My daddy V.O. Kyle served as a medic in the South Pacific, most notably on Guam, Tinian, and Guadalcanal. He rarely talked about it except to say how much he missed my mother. I have a gorgeous... hand made knife that his good friend George Madding made for him to take with him.
My mother was a librarian at Camp Maxey during the war and remembered hosting German POWs at their home on Lamar Avenue for Sunday dinner. She said that it was interesting and that they were very young and homesick.
My ex husband David Kelso's family would not have been in Paris had it not been for Camp Maxey. Jimmy Kelso was a young lieutenant from Alabama who trained there and brought his wife to live there while he was overseas. When the war was over they stayed in Paris. Jimmy Kelso served as a battery commander with George Patton in Germany.
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.
Monday, May 30, 2011
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