Prisoners associated with turning points of WWII
I seem to remember reading a long time ago that there was a German prisoner of war camp from World War II near Ruston. How many people were there and who were they?
When Baby Boomers hear the term, “World War II POWs Camp,” some may think of Stalag 17 or Stalag Luft 3 of the Great Escape or even the funny, but not very historical, Stalag 13 of Hogan’s Heroes. We know Allied prisoners were held in Europe, but how many realize that the reverse was true. The Allies captured tens of thousands of prisoners, prisoners who couldn’t easily be kept in combat zones, so they were exported from Europe to the United States, including to our region. German and Italian prisoners were brought to north Louisiana’s Camp Ruston in Lincoln Parish near Grambling. While unremarkable in layout, it is remarkable for some of the noted prisoners it held. They included members of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps as well as Italian prisoners captured in North Africa by General George Patton’s Third Army. Perhaps the most famous was a group whose capture was associated with one of the turning points of WWII. Hitler’s high command believed that U-Boat U-505 was sunk in the north Atlantic. In fact it was captured and secretly removed to the United States, with its captain and crew sent to Camp Ruston, far from any chance of escape. Why was the capture of this U-boat so important? The U-boat held Germany’s top secret code-breaking machine, Enigma. With the capture of Enigma, the Allies were able to decipher the German codes and save the lives of thousands of Allied sailors. This helped turn the tide in the war for the allies.
The old administration building at Camp Ruston was constructed in 1942 on 770 acres about seven miles northwest of Ruston and at its peak held 4,315 prisoners. What made this site well-suited for a POW camp? During the war the government placed these camps in places that would afford little chance of escape, places with an appropriate transportation system to move them in and out with ease by rail and, occasionally, by road. Camp Ruston was a good t. It was remote, far away from metropolitan areas, yet it was located near Highway 80, a major link between the east and west coasts. It was also near the primary railroad trunk line between the southeastern United States and southern California. The same things that contributed to the success of the timber industry in north Louisiana also worked for prisoners transport.
Exactly what did these prisoners do while in Louisiana? Among other things, the captives built the buildings in which they lived, and some of the brick walls exist today. Many worked on local farms and businesses, picking cotton, building roads, cutting trees and performing other tasks to alleviate the war-related labor shortage. They also participated in crafts and athletic activities, and the POWs organized an orchestra, a theater and a library.
When I was a student at Louisiana Tech University, my geography adviser, Ralph Pierce, told me that he grew up near Arcadia and sometimes sneaked away from home to look through the barbed wire, hoping to see the Germans of the Afrika Korps. As a young boy, that seemed to bring the war closer to home. Obviously, people who lived near the site knew about the camp, but in a time of great peril, no one bragged about it. The government often moved these prisoners around as many more thousands arrived. The Afrika Corps was transported and Italian prisoners from north Africa were held at the camp for the remainder of the war.
Dr. Gary Joiner is the Leonard and Mary Anne Selber Professor of History at LSUS, where he is also director of the Red River Regional Studies Center. Questions for “The History Doctor” may be addressed to [email protected].
