Dear Camp Gordon Johnston Supporter:
Welcome to year 2005 -
This begins a new year for the museum and the
Association. In
March the Association will host its tenth reunion, the final reunion
in its present format; we will switch to Camp Gordon Johnston Days
in 2006. 2005 should also be a big year for the museum. Our
landlady has given us another year on our lease, and we are forging
ahead. We already have three groups registered for this year—a
Navy Reunion the first of March, the Camp Gordon Johnston Reunion
the second week end in March, and an in-service training session for
sixty teachers from all over the Panhandle in April. The teachers
will learn about Camp Gordon Johnston, Florida’s role in WWII,
and WWII in general; this information will be taken back to their
classrooms with them. We also will have an exhibit at the Tallahassee
Regional Airport in May and June, and who knows what else will develop
during the year! This should be a great year for your museum. The
Board of Directors would like to wish all of you a wonderful and prosperous
new year. May God bless each and every one of you!
Linda Minichiello
CGJA President and CGJ WWII Museum Curator
How did all this get started?
Early in 1995 a group of North Florida people began speculating on
the possibility of forming a Camp Gordon Johnston Association and
holding reunions of men and women who served there. It was soon discovered
that a whole lot of people were electrified by the idea, and we began
holding regular meetings in Lanark Village or Carrabelle. Result:
a smashing first reunion March 1-3, 1996 and a committment to hold
annual reunions each March for the foreseeable future. The reunions
so far have been great fun and well-attended. They came to Camp Gordon
Johnston from every state in the Union during World War II and they're
coming from every state for the reunions, too.
There's more…
It may be difficult for you to conceive of the idea of eating well
in the environs of the old camp, but it is one of the things that
we do during reunions, from the kick-off luncheon to a closing barbecue
prepared and served by members of the American Legion Post at Lanark
Village, which serves as the Association's informal headquarters.
Then there are a lot of restaurants round about specializing in some
of the best and freshest seafood in the country.
Let's tour the old camp…
We do it every reunion. That seems to be the main thing that brings
most of the guys back'a chance to ramble over the old acres once so
well known. The barracks are gone and the training sites mostly obliterated.
But our tour leaders, following maps preppared by the Post Engineerbefore
and while the camp was in operation, can show you precisely where
everything was, and in the process point out an astonishing number
of remnants readily identified as Camp Gordon Johnston relics including
the docks on the Carrabelle River at Camp Belle, the pilings in Lake
Morality where boat crews were trained in life-saving, company streets,
especially in the Lanark Village area, and a hand grenade course where
fragments can still be easily found. |