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 Camp
Lucky Strike was situated in the town of Saint-Sylvian, 5
kilometers from Saint-Valery-en Caux. Its location was not
selected by chance, but rather because the occupying
German troops had constructed an airfield there in 1940
with a landing strip 1800 meters long and 50 meters wide.
This airfield was one of the defensive elements of the
Atlantic Wall: surveillance and coastal defenses were also
a perfect starting point for attacks on southwest England.
V-1 rocket launching ramps were installed at the beginning
of 1944 in the woods surrounding the airfield. It was
heavily bombed by the British throughout the war, but
especially during the fighting which followed the June
1944 landings. In September 1944 American Engineer Corps
troops took control of the area, repairing the landing
strips and constructing the camp.
The camp became the most
important military camp in Europe. It extended over 600
hectares (1 hectare = approximately 2 ½ acres). It was a
mandatory port of entry for practically every American
soldier, and 1½ million spent from a couple days up to 18
months there. It was the principal camp used for
repatriated soldiers and liberated POWs, but also as a
reception station for soldiers on leave. It was also a
staging area for the Pacific Theater and — until August
10, 1945 — for the invasion of Japan. There were 100,000
men in the camp each day — 100,000 men to lodge, feed,
train, and entertain. (Regarding repatriation, there were
6,000 daily departures by plane or boat from Le Havre, the
only port liberated on the western coast that could
accommodate large ships.)
Camp Lucky Strike remained
active until the end of 1945, and was officially closed in
1946. After its closure, it was necessary to clear the
countryside and remove the cobblestone in order to return
the fields to the farmers. This work was done by hand by
numerous workers and lasted over a year. The French did
not possess the same enormous mechanical means that the
United States Army did. The cobblestone that was reclaimed
was returned to the beaches and also served to fill in the
many holes and trenches made by the German troops during
occupation. Thousands of cubic meters were also used to
construct the Cany-Barville Stadium (Cany-Barville, with a
population of 3,500, is located four kilometers south of
the site of Lucky Strike).
With the completion of the clearing of the camp proper, a
section of terrain approximately 150 meters wide, which
comprised the old landing strip, was handed over to a
French aeronautical association, who put on an air
exposition every two or three between 1946 and 1995. This
airfield, along with its buildings, was named the St.
Valery-Vitte Fleur Airport and covered a little more than
35 hectares. Closed in 1995 due to old age, the only thing
that remains of the airfield is the guard shack that was
at the entrance of the original camp at the intersection
of the roads leading toward St. Valery-en-Coax and
Cany-Barville.
Substantial traces of what was once the most important
Allied military camp in Europe during WW II no longer
exists, except perhaps in the memories of a few hundred
thousand surviving American veterans and as footnotes in a
few history books. |
