5. The cigarette camps in France
After the Allies gained footholds in France around Le Havre in the north, and Marseille in the south, the American army established a series of camps at which newly arrived reinforcements and replacements would be temporarily stationed. They were named for popular American cigarettes of the time (Camp Old Gold, Camp Lucky Strike, Camp Philip Morris, etc.) and consisted of tent housing and wooden shacks for the administration facilities. The camps were also loading points for the supplies sent to the front with the ubiquitous US Army two-and-a-half-ton trucks. In early 1945, as it became apparent that the collapse of Germany was imminent, the camps were equipped with more permanent structures such as wooden barracks and recreational facilities.
When the Army began reducing its ranks in accordance with the points system which determined who was going where the camps took on a new purpose. Those being released were sent to some of them to be formed into what were essentially new military units, though they for the most part retained current military designations. Those units being reformed for deployment to the Pacific were likewise sent to the camps to absorb their new personnel, where veterans of European combat were merged with newly arrived personnel and those who wanted to remain in the army. All of the units remaining in Europe as occupation forces lost cohesion as a result of the transfer of so many of their personnel, and the camps were used to retrain the units sent to them.
