DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about a piece of Orange County history most folks drive right past without a second thought. Now, when you think about World War II coming to Texas, you might picture rationing, maybe a Gold Star flag in a window, maybe a young man shipping out from Beaumont or Port Arthur. What you probably don't picture is a U.S.
Army tent camp set up on lumber company land right here in Orange County, with about a hundred and forty German prisoners of war working the rice fields before sunrise. But that's exactly what happened. Here's the scale of the thing first, because it matters.
During World War II, over fifty thousand German prisoners were interned across more than seventy P.O.W. camps in Texas alone. Seventy. The state was dotted with them — base camps anchored at military installations, each one running a network of branch camps out into the surrounding countryside.
One of those base camps sat up at Huntsville. And from Huntsville, somebody looked at a map, looked at a labor shortage, and made a decision. About a hundred and forty German prisoners were detailed out and sent south to a tent camp near this very site in 1944.
The land belonged to the Lutcher Moore Lumber Company. The construction materials and the labor to actually build the camp came from the Orange County Farm Labor Committee of the U.S. Agricultural Extension Service — so local hands built the place that would house the enemy, because the math of wartime demanded it.
Every morning, army trucks rolled out and carried those prisoners to their work details in the area rice fields. They were there to bring in the harvest — to do the work that the farmers' own employees could no longer do, because those employees had gone to war. Think on that a moment.
The fields still needed tending. The rice still needed to come in. Wartime food production didn't pause for the war.
So the prisoners worked, and their work became, as the marker puts it, a crucial element in the area's wartime food production. And here's the detail that tends to catch people off guard: many of those prisoners developed good working relationships with their employers. Not all of war is fire and fury.
Some of it, apparently, is two men who don't share a language figuring out which end of a row needs finishing before the rain comes in. The original camp didn't last long — it operated for only a short time in 1944. But the need didn't go away.
In 1945, prisoners were transported in from camps in China, Texas, and Edgerly, Louisiana, and once again put to work on Orange County farms. So there it is. Right here, in the middle of a global war, a rice harvest got brought in because of a tent camp, a lumber company's land, an extension service committee, and a hundred and forty men a long way from home.
The war shaped this county in ways you'd never see on a battlefield map — and this marker is one of the few things left that says so.
What the marker says
During World War II, over 50,000 German prisoners of war were interned in over 70 Texas P. O. W. camps. Base camps were established at military bases throughout the state. The base camps operated a number of branch camps in their respective areas. Detailed from a base camp at Huntsville, about 140 German prisoners were housed in a U. S. Army tent camp near this site in 1944. Located on land owned by the Lutcher Moore Lumber Company, the camp was built with construction materials and labor provided by the Orange County Farm Labor Committee of the U. S. Agricultural Extension Service. Transported to their work details by army trucks each day, the German prisoners worked as laborers in area rice fields, helping to bring in the harvest of farmers whose employees had gone to war. The work of the prisoners became a crucial element in the area's wartime food production, and many of the prisoners enjoyed good working relationships with their employers. Although the original prison camp operated for only a short time in 1944, prisoners transported from camps in China, Texas, and Edgerly, Louisiana, were once again employed on Orange County farms in 1945.