Camp Haan

Camp Haan an active military base from 1940-1946, is located in Riverside, California. The site is named for Major General William George Haan, a West Point Military Academy graduate and war hero in both the Spanish American war and World War I. [1]

Construction and Beginnings

Construction on the site began in the fall of 1940, and  the site was finished rather quickly by January 194, despite significant delays due to extremely rainy and muddy conditions. [2] Camp Haan was originally composed of rudimentary bunkers and tents. The 8,000-acre property was eventually home to a fully functional hospital, several churches, and 28 miles of road. The camp in its early days primarily served as a training camp, and many of the men who were trained at Camp Haan were later assigned to coastal defense units on the California coast. Despite being designed to hold 15,000 soldiers for basic training, it is estimated that at its peak over 80,000 soldiers trained and lived at Camp Haan. In 1942, the site additionally became classified as Camp Haan Quartermaster Depot, a sub post of the Mira Loma Quartermaster Depot. [3]

Prisoners of War and Military Hospital

In 1942, Camp Haan was reorganized as a prisoner of war camp and housed a total of 248 German and 213 Italian prisoners. These POWs worked in local citrus orchards. Further into the war, the camp’s hospital began receiving wounded soldiers from the Pacific theaters. The hospital served up to 800 soldiers.[4]

Camp Haan/Camp Haan Quartermaster Depot/Camp Haan Prisoner of War Camp

Annotations

Details

Closing and Camp Haan Today

In 1945, Camp Haan became a separation center for soldiers returning from active duty. Shortly after this designation, the site closed in 1946.[5] After being declared surplus, the land Camp Haan resided on was sold to the nearby March Air Force base. The remainder of the land is now known as the Riverside National Cemetery.[6]

Footnotes

[1] Justin Ruhge, "Historic California Posts: Camp Haan", Military History and Museums Program, 8 December, 1998, accessed 22 October, 2018. http://www.militarymuseum.org/cphaan.html.

[2] Thomas W. Patterson, "Food Machinery Into War Machinery", in A Colony For California: Riverside’s First Hundred Years, 2nd ed. (Riverside, CA: Museum Press of the Riverside Museum Associates, 1996), pp. 405.

[3] Ruhge.

[4] Ruhge.

[5] Ruhge.

[6] Ruhge.