Camp Shelby was home to a large German POW camp during WWII. They were veterans of the Africa Corps.
Someone came up with the idea of them building a state park. Their Engineers designed and built a dam crating a lake which is still there at Paul B. Johnson State Park.
They were paid their German Army wages for the work. I think it was very little.
I left active duty in 1978 and joined the Alabama National Guard, 142d Signal Brigade. I did five summer camps at Shelby. It’s difficult to describe how hot the summers can be there and how big the rattlesnakes can be.
Someone came up with the idea of them building a state park. Their Engineers designed and built a dam crating a lake which is still there at Paul B. Johnson State Park.
The former POW camp site (or a portion of it) in the DeSoto National Forest can still be reached via the Tuxachanie Hiking Trail, south of Camp Shelby. I think they've added some mountain bike trails in the area since Katrina.
Hi yarddog....sounds like a good use of their minds and time.
And they must have done a good job. The stories they must have had when they got home about being in a POW camp. Probably not what they expected.
Thanks for sharing the story.
Ha, my two sons work there and are in the NG. I worked there as a contract worker when Iraq war was still going on. On the back side of the camp is a place where German soldiers were kept. We heard from other people of a site where the prisoners dug a symbol of the Swastika in the ground. They were going to fill it with diesel fuel when they heard German planes flying over, then light it. Those guys thought they were still around Germany. One son, myself and a few others scouted the area and found the symbol. It was partly caved in but still could make it out.