Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WW2 POW Camps in the U. S.

I grew up about 12 miles out of Liberty, Texas. There had been a German POW camp out near the Fair Grounds off Hy 146 I was always told. My GF complained about how on Saturdays the local girls could be seen with them on "dates". They were apparently free to go into town. I don't know if or how hard they worked them during the week, but I'm sure that "Fritzy" was glad he was there instead of the Eastern Front! ha

It's been said that the only thing that drops faster than a French soldier's rifle is a French woman's panties.

POWs were interned at the stables for the Greenbrier Resort near White Sulfur Springs, WV. The POWs would walk out to the front fence and watch cars go by on US Rt 60. The guards kept telling them to stay back. Finally they were told "The war is over for you but your people are still fighting ours. The people going by are losing friends and loved ones and can't get to your people killing ours but they can shoot you from that road and nothing will happen to them". The POWS stayed away from the road.

always felt we treated them far better than they deserved

There is a small POW Chapel at Camp Atterbery in central Indiana. Apparently German POW's were housed there during WWII.

Here at the foot of Sideling Hill Mountain in Well's Valley there was a POW Camp housing captured Germans. It started out as a CCC Corps camp in the 30s for building roads, and was converted over to that purpose during the war.
Ain't much left of it now other than the barracks foundations and some rusted pipes sticking outta the ground. The Commandant's house/office is used by DCNR in Buchanan State Forest. Wifey says that the government alphabet agencies used it as a safe house for witnesses and such in the 60s and 70s.
As someone else said, getting captured and sent the to the U.S. was probably the best thing to happen to German soldiers. Quite a few who were sent to Russia took 8 or 10 years to get home, if they did at all.
7mm

The advent of World War II meant many things to different people.

To those young men eligible for the draft, it meant being drafted into the Armed Services and off to basic training and being shipped off to serve and fight in a foreign land.

To many woman and those not eligible for the draft, it meant badly needed employment for those who struggled during the Great Depression.

But to nearly 1,500 people from farm families in nearby Henderson, Webster and Union counties in Western Kentucky, it meant much more — it meant giving up their land, farm equipment, homes and way of life to the federal government in the name of patriotism and the war effort.

At the time, little did these humble farm families know that the creation of the Army's Camp Breckenridge in 1942 would eventually lead to a rancorous legal dispute and hard feelings on the part of family descendants which would span seven decades.

It is a rather sordid tale, but one to be remembered.

Hence, on Sunday, among the many events occurring this weekend, the 70th year reunion event of Camp Breckenridge Commemoration event will be held at the James D. Veach Museum and Arts Center at 1 p.m. on the grounds of Camp Breckenridge outside Morganfield, Ky.

In January, 1942, Kentucky Rep. Beverly Vincent revealed to the public that the War Department had authorized the construction of an Army training base somewhere near Morganfield. The facility was to be designed to train some 30,000 troops annually.

A few short weeks later, farmers in the surrounding area were told two things:

1. If they accept the appraised value of their property, payment would be tendered immediately, and

2. As soon as the war is over and the property is declared "surplus," the owners would be offered a right of first refusal to repurchase the farm land with compensation for damages.

Finally, on March 3, 121 orders to vacate the property were sent by the U.S. Marshal's office for the 36,000 acres of farmland to build the training base.

In a book written in 1978 by Ruby Higginson, entitled "Land of Camp Breckenridge: Injustice to the Farmer," about the same time the Army began confiscating land, oil wells were starting to be drilled in the vicinity of the proposed camp.

Higginson, an Evansville resident who was in high school at the time the land was taken, painfully details in graphic descriptions what happened to the various people involved in the massive land grab through negotiated sales and condemnation proceedings.

Many long remained upset about how government officials eventually lied to all the land owners and broke every promise made to them.

In the post-World War II era, family members who lived on farms taken for the base have been engaged in a never-ending legal struggle while government officials seemed to be insulated from public opinion and ridicule.

In the ensuing years, the federal government sold the mineral rights on much of the land which has since produced coal, oil and natural gas.

From 1950 until 1965 the camp remained closed.

Finally, in 1965 the land was declared "surplus" and the government broke the acreage up into such large tracts that none of the area farmers could afford to buy any of their former land holdings.

A lawsuit was filed in federal court in the late 1960s but a judge dismissed the case. Congressional action in 1993 allowed the plaintiffs a hearing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and in 2005 Judge Susan Braden issued a preliminary ruling awarding some $32.5 million — proceeds from the sale of mineral rights to the land — to the former land owners.

In the ruling, Judge Braden instructed the Justice Department (acting in behalf of the Army) and the former land owners to negotiate a settlement.

Subsequently, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner spent several months attempting to mediate an equitable settlement.

Finally, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Claims in February 2009 dismissed the previous recommendation.

Justices Lawrence Margolis and Loren Smith wrote a 20-page opinion stating that "any award to the Claimants would constitute a gratuity," and recommended Congress be advised that they should receive nothing.

However, in a 42-page dissenting opinion, Judge Charles F. Lettow sided with the landowners and claimed they should be awarded some $22.9 million because about a third of the land had been condemned through court action rather than by a quasi-voluntary sale.

He went on to argue that the Tennessee Valley Authority purchased the coal rights on some 30,540 acres of the land for $7.4 million but later sold these rights to private interests for more than $400 million.

Judge Lettow stated the case is the epitome of an instance where the government has enriched itself by "the overreaching of its agents," and "the claimants deserve recompense."

Despite their legal setbacks, the Breckenridge Land Committee continues to meet regularly.

The group sends out a newsletter and receives monthly reports from their lawyers.

Currently, members are attempting to exert pressure on Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell's staff since the case has been reported back to the Senate by the Court of Federal Claims.

...Turning left onto Hwy 56 one will travel past the town of TILDON through what was once Camp Breckinridge. Everything on the right is still part of Camp Breckinridge. Lady Bird Johnson once held the mineral rights to much of this land. The Johnson Family still retains these rights.