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Camp Myles Standish: the Taunton Army camp where soldiers left for war and came home

An SC360 Special for Veterans Day on the Army camp in the northwest corner of Taunton where soldiers spent their last days before shipping out, and where many came back through on the way home.

By the SC360 Community Desk | Published Nov. 9, 2026 | Last verified Nov. 2, 2026, 8:52 a.m. ET

TAUNTON For about three years during World War II, the woods and farm fields in the northwest corner of Taunton that now hold the Myles Standish Industrial Park were the last stop in the United States for many soldiers headed to war from Boston, and for many of them the first stop on the way home. The Associated Press called Camp Myles Standish the staging area of the Boston Port of Embarkation, and more than a million soldiers passed through it over the course of the war, GBH News reported in 2016.

Farms to barracks

The Army acquired about 1,650 acres for the camp in 1942, according to the Taunton Development Corporation, which manages and markets the industrial park on the site today. Bridgewater State University historian William Hanna has put the size at 1,620 acres, a figure GBH News described as a nod to Standish and the Pilgrims, and in December 1945 the state's mental health commissioner described it as a 1,540-acre site, the Springfield Weekly Republican reported.

"The United States government announced that there would be, I believe it was 33 farms taken," Hanna, then president of the Old Colony History Museum, told GBH News. "They would be taken by eminent domain, and they would be taken immediately, and an Army post would be built here."

In about six months, GBH News reported, the Army built "a village nearly as big as the whole of Taunton." "On the 1,620 acres, 1620 for Myles Standish, you'd find 35 miles of roads, 10 miles of rail lines, 1,500 buildings and a 16,000-seat amphitheater," Hanna told WBSM in 2021. In December 1942, the club notes in the Boston Guardian reported a talk by Julia Lewis, a hostess at Camp Myles Standish.

A week in Taunton

Most soldiers spent about a week at the camp, GBH News reported. They got physicals and went through orientation, did final training exercises and checked their equipment, and when their turn came they were sent to the Boston port, within sight of the ship they would board.

"When these young guys would arrive by train from all over the country, the first thing they headed for was the telephone," Hanna told GBH News. "They were not allowed to say where they were. They were simply allowed to say they were OK and that the family might not hear from them again for a while."

Hometown papers from Ohio to Montana reported on their soldiers at the camp. A weekly in Fairport Harbor, Ohio, gave one private's address as "area 3, Barracks 3055, Camp Myles Standish, Taunton, Mass." in April 1943, and a French-language paper in Lewiston, Maine, reported that September on a local soldier stationed at the camp as a head cook. Women served there as well: a Waterbury, Conn., paper reported in May 1945 that an Army nurse from the Waterbury area had been on duty at the camp's station hospital before she was assigned to the hospital ship Thistle.

Joe Louis, Jimmie Lunceford and the symphony

The world heavyweight champion was due at the camp on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 1943. Sgt. Joe Louis was to end the New England part of a 100-day exhibition tour of Army camps with a show at Camp Myles Standish that day, the Associated Press and the International News Service reported, and United Press wrote that Cpl. Walker Smith, "better known to fight fans as Ray (Sugar) Robinson," would travel with him. The Boston Symphony Orchestra also performed at the camp, the Waterbury Democrat reported that December.

The camp also had a senior hostess for its Black soldiers. In July 1943 the Boston Guardian reported that Sarah Conyers of Roxbury had been appointed senior hostess at the camp, in charge of recreation "such as dancing etc., for the colored soldiers at this camp," and the paper counted her as one of three Black women with that rating in Massachusetts. That September a Boston concert organizer wrote in the Guardian that he had taken Jimmie Lunceford to Camp Myles Standish and Camp Edwards to play for the soldiers.

Prisoners at the camp

Beginning in February 1944, Italian prisoners of war held in the United States could enlist in what became known as the Italian Service Units, the National Park Service says, and 45,000 of about 55,000 did. They were still considered prisoners, wore uniforms with a patch that read "Italy" and earned $24 a month. In March 1944 the military sent 1,800 of them to Boston, and after tensions with the South Boston community, 1,300 moved to Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor while "the 500 others relocated to Camp Myles Standish in nearby Taunton," according to the park service.

By then Italy had changed sides, and the Italians at the camp lived under military discipline but could get passes to leave it, GBH News reported. "An Italian-American family might bring them home for lunch, or bring them to Sunday dinner or bring them to church," Hanna said. GBH News reported that some 4,000 Italians were held at the camp in all during the final years of the war, and Hanna said that as many as several hundred of them married American women after the war, "some in this area."

In July 1944, a resolution criticizing the Army for "coddling and pampering" Italian prisoners was on its way to the War Department, United Press reported, after members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary who went to the Camp Myles Standish hospital to entertain wounded Americans were reportedly told to entertain former Italian prisoners instead. In Boston, Brig. Gen. Calvin DeWitt of the Boston Quartermaster Depot answered residents' concerns about the units by calling their labor essential, according to the National Archives. "These men are contributing a great deal to the American war effort!" he said.

The camp's 3,000 German prisoners of war had a different stay, GBH News reported. "The Germans wore prisoner-of-war uniforms," Hanna said. "They had black shirts, black pants and on the back of the shirt was painted the letter 'P.' And they were kept under guard." At the end of the war, he said, big photographs of the concentration camps went up across one wall of the mess hall "because they wanted these guys to own what they had done."

The way home

By the spring of 1945, men were also coming back through the camp. When 700 American soldiers freed from German prison camps by advancing Russian armies landed at the Boston Port of Embarkation on April 20, 1945, the repatriated men were to go to Camp Myles Standish for a short stay before their furloughs, the Waterbury Democrat reported the next day. Of one group of returning soldiers, sailors and merchant seamen that June, the Springfield Weekly Republican reported that "all personnel were taken to Camp Myles Standish, Taunton, for treatment, furloughs, reassignment or discharge."

That month the Waterbury Democrat carried the words an Army personnel officer at the camp used to welcome one group of veterans: "For dinner we're having beefsteak and real ice cream, and we want you all to eat your fill. For many of you it will be the first good meal you've had in weeks."

Airmen of the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces who arrived from overseas at Bradley Field in Connecticut boarded trains for the camp the next day, the Bradley Beam, the base newspaper, reported in June 1945, and from Taunton they went by train to whichever of 18 reception centers was nearest home. That July the Washington Daily News listed Camp Myles Standish as one of four staging areas for soldiers being moved from Europe toward the Pacific, with Camps Kilmer and Shanks in New Jersey and Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia. When the War Department announced in January 1946 that Brig. Gen. James C. Marshall would leave command of the port, the Associated Press reported that about 550,000 troops had been returned through the port and Camp Myles Standish while he commanded it.

The camp hospital served beyond the Army, too. On the night of Sunday, July 1, 1945, seven cars of an eight-car Boston-to-New Bedford train derailed at the switch where the main line branches off to the camp, killing the engineer and the fireman, the Associated Press reported. The injured were taken to the hospital at the camp, and 54 passengers were hospitalized.

Soldiers were still shipping out that December. On the night of Dec. 10, 1945, officers and men at the camp who were about to go overseas signed a register pledging to pray for Gen. George S. Patton Jr., who had been seriously injured in a car crash in Germany, the Associated Press reported. United Press put the number who pledged at 1,739.

Surplus, a state school and an industrial park

In December 1945, Gov. Maurice J. Tobin proposed that the camp be turned over to Massachusetts as a hospital site for mental patients, and the Army planned to close it in January 1946, the Springfield Weekly Republican reported. The state's mental health department then had 4,200 patients awaiting care it could not give for lack of facilities, the paper said. On Dec. 11, the War Department declared Camp Myles Standish surplus to its needs, United Press reported. On Jan. 29, 1946, the camp's North Theatre burned, with a loss of about $125,000, the Boston Guardian reported.

Pieces of the camp went to house veterans. In July 1946 trailer trucks were hauling sections of Camp Myles Standish barracks from Taunton to Greenfield for a veterans housing project on Norwood Street, where they were to be cut up into apartments, the Springfield Weekly Republican reported.

In 1948 the federal government deeded the land to the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, on the condition that for 25 years it be used only to help people with mental illness, according to the Taunton Development Corporation. Gov. Paul A. Dever, campaigning for reelection in 1952, said a 20-building unit for children with intellectual disabilities had just been dedicated at Camp Myles Standish, in a statement the Boston Guardian printed on Nov. 1, 1952. In the mid-1960s, Mayor Benjamin A. Friedman and state Sen. John F. Parker began an effort to have a substantial portion of the Paul A. Dever State School's unoccupied land deeded to the city, the development corporation's history says.

When the 25 years were up, the city's Industrial Development Commission renewed its push for land to build on. The Legislature and Gov. Francis Sargent approved a deed for about 437 acres in June 1974, and the park's name came from a student contest, run with the city's three high schools, in which 85 students took part, the development corporation says. Myles Standish Industrial Park was dedicated on Friday, June 23, 1978. Later phases added 218 acres in 1995 and 154 acres in 2000, and in 2012 the corporation and MassDevelopment formed a partnership to acquire and redevelop 220 acres of the former Dever land. The corporation's history describes the park as a 1,029-acre site.

What is left

"If you were to walk through there today, you'd see nothing to remind you of the prison camp," Hanna told WBSM in 2021. All that remains, he said, is a grotto honoring the Virgin Mary that Italian internees built. The Old Colony History Museum, at 66 Church Green in Taunton, is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The museum is marking 100 years in the old Bristol Academy building on Church Green. Read our story on the anniversary.

South Coast towns mark Veterans Day on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Find this year's parades and ceremonies in our Veterans Day listings.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

The camp's role and the count of troops returned come from an Associated Press report of January 1946, and its wartime life from Associated Press, United Press and International News Service reports and other newspapers of 1942 to 1952 in the Library of Congress collection. The Italian Service Units come from the National Park Service and the National Archives. The size of the camp, the 1948 transfer and the history of the industrial park come from the Taunton Development Corporation, and the farms, the week at the camp and the prisoners from historian William Hanna's interviews with GBH News and WBSM. The sources give the camp's size as 1,540 acres (the state mental health commissioner, in the Springfield Weekly Republican), 1,620 acres (Hanna) and 1,650 acres (the development corporation), so the story gives each with its source. We read them on Nov. 2 and checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: no one was contacted.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (30)

  1. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 12, 1946, page 3, "Brig. Gen. J. C. Marshall Transferred to Belvoir" (Associated Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe port and "its staging area, Camp Myles Standish"; about 550,000 troops returned while Marshall commanded; reversion to subport status. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  2. The Ghosts Of World War 2 POWs Haunt A Taunton Industrial Park | GBH News, March 25, 2016More than a million GIs; a week at the camp; 1,620 acres; Hanna on the farms, the telephones, the Italian and German prisoners. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  3. Taunton World War II POW Camp Tried to Become Home of the United Nations | WBSM, Dec. 26, 2021Hanna on the camp's roads, rail lines, buildings and amphitheater, and the grotto. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  4. History | Taunton Development CorporationAbout 1,650 acres acquired by the Army in 1942; 1948 deed to the Department of Mental Health with a 25-year condition; June 1974 deed for about 437 acres; the naming contest; dedication June 23, 1978; later phases; 1,029 acres. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  5. Italian Service Units of Boston | National Park Service, Boston Harbor IslandsThe units, the $24 a month, 1,800 sent to Boston in March 1944 and "the 500 others relocated to Camp Myles Standish in nearby Taunton." Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  6. The Italian Service Units of World War II in Boston | Pieces of History, U.S. National Archives, July 21, 2020Brig. Gen. Calvin DeWitt on the units' labor. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  7. Springfield Weekly Republican, Dec. 13, 1945, page 14, "Mental Hospital Proposed by Tobin at Myles Standish" | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaGov. Tobin's proposal, the planned January closing, the 1,540-acre site, 4,200 patients waiting. Read from the page text and page image Nov. 2, 2026.
  8. The Waterbury Democrat, Dec. 11, 1945, page 1, "Standish Surplus" (United Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaCamp declared surplus to War Department needs. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  9. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 30, 1943, page 12, "Louis Opens Exhibitions At Camp Devens, Mass." (Associated Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaJoe Louis to end his New England stay at Camp Myles Standish on Wednesday. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  10. Detroit Evening Times, Sept. 1, 1943, page 19, "Joe Louis to End New England Tour" (International News Service) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaExhibition at Camp Myles Standish "today." Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  11. The Waterbury Democrat, Aug. 30, 1943, page 11, "Camp Edwards To See Louis" (United Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaCpl. Walker Smith, "better known to fight fans as Ray (Sugar) Robinson." Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  12. The Waterbury Democrat, Dec. 30, 1943, page 10 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe Boston Symphony traveled to Camp Myles Standish. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  13. The Guardian (Boston), July 31, 1943, pages 1 and 4 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaSarah Conyers named senior hostess; three senior hostesses in Massachusetts. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  14. The Guardian (Boston), Sept. 11, 1943, page 3 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaJimmie Lunceford taken to Camp Myles Standish and Camp Edwards to play for the soldiers. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  15. The Guardian (Boston), Dec. 5, 1942, page 2, Club Notes | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaJulia Lewis, hostess at Camp Myles Standish. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  16. The Washington Daily News, July 24, 1944, page 15, "VFW Women Assail Army" (United Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe auxiliary resolution and the Camp Myles Standish hospital visit. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  17. The Waterbury Democrat, April 21, 1945, page 3 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe 700 repatriated American soldiers freed from German prison camps who arrived at the Boston Port of Embarkation "yesterday" and were to go to Camp Myles Standish before furloughs. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  18. Springfield Weekly Republican, June 7, 1945, page 14 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaReturning personnel taken to Camp Myles Standish "for treatment, furloughs, reassignment or discharge." Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  19. The Waterbury Democrat, June 7, 1945, page 4 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe personnel officer's beefsteak and ice cream welcome. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  20. Bradley Beam (Bradley Field, Windsor Locks, Conn.), June 16, 1945, page 4 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaRedeployed Eighth and Fifteenth Air Force men entrain for Camp Myles Standish, then to the nearest of 18 reception centers. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  21. The Washington Daily News, July 18, 1945, page 5 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaFour staging areas for redeployment, Camp Myles Standish first. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  22. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), July 2, 1945, page 4 (Associated Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe derailment at the switch to the camp; the injured taken to the camp hospital. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  23. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Dec. 11, 1945, page 3, "Troops Sign Register Pledging Prayers for Patton" (Associated Press) | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaThe register signed the night before by soldiers about to be shipped overseas; United Press count of 1,739 in The Wilmington Morning Star, Dec. 11, 1945. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  24. The Guardian (Boston), Feb. 9, 1946, page 3 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaNorth Theatre fire, Jan. 29, about $125,000. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  25. Springfield Weekly Republican, July 25, 1946, page 14 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaCamp barracks sections trucked to Greenfield for veterans housing on Norwood Street. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  26. The Guardian (Boston), Nov. 1, 1952, page 7, "Gov. Dever In Warning Against Last Minute Attacks By The GOP" | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaGov. Dever's statement on the 20-building unit dedicated at Camp Myles Standish. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  27. Fairport Beacon (Fairport Harbor, Ohio), April 2, 1943, page 6 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaA private's camp address, area 3, Barracks 3055. Also: Le Messager (Lewiston, Maine), Sept. 24, 1943, page 4; The Glasgow Courier (Glasgow, Mont.), Dec. 2, 1943, page 3. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  28. The Waterbury Democrat, May 9, 1945, page 7 | Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaArmy nurse on duty at the Camp Myles Standish station hospital before the hospital ship Thistle. Read from the page text Nov. 2, 2026.
  29. Gov. Maurice J. Tobin | National Governors AssociationFull name and term, Jan. 3, 1945, to Jan. 2, 1947. Read Nov. 2, 2026.
  30. Old Colony History MuseumAddress and hours. Read Nov. 2, 2026.

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