Camp Twenty Grand (Henouville/Duclair, France)

The 225th at Twenty Grand

A portion of the tent city that was Camp Twenty Grand, December 1945.

Robert King's (center) tent at Camp Twenty Grand. On the left is Sgt. Russel Girven and on the right is Cpl. Davis, December 1945.

Redeployment Information Center at Camp Twenty Grand. The bulletin board listed all units in camp (left-hand side) and both ships that had arrived at the port of Le Havre and ships that were due (right-hand side). The men looked at this board every day waiting "for their ship to come in." (December 1945).

The elementary school students of Henouville, France took this photo of a tree with "Richard Cauble, Big Spring, Texas" carved on it in 1945. (Henouville is a small village between Rouen and Le Havre; in 1944-45 the staging areas named for brands of cigarettes were situated close to the village.) The students found, in a local wood, trees carved with the names of soldiers from the camps. They traced Cauble's name and interviewed him in 1998. He was alive and well in Texas and remembered carving his name on the tree! To see the interview, click here, and then click on the links "histoire" and then on "les camps cigarettes." The students not only photographed the carvings, they transcribed them and mapped their locations on the trees (see next photo).

The Henouville students' photo of the carvings.

A GI and his best friend pictured at Camp Twenty Grand [photo contributed by Francis Gates of the 488th Engineers (see link below)].

One of the 488th Engineers at Camp Twenty Grand [photo contributed by Francis Gates of the 488th Engineers (see link below)].

Units Staged or Otherwise "Guests" at Camp Twenty Grand

Unit	Date(s) at Camp	Source	Notes
351st Field Artillery Battalion	Arr. Feb. 45 Dep. 6 Mar. 45	Web Site	—
214th Field Artillery Brigade	21 Apr. 45	Web Site	—
580th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion (Mobile)	9-11 Mar. 45	Terry Burroughs	Terry writes: "The 580th, which participated in the AA protection of many of the bridges on the Rhine, Weser, and Elbe Rivers, was in Camp Twenty Grand for two days in March 1945. My father, Hal D. Burroughs, was a Corporal in B Battery, manning a 40mm Bofors gun. The 580th was protecting the Remagen Bridge when it collapsed on March 17, 1945. The 580th's line of march was from Aachen in March, north to the Baltic Sea, and south through Germany to Traunstein by May 1945. It served in the 1st, 9th, and 3rd Army commands in the ETO. I was surprised to find that the AAA was the largest material and manpower effort of WW II."
815th AAA Battalion	Mar. 45	Web Site	—
488th Engineers	Jul. 45	Web Site	Hauled construction supplies and worked on building projects
89th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (89th Division)	Jul. 45	Web Site	Reconstituted as an MP detachment at the camp