CAMP 30, WWII PRISONER OF WAR CAMP

Camp 30, Bowmanville as it appeared during the Second World War. This is the view looking east as encountered by visitors today walking the Ehrenwort Trail through the valley. A guard tower once stood at the top of the path at the entrance to the camp. A double fence ran along the ring road where visitors walk today.

Camp 30 looking north. Lambs Road is on the right. East of Lambs Road are barracks for the Canadian soldiers who guarded the camp. Note the tall smokestack across the road which was the camp’s main power plant. Guard barrack were made of wood. They were quickly erected when the reform school was made a POW camp. After the war the guard’s barracks were torn down and the lumber reused to construct housing around Bowmanville for military veterans. Notably ‘Veterans Avenue’ in Bowmanville was built with lumber from Camp 30.

Camp 30 looking west. Today most of the main buildings within the ring road survive but the soccer field to the north of the camp is largely forgotten. Bowmanville residents are more likely to remember the town soccer field to the south which was used by the community throughout the 1980’s. 

 The main school building and administrative centre (centre building, top of photo) burned down in the early 2000’s. If you visit the site you’ll see the depression in the ground where it once stood. Other buildings have been torn down over the years (green house, workshops, maintenance buildings and wooden H-block barracks).  Also gone is the fencing and guard towers around the camp’s perimeter.

Visit the Clarington Museums & Archives in downtown Bowmanville. At the museum you can see this Camp 30 model and photos and artifacts from this site’s history as a Boys’ Reform School and German POW Camp.

This model was built by Hans Knecht in 1991.

Model measures 20 x 77 x 124 cm.

Collection of the Clarington Museums & Archives.