Camp Lucky Strike

March 1945

Camp Lucky Strike was situated in the town of Saint-Sylvian, 5 kilometers from Saint-Valery-en Caux. Its location was not selected by chance, but rather because the occupying German troops had constructed an airfield there in 1940 with a landing strip 1800 meters long and 50 meters wide. This airfield was one of the defensive elements of the Atlantic Wall: surveillance and coastal defenses were also a perfect starting point for attacks on southwest England. V-1 rocket launching ramps were installed at the beginning of 1944 in the woods surrounding the airfield. It was heavily bombed by the British throughout the war, but especially during the fighting which followed the June 1944 landings. In September 1944 American Engineer Corps troops took control of the area, repairing the landing strips and constructing the camp.The camp became the most important military camp in Europe. It extended over 600 hectares (1 hectare = approximately 2 ½ acres). It was a mandatory port of entry for practically every American soldier, and 1½ million spent from a couple days up to 18 months there. It was the principal camp used for repatriated soldiers and liberated POWs, but also as a reception station for soldiers on leave. It was also a staging area for the Pacific Theater and — until August 10, 1945 — for the invasion of Japan. There were 100,000 men in the camp each day — 100,000 men to lodge, feed, train, and entertain. (Regarding repatriation, there were 6,000 daily departures by plane or boat from Le Havre, the only port liberated on the western coast that could accommodate large ships.)Camp Lucky Strike remained active until the end of 1945, and was officially closed in 1946. After its closure, it was necessary to clear the countryside and remove the cobblestone in order to return the fields to the farmers. This work was done by hand by numerous workers and lasted over a year. The French did not possess the same enormous mechanical means that the United States Army did. The cobblestone that was reclaimed was returned to the beaches and also served to fill in the many holes and trenches made by the German troops during occupation. Thousands of cubic meters were also used to construct the Cany-Barville Stadium (Cany-Barville, with a population of 3,500, is located four kilometers south of the site of Lucky Strike).

With the completion of the clearing of the camp proper, a section of terrain approximately 150 meters wide, which comprised the old landing strip, was handed over to a French aeronautical association, who put on an air exposition every two or three between 1946 and 1995. This airfield, along with its buildings, was named the St. Valery-Vitte Fleur Airport and covered a little more than 35 hectares. Closed in 1995 due to old age, the only thing that remains of the airfield is the guard shack that was at the entrance of the original camp at the intersection of the roads leading toward St. Valery-en-Coax and Cany-Barville.

Substantial traces of what was once the most important Allied military camp in Europe during WW II no longer exists, except perhaps in the memories of a few hundred thousand surviving American veterans and as footnotes in a few history books.