Site of World War ll Prisoner of War Camp

Duane's take

The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the one bringing it to life for you. Now settle in, because this story takes place closer than you might think, and stranger than most folks remember. Right here in Jefferson County, Texas, during World War II, there was a prisoner of war camp.

Not a rumor, not a legend. A real, working camp, on real Texas soil. And the men inside it had come a very long way to get here.

Let me tell you how it went. The war had pulled so many American workers out of the fields and into uniform that farms across the country were struggling to find hands to do the work. So the U.S. government made an arrangement.

Prisoners of war would fill that gap, and in Jefferson County, the man responsible for making it all function was J.M. Combs, the county extension agent working under the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at Texas A&M University. Combs figured out what the farms needed, sized up the local labor supply, and then coordinated his operation with the base camp up in Huntsville.

Now, the Huntsville camp, one of the largest base camps in the state of Texas, had opened early in 1943. Its very first prisoners were members of Rommel's Afrika Korps, captured in north Africa. German prisoners from the European theater of operations came through as well.

So Huntsville was no small operation. But Huntsville couldn't do everything. Some areas were just too far away for prisoners to make the round trip in a single day.

China, Texas was one of those places. And so in September of 1944, a branch camp opened right here on this site. The U.S. government leased the land from the Stanolind Oil and Gas Company.

Every morning, local farmers and others who needed the day labor would come out to the camp, pick up the prisoners, and bring them back each evening. The German soldiers performed general farm labor at twenty-five cents per hour. They harvested rice for three dollars a day.

They worked as loggers, too. In January of 1945, the China camp held 148 prisoners. By August of 1945, at its peak, it was housing 403 men.

Four hundred and three German soldiers, right here in Jefferson County, doing farm work and coming home, so to speak, to a camp on leased oil company land. The camp was open only fifteen months. It closed in December of 1945, and its 350 prisoners returned to Huntsville, and then eventually, all the way back to Germany.

Now here's what I want you to sit with as you roll down this road. All that history, all those men, all that strangeness of wartime labor on Texas soil, and by the time the twenty-first century rolled around, the only thing left on this site was the water well. Just the well.

Standing there quiet, the last witness to something most people had forgotten entirely.

What the marker says

The reduction of the labor force in the United States during World War II prompted the use of prisoners of war as laborers for various agricultural interests. The responsibility of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service at Texas A&M University, the program in Jefferson County was supervised by J.M. Combs, county extension agent. Combs determined the farm labor needs of the county and analyzed the local labor supply to coordinate his efforts with those of the base P.O.W. camp in Hunstville. The camp at Huntsville, one of the largest base camps in Texas, opened early in 1943. Its first prisoners were members of Rommel's Afrika Korps who had been captured in north Africa. German prisoners came from the European theater of operations, as well. Temporary branch camps were established in areas such as China which were too distant from the base camp for daily round trips. The China branch camp opened in September 1944 on this site. The U.S. government leased the property from the Stanolind Oil & Gas Company. Local farmers and others wishing to use the day labor provided by prisoners picked them up at the camp in the morning and returned them each night. German soldiers performed general farm labor at twenty-five cents per hour and harvested rice for three dollars a day. They also worked as loggers. In January 1945 there were 148 prisoners at the China camp. At its peak in August 1945, the camp housed 403 prisoners. The China camp was open only 15 months. It closed in December 1945 and its 350 prisoners returned to Huntsville, then eventually to Germany. At the dawn of the 21st century the only remnant of the China base camp was the water well.