Camp Livingston

In fall 1941, two imaginary countries went to war across the Red River. The Louisiana Maneuvers stretched over 3,400 square miles, pulling 400,000 men into the field. Camp Livingston anchored one side. The army had opened it the year before on 47,000 acres straddling Rapides and Grant Parishes, twelve miles north of Alexandria. They named it for Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. Between 1940 and 1945, over 500,000 troops trained there. The 38th Infantry Division called themselves the Avengers of Bataan. The 86th became the first American unit to cross the Danube River in Germany. The camp held prisoners. In 1942, Kazuo Sakamaki arrived—the United States' first Japanese POW, the only surviving crewman of a mini-submarine used in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Corporal David Akui captured him after he abandoned his sub, which had run aground. Thousands of German and Italian prisoners followed. The camp also confined between 800 and 1,100 U.S. civilians of Japanese ancestry, interned as potential fifth columnists after Pearl Harbor. Most remained throughout the war, despite a lack of evidence they posed a threat. Internees supplied logging and farm labor. A POW cemetery stood within the camp. In 1947, the headstones were relocated to Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The bodies stayed in unmarked graves, where they remain. The camp was deactivated in late 1945. The site is now part of Kisatchie National Forest. Some of the original concrete streets still carry traffic. Building footings stand in place. At least two swimming pools can be located. The water treatment plant built to serve the camp still operates, now run by Water Works District No. 3 in Rapides Parish. You can walk the concrete and know what happened here—half a million men trained for war, prisoners waited out the fighting, and when it ended, the forest took it back.