Ceremony Planned For 80th Anniversary Of D-Day At Camp Shanks Museum

ORANGEBURG, NY — The public is invited to a ceremony Thursday commemorating the 80th anniversary of D Day to be held at the Camp Shanks Museum in Orangetown.

Camp Shanks — also known as "Last Stop USA" — was the nation's biggest embarkation port for US troops during World War II, said Camp Shanks Historian Kevin O'Rourke in a news release. And its story is an amazing one.

More than 3 million troops passed through Camp Shanks, on the west side of the Hudson River, 15 miles north of New York City, between 1943-46. They came to embark for North Africa and England.

Many of the troops who marched out of here now lie in cemeteries in Europe. "For them Camp Shanks was indeed 'Last Stop USA,'" O'Rourke said.

Those who came back, many of them wounded, passed through Camp Shanks on their way to be discharged or treated at Army hospitals.

Orangeburg was chosen as the Army's Port of Embarkation because it was served by roads, two railroads, and was close to the Hudson River and the New York docks. The land was mostly farms in 1942 and required not much work to transform it into a metropolis, O'Rourke said.

When the Army moved in September 1942, they called a meeting of the 100-plus land owners, telling them they were taking their land under the War Powers Act and gave them two weeks to move out. They were given first option to buy their land back after the war. A few did but many moved away for good, O'Rouke said.

Construction on the camp began in October 1942 as 17,000 workers were hired in shifts that went 24 hours a day to make the January opening date. It was the coldest winter on record in the Hudson Valley; the temperature (not windchill) hit 26 below zero one day in February 1943.

Shanks was over 2,000 acres, had bunks for over 46,000 troops at any given time and was a city of 50,000 people. The camp operated 24 hours a day. It had 5,000 military personnel to operate it along with 1,500 civilian workers, and 400 Women Army Corps personnel were among the military staff.

The 101st Airborne and many other troops came by rail from all over the U.S. to Shanks where they waited to be taken aboard ships and sail for Europe. Lucky ones got to go on either the Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth, he said.

Entertainers from both Broadway and Hollywood including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, Ethel Merman, Myrna Loy, Mickey Rooney, and Jimmy Durante performed on stage there for the troops. Boxing greats like Joe Louis and Ray Robinson fought there. Exhibition baseball played there, teams such as the Brooklyn Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox.

The entire 82nd Airborne Division was stationed at Shanks in January 1946 to take part in the mammoth victory parade up Fifth Avenue that month.

In September 1946, the 1,500 barracks were made into small apartments, three in a barracks, for low-cost veterans’ housing. It became the nation’s largest veterans’ housing project, accommodating 4,000 GI families, many of them attending the region's colleges on the GI Bill.

General Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University, toured Shanks Village in October 1948 to visit his former troops, many of whom were now his students. Addressing them, he called Shanks “the best damned place” to live, adding they would look back someday as these days as the “best years of your life.”

The veterans — all survivors of the Great Depression — had no money but a lot of ambition and ingenuity, learning how to make it while marrying and having children.

"Shanks Village became known as the Ph.D pad and baby factory," O'Rourke said.

They rented their apartments for $32 a month and for an extra dollar the Public Housing Authority threw in bedding and kitchen utensils. They planted gardens and grew a lot of their own food; they survived the Blizzard of 1947 in non-winterized barracks; they set up their own food co-op store and purchased groceries at wholesale prices.

They went into all walks of life when they left Shanks Village, becoming college presidents, deans, politicians, doctors, and lawyers, O'Rourke said.

Shanks officially closed in 1956 and the land was sold to developers.

Each year many veterans and their families returned to Orangeburg to revisit Camp Shanks, but found it replaced by hundreds of homes in developments and the Palisades Interstate Parkway, which bisects the property between Exits 5 and 7.

But it was not forgotten, and a museum was opened on June 6, 1994 with support from the state and the town. Over the years many veterans' organizations have volunteered their time and knowledge.

"Thirty years later we are going to have another commemoration for the 80th anniversary of D-Day to commemorate the 1.3 million brave solders that passed through Camp Shanks," said O'Rourke who is also Sergeant At Arms for the Sons of American Legion Squadron 329. "The Sons of the American Legion are going to present a wreath at the Camp Shanks Flag pole on June 6th at 11 am in honor of over 100,000 of our S.A.L National membership's fathers that went through Camp Shanks and over 10,000 of our National membership's fathers who never returned. There was a mighty force that left here and helped to stop Hitler and his Nazi Germany. This mighty force helped to change Western civilization as we know it today. This mighty force that left here help saved the world a long time ago. And for those Brave Solders who left here and never returned, they gave up their tomorrows for our today. May God Bless Them ALL."

• WHERE: Camp Shanks Museum, 20 South Greenbush Road, Orangeburg, NY (behind the Orangeburg Library)
• WHEN: 11 a.m. June 6