Camp Ruston was one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in the United States during World War II, with 4,315 prisoners at its peak in October 1943. Camp Ruston served as the "base camp" and had 8 smaller work branch camps associated to it. Camp Ruston included three large, separated compounds for POWs, a full, modern hospital compound, and a compound for the American personnel. One of the POW compounds, located in the far northwestern part of the camp, was designated for POW officers. The officer's compound's barracks were constructed to house a lesser number of POWs, affording more privacy and room for the officers. The enlisted men's barracks were designed to house a maximum of 50 POWs in two rows of bunks that ran along each side. POW latrines were separate buildings located at the end of each compound.
Construction and WAC use Camp Ruston was built by the local T.L. James Company under the supervision of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on about west of Ruston, Louisiana in 1942. The land was purchased for $24,200, and the construction cost $2.5 million. Camp Ruston was originally designated as an "Enemy Alien Internment Camp", a detention facility for internees of Japanese ancestry. Plans for the internment of enemy aliens that may have also included internees of German and Italian ancestry never developed, and the need for additional enemy alien internment camps were abandoned. It soon became evident that Camp Ruston's usage plan would change due to the unexpected number of POWs being housed in Europe needing to be transferred.
Because few German prisoners of war in the United States as yet existed, the camp served first as a training center for the Women's Army Corps. In April 1943, the first 500 recruits arrived for basic training, forming the 42nd Women's Army Auxiliary Corps Regiment. Approximately 2,000 WACs were trained at the camp over three and one-half months. By July 1943, the WAC training center was moved to make room for the expected large numbers of POW's captured in the European and Northern African Theaters.
POW camp
The first 300 POWs, from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's elite Afrika Korps, arrived at Camp Ruston in August 1943. By October 1943, the camp reached a peak population of 4,315 prisoners, including 181 officers. After the three original compounds were filled, a fourth for officers only was built. The prisoners were perhaps the most ethnically diverse ever seen in Louisiana; besides Germans, captured soldiers of French, Austrian, Italian, Czech, Polish, Yugoslav, and Romanian nationalities, and over 100 Russian prisoners were also housed in the camp. One report describes several German soldiers with "Mongol features" and that they required special diets in keeping with their Islamic faith. It was later learned that these "Muhammadans" were from Chechnya.
Declassified memos from the Russian POWs to the camp commander indicated that while the Russians were prisoners, they volunteered to fight against the Japanese for the Americans. Their request was denied by the Americans, and the fate of these Russian POWs became one of the most unusual stories of Camp Ruston. During the meeting at Yalta, Stalin specifically mentioned these Russian POWs held at Camp Ruston and requested their return to Russia. The US agreed to send these POWs back to Russia and eventually transferred them from Camp Ruston to Camp Dix in New Jersey for their trip home. The Russian POWs, who fought against Russia as German soldiers, knew their fate if they were to return. Records and news accounts indicate that the Russians rioted and started fires in their barracks at Camp Dix to protest. Two Russian POWs hanged themselves from the barrack rafters rather than face their inevitable fate. After leaving Camp Dix, the trail and story of the remaining Russian POWs from Camp Ruston mysteriously end.
One group of prisoners was treated differently, with not even International Red Cross inspectors allowed to see them. In late July 1944, the captured surviving 56 officers and crew of were sent to the camp and kept in isolation in a restricted area in the NE corner of the camp to prevent them from communicating to the enemy that secret German naval codes had fallen into Allied hands. Numerous declassified secret National Archive documents regarding these U-boat POWs are housed in the archives. A copy of Captain Harold Lange's log of the U-505s voyage can be found in the archives at Louisiana Tech University. The last entry in the log suggests that Lange actually pre-wrote the evening's entry earlier and before the capture, as his entry stated that on the evening of the 4th, everything was calm. The U-505 had been captured earlier in the day of June 4.
Records indicate that one American was kept as a POW at Camp Ruston. Ludwig Staudinger Jr. was born in Germany in 1921. His family left Germany and immigrated to the west coast of the US near Yakima, Washington. As the war in Europe began, the young German American's allegiance to his mother country drew him into joining the German army prior to America's entry into the war. He left Yakima and fought in the early years of the war. Staudinger was captured by the English and eventually, this naturalized American, fighting for his mother country, found himself a German POW in his naturalized country.
A Luftwaffe prisoner stated that while the camp was tough, compared to German standards, it was like a vacation. During their incarceration in Camp Ruston, the prisoners benefited from food, medical care, and physical surroundings that were better than what their countrymen were experiencing at home. They ate the same food as their captors; perhaps even better, as several experienced cooks were among them. Prisoners were permitted to purchase snacks and personal items at a canteen, engage in athletic and craft activities, and organize an orchestra, a theater, and a library; KWKH broadcast a concert by the prisoners.
Enlisted prisoners were required to work at the camp and for farms and businesses across north Louisiana. They picked cotton, felled timber, built roads, and performed other tasks to help solve the domestic labor shortage caused by the war; cotton picking was perhaps the most difficult. They were paid in scrip which they could use in the camp canteen. There are numerous accounts of POWs and locals meeting and becoming "friends" during their stay. Officers were not required to work but could if they desired. One such case involved Hans Stollenwerk, an Afrika Corp lieutenant, who worked as an assistant to one of the camp's civilian accountants. Stollenwork's art had been given to the accountant as he left Camp Ruston. The artwork was found in an old barn near Arcadia, Louisiana and donated to the Camp Ruston Foundation nearly 50 years later.
In 1944, the War Department began a program to educate prisoners of war throughout the United States in academic subjects and democratic values. One source of books was the library of Louisiana Polytechnic Institute (now Louisiana Tech University). Some prisoners even took correspondence courses from major American universities. Many of the prisoners cite this instruction as the beginning of Democracy in post-war Germany. Contrary to several poorly researched books and videos made about Camp Ruston, the POWs did not wear their military uniforms during their internment. There were several occasions where POWs were photographed posing in their national uniform for Christmas cards and funerals, but these occasions were very rare at Camp Ruston. Each POW was issued WWI US surplus khaki uniforms with the letters "PW" painted on the back of each shirt and coat, as well as the front pant legs of their trousers. This fact was corroborated during interviews of American guards as well as numerous former POWs. A POW-issued uniform was donated by a former POW to the Camp Ruston Foundation and is now located in the archives.
Only 34 prisoners escaped and remained free for over 24 hours, and only one was never recaptured. The most famous escape was performed by a German soldier named Charly King. Born on Christmas Day in 1921, King, then 24 years old, spoke perfect German, English, as well as Spanish, and was said to be well educated, possibly an engineer or an architect. He managed to escape from one of Camp Ruston's branch camps at Bastrop, La. and eventually made his way to neutral Mexico, where he spent several months. In Mexico, King was involved in a serious truck accident where he spent several months recuperating from his injuries. He eventually hopped a ship back to Germany. According to one of his American guards, King was a pleasant prisoner whom the American guards liked and respected. Based on a Spione interview, the guard remembered that Charly had told him that he needed to return to Germany in order to take care of his mother, whom he feared would fall into Russian hands. The F.B.I. continued to search for him for many years.
At least nine prisoners died at Camp Ruston, including a Russian Major. These deaths resulted from previous wounds and illnesses, or, in one case, from an attack by other prisoners. A small cemetery, located at the northeast tip of the property, near what is now the eastbound lane of Interstate 20, remained until all the buried POWs were exhumed and returned to their countries. An unusual story regarding POW deaths occurred when a German POW died at the camp. The Germans requested that the German/Nazi flag be draped over his coffin for his funeral. There were no Nazi flags available when one female civilian American employee, Myra Roberts of Ruston, sewed a Nazi flag for the funeral. The flag was kept by Roberts for many years, but was misplaced before it could be saved for the archives. It was also noted that a Russian major had died of a heart attack and was buried in the cemetery.
The last prisoners left Camp Ruston on 3 February 1946 for repatriation to their native countries, and the camp was closed in June 1946. Most of the POWs, however, were not immediately repatriated to their native countries for fear of "dumping" all these trained soldiers back into their defeated countries. Many were kept up to two additional years in camps in England, Belgium, and France before being repatriated. Interviews indicated that for many, those two years at the hands of their European holders were much worse than their experiences at Camp Ruston. Contrary to some beliefs, only a few POWs remained in the US. The vast majority of POWs were shipped back to Europe and eventually back to their respective countries. A relatively small number of prisoners who were deemed important to the US and wished to stay were offered the opportunity.