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Started By
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re: Did you know German & Italian WW2 POWs were imprisoned in the US?
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:19 pm to Sidicous
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:19 pm to Sidicous
quote:
There was one in Memphis
Other side of the River in Mississippi County, AR you can see some remains of this one. Took my son out there one day to explore. Germans picked a lot of cotton and cleared a lot of land in the Southeastern US in the 1940s. The Italian WOPs...oops... POWs, for the most part were.....how to put this.... lazy, shiftless and lacked intelligence as well as motivation and were far less efficient than their German counterparts.
Camp Bassett
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 1:32 pm
2
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:20 pm to reggierayreb
quote:
Germans picked a lot of cotton
we should have captured them about a hundred years earlier
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:22 pm to 777Tiger
In the early years of Louisiana, one of my direct aristocratic French ancestors had a commission from King Louis to recruit German farmers to settle upriver from New Orleans to grow crops to feed the city's citizens. St. Charles Parish, St. John the Baptist, etc. were known as the German Coast. Since the local priests were French, many German names were converted to French spellings when written in the church records. Many area residents are probably surprised when they get their DNA tested thinking they are mostly French.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:22 pm to LSUFreek
A p.o.w. camp was located near Kaplan as well. Many of the prisoners of war worked in the rice fields of local farmers.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:25 pm to OffTheRails
quote:
German Coast
yep, learned about that in grade school
quote:
Many area residents are probably surprised when they get their DNA tested thinking they are mostly French.
one of my best friends is a Trosclair and I had to pull out a text book, when we were kids, to show him the origin of his name, but he was of the first gen of his family that was not 100% French speaking
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:27 pm to Mstate
quote:
I’ve always wondered if any stayed here after the war
YouTube has lots of videos where AI reads diaries or autobiographies from the prisoners’ perspectives. Many were not allowed to go home for a period of time after the war was over.
Like another poster mentioned, the train rides across the U.S. made a big impression on them. When they’d stop in towns, the local girls would give them baked goods etc and flirt with the POWs. Jody-livin’ hos!
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:28 pm to LSUFreek
Yes. My great uncle farmed and had German POWs as labor in west alabama.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:32 pm to 777Tiger
quote:
one of my best friends is a Trosclair and I had to pull out a text book, when we were kids, to show him the origin of his name, but he was of the first gen of his family that was not 100% French speakin
Another on the endless list of 777tiger lies
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:32 pm to LSUFreek
Yes.
Did you know the US paid pow's AT the same rate as our troops? This was a lot more than the Axis paid. There are stories of POWs going back home with more money and in much better health than troops who stayed home.
Flag officers were given high end housing.
There are lots of books about it. Many former pows came back to the states to live.
Did you know the US paid pow's AT the same rate as our troops? This was a lot more than the Axis paid. There are stories of POWs going back home with more money and in much better health than troops who stayed home.
Flag officers were given high end housing.
There are lots of books about it. Many former pows came back to the states to live.
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 1:38 pm
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:33 pm to Bill Parker?
There were some kept at Jackson Barracks. My mother said she saw some POWs in Algiers during the war, her description, "I never saw a skinny one."
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:39 pm to LSUFreek
There was a German pow camp in thibodaux
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:42 pm to tigersownall
germans in Hammond, young, blue eyed , the local
ladies brought them cakes.
ladies brought them cakes.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:43 pm to LSUFreek
IIRC the Ruston camp housed sailors from U541, the captured UBoat that provided the Enigma machine.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:50 pm to Jim Rockford
I'm learning more from this thread than any WW2 doc. Why was this fascinating subject never explored in documentaries?
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:58 pm to LSUFreek
quote:
I'm learning more from this thread than any WW2 doc. Why was this fascinating subject never explored in documentaries?
Posted on 8/6/25 at 1:59 pm to LSUFreek
My Junior High school was one of the POW camps. It had an interesting history to say the least.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 2:05 pm to LSUFreek
There was one in Port Allen near the WBR parish museum. They used them to farm sugar cane.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 2:06 pm to LSUFreek
There was a camp in Houma. There was a website with pictures, but I don't remember what it was.
Found this, but it's not the site I remember.
HoumaToday
Found this, but it's not the site I remember.
HoumaToday
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 2:11 pm
Posted on 8/6/25 at 2:08 pm to LSUFreek
I knew it.
Posted on 8/6/25 at 2:09 pm to LSUFreek
There were German POWs kept at the blimp base in Houma as well.
ETA: Local historian CJ Christ wrote a nice compilation of stories about WW2 in the gulf.
ETA: Local historian CJ Christ wrote a nice compilation of stories about WW2 in the gulf.
This post was edited on 8/6/25 at 2:10 pm
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