Camp Shelby opened in 1917 south of Hattiesburg as a World War I training camp and was named for Isaac Shelby, the first governor of Kentucky, after the Kentucky and Indiana guardsmen who trained there first. It closed after the armistice and reopened in 1940. Between 1941 and 1946 about 750,000 Americans trained here, and a German prisoner-of-war camp there could hold 2,500 men. Shelby has been a permanent Army training site since 1956, and in the 2000s it prepared some 100,000 troops a year for Afghanistan and Iraq.
The camp trained soldiers of every kind. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up of Japanese American soldiers, trained at Shelby while many of their families were held in internment camps; with the 100th Infantry Battalion it became one of the most decorated units of the war. Black soldiers trained here too, in segregated units, and the USO club Hattiesburg built for them is now the African American Military History Museum.
The Mississippi Armed Forces Museum stands inside the camp. Its galleries include the Halls of Honor, early Mississippi history, a World War I gallery with sound effects that simulate battle, and the Global War on Terrorism. Visitors enter through the South Gate off US 49 and follow signs to Building 850 on Forrest Avenue. Leashed or harnessed service animals are welcome and wheelchairs are available at the welcome desk.
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