leaders. Camp Blanding is also home to the Combating Transnational Organized Crime Center of Excellence, which provides unique, tuition-free training in support of Department of Defense strategies, and has campuses on Camp Blanding, at St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and on Camp Murray near Tacoma, Washington. Camp Blanding is also home to the annual FBI National Academy Associates Youth Leadership Academy (YLA). The YLA takes place during the summer and involves a rigorous selection process of 14-16 year olds throughout Florida. YLA exposes students to top-tier law enforcement professionals from across Florida. History Camp Blanding was established in 1939 on as a training facility for the Florida National Guard after its previous training base (Camp Foster) on the St. Johns River near Jacksonville had been taken over by the Navy for Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The new camp was named for Albert H. Blanding, who had been commissioned in the Florida National Guard in 1899, and was then a Major General and Chief of the National Guard Bureau. In 1940, as the threat of war increased and the United States Army was built up, Camp Blanding became a Federal facility housing two infantry divisions plus auxiliary units. Between 1940 and 1943, nine US Army infantry divisions trained at Camp Blanding, including: 1st Infantry Division, 29th Infantry Division, 30th Infantry Division, 31st Infantry Division, 36th Infantry Division, 43rd Infantry Division, 63rd Infantry Division, 66th Infantry Division, and 79th Infantry Division. In 1943, Camp Blanding became an Infantry Replacement Center, training soldiers to be sent to existing infantry divisions as replacements, providing a high percentage of the replacements sent to Army combat units. During WWII more than 800,000 soldiers where trained at Camp Blanding. The base was a holding center for 343 Japanese, German, and Italian immigrant residents of the United States. A small cemetery is located on the grounds of the former POW camp. In 1946 the actual bodies were removed to the Ft. Benning however the grave markers remain. Additionally five settler era cemeteries are located on Camp Blanding property. Most are not maintained and are heavily overgrown. At one point during the war, the camp contained the population of the fourth-largest city in Florida. It had 10,000 buildings, of paved roads, and the largest hospital in the state. It was one of the largest training bases in the country. There were several newspapers published at the camp