I’d lived in this part of Texas for a long time before I learned that there had been a WWII-era POW camp in Hereford, Texas. During the period between 1943 and 1946, over 5,000 Italian POWs were detained at the camp. This camp was the largest POW camp in the United States. The prisoners worked agriculture jobs, mostly, although a few of them worked painting the interiors of the Catholic church in nearby Umbarger. (Here’s more information on the camp.)

Five prisoners died at the camp; other prisoners built this chapel in their memory.

Hereford, Texas
photographed 10.8.2021