<ElaineAndMike.us><Camp Ellis>

Camp Ellis Remembrances

• Remembrances of Camp Ellis: A-B ..
• C-D-E
• Jay VanDorn

Short Takes - Quotes found somewhere

• 202d Malaria Survey Detachment . - The 202d MSD was activated at Camp Ellis, Ill., on 10 December 1943, in accordance with General Orders 85, Headquarters, Camp Ellis. Enlisted personnel were drawn from various casual detachments at the camp, except for three laboratory technicians who were assigned from Fort Sam Houston, Tex. Capt. Rupert L. Wenzel, SnC, and 2d Lt. (later Capt.) Leon Jacobs, SnC, joined the organization on
  The unit received some preliminary training in Camp Ellis and then proceeded to Camp Plauche, La., where it received specialized malaria training from 1 March to 20 April 1944, and arrived in Recife on 3 July 1944.
  http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/Malaria/chapterIV2.htm     After a series of conferences with the Plans Division, OTSG, it was agreed that the policy of supplying men without basic training to the malaria units would result in failure to meet theater requirements on schedule. In view, however, of the personnel situation then current, no practical solution of the problem was evolved. Because highest priority for personnel was given to oversea replacements, great difficulty and delay were experienced in obtaining enlisted men for 16 survey and 36 control units activated in December 1943 at Camp Ellis, Ill. This situation was called to the attention of higher headquarters, 13 but only slow improvement resulted. The final complement of this group of units did not reach Camp Plauche, La., for unit training until 20 March 1944. For a later group of 14 units (7 survey and 7 control) activated at Camp Grant, Ill., in February and March of that year, only 114 enlisted men out of a required complement of 154 had been assigned by 1 June 1944.
• ASFTC : Army Service Forces Training Center, special Training Center for members of the Army Service Forces (as in Camp Ellis, Table Grove, Ill., which had a troop capacity of 1,795 Officers and 24,654 EM)
• This is even more revealing with the knowledge that the Mayo Clinic in Galesburg was served by detachments from Camp Ellis - On Sundays our family often caught the bus to Lake Storey Pavilion to watch the Galesburg young ladies jitterbug with the soldiers from Camp Ellis. At that time the pavilion was open all summer, with jukeboxes for music and wonderfUl cool air blowing though the building.
• Cpl. George Wittwer, here recently after 34 months in the Southwest Pacific, has been assigned to the 1624th Service Command Unit at Camp Ellis, not far from Peoria, Ill.
• For many years, after the dam was built for the old "town lake" in 1909, the lake supplied water for the light plant and the few mains that were laid to the business district only. There was no city water supply for drinking and general use. The wells and cisterns were the water supply for the homes, and most business houses had none. There were about six wells along  the  sidewalks  uptown,  and  stores  and restaurants carried from them. Most of them had a tin cup hanging on them, or on the awning post alongside. The Army put an end to their use by de-activating the pumps during World War II, so the soldiers from Camp Ellis would not be contaminated by drinking the water.
• Born in Greene County, Alabama, in 1924, Mr. Wilson Evans II (a black soldier) Caudill: Where did you go and what did you do?
  Evans: I was in the quartermaster, and I left here and went to Camp Ellis, Illinois. And I left Camp Ellis, Illinois, and I went to Fort Devons, Massachusetts.
• Hans Namuth 1944
  Does medical illustrations for the U.S. Army at Camp Ellis, IL. Privately makes Surrealist influenced works. Source
• William Andrew McIlwaine : Rev. McIlwaine was then commissioned on June 11, 1943, attending US Army Chaplain School at Harvard University, graduating there in July, 1943. Duty assignments included Station Complement, Camp Ellis, IL, July 1943 to Feb. 1945 Source
• My Brothers,
  During WW2, there was a POW camp about 20 miles from my home town. It held both German and Japanese POW's and was run by the Army. The name of the place was Camp Ellis and was on the Spoon River in Central Illinois. During the time the camp was operational, the Army personnel would conduct Lodge meetings on a regular basis for the servicemen who were bretheren. During one such meeting, a German POW asked to CO if they, who were Masons, could also sit in Lodge with them. The request was granted and, for a few short hours every week, all Masons at Camp Ellis were at peace with each other. After Lodge, the POW's were taken back to their quarters and they were once again considered the enemy. This is a great example of the very core of Freemasonry, the fact that, while in the confines of a properly tyled Lodge, all men are equal and all Masons are brothers.
• It was during Morris' tenure that the first student center was built. In 1950, two surplus Army barracks from Camp Ellis, Ill. were brought to SIUC, joined together, "dolled up" and christened the campus Student Union. The Union boasted in1954 of having a music room "in constant use by those who enjoy listening to their favorite music, which ranges from hillbilly to classical.