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.

Friday, July 20, 2018

Camp Maxey POW Camp Had A Whopping Capacity Of Nearly 9,000 Men




Arnold Krammer is professor of history at Texas A&M University, specializing in modern European and German history. He is the author of several books including Nazi Prisoners of War in America (New York: Stein & Day, 1979, Scarborough, 1983, 1996). His essay, "When the Afrika Korps Came to Texas" examines the history of the nearly eighty thousand German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war held in Texas during the Second World War. The essay, which is excerpted here, is included in the book Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History (McGraw-Hill, 2005), a collection of eighteen essays exploring those who have been under-represented in previous writings about Texas history.

The full text of Arnold Krammer’s essay "When the Afrika Korps Came to Texas" is here available for dowload as a PDF.
Just a year and a half after the attack on Pearl Harbor that embroiled America in the world war, more than 150,000 German prisoners poured in after the surrender of the Afrika Korps in the spring of 1943. After that, an average of 20,000 POWs arrived each month, and following the Normandy invasion of June 1944, the numbers soared to 30,000 per month. During the last months of the war, prisoners poured in at the astonishing rate of 60,000 per month. By the end of the war, the United States found itself holding more than 425,000 prisoners of war: 372,000 Germans, 53,000 Italians, and 5,000 Japanese. Some 90,000 spent their war years in Texas.

But where to put them? The United States had never held large numbers of foreign war prisoners before. The War Department moved fast and together with the Corps of Engineers began scouring the country for temporary camp sites. County fairgrounds, auditoriums, abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps, and hastily erected tent cities were held in readiness. At the same time, in mid-January, 1942, Washington DC commissioned a study for potential sites for large, permanent camps, although it frankly did not know if the prisoners were going to be enemy troops or so-called "Enemy Aliens"—dangerous German or Italian or Japanese citizens living in the United States. (Indeed, within months, three separate government programs would evolve, each with its own network of camps: the Justice Department's Enemy Alien Program, which rounded-up some twenty-four thousand enemy citizens and their families; the War Relocation Program, which arrested a whopping 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans, largely from the West Coast and Hawaii; and finally, the Prisoner of War program, under the control of the Army's Provost Marshal General's Office).

When considering places to construct POW camps, Washington looked to the South. First, there was lots of available land in the southern United States, more than could be found in the crowded North. Second, Texas, in particular, was located far from the critical war industries on the East and West Coasts. Also, the mild climate assured minimal construction and operation costs. Eager Texas businessmen and farmers lobbied vigorously for camps in their labor-starved state, with the idea of using the incoming prisoners to fill the huge gap left by the military's needs. Finally, there was the precedent of the Geneva Accords of 1929. Created after World War I, the Geneva Accords established the rules of war, and contained guidelines on matters ranging from the prohibition of explosive or dum-dum bullets to the care of prisoners of war. Of interest to the War Department were the passages that guaranteed prisoners' treatment equal to the conditions of the army in charge, and the recommendation by the Geneva Accords that prisoners be taken to a climate similar to that in which they had been captured. Since the climate most similar to that of Tunisia, where the Afrika Korps surrendered in early 1943, was the American South and, in particular, the state of Texas (although dozens of camps sprang up in Louisiana, New Mexico, and surrounding states), construction began in the Lone Star State.

Nearly all six permanent camps [Camp Huntsville, Camp McLean, Camp Mexia, Camp Brady, Camp Hereford, and Camp Hearne] were finished and ready for occupancy by January 1943. Each was expected to hold about 3,000 men, with the possibility of expanding the number up to 4,500. Admirable as this early planning and construction was, it quickly became evident that six permanent camps, holding between 3,000 and 4,000 POWs would not account for even a quarter of the incoming prisoners. The War Department decided to authorize a second type of POW camp on sections of existing Army bases. The advantages were many: these POW sections could be easily guarded since sentry towers and fences were already in place; the prisoners could be used to help maintain the bases, thus freeing numerous American soldiers for shipment overseas; and nearby communities would be calmed to know that the thousands of possibly hostile enemy captives were surrounded by many more thousands of armed American soldiers.

Four military bases in Texas were enlarged to receive POWs in 1942—Camp Swift (Bastrop), Camp Bowie (Brownwood), Camp Fannin (Tyler), and Camp Maxey (Paris), with the largest having the whopping capacity of nearly 9,000 men. Three more camps were authorized in 1943: Fort Sam Houston (San Antonio), which was little more than a tent-city with 170 six-man tents for both POWs and their American guards; Camp Howze (Gainesville); and Camp Hood North (Killeen). With the expected invasion of France in 1944 and the prospect of many thousands of new prisoners, seven more POW camps were built on military bases in 1944, at Camp Wolters (Mineral Wells), Camp Wallace (Hitchcock), Camp D. A. Russell (Marfa), Fort Bliss (El Paso), Camp Crockett (Galveston), Camp Barkeley (Abilene), and tiny Camp Hulen (Palacios), which could hold only 250 POWs. In 1945, German POWs were farmed out to work in Harmon General Hospital in Longview, Ashburn General Hospital in McKinney, Camp Cushing in San Antonio, Biggs Air Field in El Paso, Ellington Air Field in Houston, and in work camps in Lubbock, Childress, Amarillo, Dumas, Big Spring, Pyote, Alto, and Dalhart. Even after the war was over, in August 1945, one last camp was created at the Flour Bluff Army Air Field in Corpus Christi.

Together, the fifteen camps could hold an impressive 34,000 enemy prisoners, but there was still not enough space for the arriving thousands. The problem of overcrowding was solved by creating satellite camps attached to the major camps, which served the additional purpose of bringing the POWs closer to the agricultural worksites where they were most needed. There were more than thirty satellite camps in Texas. Most were located in the coastal rice-producing area in an arc reaching from Orange County to Matagorda County, and in East Texas. Branch camps sprouted up in Kaufman, Princeton, Navasota, Alto, Chireno, Humble, Denison, Milam, Kirbyville, Liberty, Orange, Anahuac, Alvin, Rosenberg, Angleton, Forney, Wharton, El Campo, Ganado, Eagle Lake, Bannister, Patroon, Kenedy, Mont Belvieu, Center, China, Lufkin, Bay City, and Garwood. Even remote El Paso County hosted four agricultural branch camps at Ysleta, Fabens, Canutillo, and El Paso.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)