History: Military Might

Deserved Diversion: Men and women who trained at Camp Croft in Spartanburg and the Greenville Army Air Base enjoyed recreation. Croft’s amenities earned it the moniker “the Country Club of the South.”

War changes everything, and in the 1940s, during the outbreak of World War II, the Upstate felt that shift in full force. After Europe erupted in battle in the fall of 1939, local cotton prices rose, and textile and apparel mills began running around the clock to meet the high demand for materials needed by our allies overseas. The nation’s leadership soon realized that military preparedness must improve if the United Stated entered the war in coming years.

And so, in 1940, Camp Croft in Spartanburg was constructed to serve as an Infantry Replacement Training Center. The following summer in 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, military officials visited Greenville and awarded the county an air base, Greenville Army Air Base.

Combined, the compounds introduced a flood of new people into the Upstate’s small, Southern communities—Camp Croft alone trained up to 75,000 soldiers each year. Young men and women arrived from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other far-flung locales to train at Camp Croft and the Greenville Army Air Base.

As the war continued, soldiers’ presence in churches, restaurants, homes, movie theaters, and on local college and university campuses became more common. The presence of these servicemen and women galvanized local residents, who viewed hospitality as a form of patriotism. To support the troops, Upcountry families raised money through war bond drives, which featured local servicemen and women, as well as celebrities such as Johnny Mac Brown, Betty Grable, John Payne, and Jane Wyman. Local women became “Gray Ladies” and helped provide non-medical care to patients at Croft and the Greenville Army Air Base, including writing letters, reading, tutoring, and shopping for patients. Others throughout the area supported the war effort through their churches, schools, and garden clubs.

While training for war demanded strict discipline and acute focus, these young men and women still needed the occasional diversion from military preparation. With six chapels, three boxing rings, several pools and theaters, a newspaper, and frequent performances by Croft trainee and comedian Zero Mostel, Croft was affectionately dubbed “the Country Club of the South.” The air base, which hosted smaller numbers of men and women, had its own radio program, newspaper, organized athletics, and library. Both installations held regular dances, and these popular events attracted scores of local young women inside the bases’ gates.

Although these diversions boosted morale and lifted the spirits of the training soldiers stationed at Croft and the Greenville air base, the fun times and relationships they enjoyed were too often overshadowed by the reality of war.

Camp Croft and the Greenville Army Air Base both have closed. However, many of the men and women who trained here during the 1940s later returned after the war, choosing to spend their lives in our community—despite being introduced to the Upstate during a tumultuous time, not only in their lives, but also in the history of our nation.