Written by Clay Riley– In 1943, German Prisoners of War (P.O.W.s) were not the only prisoners housed at Brownwood’s Camp Bowie Training Camp. Wayward soldiers of the United States Army were traveling a new road to redemption at Camp Bowie.
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The Eighth Corps comprised the 174th and 142nd Field Artillery groups. The Eighteenth Field Artillery Brigade, the Fourth Armored Division, and the Seventh Headquarters Special Troops of the Fourth Army were also stationed at Camp Bowie at various times. A WAC contingent was attached to the Tank Destroyer Group and the Service Command Unit. A rehabilitation center (stockade) to serve all posts and camps of the Eighth Service Command was set up in January 1942.
The road is hard and uphill all the way, but it didn’t end in a blind alley. Nearly two-thirds of the transgressing prisoners regained their places among the men fighting this war, according to J. B. Krueger, staff correspondent of the Associated Press, who visited the Brownwood camp.
The Eighth Service Command’s rehabilitation center at this mammoth camp was for them a “last chance” proving ground at which the Army winnows the military useful from the useless among enlisted men.
Six hundred and two men lived in a stockade guarded by two barbed wire fences, machine-guns, tommy-guns and sentries. They were there under court-martial sentences ranging from six months to 15 years, for offenses as wide apart as AWOL and rape. They come from all the states in this command – Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico and from the Caribbean and the Canal Zone. The group was a minute segment, a fraction of one percent of the soldiers in this vast area.
The operation the center had worked out a pattern unique among the Army’s Service Commands. It was grounded in time-tested discipline, with a leveling of soul-probing which aimed to untangle a man’s inner conflicts.
The supreme test here was not to lengthen a man’s sentence, but whether a man can prove himself, under closest observation, to be a good soldier. If he can, the sentence was drastically reduced and the man restored at once to active duty, and with more military skill than then he ever had before.
The proving is hard. Spare, level-headed Arthur G. Kennedy, the Texas-bred colonel commanding the center, managed the program down the strict middle between “excessive punishment and excessive molly-coddling.” Men arriving there got complete examinations, mental and physical. The “fit” are put in two companies, B and C, in which they drilled hard and worked hard.
For 120 hours, spread over about two and one-half months, B and C company men worked at drilling, marching, bayonet practice, scouting, patrolling, map reading and studying field fortifications. For a like period, which amounts to four hours a day, they carried out work assignments. The men always stayed in the stockade.
Not All Drill
It was not all drill. Illiterates were taught reading, writing, arithmetic up to the level of fifth-graders. Others learned radio communications, baking, cooking, clerking and the mechanics of vehicles and guns.
When 240 hours of field and school work are finished, each man came up for “promotion” to the honor (or A) company and its privileges. If a man asked and is worthy, he may have been put on patrol, which allowed him to work, play and drill outside the stockade and occasionally to go to Brownwood, provided the parents are along.
“A man won’t try to escape when he is with his mother”, Colonel Kennedy said.
Restored men never got assignments to the outfits from which they came. The start was fresh.
Those unable to achieve the honor company stay where they were until they could, or their term was up and a dishonorable discharge was issued. Incorrigibles were strictly segregated and guarded. They had no tobacco, no money, nor privileges.
The men came from the ground forces, air forces and service forces. Presumably because of the great number of training fields in the command area, many of the prisoners were from the air forces.
Captain Alexander J. N. Schneider, psychiatrist, and Second Lieut. Cyrus W. LaGrone, psychologist formerly on the University of Texas faculty, delved deep into each prisoner’s troubles. From the Red Cross, Federal Bureau of Investigation, police, parents, wives, relatives and friends, they assemble a thorough case history.
Progress Evaluated
They with Major Rufus J. Goza comprised the board which evaluated each man’s progress. Colonel Kennedy approved or altered their recommendations, which were sent to Eighth Service Command headquarters for review by Col. Julien Hyer, chief of the Major Advocates’ branch, and by the commanding general, Maj. General Richard Donovan.
The Board’s Records Are Revealing
Of the 240 prisoners tested, 127 were single, 53 enjoyed a happy civilian married life, and 60 were unhappy; 103 had a happy home life as children, 137 unsettled and unhappy. In 288 cases studied, 60 men proved above average in intelligence, 108 were average, and 60 exhibited “borderline mental deficiency.” The average prisoner went through the ninth grade. Desertion and theft (91 and 71 cases, respectively) were principal offenses attributed to 304 men studied. Poverty in early life often appeared in the records of these men, Capt. Schneider said, and yes, the factor of too much money also was found in plenty of cases where men went wrong. As far as the center’s officers knew, no man restored to duty had suffered a relapse into his former bad habits.
Major Goza, a leathery veteran of Louisiana origin, who was supervisor of prisoners, evaluated them: “I had rather have, any day, a picked group of rehabilitated men to go into battle with, than I would with unsorted men sent through induction. The men that stand the gaff and merit restoration are real soldiers when they finish here.”
One who did stand the gaff and is now a private on active duty, put it this way, in writing to his former commanding officer; “I’ve decided to write to you about Colonel Kennedy’s domain. You painted a rosy picture of it when last you talked to me. . . It appears that picture itself was drab compared with reality.
“The entire setup is based upon the idea that these fellows (inmates at the center) are soldiers and men who have unfortunately made a mistake. Most prisons, I find, are operated with the basic principle in mind that inmates are mistakes incarnate who have, unfortunately, been somehow identified as men.
. . . “I’ve come out of here as changed in outlook as a butterfly is changed from the caterpillar.
. . . No one appreciates freedom more, than the one who is not free.”
Source data, The Brownwood Bulletin, July 19, 1943
Photos – Brownwood Public Library, Local History & Genealogy Branch
This and many other stories are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway.
Volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society are there to assist you in your family history research.
Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years.
Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at; [email protected].