FORT BELVOIR'S ENGINEER REPLACEMENT TRAINING CENTER

摘要

V.isitors to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, are probably struck by the modern stone buildings that line the main thoroughfares. At the height of World War II, those areas were considerably different. They were home to the Engineer Replacement Training Center (ERTC), located north of the main post, which was formally inaugurated in March 1941 in the ramp-up to America’s entry to that conflict. Conscription had been reintroduced in September 1940, and Fort Belvoir was transformed from a sleepy little Army post to a vast training establishment that, at the height of the war, turned out an average of 5,000 n trained engineer Soldiers per month. A second ERTC was established at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in May 1941 with cadre from Fort Belvoir; and a third, smaller ERTC was organized at Camp Abbot, Oregon, in the Deschutes National Forest in 1942.