Fort Polk (Vernon Parish, near Leesville, Louisiana)

Vernon Parish, near Leesville · Louisiana · World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War

Quick BriefFort Polk was established on January 10, 1941, and thousands of soldiers learned the basics of combat here during the World War II Louisiana Maneuvers. The maneuvers involved half a million soldiers in 19 Army divisions, and took place over 3,400 square miles in August and September 1941. The post was redesignated as Fort Polk in June 2025 in honor of Gen. James H. Polk, a World War II Silver Star recipient and former commander of U.S. Army Europe.

Active base today

History & Significance

Forty-eight of the Army's 91 divisions trained at Camp Polk during World War II, with generals including Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and Marshall learning critical lessons during the Louisiana Maneuvers. The maneuvers tested a new doctrine stressing mass and mobility, leading to the creation of sixteen armored divisions after the war.

Beyond training, Camp Polk served as a military prison for Germans captured during World War II, with the first prisoners of war arriving in July 1943 from the Afrika Korps, housed in a large compound at what is now Honor Field, the parade ground. Following the war, the post reopened intermittently.

In August 1950, the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard became the first unit to train at Fort Polk in preparation for the Korean War, suffering 4,004 casualties. Fort Polk reopened permanently in 1961 and was designated as an Army infantry training center in 1962; during the Vietnam War it became the Army's largest infantry training center, renowned as "Tiger Land" for its realistic Vietnamese-style training villages.

Fort Polk trained more than one million soldiers for the Vietnam War. On March 12, 1993, Fort Polk officially became the home of the Joint Readiness Training Center, which relocated from Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.