Many in Bartholomew County may not know of the hidden gem in their own backyard. The Camp Atterbury Museum is a testament to the vital role the camp has played in our nation’s history, a must-see for history buffs young and old.
The indoor museum uses a timeline to take visitors through Camp Atterbury’s history, beginning from before it became a military base in 1942, said Capt. Jesse Bien, public affairs officer for Camp Atterbury.
During World War II, its peak years, Camp Atterbury’s mission was to provide combat training for the U.S. Army. Regionally drafted people or people who signed up came to the camp for basic training, schooling and collective training before being deployed overseas, Bien said.
According to indianamilitary.org, Camp Atterbury was initially more than 40,000 acres when it opened, extending over Johnson, Brown and Bartholomew counties. Four U.S. Army divisions, as well as numerous auxiliary and service units, trained at the camp during World War II. In all, nearly 275,000 men received training there, with thousands more who received their initial training elsewhere coming to Camp Atterbury for advanced training.
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Wakeman Hospital Center, one of the largest hospitals of its kind in the nation, trained medical personnel and treated an estimated 85,000 patients during the war. Between 1943 and 1946, a portion of the camp was used as an internment camp, first for Italian and then for German prisoners of war.
Ames Miller was part of the 83rd Infantry Division, the first division to receive training at Camp Atterbury in 1942. Helen Miller, his widow, played an important role in setting up the museum, still serves as a volunteer and sits on the board that oversees it.
Miller, 86, remembers her husband telling her of the heavy rain in the spring of 1942 that made the grounds a muddy mess for builders, who nicknamed the camp “Mudbury.” Ames Miller trained young soldiers at the camp before shipping out with one of the units as part of the D-Day invasion. He was wounded in France and returned to the United States. Helen Miller is proud of the fact that several of the artifacts on display at the museum belonged to her husband, including one of his Purple Hearts, his hat from the 14th Cavalry Regiment and a watch he wore during the war.
In addition to the indoor museum and a veterans memorial, other historical items of interest at the camp include the outdoor museum and the Chapel in the Meadow, a church built in 1943 from scrap materials by Italian prisoners of war who wanted something that reminded them of their homeland. After falling into disrepair, the small building was restored in 1989.
The outdoor museum, which is visible from Hospital Road, features 25 static displays, including an M1 Abrams tank, a UH-1 helicopter, an Honest John rocket system, an M4 Sherman tank, an M60 Patton and several artillery pieces. The outdoor area extends over several acres and has a walking path and a fish pond.
In addition to regular visitors, the museum offers group tours. Bien does most of the tours and says he tries to make them as interactive as possible, especially when they’re for schoolchildren. The kids get a chance to handle hand grenades and bayonets and try on helmets, body armor and jackets from World War II.
“We have a lot more items you can touch here than other (museums),” Bien said. “I feel they will remember it more than if they just hear about it.”
The indoor museum moved to a new location in 2012, according to the Atterbury-Muscatatuck website. The museum now is outside the main gate, a factor that has made a big difference, Bien said. The public can visit without having to go through the secured entrance.
“The move has increased our traffic a lot. It is more readily accessible than it used to be,” he said.
The origins of the indoor museum began in 1995, when Col. Jack Noel, the commander of Camp Atterbury at the time, noticed there were a bunch of artifacts stored in various places throughout the base, said Myles Clayburn, a retired Indiana National Guard officer who spent the bulk of his 40-year career at Atterbury. Noel contacted Clayburn with the idea of building a museum. The hard work of many dedicated volunteers, like Helen and Ames Miller, helped bring that idea to life, Clayburn said.
“Volunteers were in here day and night, week after week, and it just kept growing,” he said. “Without our volunteers it would not have happened.”
Clayburn said the museum is funded entirely by donations from individuals and grants. The museum’s founders also met with a lot of curators of other museums as part of their research, including a trip to Camp Mabry in Austin to see the Texas Military Forces Museum.
Clayburn said the museum has also benefited from partnering with the Indiana Historical Society, receiving items on loan and sending it items, including a display at a recent POW exhibit at the history center.
Clayburn, who rose to the rank of chief warrant officer 5 during a military career that included service in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, is still at Atterbury, working full time as a contract civilian. The man who grew up in Brown County on the western border of Camp Atterbury is steeped in its history and honored to be a part of the museum that brings that history to others.
Helen Miller shares that feeling.
“It is a wonderful tribute to the military,” she said. “I’m very proud of it. I do it from the heart.”
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Visit the museum
The museum is located in the Camp Atterbury Welcome Center on Hospital Road. Admission is free, and hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Access to the military camp is not required to visit the museum or the outdoor museum and veterans memorial located nearby. It is wheelchair accessible and has extra wheelchairs on hand for someone who may have difficulty standing for long periods.
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