and Major General
Ben Sternberg at Fort Campbell on July 23, 1966. The site for Fort Campbell was selected on September 9, 1941, and the Title I Survey was completed November 15, 1941, coincidentally the same time the
Japanese Imperial Fleet was leaving
Japanese home waters for the
attack on Pearl Harbor. Construction of Camp Campbell began on January 12, 1942. Within a year, the reservation designated as Camp Campbell was developed to accommodate one armored division and various support troops, with a total size of , and billets for 2,422 officers and 45,198 enlisted personnel. Due to its close proximity to Nashville, the War Department on March 7, 1941, designated Tennessee as the official address of the new camp. This caused a great deal of confusion. While the headquarters and a great majority of the base's acreage was in Tennessee, the base's
post office was in Kentucky. After many months of mail delivery problems, Colonel Guy W. Chipman requested that the address be changed to Camp Campbell, Kentucky. The War Department officially changed the address on September 23, 1942. Early in the summer of 1942, the post's initial cadre, one
officer and 19
enlisted men, arrived from
Fort Knox, Kentucky. From that time until the end of
World War II, Camp Campbell was the training ground for the
12th,
14th and
20th Armored divisions,
Headquarters IV Armored Corps and the
26th Infantry Division. Several formations were sent to Camp Campbell after the war and deactivated, one being the
5th Infantry Division in September 1946. In the spring of 1949, the
11th Airborne Division arrived at Campbell following
occupation duty in Japan. The 11th was in residence there until early 1956. By April 1950, the post had evolved from a wartime training camp to a permanent installation and was renamed Fort Campbell. From 1950 to 1962, the post operated an Airborne Course which trained nearly 30,000 soldiers as paratroopers before its inactivation. On September 21, 1956, Secretary of the Army
Wilber M. Brucker and the Army Chief of Staff, General
Maxwell D. Taylor, presented the colors of the 101st Airborne Division to MG
T.L. Sherbourne, the first commander of the new, previously experimental, ROTAD (Reorganization Of The Airborne Division) division. This ceremony officially reactivated the famed "Screaming Eagles" of World War II. On May 2, 1966,
Third Army General Order 161 directed the activation of a Basic Combat Training Center at Fort Campbell. On July 6, barely two months after its activation, Fort Campbell's Army Training Center received its first 220 newly inducted soldiers. Basic Combat Training began on schedule July 11 with a full complement of 1,100 trainees. The Training Center operated until April 15, 1972, when it was deactivated. The 1st Brigade was sent for duty in Vietnam in July 1965. Soon thereafter, upon the escalation of hostilities in Southeast Asia, the rest of the division arrived. Also in response to the military buildup, the
6th Infantry Division was reactivated at Fort Campbell on November 24, 1966, and inactivated July 25, 1968. In September 1971, the
173rd Airborne Brigade returned to Fort Campbell and conducted its official homecoming ceremonies, which were presided over by Secretary of Defense
Melvin Laird. The 173rd was then inactivated on 14 January 1972 and its personnel and the equipment used to rebuild the 3rd Brigade,
101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). The 3rd Brigade remained on jump status until April 1974, when its jump status was terminated and the division became entirely airmobile. On April 6, 1972, the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) was officially welcomed back to its home station after the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam. The ceremonies were attended by Vice President
Spiro T. Agnew and General
William C. Westmoreland, Army Chief of Staff. Fort Campbell had a children's theatre program until it closed down in 1983. On December 12, 1985,
246 servicemembers died with eight aircrews shortly after takeoff from
Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, during a return from peacekeeping duties in
Egypt. A memorial grove of trees and monument are near the post museum. As a result of the
tornado outbreak of December 9–10, 2023, about 250 Army families were displaced from their homes. The damage was especially severe in Clarksville, the town outside of the base, where an
EF3 tornado with estimated winds of killed 6 people there and in neighbouring areas. There were no reported fatalities among Fort Campbell personnel or their families. Roughly 1,100 Fort Campbell soldiers and family members were without critical services such as water, heat or electricity. Fort Campbell sustained no obvious significant damage.
Criminal incidents On July 5, 1999, Private First Class
Barry Winchell, 21, of 2nd Battalion,
502nd Infantry Regiment, was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in his barracks. The
murder was committed by Private Calvin Glover, who was egged on by Specialist Justin Fisher. Apparently the motive was punishing Winchell for falling in love with
Calpernia Addams, a transgender showgirl. Winchell died at
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Glover was later convicted for the murder, while Fisher was convicted of lesser crimes. Fisher was released to a
halfway house in August 2006 and was later released from all custody. Glover received a
life sentence and is eligible for
parole after 15 years. On October 13, 2005, Fort Campbell made international headlines when Private Nicholas Mikel opened fire on a group of soldiers training at the base. Private Mikel was arrested soon thereafter and charged with attempted murder. In April 2006 he was convicted of attempted premeditated murder and sentenced to 25 years
imprisonment.
2011 tornado Early on
April 26, 2011, a strong tornado struck the
Campbell Army Airfield at Fort Campbell, destroying one building and causing heavy damage to several others, all of which were large and well-constructed. Large doors were blown in on these buildings as well. Several other smaller buildings received minor to major damage, and numerous heavy vehicles were damaged, with at least three being flipped over. Immediately north of the airfield, across farmland, several dozen trees were downed, two barns were heavily damaged, three power poles were blown down, and some shingles were blown off of a house. The tornado was rated EF3 on the
Enhanced Fujita scale.
2023 Helicopter Training Crash Nine soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division were killed during a helicopter training exercise on March 29, 2023. Happening around 10 p.m. local time, two
HH-60 Black Hawk medical evacuation aircraft
crashed into each other, while pilots were using night vision goggles. Their helicopters crashed west of Fort Campbell in a partially wooded field. ==Operations and taxation==