Camp Clinton | |
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Clinton, Mississippi | |
Camp Clinton was a World War II prisoner of war facility located in Clinton, Mississippi, just off present-day McRaven Road, east of Springridge Road. Camp Clinton was home to 3,000 German and Italian POWs, most of whom had been captured in Africa and were members of the Afrika Korps.
The prisoners at Camp Clinton provided labor to build the Mississippi River Basin Model, a one-square-mile working replica model of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, which the United States Army Corps of Engineers used for planning flood control projects. [1] [2]
Camp Clinton also housed several dozen German generals and admirals, including Afrika Korps commander Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, [1] [3] Wehrmacht general Ferdinand Neuling, [4] and Dietrich von Choltitz, the last wartime Governor of Paris, who surrendered to the Free French. [5]
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the 10th most populous city in Mississippi. The population was 28,100 at the 2020 United States census.
The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the formation fought on in Africa, under various appellations, from March 1941 until its surrender in May 1943. The unit's best known commander was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz was a German general. Sometimes referred to as the Saviour of Paris, he served in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as serving in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and the Royal Saxon Army during World War I.
The liberation of Paris was a military battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been occupied by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Armistice of 22 June 1940, after which the Wehrmacht occupied northern and western France.
Friedrich von Mellenthin was a German general during World War II. A participant in most of the major campaigns of the war, he became known afterwards for his memoirs Panzer Battles, first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since then.
As the number of German troops committed to the North African Campaign of World War II grew from the initial commitment of a small corps, the Germans developed a more elaborate command structure and placed the enlarged Afrika Korps, with Italian units under this new Italian and German command and a succession of commands were created to manage Axis forces in Africa:
Johann "Hans" Theodor von Ravenstein was a German general (generalleutnant) in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He commanded the 21st Panzer Division from May 1941 until being made a prisoner of war in late November 1941. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.
Wilhelm Reinhold Johannes Kunze was a German World War II prisoner of war (POW) held at Camp Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He was a Gefreiter in the Afrika Korps. Following a trial before a kangaroo court on November 4, 1943, he was beaten to death by his fellow POWs since he had been spying for the Americans. He became a suspect of fellow prisoners of war after expressed defeatist comments and indifference to the outcome of the war.
Horst Günther was a German World War II prisoner of war. An Afrika Korps Gefreiter, he was "captured on 9 May 1943 in Tunisia [and] murdered in Camp Aiken prisoner-of-war camp, South Carolina" United States, by fellow prisoners.
Camp Patrick Henry is a decommissioned United States Army base which was located in Warwick County, Virginia. After World War II, the site was redeveloped as a commercial airport, and became part of City of Newport News in 1958 when the former City of Warwick and Newport News were politically consolidated as a single independent city. The airport is known in modern times as Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.
Raid on Rommel is an American B movie in Technicolor from 1971, directed by Henry Hathaway and set in North Africa during the Second World War. It stars Richard Burton as a British commando attempting to destroy German gun emplacements in Tobruk. Much of the action footage was reused from the 1967 film Tobruk, and the storyline is also largely the same.
Ferdinand Neuling was a general of the German army (Heer) during World War II. In September 1939, German troops under his command occupied the Polish part of Upper Silesia and cities of Katowice, Mikołów, Chorzów, committing numerous war crimes on Polish civilians and resistance fighters.
Rerhaia Airfield was a World War II military airfield in Algeria, located approximately 3 km northwest of Boudouaou, about 32 km east-southeast of Algiers. It was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force 350th Fighter Group between July and November 1943 during the North African Campaign against the German Afrika Korps.
Willibald Borowietz was a German general during World War II who commanded several divisions. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany.
Events in the year 1944 in Germany.
Members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War I and World War II. In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States during World War II.
The Mississippi River Basin Model Waterways Experiment Station, located near Clinton, Mississippi, was a large-scale hydraulic model of the entire Mississippi River basin, covering an area of 200 acres. The model was built from 1943 to 1966 and in operation from 1949 until 1973. By comparison, the better known San Francisco Bay Model covers 1.5 acres and the Chesapeake Bay Model covers 8 acres. The model is now derelict, but open to the public within Buddy Butts Park, Jackson.
Arnold Paul Krammer was an American historian who specialized in German and United States history and a professor in the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He was twice a Fulbright scholar: between 1992–1993, he studied at the University of Tübingen and, between 2002–2003, he studied at the University of Jena.
The LXXXIV Army Corps was an army corps of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. It was formed in 1942 and existed until 1944.
Otto Elfeldt was a German general during World War II and a POW at Trent Park. He was also a recipient of the German Cross in Gold of Nazi Germany.