Camp Alto, World War II Prisoner of War Camp

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Camp Alto, right here in Cherokee County. Now, by early 1942, the U.S. Army had started building camps on American soil to house prisoners of war.

The war had come home in that particular way, and the country was figuring things out fast. Camp Alto, sitting south of this very spot, wasn't one of the big operations. It was a branch camp, a smaller working arm of the Camp Fannin base facility over in Tyler.

The military set up these branch camps for a practical reason: wartime labor shortages had created real needs out in the communities, and somebody had to meet them. Come the fall of 1944, Camp Alto was up and running, with approximately one hundred German prisoners of war living in tents. Not barracks, not buildings.

Tents. Out here in East Texas. The majority of those men went to work cutting pulpwood for what the marker calls the East Texas ice storm salvage project.

That was the mission, and by all accounts, they carried it out. Then the war began winding down, and the calculus changed. As the end grew imminent, branch camps across the country started sending their prisoners to larger base camps, moving them step by step toward eventual repatriation, back to the lives they'd left behind on the other side of the ocean.

Camp Alto, its mission accomplished, closed in the spring of 1945, under the direction of the War Assets Administration. Tents folded, pulpwood cut, men gone. A small operation in a big war, and Cherokee County carried a piece of it.

What the marker says

The U.S. Army built stateside camps by early 1942 to house prisoners of war (POWs). Camp Alto south of this site was a small branch operation of the Camp Fannin base facility in Tyler. The military set up branch camps to address local labor needs brought about by wartime shortages. With approximately 100 German POWs living in tents, Camp Alto began operating in the fall of 1944. The majority of POWs cut pulpwood for the East Texas ice storm salvage project. With the end of the war imminent, branch camps sent POWs to larger base camps as a step toward eventual repatriation. Its mission accomplished, Camp Alto closed in the spring of 1945 under direction of the War Assets Administration. Texas in World War II - 2006