The Onslow County News And Views

Four Towns Join In Effort To Keep Camp Davis From Closing Doors Again

The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce yesterday was advised by Rep. Graham A. Barden that the War Department still is considering the future of Camp Davis, reported 'unofficially to be near a second closing.

Meantime, Wilmington city officials returned from Washington with a report that the various divisions of the War Department would discuss the camp's future at a meeting today or tomorrow. If it is abandoned as a convalescent and redistribution center by the Army Air Corps, there is still a possibility of it being turned over to some other branch of the army, the Wilmingtonians felt.

Concerted effort to keep Camp Davis open, by Wilmington, Jacksonville, Burgaw and Holly Ridge following a report by Brig. Gen. George L. Usher, commander of the camp, indicating that its close may be imminent has been launched.

The possibility that Davis may be closed as a personnel distribution center for Army Air Force returnees was disclosed by General Usher. He revealed that construction work on its facilities, undertaken to reconvert it for convalescent purposes, would be halted.

The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis club and Lions club wired representatives in Washington to lend their offices to keep open the convalescent and redistribution center.

Meantime, an official of the War Department in Washington denied that any order closing operations has been issued.

For some time now, General Usher said, the flow of returnees into Camp Davis has not lived up to original expectations. At one time it was estimated that the number of men returned weekly would reach the 20,000 mark, but at the camp now there are approximately only 1,000 convalescents and not more than 600 returnees.

In an expression of Wilmington's interest in the future of Camp Davis, the City Council took immediate action in wiring Senators Josiah W. Bailey and Clyde R. Hoey and Representatives Graham A. Barden and J. Bayard Clark.