During World War II, Camp Bowie was a huge, bustling Army base. It was built in 1940. By 1942, what started as 2,000 acres had expanded to 120,000 acres. Camp Bowie became one of the largest training centers in Texas, with about 250,000 soldiers passing through. In 1943, it also became a Prisoner of War camp, with approximately 2,700 prisoners held there.
In 1946, the War Department announced that Camp Bowie was
considered “surplus” since the end of the war. Much of the land and buildings were distributed to private owners. A smaller version of Camp Bowie remains as a National Guard training station.
During the war, Camp Bowie was largely a training camp, where soldiers were trained in the many tools of war, so it isn’t surprising that after the camp closed, there was a good deal of live ordinance left in and on the ground.
The story of Rudy Gil was told to me by a cemetery visitor looking for the grave of his childhood friend.
This gentleman said that when this took place in 1953, he was ten years old and Rudy Gil was only seven. When he was a child, his family picked cotton. One day some of the boys found three ordinance shells, and took them home to play with. They played with them for many months with no problem.
One day when it was raining, the boys were playing outside. Rudy was had two of the shells, running them through the mud and into each other, nose to nose. One of them exploded, and Rudy was killed.
Rudy is only one of the hundreds of children in Greenleaf Cemetery.