Lufkin, TX, United States
German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry. The U.S. Army began building POW camps in the United States in early 1942 for captured Axis prisoners. During World War II, the Army shipped almost 425,000 military prisoners to 511 camps in the U.S. Approximately 50,000 of those POWs, primarily Germans
, were housed in 70 Texas facilities ranging from 9000-prisoner base camps to small branch camps for 250. The POWs filled American labor shortages brought on by the war's strain on available stateside
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