Canyon does not care.

Several years ago I read a book called Nazis in the Pineywoods. It was about German POWs that were used as laborers in the timber industry in East Texas. Somewhere around Lufkin I believe. When it was published there were still remnants of the camp visible. The book described what many have said here, how the prisoners were amazed at how well they were treated. A good, quick read if you find it.

swampstander said:

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Several years ago I read a book called Nazis in the Pineywoods. It was about German POWs that were used as laborers in the timber industry in East Texas. Somewhere around Lufkin I believe. When it was published there were still remnants of the camp visible. The book described what many have said here, how the prisoners were amazed at how well they were treated. A good, quick read if you find it.

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Of course they were treated well. And they leaned a lot.

aggiehawg said:

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swampstander said:

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Several years ago I read a book called Nazis in the Pineywoods. It was about German POWs that were used as laborers in the timber industry in East Texas. Somewhere around Lufkin I believe. When it was published there were still remnants of the camp visible. The book described what many have said here, how the prisoners were amazed at how well they were treated. A good, quick read if you find it.

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Of course they were treated well. And they leaned a lot.

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Germans had a long history of forestry before the US was a country, so the only thing Germans would have learned in the East Texas forests were venemous snakes, chiggars, mosquitoes and its hot and humid

CanyonAg77 said:

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eric76 said:

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There are accounts of prisoners there helping to paint a church nearby.

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Didn't read the thread, huh?

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I had read up to the post that I responded to by that time.

I had expected you to mention that part and was surprised that you haven't. After posting, I kept reading and saw where you did mention it.

aggiehawg said:

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Have been going down a deep rabbit hole on this subject since I recently discovered a new youtube channel named WW2 Tales. I remember we have discussed Camp Hearne here before and there are many references to that one but also of many other camps.

The US strictly adhered to the Geneva Conventions, housing, feeding and overall living conditions were superb. They were well treated and vastly surprised by the abundance of food, electricity, prosperity, and human dignity afforded them.

But what seemed to shock them the most was the food. Both quality and quantity. Japanese, Italian, Hungarians and Germans were blown away by candy bars, Coca Cola, fresh milk bread and vegetables, desserts. Religious services, recreational activities, libraries, educational classes, musical and artistic expression not only allowed but encouraged by their "captors."

They saw firsthand how democracy worked, how Americans were fundamentally good and charitable as many POWs worked alongside American civilians on farms, in canneries and other industries to support the war efforts. Better than any propaganda campaign ever devised. Anyway I found it very interesting and a helpful reminder in this fractured time that the US is not the bad guy in the world.

ETA: Aw crap. Won't let me embed. Go to the named youtube channel to view them.

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I've also recently watched numerous YouTube videos (relating to the camps Texas, Minnesota, and other states). Learned a lot, including much about the country's humanity.

My mother lived across the street from a WWII POW camp in Lufkin, TX when she just a toddler. The prisoners would wave hello to her when they saw her in the front yard (according to my grandmother). I'm sure it was comforting to them to see a child because they missed their own children.

* Constitutional Republic based on rights.

(not democracy)

This is what socialists and Marxists feel when they come here now. Capitalism and Judeo-Christian values are the best culture ever created by man.

My uncle was a guard at a camp (up north). He was too old to serve overseas, but he could serve at home. They would give the inmates old broken down jeeps to fix (I had a '52 willy's jeep at that time, a conversation starter). The German POWs would strip them down to the frame and rebuild them to factory condition. This kept the POWs busy and the camp stocked with good working vehicles. Win/Win. I asked him if they were afraid the POWs would drive them through the gate. He said why, they had free room and board and no Hitler (the "hard core" Nazis were culled out).

My mom remembers the POW work crews in Pecos when she was a little girl. She remembered the only English they seemed to know was "hello".

Agree with every word. Well stated.

I think the mini-series The Pacific captured the Jap soldier very well, as well as how Americans eventually came to see and deal with them. They were correctly viewed as savages with no regard for life (they were the only wartime force that regularly strapped themselves into bomb-laden aircraft to fly them into naval targets, as just one example of their savagery).

There was a very real hatred of all things Japanese in this country in the 40s. For many, that hatred would stay with them through the remainder of their lives. One of my grandfathers was such a man. I've told the story before elsewhere on TA, but after A&M, I bought my first car, which was a Toyota. On a trip home to visit parents and grandparents, I made the mistake of parking my Toyota in my grandfather's driveway. That didn't go over well. He told me to park that Jap crap in the street and to never soil his property with it again.

ABATTBQ87 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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swampstander said:

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Several years ago I read a book called Nazis in the Pineywoods. It was about German POWs that were used as laborers in the timber industry in East Texas. Somewhere around Lufkin I believe. When it was published there were still remnants of the camp visible. The book described what many have said here, how the prisoners were amazed at how well they were treated. A good, quick read if you find it.

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Of course they were treated well. And they leaned a lot.

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Germans had a long history of forestry before the US was a country, so the only thing Germans would have learned in the East Texas forests were venemous snakes, chiggars, mosquitoes and its hot and humid

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German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry
Historical Marker

Inscription. Click to hear the inscription. The U.S. Army began building POW camps in the United States in early 1942 for captured Axis prisoners. During World War II, the Army shipped almost 425,000 military prisoners to 511 camps in the U.S. Approximately 50,000 of those POWs, primarily Germans, were housed in 70 Texas facilities ranging from 9000-prisoner base camps to small branch camps for 250. The POWs filled American labor shortages brought on by the war's strain on available stateside man power. In Texas almost half of the camps provided agricultural workers for rice and cotton fields. Texas businessmen requested another 12 camps for help in the timber industry. Most of these were set up to salvage lumber and pulpwood from a severe ice storm in January 1944. The headquarters for the salvage work was Lufkin, the only Texas town to have two POW camps during the war.

The original POW camp, known as Camp Number 1 was located just north of the city on U.S. Hwy 69. Southland paper mills, led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple, leased an abandoned CCC camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction of the camp began in November 1943 and it officially opened

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=29450

aggiehawg said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Welp, we know which posters hate America now.

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It's amazing that you came to that conclusion.

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Not really. Pretty easy to see on this thread. Watch a few videos. Maybe you might understand.

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As much as I hate to agree with one of the resident libs, German POWs were often treated better in some places than black GIs.

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As POWs? That is what you are saying? Don't compare apples and oranges on this thread about POWs.

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I have no idea why you're going ballistic about this.

It happened.

The fact is that German POWs in the Jim Crow South were often treated better than Black GIs.


https://time.com/5872361/wwii-german-pows-civil-rights/

Quote:

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For Corporal Rupert Trimmingham, it came as no surprise that he'd have to eat inside the lunchroom's kitchen, invisible to the diners enjoying table service. This was 1944, and the Deep South. Trimmingham and eight other Black soldiers were en route from Louisiana's Camp Claiborne to Arizona's Fort Huachuca and, as he later wrote, he knew the only boss was "Old Man Jim Crow…"

But what Trimmingham and his companions saw as they looked out at the lunchroom from inside that kitchen defied even their weary expectations. About two dozen German prisoners of war who entered with their American guards "sat at the tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time." In an April 1944 letter to Yank, a weekly Army magazine, Trimmingham asked the obvious: "Are these men" Nazi troops who'd been captured while fighting on Hitler's behalf"sworn enemies of this country? Are we not American soldiers, sworn to fight for and die if need be for this our country? Then why are they treated better than we are?"

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Much more at the link

aggiehawg said:

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Canyon does not care.

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Educate yourself and edit accordingly.

jokershady said:

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I'm a big fan of MrBallen on YouTube and in this video he tells the story about some WWII pilots who got captured….im sure a few of yall have heard of this story considering who it involves….but if you haven't….itll REEEEAAAAAAALLY piss you off about how the Japanese treated our guys…

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Bataan Death March was enough for me.

I remember my grandfather telling me about German POWs in our hometown in South Georgia.

I was driving around Hereford today and had some time to kill so I randomly decided to go see the POW chapel. I had no Idea this subject was going on here until just now. Here's some pics from today at around 10AM.
[img][/img]
[img][/img]

aggiehawg said:

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Since Italy surrendered early in 1943, thanks to Patton and most Italians had been captured in Tunisia when Rommel's Afrika corps fell apart and the Italians largely has not bought into the Nazi stuff, they saw the Allie' conquering Italy as more as a liberation for their country. They were happy and the vast majority of them signed on to help the American war effort to defeat the Nazis.

LOL. Have another episode on in the background. They called Camp Hearne by the nickname of the "Fritz Ritz."

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Hessian Prisoners of War from 1778

were taken to northern virginia and build the Hackwood House-

where Colonel George S. Patton would be killed at the Battle of Third Winchester 19 September 1864.

His grandson would go on to command the US Third Army in France 1944-45.

ABATTBQ87 said:

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German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry
Historical Marker

The original POW camp, known as Camp Number 1 was located just north of the city on U.S. Hwy 69. Southland paper mills, led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple, leased an abandoned CCC camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction of the camp began in November 1943 and it officially opened

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=29450

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That was the camp across the street from my grandparents house in Lufkin that I mentioned above! My grandmother was good friends with Bebe Kurth. She lived in a grand old house not far from there that I visited as a child.

In the lower left of your picture, did you notice this?




On private property now, but it was the water tower for the camp. The concrete column is empty, and there is a hole in the middle of the platform on top. I have some photos of it somewhere.

As I understand, the water tank was on top of the platform, and there was a guard walkway around the outside of the tank


Also, is the chapel open to the elements? When I was last there, decades ago, there was glass in the windows and you could not go inside.

Also there were several rolls of barbed wire left from Prison Camp days, and the guy farming it let me take a small lehgth of it for a souvinier.

85aggie777 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry
Historical Marker

The original POW camp, known as Camp Number 1 was located just north of the city on U.S. Hwy 69. Southland paper mills, led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple, leased an abandoned CCC camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction of the camp began in November 1943 and it officially opened

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=29450

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That was the camp across the street from my grandparents house in Lufkin that I mentioned above! My grandmother was good friends with Bebe Kurth. She lived in a grand old house not far from there that I visited as a child.

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Is this the camp?

CCC Camp Nancy

I assume it used to look like the ones at the Amarillo Airport. There's also one up in Dalhart off of 297 by the auxiliary airfield. It's always cool seeing them out in a random field and thinking about the history that they saw.

Closer view of Hereford water tower



A similar one at Concordia, Kansas



And another in Tonkawa, OK





https://www.texasescapes.com/WorldWarII/POW-Camp-Chapel-Hereford-Texas.htm#google_vignette

StockHorseAg said:

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I assume it used to look like the ones at the Amarillo Airport.

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Google Map street view

Great thread, y'all. Always learn a lot from these.

My hometown was a large POW camp for Germans. They worked in the farms around the area. After the war, many of them didn't want to go back but they were forced to. Within a few years, many of them immigrated back to the area and their descendent stills live there.

Relative was a guard at a POW camp stateside. Said one of his lasting memories was the German prisoners sitting around laughing and jeering at how the American soldiers marched. Sadly he had a play-by the -rules CO who didn't let him and his mates pound the living crap out of them.

And yes, they were treated very well. Certainly better than another relative who was shot down and did a little over a year in a Stalag (and not the fun kind Colonel Klink ran).

ABATTBQ87 said:

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85aggie777 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry
Historical Marker

The original POW camp, known as Camp Number 1 was located just north of the city on U.S. Hwy 69. Southland paper mills, led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple, leased an abandoned CCC camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction of the camp began in November 1943 and it officially opened

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=29450

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That was the camp across the street from my grandparents house in Lufkin that I mentioned above! My grandmother was good friends with Bebe Kurth. She lived in a grand old house not far from there that I visited as a child.

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Is this the camp?

CCC Camp Nancy

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No. It was located off of North Raguet St between Airport Ave. and McMullen St. It is a US Forest Service facility now.

KingofHazor said:

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A friend of my parents in Tennessee had been a guard at Camp Hearne during the war. He claimed that Hogans Heroes was based on a book written by a German prisoner at Camp Hearne, but the two sides were obviously reversed for the TV show.

I've never been able to find any substantiation for his story but it kind of makes sense. No POW camp in Germany was staffed by such idiots as at Stalag 13 and I doubt that the Germans would allow the American POWs access to German towns or free access in or out of the Stalag offices.

The POW camps in America, on the other hand, did allow German POWs passes to leave the camp to work in nearby farms, towns, and homes. My guess is that we did not put our best and brightest officers in command of such camps, nor did we have high expectations for the security of and discipline within the camps.

Has anyone else read or heard anything that would corroborate or contradict my parents' friend's story?

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Hogans Heroes was satire. In fact, the producers of HH were sued by the authors of Stalog 17, a play turned into a movie in the late '50s.

I think an extremely high percentage of POWs imprisoned in the US absolutely loved the conditions they were in and wanted nothing to do with going back to their own country and rejoining the war effort. They may have felt some allegiance to their own country, but I'm equally sure they feared reprisal from the US if they were to abuse privileges given to them as POWs. Remember, a lot of these camps were in Texas and in the south: what would a saboteur face if he were caught by a Southern sheriff engaging in mischief in early 1940s Texas? A jail cell or bullet to the head?

CanyonAg77 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Canyon does not care.

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Educate yourself and edit accordingly.

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No. You said stupid stuff. This thread is my thread that I started about how generou7s and non-judgmental the US was towards POWs. You endorsed a view that the US is still bad country because of other crap, unrelated to this topic.

Tired of bein "fair" and presenting other unrelated topics to show we are a bad country and American Exceptionalism is not a thing and has never been been a thing.

I know you do not believe that but just can't gloss over how you commiserated with the wrong side.

Not on this one. America did it right and just.

I'm sorry but I can't apologize.

I stated verifiable facts. That you don't like them doesn't make them stupid. If you don't want to be educated, your choice

And I was not aware that the thread starter owned the thread.

Facts do not have sides. Admitting that we made mistakes is not a bad thing.

CanyonAg77 said:

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I stated verifiable facts. That you don't like them doesn't make them stupid. If you don't want to be educated, your choice

And I was not aware that the thread starter owned the thread.

Facts do not have sides. Admitting that we made mistakes is not a bad thing.

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Not the point and you know that. Even the Japanese who were interned fully understood why it was done. Was it wrong, yes it was. Does that mean the manner in which POWs stateside was inhumane?

NO. How many of those videos did you watch? Even one?

Done.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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Our guys ate well. Herman Wouk in Winds of War noted the German and Russian troops lived off scraps while the Americans had pounds and pounds of food from home. Plus cigarettes, candy bars and other stuff.

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Our logistics for supply lines were superior. As we demonstrated again during the Berlin Airlift after the war.

Thanks to all responders here. I have been kind of down about how America is being dissed currently both inside and out. Thought a reminder of how we actually acted when we had every reason not to, emotionally, largely refrained from retaliating against the individual soldier. It was the Nazi regime we were fighting, their leaders.

Ditto for the Japanese who could not fathom that with their Bushido Codes.

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There's a story (and I'm paraphrasing here" that when some of the American positions were overrun in the Ardennes and the Germans saw American troops are getting Christmas packages from home, they knew it was the end. Germany was doing everything it could just to supply ammo to its frontline troops and we are sending Christmas gifts across the Atlantic (not to mention every soldier in the ETO got a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving 1944, of course experienced varied from rear echelon to frontline troops as to how elaborate it was). They knew they couldn't compete with that.