About

The National War Work Council -- established by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) -- began printing the Trench and Camp newspaper in October 1917 to inform and entertain American military personnel during World War I. It circulated 32 editions weekly at military posts across the country in cooperation with nearby city newspapers. Produced out of the National War Work Council’s central office in New York City, each issue contained four pages of national war news, governmental communications, and YMCA stories. The rest of each issue was produced locally and carried news related to the post served by the paper. Contributions from soldiers were encouraged and routinely printed in the pages of the Trench and Camp, including cartoons, poetry, and local interest pieces.

The Augusta Herald produced local content for the Camp Hancock edition of the Trench and Camp. Camp Hancock, located west of Augusta, Georgia, was constructed in late 1917 after the outbreak of the war. The camp was used as a training center for the National Guard’s 28th Division out of Pennsylvania. After the division deployed in May 1918, the camp became a machine gun training center. At its capacity, Camp Hancock accommodated over 35,000 troops and the Trench and Camp distributed 10,000 issues for their entertainment, promising at least one issue per tent. The paper circulated to soldiers free of charge each Wednesday and prominently promoted events held at the camp and covered stories intended to boost morale on post.

The camp was infamously the site of Georgia’s first outbreak of the Spanish flu in September 1918. In the weeks that followed, the Trench and Camp reported on measures intended to prevent further spread of the disease, including daily health inspections and the closure of buildings used for indoor gathering, including libraries and theaters. Despite the preventative steps taken, Camp Hancock reported over 7,000 cases and 500 hundred deaths in the months that followed. After the end of the war in late 1918, the paper began publishing stories on the transition back to civilian life. The final issue of the Camp Hancock edition of the Trench and Camp circulated on February 5, 1919, and the camp itself closed the following month.