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Fort Campbell is a United States Army installation located astride the Kentucky–Tennessee border between Hopkinsville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Tennessee (post address is located in Kentucky). Fort Campbell is home to the 101st Airborne Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The fort is named in honor of Union Army Brigadier General William Bowen Campbell, the last Whig Governor of Tennessee.
The site for Mid-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 102,414 acres, 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.