Abstract
Camp Hood and North Camp Hood were two Second World War internment camps for German Prisoners of War (PoWs) located within the boundaries of Fort Hood, Texas. Since the end of the war, the structures assigned to temporary Second World War functions have been mostly destroyed. One camp was eradicated by the continual growth of the Fort Hood cantonment area. The location of the razed second camp is presently vacant and overgrown, but endangered by Fort Hood’s future growth. Limited excavations of North Camp Hood Internment Camp and extensive scrutiny of archival documentation have recovered the requisite information to advise that the site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The present military situation of reduced cultural resource funding and the expansion of training facilities, however, threaten to elide this important component of American military heritage. This chapter presents the results of the archaeological investigation of the PoW camp at Fort Hood, and examines the challenges to preserving this vestige of the American Home Front of the Second World War.
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References
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Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was provided by the US Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, and Mercyhurst College. The excavation was directed by J. Thomas under the guidance of J. Adovasio. This paper was edited, illustrated, and produced by D. Pedler. The author wishes to thank Karl Kleinbach, Sonny Wood, and Heidi Fuller of the Cultural Resource Program, Fort Hood, Texas, for their guidance and assistance.
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Thomas, J. (2011). Archaeological Investigations of Second World War Prisoner of War Camps at Fort Hood, Texas. In: Myers, A., Moshenska, G. (eds) Archaeologies of Internment. One World Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9666-4_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9666-4_9
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