren Chancellor describes becoming a medic at Camp White:

I was originally assigned to 1st platoon, Company A [at Camp White]. After completing six weeks of basic training which included 20 mile hikes, forced march (four miles in 50 minutes with full field packs, rifle and gas mask), infiltration course and rifle range qualifying, I was told one morning to report to Company A headquarters. Capt. Swartz told me to report to Capt. Wills at the dispensary and I told him I was not sick and did not need to see the doctor. He informed me that my file indicated I was a good typist and had been employed in a pharmacy. He said they needed someone who could type and keep medical records. So I was told at that time I had been assigned to the medical detachment and transferred from Company A. I did continue to live in the Company A barracks.

I always thought it rather strange that since I was in a combat engineer unit that they would choose to use me as a typist rather than a rifleman since I had qualified as "Expert Rifleman." In the final analysis, I am sure everything worked out for the best.

A few years earlier, it was local support that brought Camp White to Oregon. In early 1941, the Medford, Oregon Chamber of Commerce suggested that the War Department consider a training site in the Medford area. The Army surveyed the region and chose the "Agate Desert," a flat area seven miles east of Medford. Following the development of the initial design, the War Department announced in May, 1941, that Camp White would be one of nine new training locations on U.S. soil.

Three days after the War Department engineers finished the detailed construction plans for Camp White, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. There was no doubt the training camp was needed. Construction began on an accelerated schedule on February 25, 1942 and was completed on December 14 that same year.

The camp consisted of three zones; a central building core for services, housing and administration and two huge ranges for training and maneuvers. The northwest range was "Beagle Range" and the southwest range was "Antelope Range." The core building area was a one mile wide rectangle.

Five firms combined to build the site at a cost of $27,500,000. Buildings were designed for versatility and speed of construction. All trim and details were uniform for a single "Camp White" look. Work was around the clock with most of the 10,000 construction workers living on site in tent cities. Even though work was almost frenetic, in the end, the camp was considered very well built.

On September 15, 1942, the camp was officially named "Camp George A. White" after the adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard who had recently died. It was 77 square miles and trained up to 40,000 troops at a time. For a time, Camp White became the second largest city in the state.

(Information for the history of Camp White came from the Camp White Museum.)

Following Basic Training at Camp White and a battalion parade before officers and the company commander, the 300th Engineers took a training trip to the high desert in Oregon. Taking with them only combat gear, clothes and personal items, the battalion moved out of Camp White in a convoy with their vehicles.

They moved north into the foothills and into the Cascade Mountains through small towns to a tiny town known as LaPine. The town had an open field and a small stream and a Jack Pine forest. An advance party had already laid out the area in neat rows under the shade of the pine trees. Company areas were designated for the men to put up pup tents with each company having a headquarters tent, mess tent, latrine, garbage pit, water bag and a supply tent. This was to be the new home of the 300th for their specialized training.

The men cut down trees, peeled the bark and hauled them out to be used by the Signal Corps as poles for telephone lines. They became proficient in the use of 30 caliber, water-cooled machine guns. Following the telephone project, the men folded up their tents and moved into the mountains to build a 35-mile road. They set up a rock crusher and hauled the rock to build a road that was lined with large rocks on each side.

After the road building project, it was time to test their soon to be used combat skills. This was a Combat Engineer Battalion and they would not only carry weapons but be expected to use them if necessary in combat. There were both day and night combat exercises. When these exercises ended, the 300th men returned to the LaPine base camp where they learned they had been ordered back to Camp White. The 300th Engineers had just about completed stateside training and now would be shipping out to Europe for more training in England and then on to the invasion.

In 1945, Camp White housed up to 2,000 prisoners of war. Due to a shortage of migrant labor during the war, the POWs were organized into labor groups and worked in agriculture in the region. After the end of the war in April 1946, Camp White was inactivated and buildings and land were sold. Olive drab buildings were moved from the camp site and could be seen throughout the region as stores, barns, gymnasiums and residences. The grazing lands were returned to local ranchers and war veterans purchased several thousand acres of the land at very affordable prices. The city of Medford, Oregon took 1,000 acres.

Veteran and civic groups began a campaign to save the remaining hospital complex and barracks. In 1948, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to turn the remaining camp over to the Veteran's Administration. Today, seven wood frame structures and the 28 brick hospital buildings house more than 1,000 beds for treatment of veterans.

The Camp White Military Museum was dedicated on November 11, 1997 in Building 200 on the Veteran's Administration campus. Military memorabilia is displayed at the museum including guns, medals, letters, posters and historic uniforms. The museum has a large collection of Camp White's history which is being collected and preserved.

300th Engineer Don Richter describes training at Camp White:

I remember arriving at dingy, smoky Camp White with the view of the Table Rocks in one direction and the inverted ice cream cone in the other. What about that cadre that preceded us there and the close order drill and morning calisthenics. There was KP, guard duty, tests, short-arm inspections, and shots, shots, shots. Rifle cleaning, target practice, ten minute breaks, combat training, and training films became a way of life for us. Twenty mile hikes and later bivouacs. There was bridge building, blowing up bridges, blasting holes for a firing range, scaling the Table Rock, laying and clearing minefields, crawling under barbed wire with live ammunition, machine gun and hand grenade training and compass reading exercises in pine forests.

There was real competition to excel between the squads of platoons, between platoons of the companies and between the companies of the battalion. Lt. Frank Levitski, an outstanding young officer and soldier, was Platoon Commander of the Second Platoon of Company B. He was determined to have the best platoon in the battalion and drove his men pretty hard to attain this.

I recall when Gene P. Falvey came to B Company as a new Second Lieutenant and announced that we were all out of shape and left a lot to be desired as soldiers. There were to be some changes made as he took over as the Platoon Commander of the Third Platoon of Company B. He must have impressed someone because he was named Company B Commander. There were white glove inspections, field inspections and dress parades. Finally basic training was over and we were real soldiers in the Corps of Engineers at least.

Cecil Milliner, one of the original trainers the 300th at Camp White, describes some of the elements of basic training:

In basic training a trainee learns "Military Courtesy" with the hand salute; the face movements (right face, left face, about face); marching movements (forward, to the rear, right and left flank and oblique); open ranks for inspections and closed rank; the attention ("Ten-HUT"), at ease and parade rests. Weapons training included manual of arms, how to care for your weapons and triangulation before going on the rifle range. On the rifle range one learns safety around weapons, how to shoot from the prone, sitting, kneeling and standing positions. Other training was camouflage; bridge building (footbridge, Bailey bridge, ponton bridge, wood bridges); building tank traps of various kinds; barbed wire entanglement construction; how and where to use explosives of all kinds; how to set out booby traps and to probe for them and how to disarm them and setting out the different tank mines. Infantry movements included the skirmish line, diamond formation, in-line formation and compass training. The 300th were also trained with machine guns (tommy guns, burp guns, 50 caliber); the 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol; 30 mm and the 4.2 mm mortars and use of the anti-tank guns of various kinds. They learned how to set up a bivouac; performed forced marches up to fifteen miles one way and back and stood guard duty and did assault boat training while crossing a river.

In 1996, a half-century later, Eugene Powell, 300th veteran, wrote of his memories of Camp White:

My negative impression of the camp on first view and later, when spring arrived, to discover just how beautiful the mountains, forests and streams were.

The platoon standing at attention in front of our barracks, in the sleet, for some infraction of the rules and being chewed out by our company commander.

The forced march that entailed rushing up a small but very steep hill that carried the promise of a ride back to camp for the first few to arrive at the top.

My furlough home and the return trip.

My sudden and unexpected orders to participate in the Army Specialized Training Program.

The search for my friend and bunk mate at Camp White, Sleepy Young, and his search for me over the span of four decades and our eventual reunion in South Houston.

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