HISTORY OF CLARKSVILLE BASE
CLARKSVILLE BASE, TENNESSE

The Clarksville Command was called "Armed Forces Special Weapons Project".  Its headquarters was at Sandia Base, New Mexico and was headed up by a Major Geneneral.  Sandia Base was also a storage facility for Clarksville and the only other Special Weapons Base at Lake Mead.  Clarksville and Lake Mead were commanded by the Navy with the Marines providing the security.  There was an Army Facility at Killien Texas, and possibly two more Army sites which were Special Weapons Projects for thier branch and the Air Force had their Secial Weapons Project located at Bossier AFB at Bossier, Louisana.  They are believed to have a couple more sites located in other areas. There may have been up to 13 Special Weapons Project areas, but no one really knows for sure.

I Marines, nor anyone else, never saw any of the weapons, but did see the containers they were transported in.  The containers were on small trailers and were towed from Clarksville, which was located within the confines of Ft Campbell Army Base, to Campbell AFB, which was also located within the confines of Ft Campbell. This containers were loaded onto AF planes, and where they went, no one ever had a clue.

Clarksville was somewhat hilly and the weapons that were stored were placed in bunkers dug into the sides of these hills.  No one was ever allowed in any of the bunkers so no one ever knew what went on in them. 

Another unique thing about Clarksville was the amount of fences that were around the facility.  There was an outer fence, a lethal fence, another fence and an inner fence. At one time there was one death that had occurred, which was a soldier from the 11th Airborne Division who was apparently going AWO, climbed the fence thinking he was getting away and hit the lethal fence. Needless to say, he was toast.

This Special Weapons Bases were bacsically Cold War era Operations and are no closed from operations. But during their operation, Marines took care of the security, as no one else could have.

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