A Cigarette Camp was one of a number of temporary U.S. Army "tent cities" situated principally around the French ports of Le Havre[1] and Marseilles[2] following their captures by Allied Forces in the wake of the Allied D-Day invasion in June 1944 and Operation Dragoon in August 1944.
[3] Le Havre camps were located in an area the Army designated the "Red Horse" staging area and named after popular brands, including Camps Lucky Strike, Old Gold, and Pall Mall.
The Cigarette Camps were administered by the 89th Infantry Division, headquartered at Bois-Guillaume, near Rouen.
Referring to the camps without an indication of their geographical location went a long way to ensuring that the enemy would not know precisely where they were.
The nine Cigarette Camps included: By war's end, both Cigarette and City camps' roles had shifted from gateways to combat staging GIs for repatriation to the U.S., processing liberated American POWs, and temporarily confining German POWs.