The Texas World War II Home Front

The Handbook of Texas says German prisoners of war kept in Cleburne late in the war worked on farms. Its statewide account explains the arrangement: the War Department let labor-starved farmers use prisoners, and branch camps were often in school buildings, old Civilian Conservation Corps facilities or fairgrounds. Farmers paid the government the prevailing $1.50 a day, the prisoner received eighty cents in canteen coupons, and the rest went to the federal treasury. Across Texas the men picked fruit, baled hay, threshed grain, gathered pecans and chopped cotton. Many farmers later remembered them with affection.

What the plaque says

The Texas World War II Home Front World War II brought a shared sense of patriotism and purpose to the Texas home front as civilians benefited from new or expanded war industry jobs, such as petroleum, lumber, bomber manufacturing and farming. However, the large number of Texans seeking employment in larger cities or joining the military created an extreme labor shortage in many smaller communities. Across the state, groups worked to alleviate the labor crisis. Johnson County succeeded in June 1944 with the establishment of Camp Cleburne for German Prisoners of War (POWs) here, with the First State Bank of Rio Vista guarantying funds to the U.S. government for POW wages. By war's end, Camp Cleburne––one of nearly 70 camps across the state housing more than 50,000 POWs––provided 120 Johnson County farms with necessary agricultural labor during the war. Prior to the war, National Guard units trained across Texas preparing for America's eventual entry into the war. One such unit, Battery B., 132nd Field Artillery, 36th Infantry Division (I.D.) trained in Johnson County. In 1942, the 36th I.D. mobilized for overseas deployment and the patriotic Texas spirit shone brightly as the unit rolled through Cleburne in Feb. 1942 to the cheers of hundreds of Johnson County residents. By 1945, nearly 1.2 million troops trained at army posts, airfields and naval bases in Texas. Texans looked to volunteer civically while enduring shortages and inconveniences necessary to support the war effort. The Johnson County Draft Board and Rationing Board were housed in the county courthouse. In addition, local residents participated in civilian oriented programs, such as blackout and air raid drills, Civil Air Patrol, victory gardens, scrap drives, volunteering at USOs and working war bond drives. Texans responded in great numbers to their nation's call and served both overseas and stateside in WWII. The resulting military buildup served as the catalyst toward the modernization and urbanization of Texas. Texas in World War II - 2010

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cleburne State Park — 10 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.
• Acton State Historic Site — 17 mi
  The smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
• Granbury Courthouse Square — 23 mi
  A National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
• Dinosaur Valley State Park — 24 mi
  Theropod and sauropod trackways of about 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River, a National Natural Landmark where R. T. Bird found the first distinct sauropod tracks in 1937.

More markers nearby

• Johnson County — 1.3 mi
• Site of the Old City Spring — 1.3 mi
• City Wagon Yards — 1.3 mi
• Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; Cleburne, Patrick R., General — 1.4 mi