March 30, 2023
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We recently received a selection of fascinating First World War-era images from one of our USA-based Facebook followers.
Helen Clayton’s grandfather served in the United States Army during the war and was posted to Camp Dix in New Jersey.
The camp was named in honour of Major General John Adams Dix, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Buchanan. It was established on July 18, 1917 to serve as a training facility for the 78th Infantry Division. Approximately 150,000 men from various States were inducted there from September 1917 to December 1918.
Camp Dix (later renamed as Fort Dix) is still in use today and is now part of the Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst (JB MDL) military facility. The base is the only tri-service base in the US Department of Defense and includes units from all six armed forces branches (Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard).
Helen’s grandfather saved an edition of the Camp Dix Pictorial from March 20, 1918. In it she found images of Camp Dix Allied Instructors from the British and French armies.
One of the images showed two Scottish service personnel, one sporting a Tam o’ Shanter and the other a Glengarry.
Many thanks to Helen for taking the time to highlight the Scottish connections to Camp Dix and New Jersey and also for sharing a picture of her grandfather’s Army canteen (below).
If anyone has any information on which units these Scots belonged to, or even who they were, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Please email any information you have to [email protected].
