Originally Camp Davis was conceived as a barrage balloon training center because of the miles and miles of flat ground, and as a coast artillery firing point because of easy access to the fine beaches of Sears Landing and Topsail Inlet.

  However, with the outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific, it became apparent that American air power could not begin to compare with the air armadas of the Axis ... just yet. Antiaircraft protection for vulnerable target areas was needed, and fast.

  Thus, almost overnight, the sprawling hundreds of thousands of acres that represented Camp Davis rumbled day and night with prime movers hauling antiaircraft artillery through the 20th Street gate. New and greatly improved weapons arrived here as fast as they were turned off of ordnance assembly lines and barrage balloons were literally pushed out of Camp Davis, all the way to Camp Tyson, Tennessee.

  Brigades, groups and battalions by the score have gone through the back-breaking training routine, conceived by the AAATC staff and carried out by individual unit officers. At first, it was necessary to rush combat units through their training and get them overseas to complete the work which, AAATC officers were frank to admit, had only begun. But time had a triple-A priority and the beleaguered defenses of Allied countries took new heart as American antiaircraft battalions dug their weapons in and began blasting the Axis from the sky.

ABOVE & BELOW: AA men at Camp Davis learn infantry tactics.