A replacement depot or repple depple is a military unit containing reserves or replacements for troops in front-line formations. The U.S. Army slang term "repple depple" came into vogue during World War II.
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These depots were used by the US Army in Europe in World War II, but were found to be ineffective as the men assigned from these large pools had poor esprit de corps and were unfamiliar with the fighting formations to which they were subsequently assigned. The handling of the replacements in a bulk, impersonal way by permanent depot staff tended to cause psychological trauma so that they were weakened by the experience. The Oxford English Dictionary notes, in a citation from The New York Times Magazine, 9 December 1945, that "repple depples, in short, are dreary places."
January 1945
Location of replacement depots c. January 1945.
After World War II
Location of replacement depots after World War II and the Cold War.