In August 1942, in order to preserve badly needed supplies and manpower on the European front, the United States War Department began to move all Axis prisoners of war [POW] to camps within the United States. Camps operated according to 1929 Geneva Convention rules, providing health care, housing, and food comparable to those received by American soldiers. Camps were largely constructed in southern states where mild winters limited heating costs, Virginia alone hosted camps with more than 17,000 German POWs during World War II.

In 1944, the War Department selected a rural location near Leesburg for a temporary camp. One of seven branch camps under the jurisdiction of a base camp in Front Royal, it was joined by camps in Winchester, Fairfax, Timberville, Lyndhurst, White Hall, and Flintstone, Maryland. The Leesburg camp, located on farmland owned by the Moss Family, housed between 150-200 POWs in 1944 and 1945. POWs helped to alleviate wartime labor shortages by providing additional agricultural labor for local farms. Prisoners were contracted to local farm and orchard owners who paid 40 cents per hour for their labor. Picked up each morning and returned each evening to the camp, prisoners did not receive any payment for their labor, but were issued coupons that could be used only at an exchange in the camp. Loudoun County farmers found the POW labor to be satisfactory, and in July 1945 sent protests on the prisoners' behalf to US Army authorities and Senator Harry F. Byrd (1887-1966) requesting improved rations. On 4 October 1945, the Loudoun-Times Mirror reported that the camp would soon close, with repatriation of all prisoners expected to be completed no later than March 1946.