Operation Long Horn

The exercise played out beside a post that had trained armored troops for a decade. Camp Hood opened on September 18, 1942, as a tank destroyer center near Killeen, named for Gen. John Bell Hood, and some 300 farming and ranching families had to give up their land on very short notice. At times as many as 100,000 soldiers trained there, and about 4,000 German prisoners of war were held there late in the war. Its population fell to about 1,700 after 1945, but it became permanent Fort Hood in 1950, and the Korean War sped its training again.

What the plaque says

Operation Long Horn The close of World War II brought new tensions to America that led to the Cold War. Under fear of communism and nuclear assault, the U.S. Army and Air Force simulated a war in one of the largest maneuvers ever to be staged on American soil. Called Operation Long Horn, the simulation included thwarting an invasion and recovering from an atomic attack. To carry out the mock war, which began in late March 1952, ranchers between Waco and San Angelo signed easements to their land. Several Lometa-area ranches became sites of battles and campgrounds as more than 115,000 troops came to Texas for maneuvers. The town's population grew from 900 to 22,000, and the troops and supporting civilian staff members faced life in a small town. Local residents cooperated and participated by rationing and trading with troops, offering facilities for a mock U.S.O. (United Service Organizations) facility and attending programs and presentations given by soldiers. Such programs included an airdrop of 2,500 troops, as well as weapons, equipment and rations, in a training maneuver that pitted the 31st Infantry, 47th Infantry, and 1st armored division against the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In a nationally publicized event, aggressor forces captured and occupied Lampasas (17 mi. SE), establishing mock control of media and setting curfews. The city was liberated near the end of the simulation on April 9, 1952. The $3,300,000 exercise left local residents with damaged ranch land, outbuildings, fences and gates, as well as spooked livestock, but also gave them an opportunity to experience war in their own community. (2004)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Bend State Park — 13 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Hancock Springs Park — 16 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.

More markers nearby

• Scholten Railroad — 0.5 mi
• Lometa — 1.0 mi
• Phantom Hill Road — 2.7 mi
• Site of Lometa Reservoir — 2.8 mi