A quick nod to teamwork and dedication and a thank you.

 

The Civilian Conservation Corps (1933-1942) was a model of cooperative effort involving multiple government agencies at the federal and local level.  The teamwork of the military and the technical agencies like the Forest Service, Soil Conservation Service, Bureau of Reclamation and so forth, was likely the linchpin on which the whole effort turned.

I'm hoping I can resume posts here and at the CCC Resource Page.  Perhaps I'll consolidate all of the articles in one blog, moving the posts from this blog over to the more aptly named CCC Resource Page.  

My thanks to those of you who've checked in over the years. I don't think I've posted anything of merit since 2014.  I appreciate that anyone bothers to drop in after such a long silence on my part.  

Thank you

Some Administrative Housekeeping

© Michael I. Smith, 2014

BACKGROUND

This is the first post at Forest Army for 2014 and it seems that perhaps it is time to undertake some administrative housekeeping.  Frequent visitors here will know that I maintain a separate – more active – Civilian Conservation Corps blog at the Civilian Conservation Corps Resource Page.  Eventually, I may phase out posts here at Forest Army and hopefully migrate content that is currently here, over to the CCC Resource Page but in the meantime, visitors can jump between the two blogs by clicking the image under the phrase “Please visit my other CCC blog” which appears along the left hand side of the blog page here.  I hope that visitors will find ample reason to jump between the two in search of new, interesting CCC material but my hope is that you won’t find the jumping between blogs to be too bothersome.

BUYER BEWARE!

Recently, while doing a Google search for material related to the Civilian Conservation Corps, an image from this blog appeared with the related Google images.  Problem was, when I checked the source of the image, the link took me to a different blog with a very similar name.  More shocking still, that blog is an exact copy of the Forest Army blog you are viewing here, except the posts are listed as having been posted by a  “Walters Louann”.  Fortunately, the copyright line I put at the end of my articles does appear on the mirror site but it’s disconcerting to see your work posted verbatim on another blog.  I sent an email to the Google Blogger folks but, perhaps not surprisingly, there was no response.  I suspect the site that is mirroring my blog is coming from overseas; perhaps Asia.

I’m not relaying this bit of information because I think you should go over and view the blog that is basically an exact copy of my Forest Army blog, not even out of basic curiosity.  On the contrary, I think you should avoid going to that blog because I don’t have any idea what sort of spam or malware might be attached to the links they are using.  Going forward, you will likely see my copyright information more prominently posted here at Forest Army and at the CCC Resource Page.  I research and write about the CCC in order to share information and I’m pleased when visitors comment that my site is helpful or interesting and I generally agree to any requests to use information or link to my page, but obviously, finding a pirate blog that purports to be Forest Army is frustrating and I will do what I can to make certain that my own research and writing is recognized, for better or worse.

DROP ME A NOTE

Please enter a comment or question if you have one either here or at the CCC Resource Page.  Feedback, any feedback, is often the spark that motivates people to continue researching and writing and the effort becomes somewhat meaningless if the worker never hears back from the folks using the product of his or her labor.

© Michael I. Smith, 2014

Raising and Deploying a Conservation Army



Note:  A longer version of this article appeared in the May/June 2013 issue of Army Engineer magazine.  I have retained the original references list but retitled it “For Further Reading” since some of the sources listed were not used for the portions of the article that appears here.  Also, throughout this piece I refer to the “army” as the driving force behind the mobilization and deployment of the CCC.  In fact the War Department was the military agency tasked with the job of in-processing and caring for enrollees and the bulk of that task fell to the Army, however you will find instances of CCC camps being run by Marine Corps and Navy officers as well.

Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees, Fort Knox conditioning camp, 1934.



On March 24, 1933 the commanders of all nine Army Corps areas received a secret radio communique, warning of a potential task of national importance about to be delegated to them.  No doubt the message was received with some trepidation, angst and frustration, for the upshot of the broadcast was that the United States Army should prepare for a mass mobilization of men that would ultimately exceed that which was undertaken in connection with America’s involvement in World War I.  And yet, while many in the military may have cursed their luck in early 1933, by years’ end many would agree with the sentiments of Colonel Duncan K. Major who, writing in the July-August 1933 issue of Army Ordnance, noted that “Few military campaigns have equaled such a performance.  To the Army it offered a real opportunity.” 



What sort of message would cause the Corps area commanders to sit up and take notice?  Anticipating passage of the bill to create the Civilian Conservation Corps, the War Department sent word to all nine Corps commanders, putting them on notice that the initial tasks of in-processing, conditioning, organizing, equipping and transporting the new enrollees to their respective railheads would fall to the Army.  From the outset, and even as the first enrollees began to roll in following the passage of the legislation that created the CCC on March 31, 1933, the role of the Army was to have been limited, with control of the new enrollees reverting to various technical services such as the Forest Service and National Park Service at the earliest opportunity.  Given the world situation and the state of military preparedness in the United States in 1933, it is little wonder that even this supposedly limited military role met with concern both within the military and in civilian circles.

Many Americans, wary of burgeoning militarism overseas and with memories of World War I still fresh in their minds, opposed anything that smacked of increased militarism or rearmament at home and the status of the United States military, ranked 17th in the world, was a reflection of this broad sentiment.  In 1933 most Army units were far from fully staffed; George C. Marshall commanded a battalion that should have counted upwards of 1,000 men on its roster but which in fact could muster barely 200 men.  Not surprising then that within the military ranks the postwar officer corps questioned, justifiably, the military’s ability to undertake even a limited role in the mobilization of the CCC while still maintaining any sort of national defense posture in the process.

Letter to Cpt. James N. Luton, 323rd Infantry
informing him that his application for active
duty service with the CCC has been received.  1936.

And yet, that is exactly what happened, and more.  When it became clear that the agencies involved (Department of War, Department of Labor, Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture) would be unable to meet President Roosevelt’s goal of placing 250,000 young men in forestry camps by July 1, 1933, under the original organizational matrix, the Army assumed control of all matters except supervision of the work being done.  With its expanded role, the Army reluctantly found itself in charge of CCC enrollees all hours of the day except the time they were away from the camp working for the technical service – approximately eight hours a day, five days a week. 



The increased Army role cleared some of the logjams, but mobilizing and deploying enrollees continued to lag behind and it remained clear that the President’s goal would still not be met.  Again the Army was called in to formulate a plan.  Given less than 40 hours, Colonel Duncan K. Major, the Army’s representative on the President’s Advisory Council assembled sections from the General Staff and worked through the day and night of May 11^th and into the early hours of the 12^th to assemble the relevant facts, draw appropriate conclusions and propose a suitable recommendation that concluded with the following blunt proposal:

It is therefore recommended that if the decision is to place 274,375 men in work camps by July 1, 1933, the Director give the War Department its full mission at once, provide the means for its accomplishment and then protect it from all interference.  The means to be provided are: 1. $46,000,000 to be transferred at once; 2. An Executive Order waiving restriction on purchases; 3. The necessary instructions to the Department of Labor covering selection.



The updated plan was immediately approved by President Roosevelt and the impact of the Army’s further expanded role and greater discretionary power was almost immediate.  Whereas just 52,000 young men had been enrolled in the CCC by May 10^th, national enrollment jumped to over 62,000 by May 16^th, increased by another 8,100 men on the 17^th and further increased by 10,500 men on the 18^th of May.  Ultimately, the President’s goal to have a quarter million enrollees working in more than 1,000 camps by July 1, 1933 was met because the Army was given greater flexibility and the massive effort decentralized down to the level of the nine Corps areas.  In an article in the January-February 1934 issue of The Military Engineer Major John Guthrie, Corps of Engineers, reported the results of that effort with pride:



This whole movement was an unprecedented mobilization.  An average of 8,450 men per day was enrolled.  To accomplish the movements from conditioning camps (Army posts) to work camps, 211 special trains were used, carrying 64,196 men in 1,605 sleepers and coaches; of these, 55,130 men went from Corps Areas I, II, and III to the far west.  To equip and supply this tree Army of 314,000 men has been a tremendous job in itself.

The effort truly was unprecedented, but it was a drain on the Army’s resources.  All but two Army schools were closed, their faculty and students mobilized for duty with the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Of the 9,936 regular Army officers available when the CCC was established, 5,239 were called up for full time service related to the CCC, but there was satisfaction in a job well done and by mid-1933, even Colonel Major, initially a skeptic, was moved to write glowingly of the CCC mobilization for Army Ordnance.

Regular Army officers and an NCO at Camp Roosevelt,
the first CCC camp, 1933.
 

History records the War Department’s nearly decade long association with the CCC as an unparalleled success and despite rough patches, especially in the early months, and despite the public’s initial fear that the CCC would somehow become “militarized” by its connection to the Army, media accounts of the CCC eventually became heavy with military metaphors (“tree Army,” “soil soldiers,” “forests protected by ‘shock troops’ of the CCC”) and by the early 1940s the CCC’s effort was refocused on national defense work as the economy improved and enrollment declined, but always with an eye toward improving the enrollee, too.

Eventually, active duty officers were rotated out of CCC service, replaced by reserve officers from all branches of the military, many of them eager for an opportunity to hone their leadership skills and often out of work in their civilian professions, much like the enrollees in the camps they came to lead.  Despite the odd difficulty or adversity in the local camps all the way up to the Corps level, the record of the Army and the War Department in connection with the CCC is unmatched in our history.  The largest peacetime mobilization, the sustained deployment and provisioning of a peacetime conservation Army over nearly a decade and tangible improvements in military readiness are the legacy of the Army’s association with the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Military officers, active duty and reservists, gained valuable experience leading company-sized units, learned to manage and account for equipment, experienced the sad duty of dealing with sick, injured and dead enrollees and perhaps just as importantly, served as positive models for millions of men who became veterans in their own right because of the U.S. entry into World War II.  While there are no hard and fast figures to show how many CCC enrollees went on to serve in the military, one recent history claims the number may be as high as 90 percent.  Even if one estimates the number of enrollees who entered the military at a more conservative 50 percent, it still must be acknowledged that the other 50 percent likely entered the home front workforce where they put their newly learned job skills to very good use in support of the war effort.  In any event, the significance of the CCC is unquestionable and the role of the U.S. Army in the success of the CCC is equally undeniable.  Little wonder then that no less a figure than General George C. Marshall, himself a CCC district commander, a World War II leader, Secretary of State and Nobel Prize recipient said of the Civilian Conservation Corps:  “I found the CCC the most instructive service I have ever had and the most interesting.” 

Military staff at a CCC camp in Wisconsin.

Phoenix CCC District staff, 1936.

For Further Reading

Captain “X”, “A Civilian Army in the Woods,” Harper’s Monthly Magazine, March 1934, 487-497.

Coffman, Edward M., The Regulars:  The American Army 1898-1941 (Cambridge, MA:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press).

Guthrie, John D., “The Civilian Conservation Corps,” The Military Engineer, Jan-Feb, 1934, Vol. XXVI No. 145, 15-19.

Johnson, Charles W., “The Army and the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-42,” Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, Fall 1972, 138-156.

Maher, Neil M., Nature’s New Deal (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2008).

Major, Duncan K., “Mobilizing the Conservation Corps:  The Army Does a Gigantic Job in Record Time,” Army Ordnance, July-Aug, 1933, Vol. XIV No.79, 33-38.

Mays-Smith, Kathy, Gold Medal CCC Company 1538 (Paducah, KY, Turner Publishing Company, 2001).

McKoy, Kathleen L., Cultures at a Crossroads:  An Administrative History of Pipe Springs National Monument (Denver, CO:  U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2000).

 Pasquill, Robert, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, 1933-1942:  A Great and Lasting Good (Tuscaloosa, AL:  University of Alabama Press, 2008).

Salmond, John A., The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942:  A New Deal Case Study (Durham, NC:  Duke University Press, 1967).

Whittlesey, Lee H., Death in Yellowstone:  Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park (Lanham, MD:  Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1995).

Images from the author’s collection.

© Michael I. Smith, 2013

  

 

After the Sacrifice: A Grim and Dismal Business

While we might argue whether grief comes before numbness or vice versa, I’m inclined to think that inevitably grief or numbness will be replaced by collective amnesia.  Consequently, I feel compelled to put down some thoughts in the wake of the Yarnell Hill tragedy and, perhaps not surprisingly, the touchstone for me is a similar tragedy that occurred three quarters of a century ago in a Wyoming forest.  More to the point, I’m thinking of events that took place in the aftermath of that Wyoming tragedy and how they square with the events taking place in Arizona in the blazing, unforgiving summer of 2013.  In the midst of grief and numbness and before amnesia, there is a grim and dismal business that seems always to require attending to in sad situations such as this.

A photograph of 19 flag-draped body bags lying in the burn area emerged in the days immediately following the Yarnell Hill tragedy and in short order there has been debate regarding whether such an image is appropriate and whether it might be too intrusive.  While I rarely editorialize here, I will say in this case, that the sad image of 19 flag-draped forms is a fitting eulogy to young men who gave up their very existence in the fight against wildland fire.  I only wish things had been the same 75 years ago when flames overtook the CCC crews at Blackwater; however in their case, there were no flags, only canvas.  

I’ve chosen not to post the final image of the Yarnell Hill 19 lying near where they likely fell but anyone with an ounce of internet savvy will be able to find it.  On the other hand, I am posting a picture from the 1937 Blackwater Creek tragedy with the hope that it will generate some thought regarding how much things have changed in 75 years of forestry, firefighting and humanity. 

 In the hours immediately after the 1937 Blackwater blow up and its tragic consequences, fire suppression work all but ceased as crews fanned out into the burn to search for victims.  Most of the dead were discovered in the process of extricating another group – the living, the dead and dying – who had been trapped by the blow up.  With help from rescue parties, the scarred and fatigued survivors carried the dead and dying down to the lower fire camps where they were tended to before being transported to hospitals in Cody, Wyoming.

It strikes me that retrieval of the dead in cases like the Yarnell Hill Fire, as with other recent tragedies that have preceded it, must be undertaken as a mix of requiem and a search for investigative clarity.  There are honors to be rendered but also questions to be answered.  The impulse to mourn will be interrupted, abruptly and perhaps grudgingly, by the desire to find answers, to learn lessons and perhaps even assess blame.  I do not get the impression that such was the case 75 years ago on the fire scarred hillsides of a forest near Yellowstone National Park.  The body of Ranger Al Clayton and the six men who died with him were removed in the late morning and early afternoon of August 22, 1937 and a local newspaper reporter wrote of the scene:

Seven pack-horses, each with angular forms wrapped in canvas and lashed to the saddles, filed slowly out of the wooded ravine and stopped at the cars.  Over a hundred wide-eyed, ashen-gray youngsters, just ready to go to the fire line, pushed forward, drawn by a chilling magnetism to see what their former comrades looked like.

No flag-draped body bags, no honor guard processions, just canvas wrapped parcels somewhat ghoulishly exhibited for all to see in a grim processional.  In the midst of the death and fear – in spite of the death and fear - fresh CCC crews continued to arrive until at one point more than 500 men were fighting the Blackwater Fire.  By noon on Tuesday, August 24th the fire was listed as officially under control and on the following day the Forest Service supervisors began to release CCC crews to return to their camps and their regular duties.  Finally, on August 31st, ten days after the fatal blow up and almost two weeks after lightening started a seemingly inconsequential blaze, the last of the firefighting crews were disbanded, having constructed more than eleven miles of fire line in the process of extinguishing the Blackwater Fire.

Photos of the recovery of the Blackwater victims appeared in the August 1941 issue of Sports Afield and perhaps elsewhere and I am unaware of any backlash at the time.  Perhaps the passage of four years’ time helped dull the impact.  Perhaps the amnesia had already begun to set in by that point.  Perhaps the growing global carnage diminished Blackwater’s fiery cataclysm down to seemingly nothing by comparison.  Perhaps people simply had thicker skins 75 years ago.

I have argued that the dead of Blackwater have not received the same sort of recognition as their firefighting brethren who have perished on the fire lines in recent memory, but one thing seems constant over the decades.  Praised or unsung, the heroes have done their work and perished in the doing.  The dismal grim business remains for us, the living, to undertake and sadly that business won’t be quick or clean.

While there appears to have been no backlash following the publication of the photos of
the removal of those killed in the Blackwater blow up, one gets the impression from the
expressions on the faces of the men in this image that they were uneasy knowing that the
grim scene was being photographed.

You can read an earlier, more detailed post about the Blackwater tragedy here.

©Michael I. Smith, 2013

A Salute to NACCCA/CCC Legacy Chapter 44

CCC veterans gathered for an
event in Paysonm, AZ. (L-R):
James Grose, Arquimedes Fraijo, Jack
Duncan, Owen Carolan, John
McLeod (rear), Bill Millard
Fred Garcia and Mackie Clark

Chapter 44 of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA) was organized in 1981 and since that time has been in continuous operation under the guidance of ten different presidents and a host of able officers including Audrey Clark who has served as our valued Chapter Secretary for many years, Fred Garcia, our Chapter Treasurer who has put in more time as a Chapter officer than anyone else, and Jack Duncan, our long-serving and most recent Chapter Vice-President. 



For those not inclined to do the math, that’s 31 years of effort, working to preserve and share the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  In that time, the Chapter has placed plaques and statues from one end of Arizona to the other; plaques in places like Grand Canyon National Park, the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix, Colossal Cave and Chiricahua National Monument and statues at Colossal Cave Mountain Park near Tucson and Phoenix South Mountain Park.  We created a CCC museum exhibit at South Mountain Park and hosted a traveling exhibit which we staffed at history events at South Mountain Park, Pueblo Grand Museum, the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Phoenix, in Payson, Arizona and elsewhere.

Gerald Johnson, CCC and USMC Veteran
and Arizona CCC statue donor

Certainly the crowning achievements in the Chapter’s resume must be the purchase and placement of two CCC worker statues in Arizona.  The initial task of raising funds for an Arizona CCC statue was undertaken as something of a shoestring effort but labored along for more than a year.  Just when it appeared that the fundraising effort would stumble into failure, CCC alumnus Gerald Johnson of Bisbee, Arizona stepped forward to donate sufficient funds to acquire Arizona’s first CCC statue, which was placed at the Colossal Cave visitor center.

Jack Duncan, CCC Veteran and
and Arizona CCC statue donor

We might have stood content to have helped get Arizona a single CCC worker statue but in typical we can do it fashion, another CCC veteran stepped forward to offer his help.  Jack Duncan, who worked in the CCC in Colorado and who has served so well as Chapter 44 Vice President put up the money to buy a second CCC worker statue outright.  Arizona’s second CCC worker statue was erected at Phoenix South Mountain Park.

In hindsight, it seems clear that Arizona would not have even one CCC worker statue were it not for the generosity of former enrollees Gerald Johnson and Jack Duncan, who provided sufficient funds to make the purchase.  Additional funds raised by Chapter 44 helped with incidentals associated with placement of the statues and remaining monies have been used to purchase the Happy Days newspapers and Arizona camp newspapers on microfiche for the Arizona State Archives.  The singular generosity of Gerald and Jack made it possible for the Chapter to do so much more in these last few years that would otherwise have been possible. 

CCC Plaque at Chiricahua NM
in Southeastern Arizona

Among the Chapter’s other significant accomplishments:  We commissioned a portable exhibit case, which we then filled with CCC artifacts and donated to the National Park Service in Flagstaff.  Chapter 44 hosted the 2004 NACCCA reunion and sponsored a writing competition to mark the 75^th anniversary of the CCC in 2008.  We donated funds to help restore a scale model of the battleship USS Arizona.  In 2010 we donated the entire available editions of Happy Days newspaper on microfilm to the Arizona State Archives and we have recently acquired all the available editions of Arizona CCC camp newspapers to donate to the State Archives in honor of the CCC’s 80^th anniversary early next year.  Along the way we also helped and inspired historians and writers including Robert Moore, Jane Jackson and Robert Audretsch, who sought us out in their efforts to document the history of the CCC.

 Nobody – nobody – can honestly claim to have done more to promote the history of the CCC in Arizona than the members of Chapter 44 over the past three decades.  You should all be proud of the effort because it was done through your work, your time and with donations large and small to the chapter treasury, even in the form of purchasing raffle tickets at our monthly meetings.

 

Our once robust little organization is winding down its operations even as we celebrate the 80^th anniversary of the CCC we all love so much.  By the end of 2013 we will cease operation and halt our quarterly meeting schedule but one day, I hope that scholars and historians will take a moment to note the largely anonymous efforts undertaken by Chapter 44 under the NACCCA banner, the CCC Legacy banner and finally as an independent social organization focused on keeping the story of the CCC alive. In the meantime, each of you should take pride in what you have accomplished as members of Chapter 44 and know that your efforts will help insure that people remember the important work of the CCC in Arizona and nationwide.

A small mystery solved.

In my last post at the  Civilian Conservation Corps Resource Page, I spoke of tying up loose ends and how those loose ends don’t always bind up as nicely as we might like. In that particular case, the loose ends didn’t quite come together but it was an exciting moment or two as I sought to identify where a particular photograph might have come from.

As it turns out, there’s a loose end here at Forest Army and as luck would have it, the ends came together much more neatly this time around. In a post I made back in late 2010 I editorialized regarding the standardization and regimentation that were such an important part of the CCC’s success (you can see that post here.)

At that time, I was mystified by the purpose of a particular pole or post installation that I’ve encountered both in photographs and in the field. The pole looked like this in a photograph that I obtained from the National Association of CCC Alumni (NACCCA) back in the early 1990s.

I found a surprisingly similar pole installation at the site of a former CCC camp in Yavapai County, Arizona and have ruminated on its purpose ever since. It seems clear that a standard set of plans guided the construction and installation of poles like these; how else do you explain the striking similarity between two examples when one example is at Grand Canyon National Park and the other in a U.S. Forest Service CCC camp near Prescott, Arizona? But what were these posts or poles used for?

At the time, I wrote, “I’ve no idea what the purpose of the twin pole arrangement is; perhaps it was part of a gate, or perhaps it was one in a series of telephone or telegraph poles strung through the juniper…one wonders why the photographer even bothered with snapping the picture at all.”

Well, we’ve tied the loose ends together this time, thanks to some fortuitous help from a prolific local CCC researcher. About a week ago I received an email from Robert “Ranger Bob” Audretsch, who’d just wrapped up some research at the Grand Canyon museum. He attached one photo as representative of about “60 great photos” that he’d found for a project he’s working on. I don’t have the faintest clue why Bob picked the particular photo that he attached to his email but the second I opened it up, I knew that all the uncertainty surrounding the CCC mystery poles at Grand Canyon and Walnut Creek was cleared up. Sometimes the loose ends tie themselves up without much help.

The picture Ranger Bob emailed me shows three CCC boys working on a string of telephone or telegraph poles, with two guys cinching up the posts while a third guy strings the wire atop the pole. I’m wondering if it was safe for one enrollee to be climbing atop the pole before it was fully wired into place, but I suppose that was a matter for the project foreman to worry about. At any rate, they all appear to be working really hard; the camera captures them in something of a blur. There is no doubt that this photo depicts the same project that is depicted in the rather innocuous photo that I received from the NACCCA collection so many years ago and I’m pleased and proud to post them side by side here, perhaps for the first time ever.

Armed with the Grand Canyon telephone pole photo from Ranger Bob, I can now easily conclude that the similar pole installation I saw still standing at the former site of the Walnut Creek CCC camp was or a telephone or other type of wire strung to or through the camp. Who can guess what sorts of communications passed that way while the camp was in operation; we’ll never know, but we at least know why those poles were placed in the ground.

You can find more information about Ranger Bob Audretsch, his CCC research, and his book at his website CCC Books. Pay him a visit, look around, buy a book!

Holidays in the CCC

Imagine feeling lonely and happy at the same time. That must be the feeling that many CCC enrollees had when special days like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s rolled around each year. Surely the feeling must be akin to the feelings a young soldier has, living in a barracks far from home during the holidays: a touch of warmth from the season, tempered by a twinge of loneliness and homesickness, charged with a bit of excitement over the thought of having a day off and a grand meal in the mess hall. Some of the lucky boys have gone home for Christmas so the camp is somewhat deserted and perhaps covered in a blanket of snow. The camp commander seems a bit more cordial than usual, stopping in each barracks to chat with the enrollees after the crews returned from the work site. A group of enrollees are in the mess hall helping the kitchen crew decorate for the big dinner and as darkness settles on the forest camp, they can be seen through the windows of the mess hall stringing crepe paper. Perhaps being stuck in camp won’t be so bad after all.

Christmas 1933 marked the first celebration of the holiday in the life of the CCC, and nationwide it was a special event marked by extraordinary efforts to bolster the morale of enrollees in camps from one end of the country to the other. In his book, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, 1933-1942 by Robert Pasquill, Jr. noted the following:

On December 22, 1933, the Gadsden Times announced that the 315,000 CCC men across the nation would be having a real Christmas. Camps were decorating trees. A special radio program was to be broadcast by the National Broadcast Company with messages by Director Fechner and Secretary of Agriculture Wallace. The railroads were offering special rates to enrollees. Some 445,000 were to be served for Christmas dinners.

No doubt that first CCC Christmas dinner in 1933 was a far more promising affair for many enrollees and their families than had been the Christmas of 1932, when there was no New Deal and no Civilian Conservation Corps.

The literature on the CCC is full of accounts of how the holidays were celebrated in the camps, which were really like small communities. Enrollees could save up leave during their enrollment and, when Christmas and New Year rolled around, the lucky ones would have an opportunity to return home for the holidays.

In Coming of Age in the Great Depression: The Civilian Conservation Corps Experience in New Mexico, 1933-1942, Richard Melzer noted:

Two of the biggest holidays of the year, Christmas and New Year’s, left many camps largely deserted. Fifty percent of the enrollees at SCS-4-N at El Rito were granted five-day leaves to go home for Christmas in1936, while the remaining fifty percent took their five-day leaves during the New Year’s holiday. Aware that a large percentage of all desertions occurred following major holidays, prudent officers took this opportunity to remind enrollees of the dire consequences of going AWOL. Although sometimes late, most enrollees returned to camp out of a personal sense of duty as well as a sincere desire to continue helping the loved ones they had just visited back home.

Naturally, not every enrollee was able to return home; some remained in camp at Christmastime and perhaps over New Years. Sympathetic commanders and technical staff usually tried to make the time as pleasant as possible.

The December 1936 issue of the North Woodstock, N.H. camp newspaper, The Pioneer, offered this glimpse of life in the camps over the holidays:

Lt. White, in a very jovial mood, made an impromptu speech in which he said in effect that the camp was ours for the day and that he wanted us to act as though we were at home with our families. The talk was received with enthusiasm by the men and they proceed to carry the lieutenant’s suggestion into effect, seldom have we heard so much noise everybody had a great deal of fun. We congratulate the lieutenant, the mess steward and the kitchen staff, they did a fine job.

(Quoted in Builder of Men: Life in the C.C.C. Camps of New Hampshire by David d. Draves.)

Borrowing from a practice started by U.S. soldiers in France during World War I, enrollees in some CCC camps would “adopt” children from the local community to help insure they had at least a small gift for Christmas, sometimes hosting parties at the camp with an appearance by Santa Claus himself. Writing in the Fall 2001 edition of The Historian, Robert A. Waller refers to one such CCC company:

South Carolina veterans camp Co. 2414 at Sumter (S.C.) enjoyed the most publicity in Happy Days when their 1934 Christmas party for the community children enjoyed pictorial coverage.
The social activities of the young men during their off-hours on weekends consumed much newsprint in Happy Days. The CCC boys created their own social life, often in connection with nearby communities during holidays or on the anniversary of the founding of the “Cees.” The commander of Co. 4486 at Liberty (S.C.) organized a Christmas dinner dance with music provided by the Jungaleers of Clemson College.
(From Happy Days and the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Carolina, 1933-1942 by Robert A. Waller, published in The Historian Vol. 64, No. 1, Fall 2001.)

In the December 1937 issue of The Score of 2704 at Camp SCS-14, Chatfield, Minnesota, the editors wrote of their regret at the impending disbandment of the Company, but looked forward to their final Christmas celebration together.

Dinner – Smoker Party on Program. Big Doin’s Planned. Here is the real news – before this company becomes history, there is going to be a great “going’s on.” As we go to press the date for the big event has not been decided, but we believe it will be next Friday nite.

There will be an extra special dinner in the mess hall coming soon. From what we hear it is going to be a second Thanksgiving feast.

But the real fun will be when the recreation hall is turned into a Monte Carlo. Each man will be handed a roll of five hundred dollars. What will he be able to do with his money?? There will be raffle wheels, bingo games and many ways for the men to spend and keep spending. The canteen will be open for business as usual, if there is any business, but with five hundred iron men one should buy something. Of course prices will be a little high. Candy and pop will sell for one hundred bucks at the bar. Cigarettes will go for the paltry sum of three hundred dollars. Of course the money will all be phoney and it will have to be used on our Monte Carlo nite. Is such a party fun?? Just read the story of a party like this one held by the men in this company when it was located up north.

It’s difficult to imagine celebrating a Christmas or New Year holiday in the midst of the Great Depression. It’s even more difficult to imagine facing the holidays in a CCC camp far from home with five dollars or less in your pocket and not much more than the prospect of a big dinner in the mess hall to keep your spirits buoyed up, but that’s what happened in hundreds of thousands of cases at thousands of camps scattered across the United States between 1933 and 1942. Who could know that with the advent of war, those bittersweet holidays in the CCC would be looked back upon with fondness by the grown men who left the CCC to fight across the world from 1942 to 1945?