About the camp
Lordsburg’s remote Bootheel made it an ideal site for a WWII prisoner of war and internment camp housing thousands of Japanese, Italian, and German“enemy combatants.”
A 3,000-man military cantonment built from the ground up to house Japanese resident enemy aliens — men who were citizens of Japan living in America when the war commenced — Camp Lordsburg was constructed during World War II as a response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Located just outside of Lordsburg, New Mexico, the facility housed in turn 2,500 Japanese, 3,000 Italian prisoners of war, and later 5,500 German POWs, and it employed hundreds of locals at its height. Following the end of the war, the facility was torn down and sold off, and the stories were forgotten with time.
Pressler brings to life many of the men incarcerated in the camp, and paints a picture of life inside, the conditions in which the men lived, and the friendships they forged with those on both sides of the fence. This is the first book written about the camp’s history.
Published on the 80th anniversary of its construction, “Camp Lordsburg” contains 256 pages of photographs, documents, and stories about the camp’s brief operation during World War II. The stories inside have never been told before.
Buy “Camp Lordsburg” today at limited retailers in Hidalgo County and online here.
The location
Although not much is left of the camp today, the road leading to the site is now called POW Road. A few buildings, including the commissary safe and the former hospital building, survive today, but most were sold off when the camp closed in 1945. Below, a map of the former camp as it is today. Small sections remain but most of the buildings are gone.
The camp operated from 1942 until 1945 and housed thousands of Japanese, Italian, and German men. Little is known about the men who passed through the camp; that chapter of history is one we have left in the past. You can learn more about internment and prisoners of war in America during WWII from these videos, including a brief interview with the author’s friend, Sam Mihara, whose father was briefly interned at Camp Lordsburg.
Life inside the internment camp was not easy, but it was not cruel: soldiers assigned to the facility were trained to follow the Geneva Conventions, which meant that internees were allowed visitors — something prisoners of war were not allowed — as well as entitled to regular mail, meals, certain working conditions, and other rights guaranteed under the international law. A dispute arose over working conditions inside the camp when commanders argued that internees did not sign the Geneva Convention and so therefore weren’t entitled to its protections. “We did not sign it,” a Japanese internee reportedly said, “but you did.”
The camp was built 80 years ago this year, 2022. After more than 40 years of research, Mollie Pressler has finally finished “Camp Lordsburg,” the first book ever written about the Japanese internment and Italian and German prisoner of war camp in Hidalgo County, New Mexico. Today, very little remains of this important facility that housed thousands of men during World War II. Thanks to Mollie Pressler, the stories and the faces of the people who passed through the camp won’t be forgotten.
Order your copy today here.
A US propaganda film from 1943 offers the government’s justification for the camps:
“Camp Lordsburg” will be available to purchase starting this summer at the following locations in Hidalgo County:
• Chiricahua Desert Museum (Rodeo, NM)
• Lordsburg-Hidalgo County Museum
• Lordsburg-Hidalgo County Library
• Hidalgo County Herald
• Cottage House Floral & Gifts
• Goldhill Outpost
• Kranberry’s Chatterbox Restaurant
• Verla’s Rock Shop
• Sky Island Bar & Grill (Rodeo)
More locations will be added. Check back for updates.
A collection of drawings from the camp by George Hoshida, an internee in Lordsburg in 1942. Images courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum, janm.com.
