Paris Goes To War

War came Paris, Texas on December 7, 1941. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war of the Axis countries of Japan, Germany and Italy against The United States brought World War II literally to the doorsteps of Paris.

The U.S. response to war hit Paris like a tidal wave and the results were everlasting.

This small East Texas town responded as hundreds of small towns across America did. Its sons, daughters and citizens joined the war effort.

But Paris began to develop its own uniqueness with the opening of Camp Maxey just a few miles north of the city limits in 1942. Two major divisions, the 102d Infantry Division and the 99th Infantry Division, trained there. It is estimated that over 200,000 troops and civilians trained and worked at Camp Maxey during its short 4 years of existance.

Camp Maxey was also selected as a site, as were many other training camp sites in Texas, to house German prisoners-of-war. More than 6,000 Germans were hosted there until well after the last shots of anger were fired in Europe in 1945.

Paris, as was the whole country, was like a stirred pot. The young men and women who came to Camp Maxey to train spent their leaves in town. Many of them met, courted, and married local men and women. Likewise, Paris sons and daughters who left were meeting their future spouses. The long historic ties that had held Paris together as a tight community were stretched around the world.

To and from Paris the letters streamed in and out from friends and families: from the battle fronts, from far-away hometowns, from Washington D.C., to Europe, to The Pacific and literally all points of the globe.

Sad news of soldiers being killed, exciting news of the birth of a new baby, common news about town gossip all swirlled around this small town of Paris. Paris was making its contribution to march the country toward victory.

In 1941 Paris Goes To War.


How To Add A Story & Pictures To Paris Goes To War

If you have stories, pictures or items of interest to contribute to these web pages, please email them to steelyfamilias@yahoo.com. You can send written articles in doc or pdf formats and pictures are preferred in jpg format. Contributions will be posted according the their relevance to Paris, Lamar County, Camp Maxey and World War II. All contributions may be used on these blog web pages as well as any future publications that may appear on the subject.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

2011 Article About Former Camp Maxey Nurse Eleanore Ashman

May 24, 2011
By DIANE A. RHODES
Special to The Press-Enterprise

Eleanore Ashman was one of 59,000 registered nurses who volunteered to serve in the
U.S. Army Nurse Corps during World War II. Although her orders kept her stateside,
about half of these nurses volunteered to serve at front-line hospitals in overseas war
zones.

"I feel like those women were really in the war, but I had my place, too," said Ashman,
91, of Hemet. "I saw the soldiers before they went off and I saw them when they came
back, some as amputees and such."

After graduating from nursing school in Minnesota, where she was raised as the
youngest of 11 children, Ashman took a job as a surgical nurse at a hospital. She
enlisted in 1943.

 "I felt like it was the right thing to do," she said. "Uncle Sam needed me."

 After a stay in South Dakota, she was sent to Camp Maxey near Paris , Texas, where
soldiers were trained with mock battle conditions.

"We were besieged with cases of pneumonia and meningitis," Ashman recalled.

 "Penicillin had just come in and it saved a lot of our boys."

 She said a book about Army nurses who served at the front lines -- "And If I Perish" by
Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee -- helped remind her of how things
were in the early 1940s. She said the stories in the book mirror those she heard through
letters from colleagues who were in the war zones.

 While in training at Fort Lewis, Wash., Ashman requested to be sent overseas as an air
evacuation nurse because she said she always felt like she should be doing more. But
then the war ended.

 Ashman met her husband, George, while he was a captain in the dental corps. After she
was discharged in 1946, they moved to Inglewood and lived there for 10 years.

 The couple then moved to Hemet and George Ashman opened a dental practice in San
Jacinto. They raised four boys and Ashman now has several grandchildren.

 She began volunteering with the now-defunct Hemet Community Builders and other
organizations. With a background in glee clubs and church choirs, Ashman joined The
Happy Harmoneers about three decades ago. The volunteer singers perform in the
community to raise scholarship funds for local high school students.
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