World War II era large-letter postcard, 1943 Camp Gordon was approved as the name for a WWII division training camp, which began construction in July 1941. The U.S. War Department approved a contract to construct facilities on a new training area near Augusta, in
Richmond County, Georgia, which had been selected several months earlier. A groundbreaking and flag-raising ceremony took place in October. In response to the
attack on Pearl Harbor, Colonel Herbert W. Schmidt, camp commander, moved his small staff from his temporary office in the
Augusta post office building to the unfinished headquarters building at Camp Gordon on 9 December 1941. The 4th Infantry Division began to establish operations there. The post was home to three divisions during the war: the 4th Infantry, the 26th Infantry, and the 10th Armored. From October 1943 to January 1945, Camp Gordon served as an internment camp for foreign
prisoners of war. From May 1945 until April 1946, the U.S. Army Personnel and Separation Center processed nearly 86,000 personnel for discharge from the Army. On the base there is a German and Italian POW cemetery containing the remains of 22 World War II era POWs. The cemetery is actually two separate cemeteries with the German POWs interred in one and the Italian POW interred in the other; however, because of a major accountability effort by the US Army in recent years and their close proximity to each other, they are often classified as one. The Italian and German POW's interred in the grounds died from either accidental or natural causes while housed as prisoners at what was originally called Camp Gordon.
Post-World War II shot administered by a
jet injector at Fort Gordon by John R. Gordon, representative of the
R.P. Scherer Corp. of
Detroit, August 1959. From early 1946 to June 1947, the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks for convicted criminals was located at Camp Gordon, and the installation was scheduled for deactivation. In September 1948 the Army relocated the Military Police School from Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, to Camp Gordon. In October 1948 a Signal Corps training center was activated here. On 21 March 1956, the post was renamed Fort Gordon. During the 1950s and into the 1970s, Fort Gordon served as a basic training facility under the US Third Army. During the Vietnam War, the post was home to
Camp Crockett, an area of the post conducting 9-week advance airborne infantry training courses for soldiers in line to attend their remaining 3 weeks of Airborne training at
Fort Benning, Georgia. These soldiers were headed for assignment to Airborne units in Vietnam. This location closed as the war ended; today the site is overgrown with pine trees. Between 1966 and 1968, approximately 2,200 Signal Officers were trained at the post's Signal Officer Candidate School (OCS), before all US Army branch OCSs were merged with the
Infantry OCS at Fort Benning. Until 1974 and the end of the Vietnam War, Fort Gordon was also a training location for the
Military Police Corps. This was located in the World War II wooden barracks corridor between Brainard Avenue and Avenue of the States, and in the Brems Barracks area of the fort. In 1974, the Army moved its main Signal School from
Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to Fort Gordon to consolidate all signal training in one location. The activity was designated as the US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon. At the same time, the Army moved the MP School to
Fort McClellan, Alabama, and the Civil Affairs School to
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Since June 1986 the post has been the home of the Signal Corps Regiment, the branch of the U.S. Army responsible for providing and maintaining information systems and communication networks. The US Army Signal School's primary purpose is to conduct specialized instruction for all Signal Corps military and civilian personnel. During the 1990s the post served as a home for deployable Signal and Military Intelligence units as well. The other major activity was health care, to include a Dental Lab along with a major Army Hospital, Dwight D. Eisenhower Medical Center. Fort Gordon is a diversified post where army Signal, Military Intelligence, Medical, and now Cyber are housed. The senior mission partner remains the US Army Cyber Center of Excellence.
Eisenhower method As Supreme Commander in World War II, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower prioritized the Allies' actions by a maxim paraphrased — "The important things are seldom urgent; the urgent things are seldom important"; however some things can be both urgent and important (
the Eisenhower box). One of Eisenhower's requirements was that a report to him fit on a single sheet of paper. This allowed Eisenhower to manage the workload. Eisenhower later popularized this maxim while serving as President of
Columbia University. The co-location of Cyber operations and the Cyber Center of Excellence has resulted in Fort Gordon shifting from a mission devoted to institutional training to becoming a 24/7 operational installation, to [Operate, Defend, Attack, Influence, and Inform] (ODAY, pronounced "o'day").
Renaming significance to the fort that used to bear his name. On 24 May 2022, the
Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America submitted a recommendation to Congress that the post be renamed to Fort Eisenhower, in commemoration of General of the Army
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the
34th President of the United States. The Cyber Center of Excellence was redesignated
Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Eisenhower on 27 October 2023 at Barton Field, the same location at which President Eisenhower delivered his final troop review speech on 7 January 1961. Fort Eisenhower was the last US Army installation to be renamed. The redesignation was attended by Eisenhower's granddaughter
Susan Eisenhower and
Christine Wormuth, the 25th
U.S. Secretary of the Army. The ceremony was presided over by Major General
Paul T. Stanton, the then-commanding general of Fort Gordon. and the Medal of Honor On June 11, 2025, it was announced that the current President,
Donald J. Trump, would rename the base back to Fort Gordon, now named after Medal of Honor recipient Master Sergeant
Gary Gordon. According to Maj. Gen. Ryan Janovic, commander of the Cyber Center of Excellence, the change was effective immediately, notably faster than other contemporaneous base renames. ==Consolidating operations and facilities==